Overpopulation

In response to your comment on the Emergency contraception talk page about overpopulation being propaganda:

I'm assuming you are aware of the Green Revolution which dramatically increased food production and is the basis for many arguments that overpopulation is no longer a concern. And indeed, the world has experienced huge grain surpluses for many decades, and engages in wasteful practices such as raising animals exclusively on grain. There are arguments the U.S. in particular has deliberately sabatoged the agriculture of developing countries in order to have a market to dump our surplus grain as food "aid".

But realize the Haber-Bosch process was integral to the Green Revolution. The Haber process is entirely and completely dependent on natural gas. Natural gas is a non-renewable resource; the natural gas fields in North America reached maximum lifetime production levels a few years ago and I believe we will see the global peak within my lifetime (I'm 24).

The Green Revolution is also heavily dependent on pesticides derived from petroleum. And on tractors run on petroleum products. Petroleum, like natural gas, is a non-renewable resource. United States oil production peaked in 1971 and I believe the global peak will occur in the next 5-15 years.

The implications of increasingly scarce (and therefore more expensive) energy resources are far-reaching; however, I believe food is going to be the biggest one. Many people in the peak oil community believe we have greatly exceeded the carrying capacity of a world without cheap oil, and therefore billions of people are going to starve post-peak. While I personally am not such a "doomer", I do not dismiss overpopulation so lightly as to call it "propaganda". Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 14:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Lyrl,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. As you correctly point out, overpopulation is a concept which is configured in relation to resources. While I think ethanol, etc will prevent the post-green-revolution food shortage doomsday scenario, I'm not so sure we won't have one anyway after Monsanto is done registering the patents on all seed genes. :-)

But, regarding population and resources, that is the main criticism of pop orgs, really: countries with resources determine that countries with less resources are "overpopulated." Actually, since it takes 50x the resources for a first world person to live than a person in a developing country, the first world is grossly overpopulated in terms of resource consumption per person, and resources could be best conserved in terms of population if the first world drastically stopped reproducing in relation to the third world...and as long as resources are so inequitably distributed, it wouldn't matter if there were a surplus or deficiency--the third world will still lack resources in relation to population, because the problem is inequitable resource distribution, not population. The first world is outnumbered by the third world, and that's perceived as a threat, which could be very reductively summarized as: if they aren't kept desperately poor en masse, they have the numbers to rise up and demand a fair share of the world's resources. If the ratio by which they outnumber us gets bigger and bigger, they could rise up even if they are financially weak...

Cindery 22:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Ethanol is very nice is that it is physically possible to run a compact heat engine with renewable resources. No need to revert to huge wood-burning steam engines.

However, the fact that food is so dirt cheap we are willing to burn it (ethanol, corn burners, etc.) is a symptom of oversupply. Oversupply only exists because of inputs of non-renewable resources (natural gas for fertilizer, petroleum for pesticides/herbicides/tractors/transportation to market). When such non-renewable resources enter depletion, the food oversupply will end. When food is scarce, it will no longer make sense to burn it for fuel.

...Brazil's ethanol comes exclusively from sugarcane--not exactly a sustenance crop. As you point out, two things are true: there is currently an oversupply of food, and doomsday famines are the opinion of an extreme minority.

Actually, it's quite likely the U.S. in particular, with its "breadbasket", will continue to incenerate food in the name of maintaining our lifestyle. While the developing world starves en masse. This time, not because of political shenanigans (the current reason for malnutrition and starvation), but because there actually is not enough food.

The developing world ("Third World" is mildly controversial - see Third World) is not using resources conservatively because they are all tree huggers. They are using resources conservatively because they do not have access to resources. Those they do have access to, they overuse - see desertification#Historical and current desertification for one type of example. Developed countries also overuse "renewable" resources to the point of destruction - fishing is the prime example. Resource mismanagement is not a developing vs. developed country issue, it's a human nature issue. Also remember the trends exemplified by India and China: if the economies of developing countries improve, thus increasing their access to resources, their resource use profile approaches that of countries like the U.S. Solving the problem of inequitable distribution would not solve the problem of resource mismanagement.

..inequitable distribution is the problem--for example, we have an oversupply of food and yet people are starving. "First world uses 50x resources of third word" --I find it easier just to use shorthand vernacular when typing the terms over and over and over--is an argument made regarding the environmental impact of population. As far as resource management goes, the US could spend 200,000 on contraceptive aid to Africa and 6 million 800,000 thousand on helping Africa develop its unused natural resources---instead of 7 million on Norplant (which is what USAID spent alone in 1999) in order to assist with the "overpopulation" problem, which is not a problem with numbers of people but with insufficient resources per person.

All first world countries have birth rates below the replacement level (this is only true in the U.S. if you discount the high birth rate of immigrants). No developing country has a birth rate below the replacement level. I would say that the first world has already "dramatically stopped reproducing in relation to the third world." Or did you have something more drastic in mind ( VHEMT)?

The "population bomb" has already been throughly discredited--birthrates for all countries are way down since the 70s, and population projections for dev. countries are low.

Increasing human population pushes an already strained carrying capacity of the only planet known to support human life to or beyond its limits. While not denying the "threat" perceived by some members of developed countries by the population of developing countries, there are other less prejudiced reasons for targeting developing countries for contraception distribution.

Again, you seem to have absorbed the "population bomb" alarmism, which has been discredited. Treating population only as a human-numbers problem and not also as a resources problem isn't humanitarian (or logical). As in example given re Norplant to Africa in 1999, contraceptive aid could and should be a small part of foreign aid to Africa--not the sole focus of foreign aid to Africa. (Do you realize how much more US spent on Norplant for Africa than on condoms or other healthcare for Africa during AIDS epidemic???)

