The pope's encyclical, overpopulation and overconsumption

Jayzesake

Malakai Aggressive Chess wrote: »

What part of modern human interference don't you get?

In fairness I do think that in order to properly understand our present predicament we need to be aware that humans have always impacted negatively on wildlife, the size of that impact in early times being proportionate to population size and technology. Hence the Pleistocene extinctions as human development in general, and hunting techniques in particular, made the so-called 'Great Leap Forward' about 60,000 years ago.

It's important to understand this, because otherwise there is a risk of looking nostalgically to a past when 'people lived in harmony with their environment' that never existed.

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Jayzesake wrote: »

In fairness I do think that in order to properly understand our present predicament we need to be aware that humans have always impacted negatively on wildlife, the size of that impact in early times being proportionate to population size and technology. Hence the Pleistocene extinctions as human development in general, and hunting techniques in particular, made the so-called 'Great Leap Forward' about 60,000 years ago.

It's important to understand this, because otherwise there is a risk of looking nostalgically to a past when 'people lived in harmony with their environment' that never existed.

Hang on. As a lifelong student of Nature and history, I am perfectly aware of Ireland's natural history. For me modern does not mean the past 100 years: I mean much older than that.
As we were discussing Irish biodiversity your recourse to the Great leap forward is moot.
I am certainly not nostalgic for a recent idyll. I accept we have gotten worse in Ireland in the past 150 years but that was not the era I was referring to by a long shot.
With that I'm out of this thread as people seem determined to argue just for the sake of it. I'm off to do some work to actually protect some species now.

Jayzesake

Malakai Aggressive Chess wrote: »

Hang on. As a lifelong student of Nature and history, I am perfectly aware of Ireland's natural history. For me modern does not mean the past 100 years: I mean much older than that.
As we were discussing Irish biodiversity your recourse to the Great leap forward is moot.
I am certainly not nostalgic for a recent idyll. I accept we have gotten worse in Ireland in the past 150 years but that was not the era I was referring to by a long shot.
With that I'm out of this thread as people seem determined to argue just for the sake of it. I'm off to do some work to actually protect some species now.

I've seen some of your posts Malakai Aggressive Chess, and it's obvious to me that you are not only a serious student of nature - and have been for far longer than me, for that matter - but that you are passionate, committed, and are not afraid to get down and work in a concrete and practical way at the coal face(s). As such you deserve nothing but respect. So if you feel these discussions are only about arguing for its own sake, I'm sincerely sorry to hear that.

However I disagree that these issues are unimportant. I feel that understanding past human interaction with the natural world is absolutely fundamental to an understanding of where we're at now, and how to go forward in a way that has a chance of conserving what remains and, even better, bringing back some of what has been lost.

Talk of the great leap forward, pleistocene extinctions etc., may seem irrelevent, but these things are actually crucial to: a realisation of how we characteristically behave as species towards the natural world; to just how much has been lost; and to just how long that has been going on for. The reason for my post #52 was that in a couple of your posts in this thread you specifically mentioned 'modern' human interference or agriculture as the problem, implying that earlier human activities didn't impact catastrophically on the natural world, which they clearly did.

Now, I'm off to do some work to actually protect species too!

Desmo

robp wrote: »

The modern vs traditional farming is a separate issue. I am referring to biodiversity before people came to Ireland. If we counted the number of flora species today compared to say 100 years before the first farmers you'd find a higher plant count today. That is what I was referring too. We certainly have lost some important charismatic species and some keystone species but some of these might not have been native. Most Irish biodiversity loss is probably poorly known invertebrates species. Despite this Irish fauna and flora is impoverished.

