|
Nina Paley ... www.ninapaley.com |
Consumption and Population
Is California Big Enough?
Consumption by Americans produces a terrible burden
upon the land and on the planet.
Carrying capacity experts say that if everyone
consumed at the rate of Americans, it would take four earths to produce the
resources needed. The ecological footprint - the "average amount of
productive land and shallow sea appropriated by each person…for food, water,
housing, energy, transportation, commerce, and waste absorption" - is
about 2.5 acres in developing nations but about 24 acres in the U.S.
Sprawl is wasteful, unneccessarily spread-out land
consumption, gobbling up wildlands and farmland for residential, services, and
industrial use, usually caused by American's hunger for 'breathing room' and
the availability of cheap and convenient transportation, and exacerbated by
growing population and congestion..
From 1992 to 1997, nearly 16 million acres of
agricultural and forest land were developed. We are now losing 3 million acres
per year of forest and agricultural land, double what was lost each year from
1982 to 1992. Nearly 2 billion tons of soil is eroding into waterways each
year. Despite significant gains in erosion control during the past 15 years,
there has been no additional improvement since 1995. Gross wetland losses have
increased to 54,000 acres annually on agricultural land. Tree and forest cover
in urban areas is declining at an alarming rate. In the Chesapeake Bay region,
for example, tree canopy has declined from 51% cover to 37% in the last 25
years. ... Department of Agriculture 1998
Farmland
The 'Greening' of agriculture' has lead to high nitrogen
content in streams, rivers, and lakes,
salinization of the soils, silting of our waterways
and dams, and over-pumping of the earth's groundwater.
The average U.S. diet includes meat requires 800
kilograms of grain per person a year, compared to 200 kilograms for people
eating starchy diet in India and other countries. Four times the consumption of
grain equates to 4 times as much water.
(World Watch)
The average person in the United States consumes 260
lbs. of meat per year
Producing a quarter pound of hamburger requires 100
gallons of water, 1.2 lbs. of feed grain and energy equal to a cup of gasoline,
causes the loss of 1.25 lbs. of topsoil and causes greenhouse gas emissions
equivalent to a 6-mile drive in a typical U.S. car. ....
UNFPA
Because of over-consumption of fish, all 17 of the
world's major fishing areas have reached or exceeded their natural limits.
One-third of the world's fish catch is
fed directly to livestock. 70% of US
grain production is fed to livestock.
Roughly 20% of all currently threatened and endangered species in the US
are harmed by livestock grazing. Animal
agriculture is a chief contributor to water pollution. America's farm animals
produce 10 times the waste produced by the human population.
Pet Food
Americans and Europeans together spend $17 billion a
year on pet food, $4 billion more
than the estimated yearly additional amount needed
to provide everyone in the world with basic health and nutrition. The richest
20% of humanity consume 45% of all meat and fish, use 58% of all energy
produced and own 87% of the vehicles.
United Nations Development Program
100 million hectare of farmland have been abandoned
due to soil erosion in the
last 200 years. ... David Pimentel
Energy
While the world's oil supply has been diminishing,
and oil produces 70% of our energy, it has been estimated that about four
percent of the nation's energy budget is used to grow food, while about 10 to
13 percent is needed to put it on our plates.
World-wide emissions of carbon dioxide, for which
the U.S. is 65% responsible, grew 12 times between 1900 and 2000.
Residential energy consumption is expected to grow
30% by 2020 ...Department of Energy..
Water
The average North American consumes more than 170
gallons of water per day, nearly triple the European level and seven times the
per capita average of the rest of the world. ... New Dream and Sierra Club
Water is becoming increasingly scarce. The number of
water issues increases every year. Giant aquifers in the plain states are being
overdrawn, with little hope of replenishment. 43 percent of farmland in
the United States is watered by groundwater. The Colorado River dries up before
it reaches its destination.
While 70% of the water consumed worldwide is used
for irrigation, 20% by industry, and 10% for residential purposes, the use for
water for industry is increasing. In addition, the mass migration to cities
means that residential use of water triples due to indoor plumbing.
Population Growth
The population of the U.S. is growing by 1% a year.
This does not seem like much, until you realize that a constant 1% a year will
result in the doubling of our population in 70 years. Can we accomodate another
280 million people?