• Many health problems are caused by pregnancy. Pregnany too young, pregnancy too soon after the last one. In Sub-saharan Africa, 1 out of 16 women die of pregnancy complications [1]. Every year, tens or hundreds of thousands of women in the poorest countries develop the horrible condition of obstetric fistula. Poor maternal health means poor infant health and high infant mortality. Obviously better medical care is needed - but when funds are insufficient to provide all needed services, the best health improvements per money spent may be gained by increased contraceptive use.

That's a fundamental argument of pop-org critics--contraceptive aid should be part of healhcare aid--and the kinds of contraception being dropped on developing countries require healthcare.

• Women who are not spending all their time in childcare are better able to better their family situation. Reduced family size leads to increased education for women - if families only have enough money to send a few children to school, but have many children, they choose schooling only for boys. By many mechanisms, higher contraceptive use can enable families and societies to break the cycle of poverty.
• Because developing countries have the highest birth rates, increased contraceptive use there is going to have a much greater impact than increased contraceptive use in developed countries.

Actually, one of the developments that came out of the 1994 Cairo meeting was that the more education girls have, the fewer children they have, and feminists argued that spending more money on girls' education imrpoved life overall for women in dev. countries, ddin't just lower birthrate. Puny amounts of money are spent on this, but at least lipservice is paid to the idea. Women not spending all their time in childcare--in developing countries, children are wealth; they contribute to household work and care for their parents (in absence of Social Security, etc). One of the arguments against harmful methods of contracepion is that in developing countries, where he health impact of say, depo provera is much more severe, the incapacitation of women affects the whole family/family economy. Indian women who work in factories agitate against injectables because the health effects render them incapable of working.

There are at least two main issues you seem to have missed: 1. it's not contraception, it's the amount spent on contraception in relation to everything else 2. it's the kind of contraception--dumping cheap contraception with heinous health effects is worse for developing countries than no contraception at all

I oppose any instances of coerced contraception. But I do believe both education about and access to contraception is a fundamental human right. I think one should make a distinction between being opposed to abuses of international pro-contraception organizations (e.g. coercion), and being opposed to everything the pro-contraception movement does. Right now you're coming across to me as being against the existence of every international contraceptive program, which is a position I strongly disagree with. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 03:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Again, there's no need to spend 7 million dollars on Norplant (after it had known serious side effects in affluent people with healthcare access) in a country with a troubled population-to-resources ratio-- and far less on everything else. Cindery 05:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Here is a brief summary of major points in recent population criticism, which was widely circulated in press: [2] I also recommend Betsy Hartmann's book, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control Cindery 10:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I also advise reading criticism of the Green Revolution--many considered it a failure/it was never based on sustainable agriculture, but the surpluses it produced could have been produced by sustainable agriculture instead/ the surpluses resulted in debt for developing countries which caused hunger and starvation--but profit for American corps/ WHO's policy on Green was written by Cargill/etc. Here is recent paper from Foodfirst on the idea of having a second Green Rev (supported by American seed fertilizer companies) for Africa: [3] Cindery 11:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Brazilian ethanol and agricultural impact of peak oil

First, Brazil's ethanol production cannot be replicated in non-tropical countries - the high rainfall levels and year-round growing season are not found in most of the world. Even if the U.S. had such a climate over a significant portion of its land, per-capita gasoline consumption in the United States would have to drop dramatically to be supported by such a program. Anyone who thinks U.S. suburban commuter life is going to be saved by ethanol is seriously misinformed. [4]

Second, ethanol only addresses the liquid fuels aspect of increasing scarcity of oil. It does not address the increasing scarcity of petroleum-based pesticides and natural gas-derived fertilizer, and the impact this will have on world food production.

Use of "high-yield" crops with lots of fertilizer and irrigation results in higher outputs than any other system. Returning to locally adapted crops increases yield in situations with less available fertilizer and less available irrigation - but the total output is still lower than what farmers are currently doing.

Lowered yields in countries like the U.S. and India may actually help some farmers in developing countries because there will not be an international surplus to dump on the market and artificially lower prices. While this is great for long-term sustainability, in the short-term there will be huge disruptions as consumers are forced to pay realistic amounts of money for food.

In 1955, food cost was one-third of the average U.S. family's expenses [5]. It is much lower today, around 13% [6]. When food prices rise to reflect the actual (non-subsidized, non-dumping) cost of growing food without inputs from non-renewable resources - it will make much more sense for many people to grow their own food. Food costs will rise beyond their 1955 levels (at which time fossil fuels had been used in farming for several decades). De-urbanization will occur, as seen in the two countries that have had their fossil fuel supply cut off - Cuba and North Korea. Cuba obviously managed its resources better in this situation than North Korea did.

Teaching farmers how to farm better is one thing. Attempting to turn a largely urban population into a largely farming population is entirely another. And it is the second problem that I am afraid of. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 18:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Lyrl, you don't seem to have read foodfirst's criticism of the Green Revolution (note that fertilizers are not considered a good thing, and that Green Rev farming isn't sustainable per reasons beyond fuel--the land can't sustain Green Rev farming practices). Ethanol doesn't need to save suburban US commuter culture in its current state--who needs it; it's not sustainable either per global warming. Pay attention also to the "I am afraid of"--who shares this view, again?

Overpopulation debunked?

In response to 10 Reasons to Rethink ‘Overpopulation’:

The first argument seems to be that population is not the current cause of problems traditionally attributed to it.

I absolutely agree. My point is not that population pressures are currently causing the problems of the world, but rather that population is going to become the driving problem after peak oil.

I agree with the article that well-managed resources can support a much larger population at a higher standard of living than poorly-managed resources.