Ehhh the 100 years ago vs. today is kind of what we were originally arguing about.
Remember? We were arguing about human population growth and its effects.
One effect that we have seen over the past 100 years is a disastrous loss of biodiversity. Another is potentially catastrophic environment damage such as climate change. Agriculture is a major driver of climate change and is much more so now than 100 years ago, through habitat change and the greenhouse gasses from livestock. Agriculture may indeed have species associated with farming but these are now very few and reducing fast.

robp

Desmo wrote: »

Ehhh the 100 years ago vs. today is kind of what we were originally arguing about.
Remember? We were arguing about human population growth and its effects.
One effect that we have seen over the past 100 years is a disastrous loss of biodiversity. Another is potentially catastrophic environment damage such as climate change. Agriculture is a major driver of climate change and is much more so now than 100 years ago, through habitat change and the greenhouse gasses from livestock. Agriculture may indeed have species associated with farming but these are now very few and reducing fast.

Yes farming 100 years ago vs. today is very relevant to biodiversity loss but not for the specific issue I was examine (i.e the biodiversity of present vs unpopulated Ireland either a hypothetical one or 8,000BC before people came').

The huge changes that have come with modern farming has been a huge driver of biodiversity loss. But new ways of arming is not all bad. The plus of these changes is the elimination of food insecurity in huge swathes of the globe. So I would say change is inevitable but I don't all the species lost through changes in farming were inevitably a lost cause and I hope the powers at be learn from their mistakes.

Desmo

robp wrote: »

Yes farming 100 years ago vs. today is very relevant to biodiversity loss but not for the specific issue I was examine (i.e the biodiversity of present vs unpopulated Ireland either a hypothetical one or 8,000BC before people came').

The huge changes that have come with modern farming has been a huge driver of biodiversity loss. But new ways of arming is not all bad. The plus of these changes is the elimination of food insecurity in huge swathes of the globe. So I would say change is inevitable but I don't all the species lost through changes in farming were inevitably a lost cause and I hope the powers at be learn from their mistakes.

These losses through agriculture are also happening at a time of unbelievable environmental stress and habitat loss in general. We are losing species at an accelerating rate and the great miracle of modern farming might not be sustainable and might be wrecking our climate. A cow has a much greater effect on the climate than a car and the productivity miracle relies heavily on fossil fuels. And what for? A global pyramid scheme to fuel economic success?

recedite

Desmo wrote: »

A cow has a much greater effect on the climate than a car

Well this is an interesting one that you hear now and again. The methane from a cow has a stronger global warming effect than the CO2 from a car. So the small amount of methane from a cow does have nearly the effect of a car, though slightly less.
But there is much more methane produced from natural wetlands than from ruminants. And there is as much produced from rice paddyfields as from cows.

The other aspect of it is the length of the cycle. Methane breaks down in the atmosphere. So if all methane production stopped today, there would be none in the atmosphere after a few months. There is no danger of it building up there permanently. At the same time, every extra cow does add to it, because the rate at which it breaks down is still the same. Possibly the rate of breakdown could be increased artificially by pumping ozone into the atmosphere, which reacts with the methane.

The thing about fossil fuels is that we are releasing C02 back into the atmosphere that was taken out of it millions of years ago. So levels of that are building up.

The most dangerous thing of all is to release stored methane (and C02) from the permafrosted wetlands in the northern latitudes, the tundra. Which will happen as these areas warm, even only slightly, thereby triggering an accelerating chain reaction.

Jayzesake

recedite wrote: »

Well this is an interesting one that you hear now and again. The methane from a cow has a stronger global warming effect than the CO2 from a car. So the small amount of methane from a cow does have nearly the effect of a car, though slightly less.

To relate these issues back to one of the central questions of this thread, population, here's an interesting way of looking at things arising from a study reported by the New York Times:

"Take, for example, a hypothetical American woman who switches to a more fuel-efficient car, drives less, recycles, installs more efficient light bulbs, and replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving models. If she has two children, the researchers found, her carbon legacy would eventually rise to nearly 40 times what she had saved by those actions."

(Kate Galbraith, 'Having Children Brings High Carbon Impact', NYT, Aug. 7, 2009.)

As a parent of two kids myself, I would be found guilty as charged. And the carbon footprint is only one of many ways that having children impacts negatively on the natural world.

