Let’s start with the proposition that the number of people earth can support comfortably is very dependent on access to life sustaining resources and the consumption rates of its human inhabitants. Wild animal populations tend to adjust in accordance with nature’s realities; only mankind believes it can push the envelop even more. Humans continue to wreak havoc with their own planet.
“A 2015 study in the Journal of Industrial Ecology looked at environmental impact from a household perspective. It puts consumption firmly in the spotlight… The analysis showed that household consumers are responsible for more than 60% of the globe's greenhouse gas emissions, and up to 80% of the world's land, material and water use. What's more, the researchers found that the footprints are unevenly distributed across regions, with wealthier countries generating the most impacts per household.” BBC.com (3/14/16). If consumption rates were to mirror American patterns, as opposed to global averages, the entire planet would be in a terrifying dystopian Malthusian hell.
“An average middle-class American consumes 3.3 times the subsistence level of food and almost 250 times the subsistence level of clean water. So if everyone on Earth lived like a middle class American, then the planet might have a carrying capacity of around 2 billion. However, if people only consumed what they actually needed, then the Earth could potentially support a much higher figure.” Science.org.au.
But we have about 7.5 billion people on earth, with projections for a rise up to 9.7 billion by 2050 and over 11 billion by the end of the century, pandemic notwithstanding. There are arguments among experts as to what the appropriate population should be. Many believe that, with new agricultural techniques, the earth has a lot more capacity. That hope has yet to be tempered with the contraction of land and sea resources due to climate change.
Thomas Robert Malthus (pictured above) was an 18th/19th century English cleric who first posited the theory that continuing uncontrolled population growth could lead humanity to famine and misery. After his death in 1834, agricultural science accelerated productivity… but at what point does our ability to extend resources get washed out by just too many people? What about the pollution they discharge and the impact on habitability? And given the proclivity of people to move away from open land mass to cities where economic opportunities abound, how much crowding can humans actually tolerate? Are wars and violent crime part of nature’s containment strategy? Are these the necessary result of resource “haves” against those “have-nots”?
The earth currently has approximately 3.5 billion arable acres of food-producing land, enough to support 10 billion vegetarians, according to some scientists. But we are not vegetarians, and if you get a bit more realistic, the consensus would seem to suggest that taking human beings as they are, the number of people that the earth can comfortably tolerate – looking at fresh water available, food production capacity and the impact of pollution created by so many people – suggests that we would not be crushing nature and destroying large swaths of the planet if there were 3.5 billion people here. Less than half of the current global population.
Nature needs to cull any herd of animal life that is over-consuming, threatening themselves and other species, and effectively ravaging the planet. It’s a natural balancing act. And one of nature’s most effective tools is disease, particularly one that is more deadly on those in a species who are the weakest and least productive. The younger are needed to sustain the species, but older and physically impaired members of society and individuals who stupidly assume that they will not be impacted are often nature’s expendables.
And so now we have the novel coronavirus, which many of us have stupidly transformed from a genuine medical issue into a quagmire of political and religious beliefs. We better learn some serious lessons from our folly and be prepared for the next pandemic. Nature will probably not be satisfied with the few million deaths from the current pandemic. Remember, 50 million people worldwide died from the Spanish Flu a century ago. There are more devastating viruses percolating “out there,” and conspiracy theories about manmade viruses tend to absolve pandemic researchers of responsibility for taking closer looks at the natural evolution of human-containing pandemics.
What is out there? What risks do we really face? “If 2020 seemed like an anomaly, it isn’t: Scientists say that another pandemic will follow at some point in the future. A new study tries to identify where it might emerge.
“Essentially, this work is trying to identify the biggest gaps in the modern, globalized world where pathogens may be most likely to slip through and lead to extensive global dissemination,” says Michael Walsh, the lead author of the new study and an epidemiologist at the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health.
“Three factors are key. In areas where the most wildlife habitat is disappearing, there’s more stress on wild animals, making disease spread more easily, and more contact between humans and animals. All of the worst infectious viruses to emerge in recent decades, including HIV, the first SARS, and Ebola, are ‘zoonotic,’ meaning they spread from animals. (In some cases, viruses spread first to livestock, and then to humans.) Poor health systems are a second risk factor. The cities that are most at risk of being the next to launch a pandemic are also well connected globally through airports…
“There are hundreds of thousands of other viruses in mammals and birds that could also potentially infect humans if action isn’t taken to protect nature and limit the possibility of them jumping species. Some could be far more deadly than SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Without action, pandemics in the future could begin to happen more often—already, new infectious diseases are emerging in humans approximately every eight months.
“The new study notes that areas in Africa and parts of Asia are most at risk, both because of contact between people and animals and because of the other factors: While it’s possible that a pandemic could emerge in a location with good health infrastructure, it’s more likely to happen in areas where healthcare is underfunded. “If a new spillover leads to onward human-to-human transmission, then this is more likely to go undetected in areas without good access to healthcare for all and without robust disease surveillance systems in place than in areas where these are present,” says Walsh. Cities like Mumbai, India, and Chengdu, China, are at the highest risk because they’re also major travel hubs, so once a virus emerges in humans, it could quickly spread to other parts of the globe if it’s not detected in time.” FastCompany.com, December 1st.
We can continue to engage in distracting and dangerous conspiracy theories, believe that divine intervention will save the righteous, politicize medical facts and try and blame others for nature’s wrath. We can forget about people in other countries and pretend that they do not matter and will not infect us. But all that does is make the next pandemic an even greater threat than what we face now. We need to grow up, act and think responsibly and prepare for the inevitable next. It will always be a global threat!
I’m Peter Dekom, and simply relying on being reactive (vs proactive) gives any virus a massive head start that is often hard to contain.
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