FYI -


> New York Times
>
> December 8, 1998
>
> Will Humans Overwhelm the Earth? The Debate Goes on
>
> By MALCOLM W. BROWNE
>
> PHILADELPHIA -- Two hundred years ago the Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus, an
> English economist and mathematician, anonymously published an essay
> predicting that the world's burgeoning humanpopulation would overwhelm
> the earth's capacity to feed it.
>
> Malthus' gloomy forecast, called "An Essay on the Principle of
> Population As it Affects the Future Improvement of Society," was
> condemned by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and many other theorists, and
> it was still striking sparks last week at a meeting in Philadelphia of
> the American Anthropological Society. Despite continuing controversy, it
> was clear that Malthus' conjectures are far from dead.
>
> Among the scores of special conferences organized for the 5,000
> participating anthropologists, many touched directly or indirectly on
> the dilemma suggested by Malthus: Although global food supplies increase
> arithmetically, the population increases geometrically -- a vastly
> faster rate.
>
> The consequence, Malthus believed, was that poverty, and the misery it
> imposes, will inevitably increase unless the increase in population is
> curbed.
>
> This contention has prompted endless debate. Malthus' critics have
> argued that man's ingenuity will always keep pace with population growth
> by finding improved ways to produce food. They cite the success of the
> "Green Revolution" launched in the 1950s and 1960s by Dr. Norman Borlaug
> and his associates in developing high-yield strains of rice and wheat.
>
> But the scientific descendants of Malthus argue that feeding the world's
> masses is only part of the problem. Just as dangerous, they contend, is
> the omnivorous consumption of nonrenewable resources, the irreversible
> destruction of habitats and species, the fouling of the air and seas and
> consequent changes in climate, and many other effects of a growing human
> horde.
>
> One of the symposiums held at last week's meeting was regarded as so
> contentious that a similar conference was banned from the 1994 meeting
> of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on the
> grounds -- said its organizer, Dr. Warren Hern, a Colorado physician and
> epidemiologist -- that "you may not ask that question."
>
> The question, posed as the title of the symposium, was this: "Is the
> Human Species a Cancer on the Planet?"
>
> Hern, the director of an abortion clinic in Boulder, Colo., noticed
> nearly a decade ago that aerial and satellite views of urban centers
> taken over a period of years bore a striking similarity to images of
> cancerous tissue -- particularly melanoma -- invading the healthy
> surrounding tissue.
>
> In his presentation last week, Hern argued that in many parts of the
> world the increase in human numbers is rapid and uncontrolled, that it
> invades and destroys habitats, and that by killing off many species it
> reduces the differentiation of nature. All of these features are
> characteristic of cancerous tumors, he said.
>
> This assessment was applauded by another member of the panel, Dr. Lynn
> Margulis of the University of Massachusetts in Boston, who is the
> co-author of another highly debated theory, the Gaia Hypothesis.
>
> The hypothesis, the brainchild of an English theorist, Dr. James
> Lovelock and Dr. Margulis, who is a microbiologist, is that the earth
> deploys feedback mechanisms to maintain an environment hospitable to
> life. In this it resembles a gigantic living organism, proponents of the
> Gaia idea believe.
>
> Life on earth has survived many crises, including mass extinctions
> caused by the impacts of asteroids and comets, Dr. Margulis said, and
> life will continue despite the threats created by humanity -- but with
> reduced diversity.
>
> She agreed with the notion that the human race is a kind of
> self-destructive cancer.
>
> "For millions of years," she said, "the earth got along without human
> beings, and it will do so again. The only question is the nature of the
> human demise that has already begun."
>
> Dr. Margulis quoted a line from the German philosopher Friedrich
> Nietzsche: "The earth is a beautiful place, but it has a pox called
> man."
>
> A different but complementary perspective was offered by Dr. Compton
> Tucker, a physical scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space
> Administration's Goddard Space Center. Tucker is an analyst of images of
> the earth made by Landsat and other orbiting spacecraft. In particular,
> he keeps track of deforestation and other anthropogenic changes in the
> global habitat.
>
> "In many regions, we've seen astonishingly rapid change since 1975," he
> said. "Vast tracts of both rain forest and dry tropical forest have
> disappeared in the Amazon Basin as human communities expand and clear
> the land for cattle ranching. This has led to a monoculture dominated by
> cattle breeding, with losses of immense numbers of the species deprived
> of forest habitat."
>
> Several speakers cited U.N. statistics indicating that population growth
> rates in underdeveloped countries averaged only 1.77 percent per year
> between 1990 and 1995. The expectation for that period had been for a
> growth rate of 1.88 percent.
>
> But since 1930, when the world population was about 2 billion, the
> population has nearly tripled, and each doubling of the population has
> occurred in a much shorter time than the previous doubling period. The
> U.N. report projected that the world population could reach 9.4 billion
> by 2050.
>
> Demographers say that the population increase has leveled off in China,
> where the government limits family size, and that the rate of population
> increase has declined in Bangladesh and other populous countries.
>
> But recent U.N. statistics identified 28 countries -- 20 of them in
> Africa -- where fertility rates increased during the past decade. Among
> the countries was the United States, which has the third-largest
> population after China and India, and where the fertility rate increased
> from 1.9 percent to 2.1 percent, largely because of Hispanic
> immigration.
>
> All the speakers at the symposium had expected vigorous criticism from
> the audience of anthropologists, but were surprised to encounter few
> strongly negative comments.
>
> "Arguments over the accuracy of Malthus' views, future population trends
> and the earth's carrying capacity are never-ending and never resolved,"
> one speaker said. "Many people prefer to just forget about the big
> questions involved, and get on with their lives."
>
> Population pressure is partly a question of perception, said Dr. Bernice
> Kaplan, an anthropologist at Wayne State University.
>
> "I ask my students how they feel about being increasingly crowded by the
> growing population, and they reply, 'We're not crowded,"' Dr. Kaplan
> said.
>
> "That attitude results from being young and not having experienced the
> changes old people have seen during their lives. Whatever environment
> you're born into is the one that seems normal.
>
> "You don't seem to realize the problems created by population pressure
> until you get old," she said, "and then nobody listens to you. We are a
> species that doesn't respond to threats until it's too late."
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------


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