Earth's Carrying Capacity

I had the great pleasure last summer of working with an international student from Mongolia on a project that involved a lot of fieldwork on streams and wetlands all over the coastal plain of South Carolina. Setsen is an intelligent twenty something woman who was eager to hear our version (mine and the professor I work for) of the American perspective on a variety of topics, and because we spent a lot of time in a car together there was plenty of opportunity for this. During one of these trips she asked the question "Do you think the Earth has reached its limit for humans?" This was a touchy question for me since a lot of what drove me from my beloved home state of California was related to overcrowding. I fought back the urge to snap "of course it has" and answered with a more measured, "I guess that depends on whether you mean optimum or maximum sustainable." Dan, the professor with us, brought up a report he had heard that said we have long surpassed the ability of the planet to maintain the population of everyone at the standard we have in America, although China and other heavily populated countries are rapidly striving for this. This led to a discussion of carrying capacity related factors like food and water supply. It occurred to me during the quiet portion of our drive that she may not have been familiar with the concept of carrying capacity, as she was a student of geology rather than ecology, like myself, and even if she was, attempting to define a "carrying capacity" for humans is something of a moving target, with constant claims that innovations and technology will allow for a much larger human population than originally considered possible. Also she was coming from a country which is the least densely populated in the world and so had a different perspective on the topic.

I considered our situation as we drove, with the car we were in as its own world. There were three of us, plus lots of gear and equipment for measuring and sampling, lots of water for field work in the heat and humidity, and our food supply for a long day. We could possibly squeeze one more person in the spare seat, if we moved our gear around and arranged very carefully, and people were willing to put a few things on their lap. It would be a bit uncomfortable, but definitely doable. So what about 2 more people, or three, or four. I realized that soon we would have people without seats, perhaps laying uncomfortably on top of gear and equipment. With additional people would come tough choices, which gear or equipment to get rid of, and eventually more critical supplies. If we had to we could pack the car tight like a clown car and cram many people in, but the mission would long have been abandoned, and doubtless there would be arguments, if not fights, over the best positions and the scarce supplies if the ride went on for any length of time. Throw in windows that won't roll down and a heater stuck in the on position and you have one unpleasant voyage. Enjoyment, let alone any meaningful accomplishment from such a journey would be impossible.

So I considered advances in technology that might change the equation for our actual planet. Science and technological innovation have developed factory farming of poultry, pigs, and cattle which allow for great densities of those animals for our use. Where there's a need and a will (and a profit) there's a way I guess. Could we carefully control the supply of all the world's fresh water, develop the most efficient supply of nutrients and a system for their delivery, design a flawless and efficient system for waste removal and recycling, pump us full of antibiotics and inoculate us against every organism and ailment as soon as it evolves? Would that allow us to hit, 20 billion, 30, 50 billion perhaps? Then I imagined trying to factory farm something like tigers or bears. Humans aren't those but we sure aren't poultry either. We are not a species prone to accept mere survival for one second longer than necessary. We are a deeply political species with a strong sense of tribalism, and surely we would destroy eachother long before we reached population densities that had us crunched one on top of the other.

Even the pope this month seemed to give a nod to Malthus in his statement about responsibility in family size, and that's really what it comes down to, responsibility. We have a responsibility to live within the sustainable means of this one planet we are blessed with, a responsibility not to use technology to accelerate the utilization of our natural resources but to make them stretch further, rich countries have a responsibility to developing countries in helping them to avoid the pitfalls of environmental degradation we made in our development, and each of us has a responsibility to consider and minimize the impact we have on land, air, and water in everything we do and use. If we hope to disprove Thomas Malthus, we must.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-human-activity-has-pushed-earth-beyond-four-of-nine-planetary-boundaries/2015/01/15/f52b61b6-9b5e-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html?hpid=z2

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-good-catholics-dont-have-mate-rabbits-n289336

Would You Maintain Your Home Like This?

A mindset I just can't understand is how someone who works hard to obtain the home of their dreams, who meticulously designs, renovates, and furnishes that home, and who is fastidious about its maintenance can accept treating the one planet we all share as a squalid tenement.This person will break out the vacuum in an instant if there's dirt or pet hair on the carpet but cries foul if someone tries to regulate the plastic that pollutes our landscape, prohibits smoking in their house but won't condone limiting coal plant emissions. They would surely excoriate anyone who dumped trash on their floor, dumped poison in their water supply, pulled up the landscaping, destroyed the air conditioner, excavated holes in their flooring, or shook the very foundation of their house, yet decry limits on mountain top removal and open pit mining, clear cut logging, regulation of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, fracking, the abuse of pesticides and fertilizers, or the facilitating of something as abusive to land, water, and air as open pit tar sands mining.