Jay Keller of ZPG says that a doubling would mean a
population density of 161.4 people per square mile. While this is only a
quarter that of western European countries like England, these countries have
surrendered most of their wilderness regions,
native forests and unique animal populations. "Some of the European
countries have very high population densities, with the consequence that they
have to import most of their food and are very dependent on the rest of the
world," says Keller. "The United States, by contrast, is still one of
the great breadbaskets of the world." In the U.S. 400,000 acres of
farmland are lost a year. Under doubling of the population, arable land would
go from 400 million acres today to 290 million and the $40 billion the U.S.
makes through food exports would be seriously threatened.
In this statement, ZPG does not even take into
account the scarcity of water in several regions of the U.S. It could be argued
that water capacity in many areas is already exceeded.
Why Is U.S. Population Growth
Important?
Every new American resident, whether native born or
foreign, soon becomes an excessively above-world-average consumer, riding in
cars rather than bicycles, eating more meat, and using clothes dryers rather
than the sun. Carbon emissions are increased, clean water becomes a luxury,
soil is salinized and eroded faster, and more wastes are produced.
"The Sierra Club advocates reductions in the
population of the United States and the world... The Board clarified that the
Club favored an eventual decline in US population, since we had already decided
in 1970 that expected 1990 levels were the highest that were environmentally
sustainable in the long term, and we are now much above that level...."
-- Sierra Club 1999
population policy
Why Is World. Population Growth
Important?
There were three billion people in the world in
1960. This number doubled to 6 billion in 1999. The number is expected to reach
9-10 billion by 2050.
Over 95% of the population growth is in developed
countries. Although over half of the world's population lives at basic
subsistenence level, consuming little, the sheer numbers of people are causing
a depletion of regional resources that lead to poverty, illiteracy, disease,
malnutrition and starvation. Consideration of the survival of wildlife and
bioversity drops to a low priority in the interest of survival. However,
population growth is not slowed down, but rather increased by poverty, illiteracy, disease, or
malnutrition, at least until long after the environment is destroyed and the
infrastructure of the region is in shambles. Today roughly half the world's
population of nearly 6.2 billion "suffers with water services inferior to
those available to the ancient Greeks and Romans."
These impacts alone suggest that, if we care about
the rest of the world at all, we should care about world population.
However there are also impacts on the United States:
The U.S. exports about 20% of the food it produces.
This excess food supply could decrease due to domestic population growth,
sprawl, and soil depletion. In addition, food surpluses could easily disappear
if a country like China were to have a major famine - not unlikely since
China's water situation is deteriorating.
In addition, while some of us have created wealth on
an unimaginable scale, half the world exists on less than $2 a day. The combination of growing numbers of
impoverished people and the contrast between wealth and poverty is drawing
increasing numbers of people out of rural areas to cities and to wealthy
countries like the U.S.
About 1.3 million immigrate to the U.S. each year,
higher than the previous record immigration rate between 1900 and 1910. In this
past decade, immigration accounted for "40% of the 33 million
increase" in the U.S. population. If the 6.9 million children born to
these new arrivals are included, 20 million or just under 2/3 of the 33 million
increase is due to immigration.
...Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) which is
under contract to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Can The U.S. Accomodate Everyone?
80 million people are added to the world every year.
Most of these are impoverished people, many who do not have farmland or jobs,
but who have a burning desire to improve their lot. If all of them were to come
to the U.S., it would mean a 35% increase in U.S. population every year, and a
doubling of the U.S. population every three (or less) years!! We have already
discussed the carrying capacity of the U.S., so this idea is as absurb as the
one which says everyone could fit in an area the size of Texas. Suppose only
some of the 80 million wanted to come to the U.S.? To give you an idea of how
many people want to come, as of two years ago, the U.S. embassy in Nepal
reviewed at least 200 tourist visas a week. This was before tourism dropped to
20% of 2000 levels and the current increase in terrorist activity in Nepal.
Nepalis paid $50 each for a visa application, which was not refunded, even
though only 2% ever got a visa! Unless a Nepali is a student or has business
with dealings in the U.S., a tourist visa is the only way to get into the U.S.
Most Nepalis, on $2 a day, cannot come up with $50. While Mexicans, whose
average income is considerably higher than the average developing world income
of $2 a day, can cross the border easily, Nepalis and other relatively poor or
disadvantaged people have little chance. Our immigration policy seems
hypocritical if the reason given for our current high immigration levels is to
give poor people the advantage of economic opportunity by allowing them to come
to the U.S.
