Most of us realize that the population of the Earth is quickly growing beyond what our limited resources will support. Well most of us except Republicans and Catholics. But human population growth is only part of it me thinks.
Seems to me there are a whole lot more bugs on this planet than there used to be! Ants are everywhere, grasshoppers where out of control in South Dakota when I was there last week and don't even get me started on mosquitoes! We literally could not step out the door without spray or we would be bitten immediately. This is also true in Florida where I live. They are awful!
It stands to reason (unless you are Republican) that if the human population is exploding exponentially, the critters might be doing the same thing. Sure we have developed lots of toxic sprays that kill some bugs (and pollute our water) but let's face it, bugs have nothing better to do than make more bugs. I think it will eventually get to the point where the earth and air will be so infested with bugs we won't be able avoid them at all. And bugs don't need as many resources as people do so they will likely outlive us too.
I don't really have a point here - just an observation that's been bugging me.
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7 comments:
Come on man, catch up!
That whole population explosion apocalypse myth was discredited years ago (Google Julian Simon or Bjorn Lomborg)
Over the last century our so-called "limited resources" have enabled us to consistently produce more and more food even while simultaneously using less and less land to do it.
Life expectancy and average caloric intake woldwide, along with most other indicators of human welfare, continue to increase, and there is no technological or logistical reason that they can not continue to do so indefinitely.
The isolated and localized exceptions to this trend are all attributable to the folly of human actions rather than limited resources. There is more than enough of everything that we need on this planet(not to mention in the immediate neighborhood) to feed and cloth and house every single human being and many,many more.
The flaw lies not with a lack of natural resources, which are abundant and for all practical purposes unlimited, but rather the flaw lies within us, within the very heart of man and his fallen nature. Catholics (and others) have been pointing this out for two thousand years.
And, just shooting my mouth off the top of my head (imagine that), it seems to me that a healthy insect population would tend to be a good indicator of the ecological health of the biosphere. I would be far more concerned about credible reports of a significant decrease of fecundity at the low end of the food chain!
But what the hell do I know, I'm just a Catholic Republican (nominally) and so by definition a no-nothing, unreasonable, troglodyte....right?
I think you have proven your ignorance with this post. Fresh water is already a prized commodity over much of the earth. National Geographic did a whole issue on this one topic just last month. Yet people continue to let it run down the drain or pollute our very limited supply with reckless abandon.
As a Catholic I'm surprised at your willingness to tamper with natural genetic codes to produce hybrid food sources. But Catholics also believe in artificial insemination and all sorts of other ungodly acts.
If nothing else - please do some research on the exponential way populations grow (and add in some Octomom type births for the Catholics) and how much fresh water a typical person needs to survive in their lifetime. Let me know if you still feel confident there is enough to go around. Oh! And don't forget the bugs need fresh water too!
You had me worried for a minute, so I rushed into one of the bathrooms here in my office building and turned on all of the faucets...much to my relief plenty of cold clear water came flowing out! I've left them all running for a couple of hours now just to be sure, but the flow hasn't slowed at all; nope, not one little bit. No shortage of water here!
I have no idea what you are talking about regarding Catholics and artificial insemination and "ungodly acrs", etc., but that's OK because I[, pretty sure that you don't either.
Nice to be back!
I know you were being facetious, but that water faucet example is exactly how much thought most people put into our resources. If there is enough for me right now then we are all OK.
from firstthings.com:
Sight-Saving Rice, Still On the Shelf
“Genetically engineered crops could save many millions from starvation and malnutrition — if they can be freed from excessive regulation,” declares an article in Nature (not available online). Ingo Potrykus, chairman of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board, explains:
Golden rice is a series of varieties modified with two genes (phytoene synthase and phytoene double-desaturase) to produce up to 35 micrograms of vitamin A precursor per gram of edible rice. Within the normal diet of rice-dependent poor populations, it could provide sufficient vitamin A to reduce substantially the 6,000 deaths a day due to vitamin A deficiency, and to save the sight of several hundred thousand people per year.
None of the existing varieties of rice has even low levels of the vitamin A precursor in the part that is eaten, so conventional breeding cannot increase it. Golden rice was possible only with genetic engineering.
Getting approval for a genetically-modified crop usually “takes about ten times more money and ten years longer,” he writes to bring to market than for a non-genetically modified one. (Golden Rice will be on the market in 2012, thirteen years after it was ready in the lab.) The effect is that a few companies control the field and they focus on the most money-making crops, and not on those that could change the “food security” of the poor.
Genetic research is very VERY new and the effects on people and the planet are a total unknown. Yet we charge forward with these untested, (and I'll use the word again) un-Godly inventions in order to keep up with the exploding population. Most of us unknowingly eat this crap every day because we don't know where the food we eat really comes from.
We are only now discovering the damage plastics have done to our bodies and planet - imagine what other disasters we can conjure up.
But, there is a side note to this. We have the ability to feed the current population of the world right now but we choose not to. In the name of money, farmers are being paid NOT to grow needed crops in order to control the price. And the crops that are grown do not reach many hungry mouths because those mouths don't have the means to pay.
I say we should put our genetic research to better use and find a way to make humans less greedy and stupid.
Certainly, as with any new technology, we should proceed cautiously...but as the post from First Things makes clear, there is a moral consequence attached to being overly cautious also.
There is another, often overlooked,form of greed and stupidity that allows privileged and pampered liberals in the developed world to indulge in the most extreme and self-centered forms of risk aversion, often at the cost of real lives and suffering in the third world.
If even the remotest theoretical possibility exists that some new technology might someday, even in some minor way, have some marginally negative side effect on us, well then screw the millions of others less fortunate around the world to whom these technologies might bring immediate and hugely consequential (even life saving) benefits.
I'm no expert on genetically modified foods, but my impression and suspicion is that 90% of the controversy is based on irrational and unscientific fear.
(but like I said, I'm no expert: I'll have to read more about it...)
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