Population and the Limits of Earth’s Biomass

Categorize this under things I thought about as a kid.

When I was a boy I thought I might be a scientist.  I probably imagined myself in all the cliché roles for boys.  (For the record, however, being a fireman never interested me, but being a railroad engineer did.)

Among the questions that got into my head at a young age and stuck with me for years was how overpopulation could work.  I reasoned that the planet could only support a certain level of biomass and that the natural order of things would maximize that biomass.  So I wondered…how can we ever overpopulate ourselves to death?

If you start to think about the question from this perspective, the importance of conservation makes a lot of sense.  So does the business of food production and politics of allocation.

I learned later that Thomas Malthus warned if population outgrew resources, disease, death, and disorder would plague the world.  But Malthus also thought there some inherent self-regulation existed in the system to control population.

For centuries disease and famine simply fulfilled a role in the natural order of things.

In 1970 Norman Borlaug – distinguished agronomist and University of Minnesota graduate — won the Noble Prize for his work in developing disease resistant wheat which was said to have helped save a quarter of the world’s population from starvation.  Growing up in the 1970s some people started talking less about the danger of overpopulation.  Science would save the day.

Norman Borlaug

Of course smarter people than a 10 year old kid thought about this, too, and still do, but maybe enough of us don’t think about this to make a difference.  Isn’t it the case that even with increased productivity there can only be so much living biomass on the planet at any given time on net?  If less wheat dies of disease and helps support more people, somewhere else something else has to lose, right?

And today we see it.  With more and more people on the planet, there is less of other things.  Think about it.  From the passenger pigeon to depleted oceans, on balance there is less of other living things as there becomes more of us.

So I read this past Sunday about a scientist who has bio-engineered artificial beef, one cell at a time, in a  lab.  He suggests that developing his process to be economically efficient on an industrial scale could satisfy the growing demand for meat as the world become more prosperous.  But can we really?  Where would this bio-material come from that creates the manufactured meat?

Maybe there is a limit to the number of people the planet can support, but it is less of a question about people outstripping the ability to produce the food to support a population than it is a matter of consuming too much of the overall biological resources that exist on the planet.

It seems to me that the “stuff” that can be living things on the planet must always have been allocated to its maximum potential.  We’re just reworking how it is allocated.  That might be where limits exist.  Looking at where we are today, for example, one might not conclude that there is an association between more wheat in the fields and fewer fish in the ocean, but maybe a relationship exists.

It is worth thinking about.

Related articles

• Meet Norman Borlaug, A Hero You’ve Never Heard Of (prosebeforehos.com)
• Why now? (kalianiello.wordpress.com)
• Science & Technology – Re: New Study Reconfirms that Overpopulation is Not a Threat (disclose.tv)
• Without adequate funding, deadly wheat disease could threaten global food supplies (eurekalert.org)

A Jumping Fish Gave Me Something to Think About…

A small fish jumps through the surface of the water.

Walking around the lake tonight I saw a fish jump.  A big fish.  Probably a carp.  They spend most of their time near the bottom of the lake, but occasionally find reason to rise to the surface, perhaps to test the waters, so to speak.

I thought about what the fish must think — if a fish can think — when he breaks the surface.  It must be a bit of a surprise.  And a quick and short-lived one, too.  One of those what-the-hell moments and then it is done.  So quickly I imagine that a fish doesn’t even remember it happening.  Otherwise I think they would do it more often.

Imagine if you were walking along minding your own business and you suddenly ran out of space and broke through into something else.  Maybe that happens to some people.  Honestly, doesn’t that seem to happen to some people?  They run out of space — break through, so to speak — and it is uncertain whether it is good or bad, uncertain whether they will come back or keep going.

Perhaps I am over thinking this.  Imagine the fish experience in reverse.  You walk off the edge of a dock and plunge into the water.  Fish in reverse.

I vividly remember being a young boy attending what was then euphemistically called “Swimming Lessons.”  The reality is a little guy like me, literally in over my head, feared for his life.  Every so often they would send us up the 10 foot diving board to jump just for the benefit of the experience.

“Don’t worry,” they would say.  ”You will float right back to the surface.”

So off I would go, feeling myself fall like a sack of potatoes into the water which I always managed to hit with a painful slap.  Down and down I would go in a tickling foam of  bubbles which, by the way, raced toward the surface where I thought I should be.  I remember it all in great detail.  The sound of the water engulfing me (surprisingly loud and still calming), the rush of water churning, and even the taste and smell of the water.  I can’t say I didn’t like it.  And guess what…I rose to the surface.