However, that does not have any relevance to the fact that well-managed resources can provide a higher standard of living to smaller populations than to larger populations relying on the same well-managed resources. This is not currently an issue with our use of non-renewable resources (current issue is entirely resource mismanagement as they discuss). However, population will become an issue as those non-renewable resources enter depletion.

Their second line of argument appears to be that the specter of overpopulation fosters the mindset behind wasteful and outright abusive practices in population control programs.

Again, I think they (and you) have a good point. It is critical that all countries and U.N. agencies create better resource management programs, as well-managed resources can support a much larger population at a higher standard of living than poorly-managed resources. It is undeniable that better resource management has been inadequately addressed, in large part because of the focus on population. But again, that does not have any relevance to the fact that well-managed resources can provide a higher standard of living to smaller populations than to larger populations relying on the same well-managed resources. The problems of population and resource management are intertwined.

I feel like Food First Policy Brief No.12 actually supports my point of a coming food scarcity:

high-yielding varieties are actually high-feeding varieties that over time mine the... soils... of their natural fertility, requiring higher and higher applications of fertilizer. This eventually degrades those soils, leading to extensive erosion. Given the end of cheap oil, and the inevitable explosion of fertilizer costs, what kind of future does the Green Revolution really offer...? (bolding mine)

This does not just apply to poor farmers, it applies to every farmer in developed countries, too. Peak oil will cause a decline of agricultural productivity everywhere in the world.

In the Punjab—home of the Green Revolution—nearly 80% of groundwater is now “overexploited or critical”. This draw down may be irreversible. Because most of these grains are exported, the hydrological result of the Green Revolution packages is the sacrifice of India’s ancient aquifers.

Significant portions of the U.S. farmlands are likewise unsustainably irrigated with groudwater. When an aquifer is overexploited, it may collapse. Meaning it can never be refilled - thus the comment about "irreversible" draw down. The Ogallala aquifer, for example, is of just as significant a concern in the U.S. as are the groundwater resources in India.

Their examples of the problems associated with loss of biodiversity are mainly drawn from the U.S. Again, some of the major problems of the Green Revolution are not specific to developing countries - they are going to bite U.S. in the behind, also.

I really hope the model outlined in the rest of the paper is implemented. Both in developing countries, and also right here at home. I agree it is a wonderful example of better resource management that will help mitigate the problem of agricultural dependence on non-renewable resources, and also help rectify the social and environmental problems imposition of Green Revolution technology on the developing world has caused.

But it does not address at all the issue that worldwide agricultural productivity is going to decrease. Teaching farmers how to farm better (the main topic of this paper) is one thing. Taking a huge population of city folks and attempting to turn them into farmers - what is going to be required in a post-peak world - is entirely another. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 18:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be missing that since we currently have a surplus--created by the destructive ans unsustainable GR farming practices--that a decrease in agricultural productivity is not therefore a bad thing. You haven't convinced me that the end of unsustainable farming will result in famine--please provide reliable sources stating that this is a prominent POV. GR farming is not sustainable with or without oil & gas--if it scares US citizens that their current lifestyle is not sustainable, and that that might become apparent in their lifetimes, so what?

Cindery 01:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

A POV has to be prominent to be valid? And how prominent is the view that hormonal contraception is "heinous"? I don't think either one of us is in a position to be criticising the other for holding minority views. As far as simply "who shares this view" I can certainly give you an incomplete list

• Wolf at the Door: Agriculture
• Fifty Million Farmers
• Threats of Peak Oil to the Global Food Supply
• Life After the Oil Crash

Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 02:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That Norplant, Depo Provera, Dalkon Shield were harmful is not a minority view. (I haven't mentioned hormonal contraception in general, or the pill--but the official position of the National Women's Health Network is against the birth control pill--that would be a minority view, but quite a significant and reliable one, with adherents. Note that Susan Wood is on the board of directors. Alice Wolfson's positon is that anything other than barrier methods as long as HIV is a risk is "criminal.") Cindery 02:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

..and: none of your sources are making the arguments you're making. They're all saying: conventional industrial farming--dependent on fossil fuels and chemical fertilizers-- is not sustainable, hence a transition has to be made. Better that it be made early enough; transition isn't happening fast enough. None argue that adequate food can't be produced after transition away from unsustainable farming. (They also note the waste inherent in food processing--7x the energy to produce a box of processed ceral than the cereal provides in energy; 3/4 of the food consumed by americans is processed food.) The only mention of population states that improving the economic status of women in developing countries is a good idea--not impoverishing them via the world bank and then dumping norplant on them while they have no healthcare. The point of the sources is: conventional industrialized farming and food proecessing is not sustainable. Farming and food processing have to change. The transition isn't happening fast enough, but can and must be made. The leap from that to: "an unremediable undersupply of food will occur, therefore developing countries are overpopulated" is not made. Even the "doomsday" scenario: a lapse in the transition-- due to irresponsibility of developed nations--will result in temporary food shortage, is a problem that will affect developed nations, not developing nations, as the developing nations already don't have adequate food. (Nor do a significant proportion of poor American households--so, a temporary food shortage cause by industrial farming practice will result in affluent people experiencing the hunger now only experienced by the poor--which is not an argument to pre-emptively get rid of more poor people, but to transition away from industrial/petrochemical farming faster for the benefit of the affluent. The alarmism seems to come in where suburban americans are horrified by the idea of no more Fruit Loops and Big Macs, no more DDT and joyriding in SUVs. Bummer!--but not for Africa and Bangladesh... Cindery 03:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Agricultural impact of peak oil in developing countries

Conventional industrial farming is practiced almost everywhere in the world. Including in developing countries. Larger farmers in developing countries - who produce most of the food - use conventional industrial farming techniques. Large numbers of the smaller farmers have been driven out of business (point 5 in the Food First article).

