Overpopulation

Throughout history, both real and manufactured issues related to population have often been used to justify racism, exploitation, and worse. This means that any discussion of population issues today must be particularly sensitive and we must always be aware of the potential for such discussions to be misused by those with other agendas. At the same time, however, this is not a topic we can afford to ignore either, especially as human impact on the environment is continuing to accelerate, and the planet's ability to support its human population in being reduced.

There is no question that humans have already exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, or that our actions are continuing to reduce that carrying capacity even further. That fact alone, however, does not necessarily mean that the planet is overpopulated. It just means that we are consuming renewable resources at a faster rate than they can be replenished and we are generating waste at a faster rate than it can be absorbed by the planet, even as we are rapidly depleting our non-renewable resources. In other words, we are not living sustainably.

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Coal Mines and Oil Spills

There's nothing particularly new about oil and coal disasters that cost lives and cause intense environmental damage. What is unusual is for the largest consumer of these products to pay any of these costs itself, let alone even be aware of the costs. The oil rig disaster has also led to questions being asked about why we are going to such extremes to get more oil, and casts doubt on plans to widely expand offshore drilling. There have been many wakeup calls before, but this one was in our backyard.

Every year, thousands of coal miners and oil workers are killed around the world. That's a couple orders of magnitude more than the deaths in the United States. The statistics show that in recent history, from 1990 to 2000, the US has had coal mining casualties in the double digits every year, while China has consistently had casualties in the four digits. The number of annual US mining deaths, from all types of mining, has been falling continually for over 70 years. Clearly, this is a result of better safety standards, as the deaths have decreased even as coal production in the US has continue to rise.

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Nuclear Power

Until recently, most environmental activists and organizations were decidedly opposed to nuclear power. The issue of nuclear waste was considered a major problem, and this remains unresolved today. There was also a significant concern about the potential for accidents, especially in the wake of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Today, however, with the threat of climate change upon us, many environmentalists have, often reluctantly, concluded that nuclear may be necessary if we hope to reduce carbon emissions. Does nuclear have a place in a sustainable future, or can it at least help in a transition to such a future?

It should be clearly noted that much of the opposition to nuclear in the past wasn't just about nuclear power. In the eighties there was widespread fear of a nuclear war that could end most life on the planet. Once the cold war ended, much of this fear went away, although some of this has been returning as nuclear proliferation has been expanding. Still, while the threat of a nuclear attack may have increased, the possibility of a nuclear armageddon remains much less likely.

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Earth Day 2010

6 Ways to Make a Difference, and 3 Ways to Make Things Worse

Several sites have published articles with lists of recommended action people can take on Earth Day. These generally focus on individual lifestyle changes, however, which are not sufficient to solve our environmental problems. This is somewhat understandable, of course, since many people are wondering what they can do on Earth Day to help the environment. In this spirit, I would like to offer a somewhat different set of suggestions, which can still be pursued at the individual level, but which aim towards larger goals and real change. I will also list some actions which are likely to cause more harm than good, and are better avoided.

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Pets

I recently wrote about animal rights issues as they relate to the environment, but I left out any discussion of pets. In the West, we expend a vast amount of resources on our pets. Energy, land and other natural resources are needed to produce their food, their toys and, in some cases, even their clothes. In fact, more money is spent on the average pet in the US than many people in the world live on. The carbon emissions related to pet ownership are also much higher than the emissions of many people in the world.

It has been calculated that the average dog has an ecological footprint about twice that of an average SUV. That is, twice the amount of land is needed to produce the resources required for the dog, as compared to the SUV. The average dog also produces about the same carbon emissions as a large car. There are over 70 million dogs in the US, and over 80 million cats. That's a massive environmental impact. The land use required to support our pets is contributing to deforestation and global warming.

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Dams

Humans have used dams for several different purposes throughout our history. They have been used to stabilize water levels, protect land, and divert water for irrigation or into reservoirs. In more recent times, dams have been used to provide power, initially through the use of water wheels, and later through hydroelectric generators. Unfortunately, dams have also caused significant environmental damage, especially as the rate of construction grew exponentially throughout the twentieth century, and as the size of the projects grew.

One of the most obvious problems with dams involves water diversion. When water is diverted, whether for crop irrigation or to store drinking water in a reservoir, that means water is being removed from one area and sent to another. If a major river is being diverted, this could mean the entire downstream ecosystem could dry out, leading to the death of countless individual plants and animals, and in many cases, the extinction of unique species. As agriculture has continued to expand, this has required more and more irrigation, and industrial farming methods have demanded even more quantities of water. This has meant more dams, and bigger dams, diverting more and more water, leading to the destruction of greater numbers of ecosystems and higher rates of extinction.

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New Strategies

After almost 20 years of action on climate change, the common strategies have proven to insufficient, ineffective or even counter-productive. This is despite the dedicated, principled and relentless work by countless individuals and numerous organizations. By every conceivable benchmark, it is hard to view this as anything but failure. The only real success has been in raising awareness, but this has not translated into any concrete action. It is time to consider new strategies that have the potential to lead to the kind of real change desperately needed.

The problem is not that we don't have solutions, but that many of the solutions being proposed and implemented are false solutions, and those that are effective are being ignored. The false solutions include things like personal lifestyle changes, electric cars, biofuels, and carbon storage. Things that could make a real difference include conservation, more rail, car free cities, the limited use of alternative energy, and sustainable farming methods, among others. There is limited political will to implement many of these solutions, however, especially in North America.

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