So maybe the lifeguards sending us up the ladder to jump into the pool were on to something more than a good time.  Overcoming fear is something we all can benefit from, right?  At least in moderation.  Being afraid of jumping off a 100 cliff into a dry river bed is a good thing.  Fish don’t have to care or worry about this.

But we don’t always come back to the surface.  Ask anyone who has drowned about this.  In fact, I pulled a man from the bottom of a lake once.  He didn’t make it.

Or did he?

Paying attention to fish can make you pseudo philosophical if you’re not careful.

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Silent Night, Owly Night, Part 1

A different sort of owly night tonight.

Down by the lake this evening an old couple sitting together on a bench stopped me in my tracks.  They were so simple and yet so present that they could not be missed.  And their presence resonated with me, my moods and thoughts, in particular.

It was a beautiful thing.  A cool wind blew steadily and strongly across the lake, and she sits bundled in a light coat and scarf.  She shields herself from the wind by leaning in against him and talks to him lightly, looking up into his face as he gently nods and watches the lake.  And I wonder it happens.  How, exactly, does that happen?  With all the people and activity breezing by them, they are perfectly and happily alone together, entirely content.  How does that happen?

I have seen young lovers at the lake many times, but never do I think I have seen a couple so easily at peace.  Such an owly couple, they are!  So calm and controlled, so self-assured.  And it made me think that love — your true love — comes with time and maturity, and maybe just a bit of effort.  How rare that seems to be.  How rare indeed.  It is something to chew on.

The couple soon stood and left, and when they left, they very much left together.  They walked across the street behind them, got into a sensible car, and I haven’t any doubt they are still together now and will always be together regardless of whether one or the other is near or far, there can be no doubt about this.  Even the end must seem sweet to them.

Yesterday I wrote about owly of another kind, the ornery kind that goes storming off in irritable disgust.  I focus on this because we all deal with the all-too-human owly.  Frankly I don’t believe unhappiness always begets more unhappiness anymore than I think a moment of happiness is a guarantee of unbroken bliss.

This old couple was a gift tonight, an answer to those thoughts.  Certainly it is a gift of time and experience, both good and bad, that gives them the comfort they share alone together.  It seems clear to me that owly — both in the calm sense and in the cantankerous — work together and form something of a gestalt, a wholeness that is more than its parts.

Very simply, the irritable owly can coexist with the calm owly and form something other than either one or the other.

My walk in the woods felt sobering and detached.  It fit the mood perfectly as a mix of sadness and optimism.  I like the woods.  A peaceful place to think.  Tonight my thoughts did not rest, however.  The old couple was a touchstone which let many pieces of thought and experience fall — not always comfortably — together.  It never hurts to see the possible and sometimes that is a matter of first giving up the impossible.

Above all else, however, one needs to be open to what is possible.  I cannot imagine the old couple being where they are today if one were naively optimistic and the other stubbornly unsure.  The two must mix and mingle and that comes with looking forward and accepting the possible.

The Sweet Pea

See how easy it is?

Well, ok…perhaps not easy…

Staying with the couple — I cannot help myself — if you are going to be both yourself and something more than yourself, you would need to accept the possible in the other, right?  I think it is the same with just about anything.  Easy in theory, complicated in practice, but straight-forward either way.

Part 2, by the way, is nothing but an easy walk in the woods and moments sitting in the sunshine staring at sailboats.  (Perhaps more on that later.)

Somehow it will form a whole, I’m sure it will.

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Owly Night

Tonight has began owly and ends owly, but not just the same.  And when I dug around for a definition of owly, I found two different definitions to match each part of tonight.

One definition comes from the authority of the Oxford Dictionary.  It defines owly as someone who resembles the qualities of an owl, especially an owl’s unflappable calmness.

The other definition also appears in Oxford, but is more common as slang.  That is the irritable, cranky, and irrational man…or as likely…woman.

So strange that two very different human qualities can be expressed by one aloof animal.

I know the irritable and cranky animal all too well.  One that refuses contemplation and calmness.  It is much easier to be seen (usually seen marching away in some opposite direction in my experience) than it is to be heard.  The cranky, irritable owly doesn’t seem to have much to say.  Anger is the answer.