California
California's population grew by nearly
26% between 1980 and 1990, from 23.7
million to 29.8 million, and grew by
another 4.1 million persons between 1990 and 2000. Current projections indicate
that population may double from the 1990 level to 58.7 million by 2040. In the
face of such intense growth, California's fragmented and competitive local land
use planning structures and subsidized dependence on drive-alone transportation
have contributed to severe environmental and ecological deterioration,
including: -- Serious air pollution -- Gridlocked roadways -- Strained and
polluted water supplies -- Loss of valuable food producing lands and open space
-- Increased numbers of endangered species due to loss of critical habitat --
Increased energy consumption -- A lack of affordable housing near places of
employment. --Loss of open space. -- Excessive consumption of natural
resources. Sierra Club California believes that this state needs a
comprehensive program to address the magnitude and management of growth, and to
determine what amount of growth is actually supportable, based on constraints
analysis, not only on economic projections. ... Sierra Club California Growth
Management Plan
Auto and truck traffic in California has
doubled in the past 20 years. ... Dan Walters
California's flora consists of
approximately 7,000 taxa, including 6,000 native species, of which 36% are
endemic, occuring nowhere else on earth. Nearly 33% of the flora is considered
rare, threatened of uncommon. 1,021 plant taxa are considered rare or
endangered in California, and another 29 have almost certainly gone extinct in
California in the last 100 years. ... California Native Plant Society.
Though considerable attention has been
focused on California's agonizing electricity shortage and
water woes, very few people have
recognized that these problems stem from a dramatic population explosion. In
2000, California added 571,000 people, resulting in a 1.7% growth rate, one
that is higher than that of Bangladesh. California is 40% more densely
populated than Europe. Los Angeles alone has a population of 3.8 million. With
it's diversions of water from Owens Lake, seen near Lone Pine, California, it
has nearly dried up the lake, creating health hazards from wind storms laced
with arsenic. One third of the
immigrants who enter the United States every year come to California.
California has one of the highest fertility rates in the U.S.: 2.4 births per
woman. The national fertility rate is
still just above 2.0. Including birth to immigrants,, immigration may account
for 96% of California’s population growth from 1990 to 1997. ... The Gold
Crush, emagazine, Dec 2001
The U.S. Census Bureau says the state
will have nearly 54 million people by 2025. While rolling blackouts were
paralyzing the state earlier this year, Ric Oberlink in a San Diego
Union-Tribune wrote: "California doesn’t have a power shortage, ... it has
a population ‘longage.’" Between 1970 and 1990, Los Angeles grew 25.1% in
land area, Oxnard-Ventura 40.9%, Fresno 67.8%, Riverside-San Bernardino 48.6%,
and Stockton 57.7%. In the same period, the state’s per capita electricity use
declined from 7,292 kilowatt-hours per year to 6,952 kilowatt-hours, while the
population grew from 23 to 33 million, easily obliterating any gains from
conservation. From 1996 to 1999, power demand grew 12%.
The newspaper The San Francisco
Chronicle made this statement based on projections Department of Water
Resources: "California is teetering on the edge of a profound water
shortfall that experts say could rival this year’s power shortages for economic
and social disruption." By 2020 the Chronicle predicts, "the dams and
aqueducts that make up the world’s most elaborate water-moving network will
fall short of California’s needs by as much as 4.2 million acre-feet in a good
year and nearly twice that in a drought." The Department of Water
Resources estimates a modest increase in supply, but soaring demand. In the
1780s California had an estimated five million acres of wetlands. After just
two centuries of population growth, there has been an increase from hundreds of
thousands to more than 32 million people and only about 454,000 acres of
wetlands, a 90% loss. According to the Water Education Foundation (WEF),
wetlands support 41 of the state’s rare
and endangered species. This includes 55% of the animal and 25% of the plant
species designated as threatened or endangered. One of every three vertebrate
species in the state and one in 10 native plant species are in serious danger
of extinction. The Nature Conservancy says the Bay-Delta has become the second
densest hot spot of imperiled species in the U.S. Simultaneously, the lands
around the Bay-Delta support 6.8 million Californians, one of the greatest
concentrations of humanity in North America. State air quality has also
suffered. Southern California, where population growth is concentrated, has the
highest density auto population in the world, and it has produced
what is often measured as the second
highest smog levels in the U.S. .