Developing countries also lack the resources to teach the remaining small farmers how to transition away from dependence on non-renewable resources (point 6 in the Food First article), much less to reintroduce urbanized populations to farming. Food First states that it will take substantial policy and institutional changes, as well as strategic philanthropic support from visionaries who will dare to put their millions in the hands of progressive social movements. Millions of dollars needed to transition developing countries' farming practices. Not likely to be available while the affluent are mourning their Fruit Loops. And it's not like these countries won't be having other problems to deal with.

While the Food First paper cites a large number of promising programs, there is simply not enough time for them to be implemented. They will take decades to convert a significant portion of the developing world, and the agricultural oversupply is not going to last for decades.

While in the long term declining agricultural production of countries like the U.S. will benefit farmers and economies in developing countries, right now huge numbers of people are dependent on imported grain for survival. Food aid was given to over 96 million people in 2006, 50 million of them in Africa [7]. The U.S. has such an enormous food surplus that even with reduced production it will almost certainly be able to feed itself. But people in developing countries expecting to receive food aid will be out of luck.

A temporary food undersupply will occur. Developing nations will be less able to cope than developed ones. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 16:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Now you're crossing over the line into hubris. (You're not a Harvard or Oxford professor of demography...let alone Nostradamus--easy on the authoritative proclamations. :-) Perhaps also useful to keep in mind that Paul Erlich prophesied in 1968 that tens of millions of people would starve by the mid 1980s--and largely as a justification for compulsory population control. That's what I find disturbing--the historically persistent tendency towards half-baked alarmism (as a justification for prejudice and injustice). Keep in mind also that countries full of starving people exported food at the same time hunger was a problem during the "surplus", in order to meet debt obligations, and every cent in "food aid" that Africa gets is subtracted by US-backed World Bank policies. (Less than 1% of the US budget is foreign aid to anywhere...the "agricultural oversupply" has never supported Africa; US is holding exploitative debt that's worth far more than the "food aid" it sends...) Cindery 16:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

An interesting comment I found related to starving countries exorting their food:

An agricultural scientist in the biofuels industry spoke last month at our university. He theorized that the principal problem with peak oil will be food production. He said that biofuel technology will get so efficient and cheap that we will wonder why we didn't start looking to sugar cane and palm oil for our fuel needs decades ago. He argued that deforestation and the diplacement of food crops to produce biofuel will be the most critical humanitarian crisis in the developing world in the coming decades. He predicted that despots would rise to power in the developing world and would grow rich off the proceeds of palm oil biodiesel while thousands starved because farmland had been reappropriated. An interesting twist on the "doomer" perspective from someone in the ag business. [8] (scroll down to comments section)

Not all "prophesies" have failed to come true. In 1972 the book Limits to Growth forcast that growth would end approximately 2015. The 2004 update sticks to that prediction. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 16:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: "Limits"--all the neo-Malthusian scare books of the late 60s and early 70s have the credibility of Nixon--who also believed in them. Or maybe astrology. Somewhere between Nixon and astrology...

Re: "interesting comment"--I just don't read crackpot blogs. (Except maybe Gawker. That's more of a commerical tabloid than a crackpot blog, though, I guess...) Cindery 18:16, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Food aid is absolutely bad for Africa's economies. It should never have been implemented so poorly, and in any case most countries should have been trasitioned off it a long time ago. Nevertheless, I have not seen any argument that having food aid suddenly cut off could result in anything but short-term starvation. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs

What's bad for Africa's economies is the US/World Bank/IMF--Sub-saharan Africa is a massive 272 billion dollars worse off because of "free" trade policies forced on it as a condition of receiving aid and debt relief: [9]

And since the US provides the least in foreign aid in relation to its GNP than any industrialized nation, I'm sure Japan and the EU would send food aid to Africa if all Americans felt as you do. Happily, that's not the case--polls show that 70% of American's are in favor of sending more aid to Africa. Maenwhile, actual development aid to Africa is needed in addition to food aid, as Tony Blair keeps telling Bush. (Paul Erlich shared your view, though, that food aid is a bad thing--in additon to advocating compulsory population control, he advocated letting "other people" starve.) Cindery 18:16, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, you believe non-renewable resources are never going to run out. I'm a crackpot. Got it. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 01:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

That's a straw man argument, and it's painfully obvious. I never said non-renewable ressources aren't going to run out, as you are aware. What's being disputed is several leaps in logic you have made to a view which no one shares. (A change from unsustainable farming will therefore result in a temporary food shortage, which will affect developing countries more than undeveloped countries, which therefore makes them overpopulated. Your self-righteosness and alarmism are also not shared by anyone. I think if you stubbornly hold an irrational extreme minority view, it may be time to agree to disagree--as long as you understand that, for the purposes of any article, your views are uncitable original reseach.) Cindery 04:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• A change from unsustainable farming will result in lowered agricultural productivity in the areas of the world that currently produce the most grain.
• Lowered productivity does not necessarily mean food shortage. There are many obvious ways to counter decreased production: increased acreage being farmed, decreased wastefullness such as animal product consumption, victory gardens, etc. However, these measures take time to implement - land has to be transferred, farmers and gardeners have to be trained, people who feel they have a "right" to eat meat will be reluctant to decrease consumption, etc. If the transition is not smooth, temporary shortages are possible.
• Farming practices in the largest grain exporting countries are currently heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Because grain is a commodities market, increased production costs do not cause increased sale prices. But at a certain price point, farms will begin going out of business or converting to sustainable practices. A gradual increase past this price point will most likely result in a gradual conversion to sustainable practices (ideally over several decades). A sudden increase will most likely result in a sudden (less than one decade) decrease in land production as farms go out of business.
• Because we are near the point of fossil fuel production going into decline (natural gas in North America, and petroleum worldwide), it is reasonable to expect a sudden increase in prices.

