I) Population

Causes and effects of overpopulation

OVERPOPULATION section for WAR magazine    August 27, 2010

The number of human beings on our planet continues to grow by nearly one billion people each decade.  Why?  What is overpopulation?  It is universally defined as the condition where the number of organisms exceeds the carrying capacity of their habitat.  What causes this propagation of humanity?  If we really examine the situation closely we might begin to see that the cause is both attitudinal and socially driven.  Knowing the many problems caused by overpopulation has done nothing to stop it.  In fact, there is something in the many societies of the world that keeps a steady pressure on the many local populations of the world.  In general, the world’s death rate has decreased but this is overwhelmed by the increase in birth rates.  Education plays a role but many cultures who value and have a well distributed educational system do not necessarily have lower birth rates.

For example, in China and Mexico, the population within the culture itself, carries generational attitudes that apply growing pressure upon the outlook and behaviors of the younger generation of the population.  In Mexico, young woman are culturally pressured to be married by 26 years of age and to have many children.   And these young women are taught that if you have not married by your late twenties then you are considered “odd” and have not performed your social duty as a citizen of the nation; that you do not fit into the social traditions of the population.  Several women there do not want to marry at such an age and some do not want children at all; but these women are socially estranged.  There is parental pressure, there is peer pressure and there are the subtle and blatant forms of publicity and advertising that encourages, even assumes, that all woman are expected to marry in their mid-twenties.  In many cases, young woman have taken up with foreigners to answer the pressures of their culture.   As a whole, the social pressure is insidious and relentless.   The result is millions of mothers and fathers who do not truly want to raise children and, naturally, have no interest in such pursuits.   They do it to fulfill their inculcated social obligations and, in many cases, create profound hardships on themselves, their spouses, their children, their parents and upon society at large.

There is a similar social expectation for men but men have more time.   They can marry and have children at a relatively older age, say 30 to 45 years of age, after their careers are established.  But the truth is, many woman and men do not want to have children at all.  Or they are concerned with their own livelihood, their own education, development and personal interests.  Why should there be this over-riding pressure to propagate?   Because many of us do not question the tradition-based social environment which surrounds us.  We think as others think.   We do as others do; without questioning the motivations and the reasons for such thoughts and actions.   We do not see the consequences.  This leads to many dire results and dangerous consequences which lead the way for brutal aggressive groups who exist throughout the world; from Somali pirates to the Afghan Taliban, from the Klu Klux Klan of the USA to the Shining Path of Peru.  Whether Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Islamic, whatever the religion may be; Mexican, Chinese, South American or Russian, whatever the culture may be, the underlying motive is to expand, influence and propagate.

Religion and social/cultural belief has become an all-pervasive factor in exerting wide spread pressure on men and women.   Religious belief is reinforced by behavioral regimentation which ultimately leads to the propagation of continuing generations to further spread that particular institution of culture or religion, whatever it may be.   Propagation becomes an obligation and prescribed responsibility of living.   The result is the ever expanding population.  The social, economic and environmental consequences are thus treated as insignificant when compared to the religious motivation for expanding its own beliefs and circumscribed way of life.  Propagation becomes a socially rewarded goal where the global consequences are neither discussed nor questioned.    Thus, one hundred million newborns a year are added to the already barely subsistent way of life in many countries of the world.  Such human additions to the environment make the whole unsustainable.

We must have the strength of reasoning and the courage of compassion to see that the human-made institutions of the world, whether religious, cultural, social or economic, are exerting an insidious pressure for humans to propagate even when, as individuals, they do not wish to.  We must break the chains of institutional conditioning and influence and educate ourselves to find the truth and the consequences of our thoughts and actions.

Daily global starvation

GLOBAL STARVATION:  Planned Ignorance and Lack of Distribution

FACT:  In Asia, South America and Africa over 500 million people are living in absolute poverty.  Every year 15 million children die from hunger which is equivalent to about 42,000 children per day or 1712 per hour or 29 children per second.  For the time it has taken you to read this 200 children have died of starvation.  For the price of one war missile a school full of hungry children could eat for 5 years.  One third of the world is well-fed.   One third of the world is under-fed.   One third of the world is starving to death.

FACT:  One in four people  of the world, 1.3 billion people, live on less than $1 US per day.   The next three billion people of the world struggle to live on $2 US per day.

FACT:   To satisfy the world’s sanitation and food requirements would require $13 billion US—what the people of the USA and Europe spend on perfume every year.   Hunger causes poverty by creating poor health which produces poor energy, mental and physical abilities which reduces people’s ability to work and learn.  Environmental disasters caused by global warming contribute to this causing shifts in crop production and farming practices.

FACT:  The world produces enough food to feed everyone.  World agriculture produces 17% more calories per person than it did 30 years ago despite a 70 per cent population increase.  This is enough to provide everyone in the world with 2,720 calories per day.   The problem is to find more surface area to grow food, to educate people to grow their own food and to provide income enough to purchase food.