But perhaps there's another possible angle to this: if only those people who are insensitive to the natural world have kids, wouldn't that guarantee that future generations care less and less about non-human life? I suppose the latter is true only to the extent that we manage to actually transmit a love of nature to our kids, which isn't always easy in a world stuffed with cheap disposable plastic toys, t.v., computer games, all sorts of other meaningless rubbish and, not least, peer pressure to conform all through the school years.

recedite wrote: »

The most dangerous thing of all is to release stored methane (and C02) from the permafrosted wetlands in the northern latitudes, the tundra. Which will happen as these areas warm, even only slightly, thereby triggering an accelerating chain reaction.

That's already happening at an alarming rate: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/30_months_h/

recedite

I would not agree with the 2 children thing though. Replacement rate is around 2.1 children I think, per childrearing family (to take account of those who don't have any) So at 2 children, that is still a declining population = a lowering CO2 emissions. This is the kind of situation they have in Japan, where there is very little immigration.

Jayzesake

Jayzesake wrote: »

As a parent of two kids myself, I would be found guilty as charged. And the carbon footprint is only one of many ways that having children impacts negatively on the natural world.

recedite wrote: »

I would not agree with the 2 children thing though. Replacement rate is around 2.1 children I think, per childrearing family (to take account of those who don't have any) So at 2 children, that is still a declining population = a lowering CO2 emissions.

So do you think it's time I stopped beating up on myself about my mispent irresponsible youth now?

robp

Desmo wrote: »

A cow has a much greater effect on the climate than a car and the productivity miracle relies heavily on fossil fuels. And what for? A global pyramid scheme to fuel economic success?

There are all sorts of surprises in living with a smaller footprint. How many people realise that having a pet dog is typically as bad as owning two SUVs. I don't think we have to give up meat forever but we do need to hugely reduce our use of meat and consume more responsibly.

robp

A lot has been said about Pope Francis' Encyclical "Laudato Si". So I think it is worth summing this up. Francis is calling for action. Urgent action. For example immediate commitment to less fossil use. Arguably he is rooting the call of "Laudato Si" in the Judaeo-Christian tradition of a cosmological view of the universe. He (I think) is saying that this view is something that is long established but neglected. But that is seen in Genesis, St Irenaeus, St Aquinas and so brilliantly in St Francis of Assisi. It is from the idea that this universe is a creation. If you have a keen sense of the creator then you have an equally keen sense of how everything is interconnected and how we all ontological siblings (in St Francis’s language Brother Sun and Sister Moon). In this view we are not here to master or control nature for its own sake. So this encyclical is a plea for stewardship. Although we must be deeply grateful for advances from science and technology if spirit of science and technology decouples us from our place in the order of the environment they are destructive.

Zoo4m8

robp wrote: »

There are all sorts of surprises in living with a smaller footprint. How many people realise that having a pet dog is typically as bad as owning two SUVs. I don't think we have to give up meat forever but we do need to hugely reduce our use of meat and consume more responsibly.

Interesting..how is owning a dog as bad as owning two SUVs ?

Jayzesake

robp wrote: »

Although we must be deeply grateful for advances from science and technology if spirit of science and technology decouples us from our place in the order of the environment they are destructive.

Interesting post, although I disagree with some of your points. If you think back to Galileo, his scientific advances demonstrated that the sun and everything else doesn't actually revolve around us, which was contrary to the church's position, i.e. that man is at the centre of the universe. So they threatened to burn him at the stake until he said he was wrong and they were right. Science is nothing more than an understanding of how things around us, our universe, works. There is no danger in that in itself, only in the fact that we as a species are often not mature enough to use it wisely.

We humans inherently tend to see our own species as occupying the centre of the universe: it's just the way we're hardwired I reckon. We are extremely self-obsessed, hyper-social animals, with most people relating their lives totally to comparisons with those of other people, and what they do and think (and wear, and drive, and earn, etc., etc.). For this prevailing way of seeing the world, everything, including all non-human life, exists only as a kind of a backdrop for us. It's called anthropocentrism (the opposite of which is biocentrism).