Food production is a complex activity. My prediction of what will happen to it in the next decade is based on a large number of factors. You have not to this point addressed any of them (to reference only the portion of the argument above, possible points of debate are 1)lowered agricultural productivity as a result of moving away from conventional practices, 2)time factor involved societal adjustment to lowered commercial production, 3)response of agribusinesses to cost-of-business increases, 4)nearness of peak oil, 5)effect of peak oil on market prices of petroleum). If you are interested in addressing these factors, I find it an interesting topic to discuss.

If you are not interested in actually addressing them, but only in making vague unsupported statements about "no credibility", and hurtful accusations of wishing people would starve, then I won't waste the time of either one of us by typing out more of the argument. Agreeing to disagree sounds very peaceful. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 00:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Lyrl, I'm sorry, but you don't know enough about sustainable farming for it to be an interesting disussion for me to have for the sake of it--you seem to think the Green Revolution is "news," and you'd never heard very common criticism of GR viz sustainability, re fertilizers, soil damage etc. I'm also not going to discuss your "predictions" with you further--I tried to gently point out--"who shares this view, again?"--that it's an extreme minority view, and then I more firmly pointed out that you're not Nostradamus or a demographer, and that Erlich's "population bomb" alarmism about people starving is a recurrent phenomenon (people have been saying the world is overpopulated and doom is nigh since the Romans) and that it has been both abused as an argument for population control and thoroughly discredited. I'm sorry you thought it was "hurtful" that I pointed out that Erlich advocated letting people starve--I found your comment that most countries "should have been transitioned off of food aid" very disturbing, especially in combination with your shared conviction with Erlich that "overpopulation" exists. You are, again, making untenable leaps in logic to come to your view of "therefore, overpopulation," and unlike the late 60s and early 70s, you're not even in a crowd of others with the wrong idea. I find that scary and sad, as I have always thought of you as mostly rational. Cindery 01:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Why would I argue with you about something I agree with (GR not sustainable, environmental damage, etc.)?
• "Majority belief = truth" is a logical fallacy ( Argumentum ad populum). My professional training does not ipso facto make my opinions outside the area of heat treatment automatically invalid, just like it does not make my decisions on carburizing processes automatically correct (that would be another logical fallacy - Appeal to authority). Stating that my belief is invalid because it superficially shares characteristics with theory systems that have been proven false is an association fallacy.
• The implication that I was in favor of letting people starve was (is!) hurtful. My belief is that more money should have been spent increasing the resource management of communities and making countries self-sufficient to the point where they did not need food aid ("transitioning off"), rather than providing them with food in such a way that they are now dependent on it and vulnerable to supply shortages in the international grain market (which would result in them being "cut off").

I have explained my position in sufficient detail that it could be debated - and even pointed out a number of places where I could be wrong! You have not offered such debate. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 01:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• If you have a view no one else shares, perhaps it is not everyone else who is wrong (and you cannot reasonably expect anyone to have endless patience or desire to discuss it with you).
• I think it's your attitude re "they should have been transitioned" that made me think that--you don't seem to get that Africa is being ripped off to the tune of 272 billion dollars--it's not thst Africa is poorly managing its resources; Africa is being robbed. Before development aid to Africa could begin to make a diff, the exploitative "free" trade policies would have to end. "They should have been transitioned" has arrogance and victim-blaming, a lack of understanding of the situation in total (esp. because you cliamed that food aid was "bad for Africa's economy," and I pointed out what is actually bad for Africa's economy and it didn't give you pause.

Cindery 11:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

It's entirely possible I'm wrong. I'm wrong with decent (though hopefully decreasing!) regularity at work, and certainly my husband wins his fair share of arguments. But the knowledge that I am fallible is not in and of itself sufficient to change my mind. Nor is the knowledge that I'm part of a minority. My mind changes for logical reasons and factual arguments only ;)

I certainly can't expect you to continue the discussion. Feel free to put me on ignore any time. I don't have plans to discourage your conversation, though, either :)

My main reading on developing countries and ongoing, non-emergency food aid has been on the topic of food dumping [10]. The criticisms of food dumping practices share a number of similarities with your criticisms of World Bank loans (a topic I have not read about). The similarities led me to believe these were highly related topics, acting synergistically to hurt development in places like Africa. The topics got conflated in my mind, I assumed your good knowledge of international aid program funding meant you were also familiar with the practice of food dumping, and I, well, you know what assuming does. I apologize. It took me a while to sort out what a logical mess I had made with that aid statement, thus the delay in my apology. I apologize for the delay also.

"They should have been transitioned" is certainly arrogant, though my blame target was the international development programs, not their victims. I see how it could have been interpreted so, with my poor comment about food aid.

Resources throughout the world, including in Africa, but also pretty much everywhere else, are being mismanaged. Many countries in Africa are, through no fault of their own, having their resources mismanaged for them by outside sources. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 03:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Bad contraception worse than none at all?

This statement caught my eye: dumping cheap contraception with heinous health effects is worse for developing countries than no contraception at all. I was curious if you had a source that developed that argument further? Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 18:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the Barbara Ehrenreich essay on Depo and the Dalkon Shield is an excellent explication of the idea that bad contraception is worse than none at all.

Meanwhile, do you have a source for this?:

when funds are insufficient to provide all needed services, the best health improvements per money spent may be gained by increased contraceptives

(Not even UNFPA, since the 1994 Cairo Consensus, says anything like that--many agreements which came out of Cairo are not followed, and criticism persists. But following Cairo, there was at least international agreement that coercion and quotas should go, money should be spent on girls' education, that contraception should be part of healthcare, which is equally important.)

