Environmental Problems, World Hunger

and other related issues

93.5 Campus Radio Dagupan’s segment Talk to Papa’s hosts, Papa Jake and Papa Rico, often mentions “world hunger” But never really elaborated it. Wish I could give you some ideas what’s about it and clear some related issues as well.
Enough of those weird fashion issues. Today we’ll be going somewhere I’ve never been before. Let’s talk about environmental issues. Lately I’ve been one with my environmentalist side. I know you wont believe me if I said I just wasted two pesos and fifty centavos worth of load to be one of those who wanted the La Mesa Watershed be declared protected area. Truth is, I just enjoyed seeing Dong Abay rock again on the mini concert H2OY which was held for the program Save The La Mesa Watershed something. Dong was one of my childhood heroes. He once belonged to a band, which I know you all know, Yano. Does that ring a bell? He rocked back then, until drug addiction got the better of him. DON’T DO DRUGS! Hoo hah!

The Latest environmental distress was the massive oil spill in Guimaras. I really don’t care much about the people dying because of the fumes or being unemployed due to the incident. What hit me was the issues about politics making face “nag papa-star” by announcing themselves being one with the grieving people of the affected island (Bunch of mangy crocs.). Political adversaries setting aside their disputes with each other, uniting for a better cause, smiling at the television cameras, shaking hands and making “pakitang tao” stuffs(Can’t blame them.. “malapit na ang eleksyon”). Some politicians even aired themselves in national television giving their hair. Fuck that! What good is your hair compared to the millions and millions of pesos that was supposed to support a better livelihood for these poor victims? (I’m ‘na pull your pubic hair one by one and donate it to the victims.)

Sorry for drifting again. Natural calamities due to abuse of mother nature, landslides, acid rain, oil spills, population boom, oil price hike, food shortage and other crap of the same sort. What kind of state is our world really in? People say “These are the end of days.. Doomsday is upon us.. The beast is born..” “Fear! The signs of apocalypse” “Cum baby!.. ughh cum!..” Err don’t mind the last one.. I don’t give a crap. All nonsense bull. A pessimistic view of the environment is all pervasive, shaped by the images and messages that confront us on the idiot box, the net, media, political statements and conversations in the kitchen table.


Quote this:
“We ought not to let the environmental organizations, business lobbyists or the media be alone in presenting the truths and priorities. Rather, we should strive for a careful, democratic check on the environmental debate, by knowing the real state of the world.”

-Bjorn Lomborg, “Left-wing Greenpeace member

We are all familiar with the litany:

• Our resources are running out.
  
• The population is ever growing, leaving less and less for everyone to eat.
  
• The air and water are becoming ever more polluted.
  
• The planet’s species are becoming extinct in vast numbers.
  
• Humans are thus defiling the earth, decimating the biosphere and will end up killing and eating themselves in the process. Eventually, we will be eating our own dung.

There is just one problem. These shits are not backed up by the available evidence.

No Shortages

The mineral resources on which modern industry depends aren’t running out. For example, known reserves of fossil fuels and most commercially important metals are now much larger than they were thirty years ago. Reason: although we consume an increasing amount of these resources, we’ve discovered even more. We have also become more efficient, less wasteful at extracting and exploiting them.
According to an article I’ve read, a statement was released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration saying, for example known oil reserves that could be extracted at reasonably competitive prices would keep the world economy running for ninety two years at present consumption rates. (Thank good ol’ U.S. president Bush for being a modern day Viking pillaging the Middle East, causing oil prices here in the Philippines to soar up high in rocket boosters. “Uncle fucker Bush.”) Anyway, the story is same for non energy resources. Despite an astounding increase in production and consumption, the available reserves of the most important resources, aluminum, iron, copper and zinc have grown even more, according to the UN Geological Survey. Their process have declined over the past century.

Clearly, there must be some limit to the fossil fuels and metal ores that can be extracted: the planet, after all, has a finite mass and in real life there aren’t any “greedisgood” kind of cheats. But that limit is far greater than many would have believed

Meanwhile, the cost of both solar and wind energy has dropped by more than ninety percent over the past twenty years. Within fifty years, solar energy will probably be available at competitive prices. “Solar energy downside; Would it reduce 24/7 texters? Just a stupid thought.”

