gilda_elise

"A powerful investigation into the chances for humanity's future from the author of the bestseller The World Without Us.

In his bestselling book The World Without Us, Alan Weisman considered how the Earth could heal and even refill empty niches if relieved of humanity's constant pressures. Behind that groundbreaking thought experiment was his hope that we would be inspired to find a way to add humans back to this vision of a restored, healthy planet--only in harmony, not mortal combat, with the rest of nature.

But with a million more of us every 4 days on a planet that's not getting any bigger, and with our exhaust overheating the atmosphere and altering the chemistry of the oceans, prospects for a sustainable human future seem ever more in doubt. For this long awaited follow-up book, Weisman traveled to more than 20 countries to ask what experts agreed were probably the most important questions on Earth--and also the hardest: How many humans can the planet hold without capsizing? How robust must the Earth's ecosystem be to assure our continued existence? Can we know which other species are essential to our survival? And, how might we actually arrive at a stable, optimum population, and design an economy to allow genuine prosperity without endless growth?"

Overpopulation is rarely addressed by environmentalists. It's the elephant in the room that everyone pretends isn't there. So it was refreshing to read a book that brings it to the forefront where it deserves to be. It's an unflinching look at what our numbers have done to the Earth—and ourselves.

The author writes of coming to an "Optimum population." But optimum population doesn't mean the maximum number that can be crammed onto the planet like industrial chickens; it's the number that the planet could sustain, while at the same time there being room enough for the rest of life. A recent study by biologists Paul Ehrlich and Gretchen Daily, using a scenario developed by Dr. John Holdren (Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology,) calculated that number to be two billion. But there was a catch.

In 1930, two billion people, the entire population of the planet, used two terawatts of power, slightly more than one kilowatt per person. But today, two billion people use six terawatts of power. And since we apparently can't do without our cellphones, televisions, computers, and such, Ehrlich and Daily offered another alternative: a billion and a half people, so that everyone could have four and three-quarters kilowatts.

The biggest problem to reaching that goal is, of course, people's inability to stop procreating at a pace that will soon outstrip the Earth's ability to feed us all. Not to mention everything else. Several examples are given, such as the plight of chimpanzees. Fifty years ago, there were 1.5 million chimpanzees across twenty-one African countries. Now, there are less than 300,000. With oil being developed in Uganda, there will soon be even less.

Another example. Because of both Israel's and Palestine's policies of encouraging explosive population numbers, wildlife is being pushed out of the narrow strip of land they both claim. Unfortunately, that strip of land is also the main route for billions of birds–280 different species—as they migrate between three continents. Should anything threaten the viability of this narrow corridor, it would affect far more than those two warring states. Birds are pollinators, seed spreaders, and insect eaters; without them, the ecosystems of much of Africa and Europe could possibly collapse.

The author feels that we can stop, that we can pull back from our spiraling overpopulation. Given the examples cited, the push back from both the religious community and big business, I'm inclined to doubt it.