Cindery 02:00, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Even the Ehrenreich paper [11] says Pharmaceutical company spokespeople, officials of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) and representatives of private population control agencies stood up one after another to advance the "humanitarian" defense of the double standard. Because the risks of dying in childbirth are so much greater in the Third World than in the United States, they asserted the use of almost any contraceptive is justified. That argument has certainly been made by prominent people. Ehrenreich herself does not even dispute the implication that even problematic contraception is better than none at all, but rather argues that women deserve better than American contraceptive rejects.

..it seems to have gone completely over your head that Ehrenreich is reaming them with heavy sarcasm for making such irrational and hypocritical pronouncements, and exposing the hypocrisies/irrationalities which population controllers openly stated before Cairo Consensus. (The rightwing nutjob who was high up at FHI, in favor of quinacrine, and wrote the endless screed about how the Catholic Church is threatening US national security by opposing contraception was the last person to publicy make that argument, which was answered with utter contempt. As in, if the possibility of dying in childbirth is so high, and we must prevent it by any means necessary, wouldn't it be more expedient to just kill everyone to prevent maternal mortality?)

Here it says “Quick Wins” are actions that save lives at modest cost. At the top of the "Quick Wins" list is contraception.

You seem to have overlooked several very important observations from the report on Albania:

1. the main problem in Albania is mismanagment/disorganization of aid money;the money is managed so badly that available money is not being used:

This can be applied to the management of aid to Albania. For example, aid organizations pledged $4.28 billion from 1991 to 2003, but only $2.9 billion, or 65 percent of the committed amount was used.

“Good governance is a condition for guaranteeing opportunities to have social and economic impact,” said Minister Malaj. “[There is] much to do in this context, ensuring more public revenue from the economy, and domestic revenue. Partnership is at the centre of all the policies, realized by government institutions, but also all stakeholders. There is a need to have a broader debate on development policies, more transparency.”

“International donors are not coordinated among themselves,” said Mayor Rama. “If MDG eight is the development of Global Partnerships – the premise is that those who are better off should help those who are worse off - with greater coordination, the energies and financial resources given to Albania could have much bigger results. It is indispensable that we have shared common goals.”

2. The "quick wins" are Albanian-specific, and secondary to using available money:

In Albania, the resources required to halve the number of people living in poverty amounts to $21.14 billion for the period of 2000 to 2015. Albania received $342 million in ODA for 2003. At this level of assistance, the ODA would have to increase to 5.5 times the current annual amount and be sustained for 12 years to achieve the MDGs by 2015.

However, if governance and donor coordination are improved and Albanian-relevant “quick wins” implemented, the amount needed to achieve the MDGs will be reduced.

3. The report does not make the argument that contraception is a higher value than health care, it only states two areas of healthcare in Albania which could be expanded, and includes contraception in "sexual and reproductive health information and services," which is a category which includes all maternal/child health programs funded by UNFPA, i.e., all their "safe motherhood" programs--it makes the opposite assertion you're making--"quick wins" involves safe motherhood and access to contraception, not contraception over safe motherhood.

“Quick Wins” are actions that save lives at modest cost, says the Report. Recommendations that are relevant to Albania include:

• Expanding access to sexual and reproductive health information and services, including family planning and contraceptive information and services, and closing existing funding gaps for supplies and logistics;
• Expanding the use of proven drug combinations for AIDS and tuberculosis;

Cindery 05:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I did not intend my statement to be exclusive of everything other than contraception. In a low-contraceptive-use country, increased contraceptive use is one of the cheaper ways (but not the only cheaper way!) to acheive significant health improvements. I don't think we're actually arguing against each other here, just stating the same thing in different ways.

I'm still curious to see a source that explicitly states that certain forms of contraception are "worse than none at all." I have only seen the argument that we should be providing better contraception (which does not necessarily have to be more expensive - withdrawal, LAM, FA, and SDM are all not only effective, but cheap). But I'm getting the impression that you believe we should disband the international population organizations, and I'm just interested in more information on that viewpoint. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 15:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

What you said, verbatim, is: when funds are insufficient to provide all needed services, the best health improvements per money spent may be gained by increased contraceptives--which disturbed me because I recognized it as 1) pre-Cairo justifications for contraceptive dumping 2) a bias which persists in low-grade media and US highschool social studies textbooks. The specific context for your statement was contraception vs. adequate healthcare regarding maternal mortality. So yes, we are arguing against each other, unless you'd like to retract that. Contraception can be used to lower maternal mortality caused by abortion. Safe motherhood/other healthcare can be used to lower maternal mortality from pregnancy and childbirth. Contraception is not advocated to lower maternal mortality from pregnancy and childbirth--the causes of maternal mortality from childbirth and pregnancy are not childbirth and pregnancy itself, they are inadequate nutrition and prenatal care, etc. You also made the statement in the general context of population and development. So no, given poverty--"insufficent funds to provide all needed services"--contraception does not give the best per-dollar health improvement. That implies that eliminating people is the solution to eliminating poverty. As you can see from UN strategy for Albania, the solution to poverty is resources.

(Albania--like some other Eastern European countries, and some parts of the former Soviet Union--has free abortion on demand, and provides less contraception; abortion is used as contraception. The most common form of abortion in Albania is D&C--which has a higher mortality rate than contraception or suction abortion. So providing more contraception to Albania could result in less abortion mortalities, and reduce the use of abortion as contraception. The rationale for providing more contraception to Albania is not to reduce maternal mortality from pregnancy and childbirth, but to reduce mortality from abortion.)

