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In response to the "overpopulation" component to climate change in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Feb 25 2010 at 06:51AM by _BB_

I don't agree with your portrayal of the overpopulation argument. Firstly, do you really believe that women who can barely feed their families simply have more children "as a source of money; they use the baby as a puppet in order to touch the human heart and to earn money in that way"... or perhaps there are more logical reasons.

1) In countries with high birth rates, there is also often high infant death rates. Women have many children with the knowledge that the risk of their children dying is extremely high. They want to ensure that their family line continues for another generation and the best way to do that it by quantity.
 - I believe basic family planning education helps immensely in these situations because we can point out to women that if they have less children they can provide better care for each child (money does not have to be divided among so many mouths), thus increasing the likelihood that their children will survive.

2) Your argument also completely discounts marital rape, which is (sadly) a norm in many cultures. If the woman has no say in when she has sex, and contraception is not accepted by the husband... she cannot control the number of children she has. And abortion, whether you or I agree with it, is certainly not an option in cultures where contraception is not an option.
 - This brings me back to my point about education. If we educated the women, we must also educate the men. We need to ensure that the men understand that women have rights over their own bodies.

3) Furthermore (and perhaps back to your original point), although the number of people living on the planet does contribute to climate change, there is a more fundamental issue at hand. It's how we're using the resources available to us on the planet. We like to point the finger at overpopulation as a major factor in climate change, often using the example of Africa but as we know upon (a little) research Africa has 20% of the world's arable land and (only) 13% of the world's population.
[This is a great article for further reading on the case of Africa and it's supposed overpopulation http://j.mp/a0zML4]

-- Ultimately, I believe that if we make smarter choices that positively affect the whole of the world, rather just ourselves/immediate communities we can address climate change and other related world issues. We need to educate, we need to provide proper infrastructure that give people everywhere options that will not harm them and their communities. --

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Another reason that GM crops should be avoided in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Feb 25 2010 at 07:23AM by _BB_

Everything you say is true, but you're also forgetting a major related issue to GM crops: the farmers. When big companies want to plant GM crops, they usually do one of two things: (1) destroy small farmers, (2) trap small farmers. 

I think we all know what I mean by destroying small farmers, they essentially evict farmers from their own land by offering them some financial compensation. With little control over yields because of quickly shifting climate considerations, farmers can be enticed to leave their trade ...often moving into cities (further compounding climate management issues in cities).

The (sometimes) scarier alternative is that corporations will leave the farmer on their land, but only allow them to plant crops from the company. This is bad enough because farmers can no longer diversify they crops (which is necessary for agricultural sustainability), but they can actually be sued by the corporations if they harvest the seeds! The very seeds that THEY plant, on THEIR land, that they PAID for ... is not their to harvest!

I'm originally from Canada but have come to India to work in Social Development, and I was really happy about the recent ruling [http://j.mp/bPLs9d] that disallowed the introduction of a GM crop in India.

A great set of videos featuring Dr. Vandana Shiva talking about this issue can be found from here: http://j.mp/aGRsYV

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African proverb in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Feb 25 2010 at 07:27AM by _BB_

I heard this African proverb once, and it's stuck with me ever since:

"The earth was not given to us by our parents. It was lent to us by our children."

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Actually... in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Feb 25 2010 at 09:05AM by _BB_

Actually, the way we currently produce biofuels does have a negative impact on the environment. 

The fact that we are using ingredients that also form our source of food means that we are being inefficient. That's not to say that we should discount biofuels and similar approaches to meeting our energy needs. I just don't think we're at the point where we've discovered the least harmful ways of doing that.

We're seeing advances in microbial fuel [http://j.mp/aaMpXu & http://j.mp/avChNI], and algae-based fuel [http://j.mp/9JLfq4]... but these are still some time away from mainstream adoption.

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Extinction faster than evolution in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Mar 10 2010 at 07:27AM by _BB_

Some denialists, let's call them science denialists, having been reluctant to accept that planetary changes are anthropomorphic (caused by humans). But as the following excerpt and the article from which it's sourced explains, it's becoming increasingly difficult to deny this fact without completely losing face.

For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are
driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new
species can evolve, one of the world's experts on biodiversity has warned.

Conservation experts have
already signalled that the world is in the grip of the "sixth great
extinction" of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats,
hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change.

However
until recently it has been hoped that the rate at which new species
were evolving could keep pace with the loss of diversity of life.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/07/extinction-species-evolve)

We have been taking the planet and its species (including ourselves) for granted for too long now. The question remains how much more havoc will be wreaked before we decide to open our eyes and take concrete action.

The science is telling us that these changes are not "cyclical", these are rates of extinction are thousands of times higher than what they were before we humans appeared.

Will 2010, as the International Year of Biodiversity, be a turning point? I'd like the say that I believe it will, but I haven't seen enough evidence of a substantial shift yet.

What do you think?

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Food sustainability in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Mar 25 2010 at 06:34AM by _BB_

This is cross-posted from my blog on the Evoke network.

Having moved from Montreal, Canada to Bangalore, India I am keenly aware
of the different food challenges that varying regions are facing. In
Canada, though we do not grapple with mass food shortages, we face on
own unique issues. The foremost being genetically modified foods and the
question of full disclosure. Should we demand that all GM foods be
labeled as such? What is the real benefit of knowing, if no adverse
effects are present? With the world moving towards more and more GM
products, is this identification process time wasted? And the list of
questions go on, depending on who you speak to.