But…thank you sweet baby Jesus…there is the other owly.  Now I can’t say I have found many examples of this other owly in human form recently, but the calm soothing pleasure of owly calmness calls once again — airily, peacefully — from outside my window.  It is my Screech Owl and his … or perhaps as likely … her tremolo call that completes this night so nicely.

Unlike my human owly, this owl prefers to be heard rather than seen, and softly heard at that.  Just being present seems to be enough.  It is a calm presence, one sure of its place out there in the world.  Quietly marking its contentment with a soft call, evenly spaced in the night, the owl invites one to dream.

I see no reason why people cannot be the same.  The owl acts by its nature, people act by choice.  But perhaps people are too complex; perhaps they cannot choose the peace they seek.  In that way people are sad creatures, prone to mistakes and loss.  They are also wonderful creatures, however, with opportunities for great happiness and contentment.

So why is it then that we most often associate “owly” people with the more cranky connotations?

I’ll think about that as I let my owl call me to sleep.

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Wise Men Talk When They Have Something to Say…

Don Knotts

…fools talk when they need to say something.  Or something like that.  Plato is the guy credited with the quote and he’s been away for a while.  So while there is no offense intended there likely is none felt.

I am simply looking for a reason to post a picture of Don Knotts who passed away exactly six years and two weeks ago.  Or did he?  I’m not sure if I am supposed to add two days for the two leap years that have occurred since his death.  In fact, this question has relentlessly nagged at me since the idea first came to me on February 29.

When we measure time, we don’t give a damn about that extra day.  It is irrelevant, but I am troubled by the inaccuracy of it all.

Saying Don Knotts died six years and two weeks is different from saying Don Knotts died six years and 14 days ago, but if we are talking about orbits around the sun and the Earth’s spinning revolutions…we should say he died six years and 16 days ago.

But then I started thinking…

A year is a year and time is something else.  Don Knotts died a while ago.  And eventually leap years will mean Christmas will happen July.  Thank god for popes!

Watching the Earth Spin

Wise men talk when they have something to say and fools talk because they have to say something.

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It is a Topsy Turvy World

Walker Percy

Old Bucklaw isn’t in much of a mood to write tonight, but seeing that last night was a missed post and tonight is dangerously close to becoming one, I thought I should write something.   The point of this blog, after all, is to write something and this year I planned big things for myself.  But perhaps that’s the issue…sometimes everything feels like big things are happening, all is going so beautifully well, and then you have reason to wonder…

I am feeling a little Binx Bolling, perhaps.  Of course you know Binx, the protagonist of Walker Percy‘s excellent book, The Moviegoer (1961).  If you don’t know Binx Bolling, you have an assignment:  Read The Moviegoer and report back to me.  But for now, back again to my post.

Binx suffers from what he calls the malaise, an uncertainty about his place and purpose.  Outwardly it would seem that things come together well for Binx.  He comes from an established New Orleans family, has a decent job, gets out and about, and so on.  Why should Binx be caught up in an existential “search” to sort out his malaise?

Walker Percy might give us an overly-simple reading of existential doubt, but in essence Binx ponders his own place and purpose by mulling over the lives of family, friends, and girlfriends; he sees himself by reflecting upon others.

This in itself might make for a rather dull story, but if I recall correctly, Binx makes a point of comparing real experience with the fake experience of film.  When you see your city — New Orleans, for example — in a film, you can enjoy it as if you were there, in that film experience, rather than wandering the real thing in lived experience.  But of course one is real and the other really real.  Crossing this divide of authenticity is something Binx is struggling to achieve, at least I believe so.

(Perhaps I shouldn’t write about a book I haven’t read in a few years, but be relieved, I was going to critique a play I haven’t yet seen.)

The Moviegoer is a brilliant book because it tells the story of a young man with a strong foundation who is still somehow adrift.  He has roots, but still wanders.  In this way, I think the story also tells the story of the American South very well.  The foundations of the South, especially after World War II, still have substantial depth, but at the same time those foundations are being uprooted.  Binx’s wanderings to find himself as a young man in an adult world isn’t unlike the new South struggling with a modern American identity.  As if to emphasize this point, Binx takes a trip to Chicago and upon his return is confronted by his aunt, who stands for an even more traditional link to the past.

So why am I feeling all Binxy?