Re: certain forms of contraception are "worse than none at all"--yes, it's obvious that the Dalkon Shield was worse than nothing at all--if contraception kills, it's worse than nothing; it decreases rather than increases quality of life for the user, obviously--but also her family and her society. The use of Depo by doctors accompanied by soldiers in East Timor was worse than nothing at all, according to the Yale Genocide Project. (And Mojo: [12]

As the Hampshire program on pop-dev points out, there has been an over-emphasis on the pop-orgs providing Norplant and Depo in developing countries. Norplant and Depo have more serious side effects and risks than other forms of contraception--side effects and risks which are more severe for women without sufficent nutrition or access to healthcare. They also do not protect against HIV. The emphasis on them reflects population control, not "humanitarian" reproductive freedom: driving down population through provider-controlled methods, no matter what it does to women's health. Cindery 17:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Forced contraception - like that in East Timor - is worse than nothing at all. I stated at the outset of this discussion my opposition to forced contraception.

What I was curious about was if specific types of voluntary contraception, in the context of developing countries, was worse than none at all. If the international population agencies have engaged in systematic coerced contraception, that would also serve to turn my opinion against them. Currently, I'm only aware of China's reproductive rights abuses, as well as cases of smaller ethnic wars such as that in East Timor, not from the international groups.

• Here, for example is why women's groups and doctors oppose depo in India: [13]

• You seem to have missed that the forced use of Depo in East Timor was by a World Bank funded program (and that the Bank refused comment)

• The most recent forced sterilization scandal was in Peru, with USAID funding: [14]

From Saving the Lives of Mothers and Newborns, a publication of "Save the Children", The three most effective interventions for future mothers are education, nutrition and access to modern contraceptives... family planning saves the lives of mothers and babies by enabling women to avoid pregnancy when they are too young or too old, and to space their births at healthy intervals. Page 15 is headed by a chart titled Where more women use family planning, fewer newborns die. In the context that delayed first pregnancy and increased birth spacing decrease both maternal and infant mortality and morbidity, increased contraceptive usage is one of the main ways (but certainly not the only one!) in which lives are saved. It's not about reducing the number of people - decreased mortality may very well result in more people, despite lower pregnancy and birth rates. It's about increasing health.

Increased contraceptive usage may or may not result in the most per-dollar health benefits; it would depend on the specific situation of the country. Though ideally the question would never have to be answered exactly, as hopefully aid is both sufficient and managed carefully enough to provide a spectrum of services.

There's a big difference between contraception as a choice in total healthcare, and maternal mortality from childbirth and pregnancy as the justification for bad contracpetion on a "humanitarian" argument. See analysis of Mumford's argument-for-quinacrine: [15]

All women who desire contraception deserve the best contraceptive for them, whatever that may be. It's wrong that they have to choose only from what political shenanigans have to offer them, and that effective, traditional methods like withdrawal have been deliberately campaigned against by population programs. But in low-contraceptive use countries without sufficient health care, increases in any form of contraception are going to lower maternal and infant mortality. Were the number of death from Dalkon Shield greater than the number of lives saved by it? I don't think it's a clear-cut question with a black-and-white answer.

No, there is a black and white answer: giving contraception which can kill to healthy people because they might die from something else is not ok. As I tried to explain, if you hold that view, you are in an extreme minority with Mumford; not even the pop orgs would openly side with you post-Cairo. (For Dalkon, as Ehrenreich pointed out, we will never know ho many women died in developing countries--we can only guess based on the number of unsterilized Shields sent.)

Contraceptive programs have been mismanaged, and women deserved (and deserve) better. But I'm more of the view (with the information I currently have) that these programs could have, and should have, helped more, rather than they have not helped at all. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 01:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Ideas for reform of international family planning orgs should not be conflated with the orgs themselves--i.e., the possibilty that they could distribute better contraceptives, and advocate a true range of oprions does not mean that they can't be criticized for distributing bad contraceptives, in alliance with pharmaceutical orgs they took bribes from, to further the political intersests of countries which funded them. As you point out, they advocate against the withdrawl method (which in combination with any kind of FA is not a bad method. It is however, impossible to profit from and not provider-controlled. It's also already practiced, which gives the lie to the need for more contraceptive "acceptors" strictly on the basis of how many use of chemical/hormonal methods.) Cindery 05:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Is giving a vaccine which can kill healthy people who might die of an illness not ok? What if a less risky, more expensive version is available (for example injectable polio, expensive, vs. oral polio, which is banned in the U.S. but used throughout the developing world)? Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 22:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Lyrl, you don't seem to have read the bioethical analysis of Mumford 's completely untenable position(Not to mention that you're undeterred by Ehrenreich and the UN..) In the case of vaccines there's no alternative; in the case of the Dalkon Shield there were nothing but alternatives. It's a morally reprehensible position to argue that a form of contraception which killed people, in a more lethal form--unsterilized--was justified because 500,000 women a year die from pregnancy or childbirth which can be prevented by nutrition and prenatal care. I'm not going to repeat this again, and frankly, I've lost a lot of respect for you. Cindery 00:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by "no alternative to vaccines"? Sanitation, sanitary practices, and improved nutrition reduce infection rates more than vaccines do. Nobody ever died from drinking water not contaminated by feces, washing their hands frequently, or eating more veggies. People die every year from vaccine reactions. Not to mention your lack of response to the injectable vs. oral polio vaccine issue.

While I think vaccines save huge numbers of lives, it's more complicated than "no alternative".

Mumford was driven by an "us against them" view of overpopulation that I think was false and counterproductive. Amoung his many unsavory practices was promotion of forced contraception, which I have twice before explicitly stated my opposition to. Why you continue to believe that I favor misguided "humanitarian" programs that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the impoverished is not something I'm understanding.