A more disturbing
issue that bothers me is 'Why there still are starving people in such a
opulent country?' Our welfare scheme can surely provide food for all our
inhabitants and we certainly have the space to accommodate everyone
-with a very low population density ratio. So then, why do many homeless
people die every winter from hunger out on the street? These are
important questions that need to be addressed, but for the time being I
want to concentrate on my current environment: India.

In India, there is most
certainly a food security catastrophe. With entire families fighting for
survival on a daily basis, where does one start to address these
problems? As social development practitioners, we are often faced with
problems that seem bigger than what we can find solutions for. For this reason, I
will address just two paradigms of what is either being done or what
can be done: (1)the positive effect of food on education and (2)genetically
engineered foods.

Case 1
In
2001, India's Supreme Court mandated that all Indian Government-run
schools provide free lunches for students:

I think this is a telling example how food challenges can be
addressed. It shows that we need many actors from different levels
working in concert to achieve large-scale goals. It is true that the
central government provided a great push, but without the support of
state governments and some private interests, the program would surely
not be as successful as it has proven.

Case 2
The beginning of
February 2010 saw a major victory opponents of Bt Brinjal, a genetically
modified seed for eggplant (a.k.a. brinjal, aubergine). The Indian
government ruled that "more research" was needed before the seeds could
be introduced. Supporters of the seed variety argued that its
introduction would boost yields exponentially, thus feeding more
starving people. But many opponents -Dr.
Vandana Shiva
being a particularly strong voice among others- say that the
stronghold that the manufacturing companies can avail over farmers is
not worth the higher yields. Here I will elaborate on two extensions of
this logic: (2)legal ownership and (2)soil nutrient depletion.

Farmers
can be (and often are) sued by seed manufacturers for harvesting seeds from their own
land; this is a real cause for concern. Farmers tending to land that has been
passed from generation to generation can be faced with a situation where
what grows is not their own to make decisions about. Even
more grave issues arise when crops fail, as they have a tendency to do
with the threats of climate change making themselves known. At that
point, coupled with decreased control (through human and environmental
forces), farmers face an increased likelihood of accumulating debt (the
seeds need to be paid for every year) that they will almost certainly
never be able to repay. This is a dangerously vicious cycle that has led
to many Indian
farmers committing suicide.

The second consideration, which has far-reaching effects, is nutrient depletion in the soil. This
leads to an eventual collapse of delicate farming systems, more poverty,
more starvation. This occurs because historically, farmers practiced
crop rotation but with the advent of these seeds they are trapped in to
planting the same crops year after year.

This is only the tip of
the iceberg, with so many more revolving issues that feed into one
another.

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On a related note I came ... in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Mar 26 2010 at 10:07AM by _BB_

On a related note, I came across the following story:

"A new technology being developed in a research partnership between Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and California-based biotechnology company Genencor aims to eliminate the oil currently used to make isoprene, a key tire ingredient, by creating a more environmentally friendly alternative using plants like sugar cane, corn, or switchgrass."
                                                      - http://j.mp/9VkQGT

On one hand it's great to see that we are developing alternatives to oil use for production purposes. But on the other hand, I think that in the long-term we are moving in the wrong direction. We're replacing one unsustainable resource with another. What happens when we start going in to developing countries for their agriculture instead of their oil? Oh, wait ... we're already doing that. Well let's stop for a moment and imagine the impact that even more pressure on agricultural yields will have.

We tend to think about agriculture as a renewable resource, which it is... but only to a point. When we drive farmers to only plant one (cash-)crop, they deplete the soil. Eventually, that plot of land is no longer cultivable.

So I guess the question is, "Where do we find truly renewable resources?".
Solar? - But what about the panel that need to be manufactured to capture that energy?
Wind? - Those massive structures require materials that are not renewable.

So maybe I was wrong about the question, maybe the real question is, "How do we reduce our consumption of resources?"

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I agree with many of the ... in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Mar 26 2010 at 10:37AM by _BB_

I agree with many of the things that you outline here.

I think that you are absolutely correct in your statement that education about the planet and our effects on it should begin from basic education for children. Children are often the best instruments for change an action, more than we sometimes want to give them credit for!

With regard to laws, I don't believe that legally forcing every individual to plant a tree is the right way of approaching that problem. It should not feel like a chore, it should be an activity that people do because they feel like their actions are making a difference in their community and in the world. Tree planting should be a bottom-up initiative, meaning that it should come from the people; not from governments. There are more effective ideas, such as encouraging people to plant a tree every year on their birthday or being able to name a tree after the person that planted it (like how you can name stars after someone).

I'm not sure what you mean by isolating the forests from people. If you're talking about limiting access to lumber or the cutting or burning of forests, then yes that's fine. But I don't think we need to isolate ourselves from nature. As a matter of fact, I think that our disassociation with nature is what has caused us so much problems! We need to get back to nature to truly understand our inextricably linked to our world.

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That's a great quote and I ... in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Mar 26 2010 at 10:45AM by _BB_

That's a great quote and I agree that we need change to come from the top, sometimes. I fear, however, that statements like that take the power (and the accountability) away from individuals and communities.

Although a lot of issues need to resolved through infrastructure changes and regulations, we should never underestimate the power of everyday people making choices everyday to lead more sustainable lives.

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Global Pulse 2010 in Sustainable - A life's ethics

Posted on Mar 29 2010 at 01:33PM by _BB_

Is anyone else checking out the online conference on international
development Global Pulse?
http://www.globalpulse2010.gov

Some very interesting discussions happening there  :)

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