There may have been a time when we were few enough in number, the world large enough and our tools and debris innocuous enough that we didn't have to consider the consequences of our little endeavors to neighbors in distant parts of our home, our planet, but that time has long passed. Perhaps people with this mindset are still living in some idyllic distant past with open horizons and wide open spaces, when the sum of the world's population was a few million people instead of the seven billion it is today, when fire was something rare and cherished, and when it took the population of a city many years to build a single pyramid. I, for one, do not want to be ruled by a plutocracy or even an inveigled majority who are duped into believing that environmental regulation is an unnecessary evil. Human caused climate change is real, fracking as currently practiced pollutes our land, water, and air, causes earthquakes, and emits more than enough methane to continue adding to human caused climate change. The Keystone pipeline is a bad idea because it facilitates a very ecologically destructive, highly polluting, carbon emitting energy extraction method that will forestall the development of alternative energy sources critical to our future.

Toxic sludge on surface of tailings pond bordering Canadian boreal forest. Source: The Guardian, Jiri Rezac, Greenpeace

Perhaps the individual who rails against environmental regulation is not so scrupulous in the maintenance of their home, maybe they have enough in the bank so that they can rebuild or move on when things get too run down. A house is one thing, but we've only this one planet to leave to our descendants.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/confirmed-fracking-practices-blame-ohio-earthquakes-f8C11073601

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/05/22190011-oil-and-gas-drilling-pollutes-well-water-states-confirm?lite

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/11/26/spate-texas-earthquakes-connected-nearby-fracking-operations

http://news.yahoo.com/unusual-dallas-earthquakes-linked-fracking-expert-says-181055288.html

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2010/sep/07/tarnished-earth-oil-sands

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20110516/Athabasca-River-Alberta-oil-sands-toxins-cancer

http://www.nrdc.org/energy/keystone-pipeline/

http://www.acsf.cornell.edu/Assets/ACSF/docs/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/07/much-worlds-fossil-fuel-reserve-must-stay-buried-prevent-climate-change-study-says?CMP=share_btn_fb

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/huge-methane-leaks-add-doubt-on-natural-gas-as-a-bridge-fuel-17309

Agriculture and Excess

In my August post, "A Better Way to Farm" I touched on the effects of nutrient pollution from excess fertilizer runoff into our waterways. Another critical environmental effect of agriculture is the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, especially with the advent of our modern factory farm type operations. Fertilizer production alone accounts for more than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and agriculture overall contributes 13.5 - 33%, depending on whether you include deforestation for land conversion. Science is demonstrating that in addition to the large contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from intensive farming, excess fertilizer application stimulates soil microbes to produce much greater amounts of nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas with 300 times the heat trapping capability of carbon dioxide.

These are all facts I was unaware of when I started my current no fertilizer garden 5 years ago, and no-till 3 years ago. the experiment has produced excellent results. What started as a sandy weed patch has turned into a very productive garden with dark, rich soil that I build on every fall and winter with the addition of leaves and discarded pumpkins from around my neighborhood. Throughout the year I also throw in any kitchen greenstuff, banana peels, old greens, apple cores, anything. Add my coffee grounds and the occasional crushed egg shells and it feels almost like feeding a pet sometimes. I've also started incorporating cover crops in the form of scattered lentil seeds, which grow well here in the winter and fix nitrogen. The work is much less than when I used to turn over the soil and I can see the improved response in the plants, in the earthworms and other beneficial biota, and in the appearance of the soil itself. I use pretty much the same treatment for my many house plants, including large Ficus and citrus trees, and all have done well without any fertilizer for years, except the occasional addition of water from my aquariums when I change it. Lots of good nitrogen and phosphorus in that.

I of course realize that commercial farm operations are on a completely different scale from my little garden, but I believe that God gave us a planet with natural systems capable of producing what we need, if we pay attention and work with it. Masanobu Fukuoka and all the researchers and practitioners of no-till and cover crop farming are discovering, or rediscovering this today.

Basic natural materials from the neighborhood like leaves (most decomposed in a bag over the summer), pumpkins disposed of after Halloween, plus scattered lettuce, carrots, and lentil bean plants from broadcast seeds are the basis of my nutrient addition to the garden. I also throw in any waste greens stuff from the refrigerator, old coffee grounds and egg shells. It's almost like feeding a pet.

The results are undeniable. Excellent plant growth and production without any commercial fertilizer.

Meyer lemon tree in pot.

This nutrient management also works for my potted plants. I have never added commercial fertilizer to these citrus trees or to any of my many other potted plants which do very well, only add scattered green waste, coffee grounds, and occasionally add waste water from my aquariums when I change the water.

http://grist.org/article/2010-02-23-new-research-synthetic-nitrogen-destroys-soil-carbon-undermines/

http://grist.org/article/2009-11-11-the-dark-side-of-nitrogen/

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/04/02/fertilizer-use-responsible-for-increase-in-nitrous-oxide-in-atmosphere/

http://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fertilizer-produces-far-more-greenhouse-gas-expected

http://vimeo.com/channels/healthysoilshealthycrops

 http://www.appropedia.org/images/d/d3/Onestraw.pdf

http://task38.org/publications/GHG_Emission_Fertilizer_Production_July2004.pdf

http://www.nature.com/news/summit-urged-to-clean-up-farming-1.9376

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-2743.2005.tb00105.x/abstract

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016788090100233X