Have I ever stated that international distribution of the Dalkon Shild was justified? Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 01:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm losing patience with the just-barely-past-undergraduate semantic argumentativeness--vaccines to prevent specific diseases are not comparable to birth control to prevent maternal mortality. You don't seem to have read the bioethical analysis of Mumford whereby it is clearly explained that the pregnancy would have to be unwanted--birth control does not prevent maternal mortality from a wanted pregnancy. Birth control as a public health measure to reduce maternal mortality from unwanted pregnancies is a byproduct of birth control use--only nutrition and medical care prevent maternal mortality from pregnancies- in- progress. First, you cited Ehrenreich's denouncement of pharma reps who defended sending the Shield, then you claimed "Were the number of deaths from Dalkon Shield greater than the number of lives saved by it? "--which is morally reprehensible. An obscene number of unsterilized Dalkon Shields were sent to third world countries after sterilized shields were known to maim and kill. (500,000 women a year in 2005 die from pregnancy/childbirth. More than 500,000 unsterilized shields were sent in 70s, if that helps you figure it out.) They were sent to reduce the population and make money for the pharma company, not to reduce maternal mortality. The post-facto justification was a phony "humanitarian" argument, which is untenable: maternal mortality from pregnancy and childbirth is only preventable by nutrition and medical care. Birth control offers reproductive choice, and may as a byproduct prevent maternal mortality from unwanted pregnancy before it occurs. There are many kinds of birth control which do not kill or adversely affect women's health, therefore no method of birth control which kills is justifiable, especially not in a form--unsterilized--which is guaranteed to kill in large numbers. Cindery 12:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I think there are a number of points we agree on (and have agreed on from the start, though I think my argument style has muddied the waters). Please verify if I'm interpreting our conversation correctly:

• Forced or coerced contraception is always wrong
• Providing contraception only because it benefits pharmaceutical companies, rather than because it is the best choice for the woman, is wrong
• Services such as pre-natal care, basic health care in general, and nutrition aid are fundamental to reducing maternal and infant mortality in developing countries to levels comparable to developed countries.
• Saving lives cannot be used alone as justification for an action. The risk/benefit profile of the proposed action must be weighed against the risk/benefit profile of alternative actions.

Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 03:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Notes to myself on peak oil and food production

More food for thought from Global Nitrogen: Cycling out of Control:

Food grown with nitrogen fertilizers feeds an estimated 2 billion people worldwide. Areas including Asia are becoming increasingly dependent on such fertilizers.

Human production of reactive nitrogen is currently estimated to be about 170 Tg per year, write Galloway and colleagues in the BioScience review, and the global use of nitrogen fertilizers is increasing by about 15 Tg per year. The ratio of anthropogenic to natural reactive nitrogen creation is likely to increase with population increases, Galloway says. More mouths to feed will require both more reactive nitrogen fertilizers in the ground and the clearing of unspoiled, nitrogen-fixing lands to make farmland.

Nitrogen fertilizers can take credit for reductions in starvation and malnutrition in many parts of the world, especially in Asia in the last decade... "for at least a third of humanity in the world's most populous countries the use of [nitrogen] fertilizers makes the difference between malnutrition and adequate diet."

That particular article does not address the issue of peak natural gas, but notice how it claims that increasing - not steady - rates of natural gas usage (via fertilizer) are necessary to feed the current human population. What happens when annual global rates of natural gas production levels off? Then starts falling? And that doesn't even address the more immediate issue of petroleum inputs to agriculture.

I think eventually it will be a big boon to the vegetarian movement in the West ("Meatless Fridays - Save grain for the starving children of Asia!"), but too late for millions of people currently living on the edge of malnutrition/starvation.

More directly to the point from Global Population and the Nitrogen Cycle:

The world’s population now has enough to eat (on the average) because of numerous advances in modern agricultural practices. But human society has one key chemical industry to thank for that abundance— the producers of nitrogen fertilizer.

The combination of recycling human and animal wastes along with planting green manures can, in principle, provide annually up to around 200 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare of arable land. The resulting 200 to 250 kilograms of plant protein that can be produced in this way sets the theoretical limit on population density: a hectare of farmland in places with good soil, adequate moisture and a mild climate that allows continuous cultivation throughout the year should be able to support as many as 15 people. In practice, however, the population densities for nations dependent on organic farming were invariably much lower. China’s average was between five and six people per hectare of arable area during the early part of this century. During the last decades of purely organic farming in Japan (which occurred about the same time), the population density there was slightly higher than in China, but the Japanese reliance on fish protein from the sea complicates the comparison between these two nations. A population density of about five people per hectare was also typical for fertile farming regions in northwestern Europe during the 19th century, when those farmers still relied entirely on traditional methods. The practical limit of about five people per hectare of farmland arose for many reasons, including environmental stresses (caused above all by severe weather and pests) and the need to raise crops that were not used for food—those that provided medicines or fibers, for example.

In Europe and North America nitrogen fertilizer has not been needed to ensure survival or even adequate nutrition... Even if the average amount of protein consumed in these places were nearly halved (for example, by persuading people to eat less meat), North Americans and Europeans would still enjoy adequate nutrition. Yet.... A number of land-scarce countries with high population density depend on synthetic fertilizer for their very existence... Every nation producing annually in excess of about 100 kilograms of protein per hectare falls in this category. Examples include China, Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines.

If all farmers attempted to return to purely organic farming, they would quickly find that traditional practices could not feed today’s population. There is simply not enough recyclable nitrogen to produce food for six billion people.

Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 17:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

An article from China Daily: For the first time in China's history, grain prices are rising not due to a poor harvest or increasing demand but because of soaring international oil prices. To feed the nation's increasing appetite for energy, a huge amount of capital including from overseas is chasing corn, soy and wheat for biofuel production; and pushing up prices to record highs. Lyrl ^Talk _Contribs 03:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)