Chapter 13. The "Do Nothing" Option.
When we consider the task of planning for the future level of population in the world, the easiest option is to "do nothing" and let the results fall where they may. It requires no action, other then taking care of the immediate problems, it upsets no one, and it is difficult to criticize as it is merely looked upon as nature at work . The disastrous results that will inevitably occur will be far enough into the future that those who failed to take any action now, will by then be forgotten. It is the easy way out. It causes no controversy and this is precisely where we stand at this very minute.
There are certainly some attempts being made to consider our future. There are for example frequent meetings to discuss the reduction in "greenhouse gasses". There are occasional reports on providing "green" electrical power from replaceable resources. There are the confrontations, often violent, between environmentalists and those seeking to expand the use of some of our limited resources. However these efforts lack overall coordination, they tend to be emotional rather than based on scientific facts and they are not part of a countrywide plan. There is certainly a growing pressure to control power and oil prices, although nothing that even suggests finding alternative sources of energy. In other words we are playing around the edges of the problem, but seem to be incapable of facing the ultimate fact. There are more people in the world than can be supported in a reasonable life style, and the numbers are rapidly growing.
There is one difficulty in going along with the "do nothing" option. It is the need to close our eyes to the very obvious problems that are growing daily and avoid using our common sense that tells us they will only get worse as our population continues to grow. We have lived with this "do nothing" philosophy for far too long a period of time, and the results are finally beginning to indicate the futility of accepting this any longer as a valid option.
Some signs that we are being overwhelmed by uncontrolled population growth are very clear and should be ringing the warning bells. The difficulty of providing an adequate supply of clean water in the coming years is already a matter of debate in many areas, including New York City. How to maintain an adequate supply of irrigation water for the agricultural need of some areas of the country is also a matter of concern for the very near future. We have for many years plundered the aquifers and rivers in many areas, and far exceeded the rate at which they can replenish themselves. We are even now taking out more water from the deep aquifers than nature can maintain. Only recently there have been reports of farmers attempting to break open the sluice gates to divert more water from the rivers for their crops. There are just too many people relying on the same water supply. The answer is simple; reduce the load on our already overburdened resources, by reducing the population.
Yet this factor is never mentioned. The emphasis is always placed on developing new ideas for providing more water, from building massive filtration systems to the purification and reuse of wastewater, to piping water all the way from Canada. Even setting up desalination plants in California and Florida. Excellent ideas, but all requiring massive amounts of energy to process, pump and store the water. Never in any of these proposals is it defined where this energy will be found, nor is there any suggestion that we should limit the number of people relying on these sources. Yet no matter what we do, the basic supply is limited. It will require many years for nature to replace the water in many of the deep underground aquifers, and in the meantime we have to find other less vulnerable sources. In the future we must see that such damage does not occur again and that means limiting the number of users to that which the aquifers can support.
The "Do Nothing" concept will guarantee that we will eventually sink into utter chaos. Without doubt the first two items that will have a major impact will be the shortages of water and oil. These alone will bring turmoil to our cities, bankruptcy to our businesses, and hunger to many of our people. What is even worse will be the conflict that will initially break out when the people of this country find that they can no longer afford to operate their motor cars. We are living in a society that has become almost totally based on the use of the internal combustion engine for all our personal transport needs. Unless we take some actions now, within the next 40 years we will find ourselves living in a society that has been specifically designed around our automobiles, but with little or no affordable fuel to operate them. None of the excuses that we see in the papers today that are intended to explain the ever increasing cost of oil products will be valid when the supply ceases to exist in 30 or 40 years time.
Almost our entire transport system is built around the internal combustion engine. Even the railroads eliminated the steam engine many years ago in favor of diesel electric power. We have to ask what will take the place of the thousands of trucks that daily swarm down our highways and transport our food, and our other necessities of life. So many rail systems have been shut down, many of the tracks pulled up or turned into bicycle or walking trails. Yet the railways, electrically powered, offer the only practical method of moving people and goods when oil based fuels are no longer available. This of course also demands that we develop electrical power from our renewable resources. However as has been pointed out many times, our renewable resources are limited, we cannot overload them or we my damage them forever. We must limit our population.
