Chapter 3. Signs of the Future?
The shortage of some basic raw materials and the pollution of our environment are the first practical signs of the effects of overpopulation. They are of course in many respects interrelated, and already in this age are becoming highly visible. This is not a new idea. In the late 1700’s Daniel Malthus suggested that the population of the world could outstrip the available food supply, and that there would always be a struggle between the demands of a constantly growing number of people and the food that nature made available. However in those days, when the world’s population was much smaller it was easier to ignore these facts. Now we see signs every day that the world’s population is quickly outgrowing the resources nature has provided. Man is valiantly trying to boost the efforts of nature, but inevitably there is a limit to what can be achieved. A lack of clean water and the decline of the worlds oil supplies may well be the first shortages that will have a major impact on our civilization. We are using more and more water while there is a growing pollution of many traditional water supplies and the estimated available oil reserves are steadily declining..
The growth in the use of bottled water would never have been thought possible fifty years ago, when most traditional water sources could be used safely. Now New York City is considering building a massive filtration plant to purify the drinking water for their residents. Until recent years, the water from the many upstate reservoirs has been exceptionally clean and is currently piped directly to the consumers in the City with little or no pre-treatment. Indeed it has been the proud boast of New York City that their drinking water was some of the purest in the country.
However many of the rural areas surrounding the upstate reservoirs are changing dramatically. The once pristine wilderness of the entire area is quickly developing into suburbia. This dramatic growth in the population has resulted in an ever-increasing pollution of the water supply. Tighter zoning laws have been put into force that limit how and where buildings can be erected near the reservoirs, but increasing contaminants come from cars, businesses and industry, as well as domestic housing. They are all contributing to the overall pollution problem. The new filtration plant will cost many millions of dollars to erect and will increase the cost of water. In turn it will also consume a considerable amount of electricity, which will then add to the demand for more generating plants in the state. These in turn inevitably generate more pollution. So it is obvious that shortages of water and pollution levels are very closely related.
This is but one comparatively small example of the growing pollution of our rivers, steams, and lakes. When I was a boy, when hiking in the countryside any stream or spring provided clean drinking water, with no fear of danger from pollution, today nothing is safe. While great steps are being taken to control the pollution of our water supplies, more and more actions are required as more and more people produce more and more pollution. The growing population and the desire for clean water in our streams and rivers are constantly at odds with each other. Pollution is generated directly or indirectly by people and the more people the more pollution.
In the western states, some environmental groups are demanding that many of the dams that provide the water for hydroelectric plants be demolished to preserve the environment for the fish population. These plants not only produce much of the electricity for the western states, but also control the water that is essential for many of the major cities especially those in California. The reasons given for removing the dams are not only to save the fish populations but to improve the flow of water in the rivers, and other excellent reasons. But power and water are two very critical and interrelated items that are absolutely essential if our society is to continue. As the population of the western states continues to grow, it seems unlikely that we will be able to maintain the necessary supply of water. There have already been suggestions that it may be necessary to buy water from Canada, and questions as to whether it is practically possible to pipe the water all the way South to the major Californian cities.
In some of the central and southern states the water table has dropped dramatically as the supply has been tapped for irrigation of the fields. What was basically desert with occasional areas of green where the water reached the surface, has now been transformed into rolling farmland and pastures. Watching the irrigation systems rolling slowly across the fields spraying water onto the crops it is easy to understand where the millions of gallons of water are being used. Unfortunately the ground water that took thousands of years to accumulate is being used very much faster than it can be replaced and inevitably the ground will once again revert to desert. It is already being forecast that this will reduce the area of land available to grow our food, at a time when the demand will be increasing because of the growing population.
The effects of population growth on the water supply are much more easily understood by observing the changes at a local level. Twenty years ago the lake on which I live was crystal clear and full of life. Although at a superficial glance nothing appears to have changed, much of the wild life has disappeared. Ten years ago in the summer evenings I could sit on my deck and listen to the croaking of the many frogs that lived in the lake and the surrounding swamp. Today there is not a single frog to be seen, and many of the other animals that were once common visitors to our garden have long since disappeared. The water is brownish and after a rainstorm often has a strong smell of sewage for a day or two. After the last analysis, the chemist was asked if it was OK to swim in the lake. "Only if you must", Was the reply "Don’t let the water get into your nose or ears, and then have a good hot shower when you come out". The residents have suffered so much from ear infections picked up from swimming in the lake that very few now venture forth and the few who do, follow the chemist’s advice and take a good hot shower when they get out.
