SPRING EQUINOX 1996 - Issue Number 35
Human population growth is the single largest factor contributing to the loss of animal life, environmental degradation and global climate change. The human population is growing by approximately 95 million people per year. If current trends continue, human numbers will sail past 10 billion in the middle of the next century and reach 12-14 billion in the next hundred years. The quality of human life will certainly suffer. Since the mid-80's, the world's food production, on a per capita basis, has been decreasing. Other efforts to improve the quality of life are also losing ground to rapid population growth. As Sharon Pickett of Zero Population Growth has pointed out, "We're adding another Mexico to the planet every year; another China every ten years. All the problems we are trying to address in our society -- the environment, crime, hunger, housing -- all of them are related to population."
Furthermore, the impact of the human population on non-human life will be devastating. In fact, the outlook for non-human inhabitants of this planet is much worse. If animals have any future at all, it is a bleak one.
GOOD-BYE TO THE FORESTS?
The world's forests are being cut down at the rate of 40 million acres per year. As the size of a forest shrinks, not only does the number of animals it can support diminish, but the number of different species it can sustain decreases as well. Already, 40% of the world's forests are gone. In the next few decades, most of the remainder could be destroyed - and along with them, the majority of land-based animal life.
A similar process is occurring in the oceans. Between 1950 and 1990, the world's fish catch increased from 22 million tons to more than 100 million tons per year. Many of the major ocean fisheries have been depleted to the point of collapse, resulting in intensified fishing in remaining areas which in turn accelerates their depletion. Pollution from an increasingly urbanized population compounds the destruction: trillions of gallons of sewage, industrial waste, drilling muds, and chemical-laden run-off from agriculture enter the oceans each year. The result has been an enormous loss of marine life in coastal areas.
In the United States, both population growth and over-consumption contribute to environmental destruction. We have only 5% of the world's population but we use more then 25% of the world's commercial energy, drive 1/3 of the world's cars, and produce more garbage than any other nation. In fact, one American consumes as much of the world's resources as 30 people in developing countries. Viewed in this way, the United States may well be the most over-populated nation on earth - and our population is growing at the fastest rate of any industrialized nation. The rate of destruction could be reduced by better management and conservation--especially through less consumptive lifestyles of the world's richest one billion people.
At present, there are less then 5 acres of arable land per person on the planet. How much land is needed to grow the crops you eat, the clothes you wear, and to supply the energy you use? Add to that the land covered over to provide a place for you to live, to work, or to study, and roads to travel on. How much of your 5 acres is left over for the millions of other species that inhabit the earth? If human population reaches 12 billion, there will be less than two acres of arable land per person. How much of the earth's resources will be left to support non-human life?
Clearly, recycling, habitat protection and environmental protection can only do so much. The bottom line is this: to meet the needs of the growing population around the world, we may soon be diverting nearly all the earth's resources to human use. The rest of the planet's inhabitants will pay the price through massive extinction of species - already several thousand per year.
There is still time...
There is still time to stabilize the U.S. population, which is now more than 260 million. The U.S. is in the best position of any nation to provide an example for the world that we practice what we preach. Access to family planning services, better education and healthcare for children, and improving the status of women are all key factors needed to slow population growth. Worldwatch Institute estimates that the cost of providing these needed services to all "Third World" countries would be $13 billion per year - rising to $33 billion by the year 2000. That is about 1% of our global military spending and far less than the eventual cost of disaster relief if population growth is left unchecked.
To bring about more sustainable societies, we must also change our view of the world. Rather than viewing nature as a "resource" for human use, we need to see other species as rightful cohabitants of the living planet. Compassionate people can contribute much to fostering such an environmental ethic and a greater respect for all life.
Reprinted from Act'ion Line, the Friends of Animals' magazine, 777 Post Road, Darien, CT 06820, email: foa@igc.apc.org
Return to the Index of Synapse 35, Spring Equinox 1996