What
Can Or Can’t Be Done:
1. Immigration
Levels
If you are thinking about reducing immigration levels, the Sierra
Club population policy says:
The Sierra Club, its entities, and those speaking in its
name will take no position
on immigration levels or on policies governing immigration
into the United States.
Recently, clarification to this policy was issued, which in part says:
The Sierra Club should not comment on the substance of, or the
politics of, policy issues relating to immigration policy or
levels, or the
impact, environmental or otherwise, of immigration on the
United States,
other countries or the world.
But it also says:
" Club leaders and staff may discuss the recent Census Bureau
projections that show that U.S. population will double this century to
over
half a billion. Club spokespersons may discuss the impact of this growth
to
plant and animal life, the crowding of parks and recreation areas, the
increased demand for forest, water, and energy resources, and the
compromise to essential ecosystem services. Club spokespersons may also
speak about how domestic population pressures add to the difficulty of
protecting the global environment.
For example, achieving Kyoto protocol
goals for addressing climate change will be difficult, if not
impossible,
due to high U.S. population growth and energy consumption patterns.
"Club entities are not prohibited from talking about the sources of
domestic
population growth in a factual and non-judgmental way. However, to
maintain strict neutrality, when Club entities and leaders discuss the
environmental impacts of domestic population growth, these impacts
should
be discussed as impacts of population growth, and not as impacts of
immigration or any other particular statistical component of population
growth."
2. Fertility
reduction:
This is a reasonable solution,
especially in California where its population is expected to increase to 49.3
million by the year 2025 -an increase of 18 million, which would be as if all
of the state of New York
moved in, a result of an
anticipated 22 million births, 9 million immigrants, and offset by deaths. ...
U.S. Census Bureau and FAYE FIORE, Times Staff Writer 9/97
As pointed out by Edwin Stennett of
the Maryland Chapter, Montgomery Group, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden,
Switzerland, and 7 other countries all have fertility levels at or below 1.8
births per woman. If the U.S. were to lower its fertility rate by .03% to
1.8, we would soon stabilize our
population, even continuing current immigration rates. But everyone would have
to be included in the effort, regardless of country of origin.
In the U.S., (and in California),
there are still a high percentage of unplanned pregnancies. Programs such as
Title X (health care for poor women), sex education programs, Equity in
Contraceptive Insurance, teen pregnancy programs, male responsibility programs,
and emergency contraception availability campaigns all help reduce unplanned
pregnancies and all need an extra boost in order to be passed through stubborn
conservative bodies of policy and legislature, county, state and federal.
3. Increase
education and reduce poverty.
Educational level and reduction of
poverty are determinants of fertility,
not so much country of origin or ethnicity as some people assume. So
efforts should be made to reduce the drop out rate and enabling youth to have
at least one year of college. Poor women take the attitude that, if they can't
earn a good living, at least they can be good mothers and fulfill their lives
with the rewards of family life. Motherhood is a role that cannot be denied
them. Statistics show that reducing poverty reduces the fertility rate. This
can be accomplished by helping teenagers build self esteem and to accomplish
their non-maternal goals, as well as providing good support systems for mothers
such as child care services.
4. Stop
feeding the Growth Machine.
Most increase in population is
encouraged by false economics -
"bigger is better" and the "economy must always
grow". These economics ignore sustainability and need to be replaced by
"green" economics, where natural resources and sustainability have
value. Three alternatives to the Growth Machine are proposed by Edwin Stennett
of the Maryland Chapter, Montgomery Group:
a. Restrain new business recruitment,
particularly by spending tax dollars.
b. Make development pay its own way. The costs
of additional schools, roads, fire and police protection, utilities, sewer
systems, water treatment, recreation facilities, libraries, and waste disposal
should all be borne by the newcomers who necessitated the new services.
One good example of this has been
that the California legislature has recently approved a bill that requires
developers planning 500 or more houses to demonstrate that an adequate water
supply exists before construction can start.
c. Elect officials who are not receiving
Growth Machine money.
5. Educate
about population growth and its impacts.
6. Educate
about, and practice conservative consumption.
The public won’t buy into the
population issue if they don’t see the disappearance of resources. If
consumption isn’t much of a problem, then population isn’t either.