We really need to move in another direction, because this way of relating to the rest of our fellow 'Earthlings' has brought total devastation. I recently read somewhere that 95% of animal biomass on the planet (taking into account all animals over about 10kg, if I remember right) is accounted for either by human beings or our domesticates (cattle, sheep, goats, etc.), which are really just extensions of our species, from a wildthings perspective. The other approx. 5% is wildlife. That statistic just blew me away. (I'm sure some will now want to argue the validity of that exact stat., but it gives the general idea of the situation.) We have pushed and pushed and pushed, and are still pushing full throttle to drive out all wild things and make this entire planet serve only our needs.

The pope's encyclical is encouraging because it gives hope that the prevailing ethos across all sections of the global human population, that it's all just ours to do what we like with, might be beginning to change on a meaningful level.

recedite

Jayzesake wrote: »

So do you think it's time I stopped beating up on myself about my mispent irresponsible youth now?

I wouldn't comment on that, but there is nothing at all irresponsible in having 2 or 3 children and bringing them up well.
Having a lot more kids than that, and leaving the older ones to rear the younger ones, which is essentially what used to happen, and what would still happen if people still followed the Popes teaching, is a different matter and not a positive thing for society or for the environment.

Jayzesake

Jayzesake wrote: »

So do you think it's time I stopped beating up on myself about my mispent irresponsible youth now?

recedite wrote: »

I wouldn't comment on that

Just pulling your leg, recedite!

robp

Zoo4m8 wrote: »

Interesting..how is owning a dog as bad as owning two SUVs ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2009/11time_to_eat_the_pets.html

Its based on work by Robert and Brenda vale.

I don't think they have to be so expensive. Traditionally pets were fed on scraps and probably had a very small footprint but modern pets are not fed on scraps anymore.

Zoo4m8

Hmmm, gratified to see previously in this thread that a cow is more polluting than a car (sort of confirmed something I'd always suspected) even if it is a general purpose car....
Then to see that a dog is such a drain on the environment really made my day..I know a terminally smug couple who have two dogs one of which is a Mastiff, who give me some stick from time to time about my , em, transport arrangements, now I'll just (smugly) direct them to the Vale's book..
Seriously, couldn't open the link but did a bit of digging. I hope I'm correct in saying their argument is based on a vehicle running ethanol and even at that their reasoning appears suspect, I couldn't be bothered wading through their seemingly endless figures but judging from some reviews I'm not alone in my caution.
Anyway it's all grist for the mill and their angle on the debate makes for interesting if slightly incredulous reading..

Desmo

Zoo4m8 wrote: »

Hmmm, gratified to see previously in this thread that a cow is more polluting than a car (sort of confirmed something I'd always suspected) even if it is a general purpose car....
Then to see that a dog is such a drain on the environment really made my day..I know a terminally smug couple who have two dogs one of which is a Mastiff, who give me some stick from time to time about my , em, transport arrangements, now I'll just (smugly) direct them to the Vale's book..
Seriously, couldn't open the link but did a bit of digging. I hope I'm correct in saying their argument is based on a vehicle running ethanol and even at that their reasoning appears suspect, I couldn't be bothered wading through their seemingly endless figures but judging from some reviews I'm not alone in my caution.
Anyway it's all grist for the mill and their angle on the debate makes for interesting if slightly incredulous reading..

What it does all add up to is more people consuming more materials (driving more cars or having more pets or eating more meat etc.) and putting more strain on a planet that is showing serious signs of stress. The catholic church has always been vehemently against contraception for daft ideological reasons and just now we need some pragmatic and reasoned responses to global problems rather then theological ones.

recedite

robp wrote: »

How many people realise that having a pet dog is typically as bad as owning two SUVs.

Here's a link that actually works, debunking that nonsense.
The dog thing is based on energy consumption of a (large) dog compared to a car, and the amount of land needed to grow enough food to provide that energy.
Its not concerned with methane/ CO2 emissions and global warming, which the cow thing is based on.