Fewer are Starving

Over thirty years ago, biologist Ehrlich predicted: “The Battle to feed all of humanity is over. The famines of the seventies are upon us and hundreds of millions of more people are going to starve to death.” What would you do if you’re living at those times M.M.? Drane? Feed ‘ze damn Pirates! Well luckily It didn’t happen. According to U.N. figures, the world’s agricultural production has more than doubled since nineteen sixty one and more than tripled in the developing countries has increased from eight thousand plus kilojoules in nineteen sixty one to eleven thousand ninety in nineteen ninety eight.
World population has doubled since nineteen sixty one, but the actual number of people starving in the developing world has fallen from almost nine hundred twenty million in nineteen seventy one to below seven hundred ninety two million in nineteen ninety seven. It’s expected to fall to four hundred million in year twenty thirty. These numbers are still frighteningly high. Yet, thanks to progress, two billion fewer are starving today. Massive growth in the world’s population that began around the fifties is mainly due to a fall in death rate. The result of improved access to food, medicine, clean water and sanitation. “It is not that people suddenly started breeding like rabbits. It’s just that they stopped dying like flies.” While the number of people will continue to increase, the birth rate is dropping.
The U.N. forecasts that the world’s population will stabilize just below eleven billion by twenty two hundreds. (Can’t wait? Get yourself a gatling gun and go amok the highly populated cities. Shoot everyone in sight. Then get yourself killed. “At least you reduced point zero zero zero zero zero… zero one percent of the world’s population.)

Growth is the Solution

Pollution is no longer undermining our wellbeing because its burden has diminished dramatically in the developed world. Look at air pollution, which is one of the most important environmental problems. Here progress in the developed world has been unequivocal. Human health has benefited phenomenally from reductions in lead and particle concentration. Contrary to intuition, for example, and with respect to the most important pollutants, Manila air is today actually cleaner than it has been since the ninety’s.
Air pollution has become worse in the developing world (as it did in the developed world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), mainly because of strong economic growth. But growth and the environment are not opposites – they compliment each other. Without adequate protection of the environment, growth is undermined. But without growth, it is not possible support environmental protection or vice versa.. or.. whatever!
When developing countries attain high levels of income, they will – as those in the developed world have done – opt for, and be able to afford, an ever cleaner environment. “The key is not to produce less,” The World Bank says, “but to produce differently.” From the stand point of balancing environmental goals with economic wellbeing, some environmental policies, such as reducing lead in petrol and sulphur-dioxide emissions from fuel oil, are very cost effective. But still some are not. (Unleaded gasoline? Ever cared what it did for you and our country?)

Disappearing Species?

Assertion of the world’s massive apecies extinction – between 20,000 and 100,000 annually – are repeated everywhere you look. Yet this crap simply do not equate with the available evidence. The theory of biodiversity loss equates the number of species to area: the more space there is, the more species can exist. A rule of the thumb, which works well for islands, like here in the Philippines, is that if the area is reduced by ninety percent, the number of species will be halved. Thus, as rainforests were cut at alarming rates, many people expected the number of species to fall by half globally within a generation or two.
Species seem to be more resilient than expected. The U.N. Global Biodiversity Assessment estimates an extinction rate of zero point one to one percent over the next fifty years. That figure is certainly not trivial. But much smaller than the ten to one hundred percent typically advanced in the media and else where. Fucking media, knights of truth my ass!

Final Words

The world is not without problems, and, of course, rational environmental management and investment are good ideas. But things are generally getting better, and they are likely to continue to do so.
There is no ecological catastrophe looming. Armageddon? Worry about it for the next thousand years.. We should set free our unproductive worries and focus on the important issues, so that we may indeed help make an even better world for tomorrow. Clear?

sources: some U.N. related articles, A book titled “The Skeptical Environmentalist”

by: Bjorn Lomborg, News papers and few gossip mongers.