It is easy to see where this pollution has come from. Originally all the water that drained from the surrounding hills came into the lake via a large swamp that very effectively filtered the water. Through the past years the surrounding hills have been developed and roads built. What was pristine woodland and farms now has acres of homes; roads and paved areas all of which drain into several enormous culverts that eventually take the water directly into the lake. Our lake is only a very tiny part of the pollution problem, but multiply it by the many areas of population growth and it is easy to see how it can quickly grow to unmanageable proportions. It is of course now far too difficult and costly to install the pumped sewage and drainage system that would be required to eliminate this contamination of the lake. In addition the solution would consume electrical power that would in turn generate more contaminants.
Every home in the area has it’s own well and septic system, and for years the question of water supply and purity was never even considered. Now we frequently hear of neighbors having to deepen their well because the supply of water has failed. From time to time people complain of a smell from their water and testing shows the presence of bacterial contamination. The well then has to be disinfected, pumped out and deepened because the water has become contaminated to the point where it is a danger to health. This situation has steadily become worse over the past few years and will only continue to worsen as the population grows. Our school district has recently had to install chlorination systems into most of the wells that supply the schools. The wells have provided pure drinking water ever since the schools were built but now contamination has become so severe that it is a danger to health and the drinking water is now delivered in bottles..
Another of the more imminent shortages will doubtless be gasoline. This will have a very dramatic effect on all our lives. We have already been affected by the increasing cost of gasoline and although it will doubtless vary with changes in the economy, it is unlikely that it will ever return to the prices of a few years ago. It is estimated that the world resources of oil are sufficient for the next 30 to 40 years, and to date there are no effective plans to produce a substitute in sufficient quantity and at an acceptable cost. We have heard of alcohol being produced from grain. We have seen the odd unit designed to provide power from sunlight. We frequently hear of the potential use of fuel cells, but to date we have seen nothing that can effectively take over from the internal combustion engine and no practical substitute for gasoline. This infers that the cost of gasoline will steadily increase until it will eventually be out of the range of all but the very wealthy. Likewise even if a substitute can be developed it will inevitably be much more expensive than even the present cost of gasoline
The high cost will reduce the demand and may extend the life of the world’s oil supply for a few more years. It will also provide an opportunity for society to get used to living without the motor car. There is no major combined effort to develop an alternative mode of personal transport and it seems totally unlikely that any other form of portable power will become available. The very idea of powered personal transport may well become part of history. This will have a dramatic impact on the way we live. During the past few decades our entire way of life has centered on the automobile. Our towns and villages have been designed around the motor car, we have become used to "driving to the mall". The layout of our shopping centers has been developed to provide acres of parking. What will we do when gas costs $20 per gallon and then later when it is totally unavailable?
We will have to revert to a way of life that will be in many ways similar to that of the villages of the 1800’s, where every necessity of life is within walking distance. The available fuel will have to be conserved for the public transport of people, food and other goods, not for private travel. This will demand a complete change in the way we consider property development and the layout of our cities and towns will have to change completely which will totally alter our social and business philosophies. This will trigger a major change to our economy, our way of life and will severely impact the number of people that we will be able to support. Oil and oil products now form a major part of the power used to operate our farms and move our produce. Without this source of energy, plus fertilizers and other oil products it is inevitable that our volume of farm produce will fall dramatically.
As the supply of oil is diminished it will inevitably impact our supply of electricity. Much of the power generated in this country uses oil or natural gas as the fuel and therefore the cost will rise. There are still some power stations fueled by coal and it may well be that we will have to revert to this again temporarily until it is also depleted in the more distant future; that is if we can develop some effective way of removing the contaminating smoke and gasses from the generating system. The only alternative source of energy, that at the present time offers any practical solution is atomic power. In spite of the many objections, from the environmentalists, this appears to be the only reliable long-term power source of the future. In spite of the many objections this has proved to give us clean acceptably priced power for many years with little or no effect on the environment. The only question then remaining is "How do we get rid of the spent fuel?" This may well be the single most difficult environmental problem of the next century or until we can develop other generating systems using replaceable resources.
Electrical power will, with clean water and oil, be among the first shortages that will affect our overall way of life, indeed we have already seen this occurring with the "rolling blackouts" in California. Our nation is terribly wasteful of electricity. One has only to look out of the window of any airplane flying over our country at night to note the abuse of electrical power. Millions of kilowatts advertise goods and services. Street lighting runs from dusk to dawn on many mostly empty streets. Totally empty playing fields are flood lit all night, and many other similar wasteful examples of the use of power are readily visible. In our homes we are equally wasteful: rooms are lit when no one is present, outside lights are run solely for appearances or as protection against marauders, many pieces of equipment use power continuously to eliminate the inconvenience of having to switch them on or off.