FACT:   The cause of hunger is the ordinary operation of economic and political systems in the world.  Control over resources and income is based in military, economic and political power that ends up in the hands of a minority.   That minority has access to food and supplies while the rest are barred from or have limited access to education, food, supplies and the most basic facilities.

We can create enough surface area to sustain the world population if we make the most efficient use of the land surface already available to us.  For instance, it takes seven times more land surface and materials to raise and feed cows than it does to feed the same number of people with vegetables and grains.  When you add the fact that the cows produce methane gas that is 23 times more poisonous than CO2 gas and contributes to 33% of the world’s total pollution, livestock becomes a pointless food source.

A part of our hunger problem lies in the kinds of food we eat and the space, time and management it takes to grow the food.  The military, political and economic structure that we have created dictates the “right” by which native peoples of a country can access adequate food and water.  The problem is in the self-serving exclusivity of local governments and their support of the abuse of land and food production to serve economic gain.  In many cases, the quality of food is not examined as long as it can be sold and profit is made.  And the methods in which that food is produced is also not examined as long as the economy and political tribute is paid.

Thus, the distribution of food to feed the hungry is not a consideration since it does nothing to serve the political, economic and military might of any particular nation.  Food must be bought by a poor nation from a wealthy nation and if the government of a poor nation is concerned only with the exclusivity of its political representatives then it will have no interest to buy food to serve that nation’s people.  The political and military abuse, by various nations of the world, result in that nation’s hunger and poverty.   It is a consequence of military/political control which controls education, economic access and land distribution and use.  The hungry people of the nation become the victims of political exclusivity and abuse—the hidden underside of hunger and starvation.

DAILY GLOBAL STARVATION


DEFINITION: Starvation is severe reduction in vitamin, nutrient and energy intake. The body expends more energy than it takes in as food. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition and leads to permanent organ damage and death. It is the single gravest threat to the world’s public health. 1 in 6 people on the planet starve to death. It affects one billion people.

FACT: One person dies every second as a result, directly or indirectly of hunger. 4000 people die every hour. 100,000 a day die of hunger. 36 million people each year. This is 58% of all deaths in the world. On average, one child dies every 5 seconds as a result, directly or indirectly, of hunger. 700 children die every hour. 16,000 to 40,000 die every day. Six million children die each year. 60% of all child deaths are caused from hunger.

FACT: In 2007, 923 million people were undernourished. The Kids Ending Hunger organization states that $20 billion US is needed to end hunger. Studies have shown that when you end hunger in an area, the birth rate actually decreases because when the hunger is ended, a mother knows that she no longer has to have 10 children just so one or two will survive and grow up to be healthy.

FACT: Hunger and environmental destruction are linked. We may not be able to save our environment until we eliminate hunger. People who are hungry now are not going to care about saving the rainforest. The indigenous cultures in Brazil have been selling off the rain forest and cutting down the trees because that’s all they can do to survive, but if they were not hungry on a day-to-day basis, they would have more incentive to save the rainforest.

FACT: It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of animal flesh. According to the United States Department of Agriculture and the United Nations, using an acre of land to raise cattle for slaughter, yields 20 pounds of usable protein. That same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein if soy beans were grown instead—more than 17 times as much protein! What about raising rice, corn or beans?

FACT: Using the grain that is used to feed farm animals requires vast amounts of water. It takes about 300 gallons of water per day to produce vegetable food and more than 4000 gallons of water to produce food to eat animals. You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year. It’s no surprise then that vegetable based food can be produced for 1/6th of an acre of land while it takes 3.25 acres of land to produce food for a meat eater. If we added up all the arable land on the planet and divided it equally, every human being would have 2/3 of an acre, more than enough to sustain a vegetable-based diet but not nearly enough to sustain a meat eater.

FACT: The industrial world is exporting grain to developing countries and importing the meat that is produced with it, and thus farmers are being driven off their land. Their efficient, plant-based agricultural model is being replaced with intensive livestock rearing, which also pollutes the air and water and renders the once fertile land, dead and barren.

FACT: If this trend continues, the developing world will never be able to produce enough food to feed itself, and global hunger will continue to plague hundreds of millions of people around the globe. There is one solution to this—a vegetable based diet is the ethical response to what is arguably the most urgent issue for immediate human survival.

Global statistics show that there is enough food available to feed the world. So why do nearly one billion people go hungry every year? Could it be the kind of food we eat and the efficiency in growing and distributing the food? For instance, eating meat means that we are able to feed fewer people. The World Watch Institute states that, “Meat consumption is an inefficient use of grain. Grain is used more efficiently when eaten by humans. Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between the affluent meat-eaters and the world’s poor.”


The result of overpopulation, global starvation and poverty is a combination of cultural standards in conjunction with governmental organization (?) by derick