Jayzesake

Desmo wrote: »

The catholic church has always been vehemently against contraception for daft ideological reasons and just now we need some pragmatic and reasoned responses to global problems rather then theological ones.

Agreed, but as I said earlier here the very positive aspects of the recent encyclical should be welcomed by all those of us who are concerned with the rapidly deteriorating state of the planet's life support systems. Particularly given the timing, just in advance of the Paris conference on climate change in December. We need all the allies we can get, and 1.2 billion is a number that shouldn't be knocked, even if there remain very important differences on other issues, such as contraception etc.

recedite

Here's the sort of thing that is likely to actually have some effect.
Unlike some vague platitudes from the Pope.
And no doubt the church will oppose the above measure.

Jayzesake

recedite wrote: »

Here's the sort of thing that is likely to actually have some effect.

I agree with you on that, and yes, the church - as well as the left - probably will oppose this type of thing. They, like 99.99% of people, see things from a primarily anthropocentric viewpoint, and take their cue from that.

But at the risk of becoming repetitive, overpopulation isn't the only, or even the main, issue of concern. Collapse of biodiversity, runaway habitat loss, the loss of a stable climate - and the repercussions the latter will have on wildlife, as well as us, are the principal worries. Even if all these issues - together with many others, including overpopulation - are of course directly linked. The encyclical directly addresses the global human assault on the natural world, both in the biosphere and the atmosphere, and urges 1.2 billion followers - about one sixth of the world population - to change their approach in this regard. And I repeat, this has happened in the immediate run-up to the crucial global conference on climate change in december, which many see as our last chance to avoid disaster.

The importance of this may may be lost on some, but not on the tea party faction of the U.S. Republican Party, who are livid, seeing it as a direct challenge from one of the biggest blocs in the world to their business-as-usual ideology regarding the exploitation of what they call "natural resources", or "natural capital". They may be fruitcakes, but they've copped the implications of the encyclical to a tee.

It is utterly beyond me how anyone concerned about the state of the natural world could see this development as irrelevant, just because the church hasn't changed its position on contraception. The English tories have an atrocious record - recently at least - on everything to do with wildlife and the environment, and yet you recedite (rightly) applaud the measures in your link because they may have some positive effect by slowing population increase. To me that seems contradictory to your very negative view of the pope's encyclical, to say the least.

recedite

I'm not negative towards the Popes talk, I'm indifferent (until I see some action)
I suggested earlier that he could introduce some environmental or energy conservation measures in the territory he controls; the Holy See/Vatican City.
Others suggested he could have a bigger influence by changing the church policy on contraception. As far as I can see, he intends to do neither.

I'm not a big Tory fan. I just pointed out that in this case (although probably not conceived for environmental reasons at all) the particular policy type would probably have a very real and positive environmental effect. That's the difference between talk and action.

Jayzesake

recedite wrote: »

(although probably not conceived for environmental reasons at all)

You're right: the motives appear to be purely a money saving exercise, combined with right-wing ideology.

recedite wrote: »

That's the difference between talk and action.

As I said here earlier, you never get action without it being preceded by a change in thinking (which comes in the form of talk). Putting solar panels on the roof of the vatican or being in favour of contraception are a very long way off being the only ways that the Catholic church can make a concrete difference, either positive or negative, to the state of the planet.

If the church says, as it has done for 2,000 years, that god made the natural world solely for humans to dominate, use and abuse as suits them, that gives free licence to all their followers to do just that without it going against their religious convictions. If, on the other hand, the church comes out and says that trashing the natural world is wrong (as it has done with this encyclical), all those followers are pushed into questioning their actions, and the impact that those actions have on the rest of the planet.

Bringing about positive changes in peoples' mass consciousness regarding the natural world is one of the most essential things right now, if the ongoing catastrophic damage is to be reduced or turned around.

Jayzesake

Here's an interesting article about how Catholic Peru, the country with the 4th most remaining tropical rainforest in the world, is deeply divided over the Pope's Encyclical:

http://news.mongabay.com/2015/09/perus-conundrum-a-popes-environmental-message-divides-his-people/