So it begins...

I'm going to start this blog on a note of conservation; something that is near and dear to my heart....

             The state of the environment is a major contributor to poverty and conflict in the world. All of us would love to stamp out poverty and see to it that everyone has enough food to eat and adequate shelter to live in. However, without environmental protections, our ability to produce food decreases, creating a wider gap between those who “have” and those who “have not”. Even with adequate environmental protections our exploding human population may be the root of the problem.    

            Currently, nothing is done without first weighing the pros and cons. By this I mean how much money is it going to take? This distorted view is causing more problems than it is solving. As a nation, and even as a world, when a problem arises, we just throw some “funds” at it like applying a band aid. We also try to inject our own values and cultural views into an entirely different system. Applying this tactic to third world countries has been especially ineffective. They don’t have money problems. They have life and death problems such as: not enough food, not enough water, AIDS epidemics, etc. In fact, there are too many people and not enough resources to sustain them.

Not many third world countries can sustain a food source indefinitely for two reasons. One, a growing population requires more resources, thus taking a toll on the environment. Two, the worsening environment lessens food production. Climate change is and will continue to be one of the major factors in the creation of poverty. There are only so many resources and they are dwindling. This is an example of exceeding the carrying capacity of a particular region.

            By mid-century the world population is expected to increase from the current 6.7 billion to 9.1 billion people. At this rate, the world’s population will exceed the planet’s estimated carrying capacity of 25 billion by 2150. Because of this rise, people are being pushed out of productive food producing regions by expanding urbanization. With this growing population, the food production in the world must also rise 70% over the next 40 years. How can we do this if we are paving and destroying the productive land that is left? How can we justify saving people if we will run out of the resources to feed them or should I say us? A real solution, although not a very compassionate one, is to let a portion of the global population die off; trimming the fat so to speak. We must also realize that the safety of our food crops depends on maintaining biodiversity. If we lose that, where will we go when some disease wipes out what we have produced?

Climate change needs to be addressed because of its devastating effect on our ability to feed ourselves. However, as our population explodes and food production drops, poverty continues to rise, in spite of all the money thrown at it. You can’t eat money. Climate change has defined the history of the earth. To think that the changes we are witnessing today are anything new is ignorant thinking. What is scaring everyone is the idea that the huge population increases are reducing our ability to adapt as we always have before. More people competing for fewer resources is a recipe for disaster. Who is to say that what is happening in the highly populated, poor, developing parts of the world will not happen in our own “Garden of Eden” in North America? Poverty is the result of too many people and not enough resources. 

If we as a species followed this manifesto I would be credited with solving the majority of this worlds conflicts. Just saying...