The result of the "Do nothing’ philosophy is very clearly visible today in the shortage of electricity that has produced the "rolling blackouts" in California. The cause has been debated at some length and the finger of blame pointed in many directions. The plain and simple fact is that the population of California has grown dramatically from two directions. First from the normal uncontrolled birthrate, and second from the inrush of immigrants both legal and illegal. Everyone knew that this population growth was occurring, but no actions were taken to increase the supply of electricity in a proportional manner. Indeed there was opposition, based on the "not in my backyard" syndrome, to the building of new generating systems especially atomic energy plants. There were even some proposals put forward to demolish some of the dams that produced power on the grounds that the rivers should be allowed to return to their natural state.
Never has there been any suggestion that perhaps we have already exceeded the population level that the resources of California can accept although this appears to be the case. Perhaps the option is to ration power and water and bring home the hard fact that our demand is exceeding our resources, and we will have to reduce that demand. That every additional person moving into the state reduces the ration for everyone else. What is now happening in California will soon be seen in other parts of the country. New York has rapidly erected several small natural gas powered electrical generation stations to avoid such a shortage in this city when the heat of summer increases the demand for power. Consider what will happen to our supply of electricity as the oil and natural gas reserves are depleted. The price will inevitably increase dramatically and then, if we continue with our philosophy of "Do Nothing" rationing and blackouts will become an everyday occurrence.
The effects on our entire civilization will be traumatic. Even before rationing becomes necessary, the cost of power will bring much of the world’s industry to its knees. Today in the local newspaper is a short article stating that because of the recent increase in fuel prices a well known store is now paying $450 more for every truck load of produce than it did a few weeks ago. Consider what will occur to many of our manufacturing operations when the cost of electricity increases. Until we begin to develop our replaceable resources for generating electricity, the costs of manufacturing will continue to skyrocket. Eventually rationing of power will become universal. At this point the "Do Nothing" philosophy will so obviously have failed that everywhere the cry will go out for action. Unfortunately time and resources will have been wasted that could have been used to plan and provide for these events that are so clearly waiting for us in the near future.
The "Do Nothing" philosophy is decimating our limited resources with the ever growing population. Instead of using these resources frugally while we develop alternatives using our renewable resources, we are wasting these scarce commodities with no clear understanding of what will eventually take their place. When they were discovered, the limited resources of oil, and gas offered us more than a century of free energy. During this time we could have prepared for their eventual end, but instead we have frittered away that opportunity, using these resources as if they were limitless. We have developed our entire society around the very obviously false premise that they would last forever. In the meantime we have allowed our population to grow at a rate that may make recovery impossible or at least a very long way away.
The "Do Nothing" policy is so transparently faulty that it seems impossible that no one has suggested a planned, alternative program. There have been many ideas put forward, for example that we develop wind power, but there has been no formal program developed, no clear objectives as to when and how much power this will generate, and most important, how large a population this will support. We see no program to develop alternative fuels from replaceable resources for the internal combustion engine. There has been no confirmation that these fuels can be produced in practical quantities, no one has suggested how many vehicles if any, these fuels can support. Yet we are fast approaching the end of our oil and gas reserves. What is even worse, we continue to produce more automobiles and trucks, bigger and bigger aircraft, and increase the demand for electricity, much of which is produced from these very non replaceable sources of energy. Nowhere is any mention ever made of the ever growing population that is placing a deadly load on already overwhelmed resources, it is as if the subject did not even exist, yet it is the single most critical factor that will make or break our future civilization.
Pollution of the environment is one area where we have taken very active steps to control the damage that our growing population is causing. Unfortunately we have only attempted to directly eliminate or minimize the results of pollution, we have totally refused to even discuss the fact that our booming population is the basic cause of almost all our environmental difficulties. Unfortunately some of the environmental actions we have taken have only transferred the problem to a less obvious but equally damaging long term situation. Many have involved the consumption of our non-replaceable resources, for example the metals used in the catalytic converters on our automobiles, the power required to operate our pumped sewage and water filtration systems.
Once we begin to tackle the population problem, the level of the pollution of the environment will automatically lessen. It is man that causes almost all of the pollution, and holding the population growth in check will give us an opportunity to control the present and future pollution levels. We will be reducing the fundamental cause of pollution, not attempting to hide the signs. It may well be possible to considerably reduce our environmental protection requirements, and in doing so provide a much less controlled lifestyle for all our people.