Perhaps there is something happening that tells me I am surrounded by very good things coming into my life, but like Binx, when they seem to feel sure and right, it is hard to discern fact from fiction, it is hard to make them true.  There is a struggle to make it all happen.  It eludes me, confronts me, and even doubts me.

A convincing analogy in the form of a relationship explains this quite well in The Moviegoer.  Binx relies a lot on his complicated — perhaps unstable — cousin Kate to help him sort things out.  She isn’t properly a foil — both Binx and Kate are unsure and restless — but she is more properly a compliment.

We all need our compliments, and even though they are hard to find, one should not try too hard.  A real compliment will settle in as naturally as a peaceful sleep in a lover’s embrace.  I want to believe it is that simple and that easy.   Why shouldn’t it be?  Sometimes all it takes is a leap of faith more so than trust to let good things happen…

So what would Binx do?  He would find a beautiful young secretary and go for a drive along the gulf coast, I suppose…

Or was that Ignatius Reilly?  No, no…we don’t want Ignatius’s end.  We want Binx.  It was Binx.  Good old Binx.  He figured it out.

 

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Shame Ethics, Nietzsche, and James Gilligan

I am reading Why Some Politicians are More Dangerous Than Others by James Gilligan.  The book presents an interesting thesis.  He shows data that correlates a rise in violent crime with periods when a Republican occupies the White House.  The analysis of why this is the case is the interesting part of the book.  I recommend reading this book.

I have reached an argument in his book that I think needs to be checked, however.  It really will not affect his thesis one way or the other, but I don’t think his conclusions are correct.  I am looking for help with this one if anyone reading this blog has ideas.

Specifically Gilligan draws a comparison between what he calls Shame Ethics with Nietzsche’s Master Morality.  He says people who identify with the Shame Ethic also identify with Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, or Superman.  (Pages 104-110)  I don’t think this is quite right as Gilligan is trying to frame his argument.

(You want to reference Human, All Too Human and Thus Spoke Zarathustra…or good notes!)

Gilligan, in his book, argues that people identifying with a Shame Ethic are more likely to resort to violence to deal with shame.  “Shame Ethics is a moral value system in which the greatest evil is shame and humiliation, i.e., dishonor and disrespect, and the highest good is the opposite of shame, namely, pride and honor (respect).  (105)  He identifies Republicans with this ethic identification.  “Guilt ethics is a moral value system in which the greatest evil is guild (also called sin), and the highest good is the opposite of guilt, namely, innocence.”  He identifies Democrats with this ethic identification.

Gilligan then makes the generalization that conflates his Shame Ethic with Nietzche’s Master Morality where he says Nietzsche’s Master Morality would justify “being a slave-owner (as in the Old South, in the US), and violence in general (e.g., warfare, revenge, sadism).”  (108)

I don’t think this is correct.  In fact I think Gilligan is resurrecting old stereotypes that haunt Nietzsche scholarship and don’t accurately explain Nietzsche’s criticism of morality and society.  To put it simply, the Übermensch isn’t a sort of ethical free-for-all.  Rather it is living a life that accepts life for what it is and is able to choose based on that alone, not on some arbitrary moral code.  The Übermensch is a sort of ideal of control and self-realization, not a bully.

Inflicting one’s will upon others, which is what Gilligan seems to be saying, is not rising above “Good and Evil”, for example, but participating in it and participating within the social structure that Nietzsche critiques.

In the context that Gilligan is talking about ethics and morality, the slave or Christian morality can be faulted because it is an identity founded on an idea of ressentiment – roughly resentment or spite, there is no perfect word for the idea in English — where the nature of power is misunderstood and therefore becomes evil.  I think Gilligan interjecting Nietszche in his argument as he has muddles the distinction between Shame and Guilt ethics that he is trying to make.  In short, I don’t think he has it right as he applies Nietzsche as an example.

So that’s my aside as I read James Gilligan’s book.  Maybe someone with more expertise — and a more lucid writer — can add some thoughts about this.

By the way, I should add that I find Gilligan’s assessment of political identity and moral identity very convincing.  It isn’t an entirely new idea, but overlaying this correlation with United States presidential administrations reveals the importance of politics in quality of life.  I think there is a bit more of a chicken or egg question that should be kept in mind while considering these things, but Gilligan is on a path with others in his assessment of moral identity and politics.  George Lakoff comes to mind.

Back to the book.

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