The "rolling blackouts" that have affected California are a prime symptom of the effect of overpopulation. Their basic cause is simple to understand; there is insufficient power being generated. However during the past few years there has been considerable opposition to building more power stations. Atomic power has been shouted down because no one wants the power stations in their neighborhood, largely because of totally inaccurate publicity regarding the potential dangers from this source. Waterpower from the many dams is criticized because it "imprisons the rivers", oil and natural gas is turned down because of the possibility of adding to the pollution of the area. In other words the "Not in my backyard" syndrome is the popular attitude, but does not offer any solution to the problem. If no additional generation is contemplated then all the users, both private and business must immediately start conserving electricity and it may well be necessary to consider rationing supplies. Perhaps this power shortage is one of the most immediate signs of the effect of overpopulation and indicates what will happen in the next few years in many of our states. A reduction in the population would reduce the need for additional power generation and provide a longer time frame in which to plan for the future of mankind.
The future then has to be seen as a totally new way of living. Within a few decades the only readily available power will be electricity from atomic power stations, with the additional but lesser sources of hydropower; coal fired generator systems, possibly electricity from wind and perhaps some from tidal systems, geo thermal and solar devices. It is unlikely that electricity will ever be as readily available as it is today. In the near future we will have to learn to use it much more economically. We will have to make the difficult choices between maintaining environmental sanctity and providing adequate power and water. Several dams that provide power and water for both drinking and irrigation now corral the Colorado River that ran so proudly through the Grand Canyon. As a result it no longer discharges into the sea but ends up as a dismal dribble that eventually disappears into the desert. This may well be the future for many of our rivers, and raise the difficult question as to which is more important, electrical power or a free running river?
There are other signs of shortages of the world’s resources of which the general public are largely unaware. For example fish is now generally expensive, and a delicacy whereas fifty years ago it was very cheap and the food of the poor man. "Fish and chips" wrapped in a newspaper and eaten with the fingers while walking home from the movies was the favorite of many English families in the 40’s and 50’s. The Arctic was literally swarming with fish after WW2 during which time few if any trawlers ventured into that ocean. The author was at that time designing "fish finding" sonar systems and remembers one trip to the arctic on a deep sea trawler where the catch was so great that the contents of one haul of the net took almost 24 hours to process. Now the fishing at the best is poor, and some countries are banning fishing at various times in an attempt to allow the fish to re stock the seas. The fast growing population of the world has far outweighed the ability of nature and the oceans to keep up with the demand for fish.
Only recently the newspapers reported on the dramatic reduction of the lobster catch in recent years in the waters of the East Coast of the USA in the New England region. The reason given was the increase in pollution levels of the sea water in this area, from the high levels of smog, the contaminants from the sewage systems that drain into the sea and the general effects from the high level of population in the area. It is fascinating to note that of all the proposals for reducing this effect, not one suggests that we just have too many people jammed into one small area of the country. In the same paper was an article describing a recent report stating that the contamination of the environment from automobile exhaust emissions causes more deaths from breathing problems that are caused by accidents. However because they are seldom seen as being directly connected to the environment, these deaths are rarely linked to this source of pollution.
There was also recently published a long report noting that the Midwest region was heading towards a water shortage that would affect not only the drinking water supplies, but of even more universal importance, the water required to irrigate the crops. In almost every edition of our local paper there are smaller but equally significant reports of local water problems, ranging from failing wells to pollution of the supplies in certain areas. The signs are all around us and so easy to see. It is totally incomprehensible to understand why they are not recognized as the warning that our entire society is on the brink of a major catastrophe.
In the area of non-renewable resources there are other present shortages. For political and environmental reasons the electronics industry has been asked to eliminate lead from it’s solders. While working a few years ago on the development of "lead-free" solders, it soon became evident that some alloys were impractical because there was insufficient world supplies of certain metals. This triggered off a review of the known world resources of metals, and it was surprising just how many will be exhausted in the not too distant future. Even our renewable resources can be permanently damaged if they are not used wisely, for example the forests of England and Scotland were being quickly cut down in the middle ages to provide timber for the new British Fleet and the charcoal required for the smelting of iron and steel. They were completely decimated and have never recovered.
When we look more closely there are many other signs that indicate what lies in store for mankind because of overpopulation. Although some are not so clearly obvious, every day the newspapers are full of clues. New anti-pollution laws are probably the clearest indication, and show that the levels of contaminants are bound to increase as the population grows. Other signs are the travel problems that range from peak hour traffic jams in almost all our cities to an ever-growing lack of on-time service at our airports. We see the proposal to limit the number of people who can visit certain National Parks, at any one time and strict controls on the use of travel vehicles to protect the vegetation. In our towns and cities more and more construction rules are added every year to control building. On almost every page of the newspaper there can be found an article defining a problem that can be directly or indirectly attributed to our growing world population.