Human beings are self-deluders

From http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2006/1807002.htm

Melbourne Neuroscientist Dr John Reid is somewhat skeptical about theability of science to rescue humanity from its own folly. He suggests thatour planet will be unable to support an ever increasing population andtalks about ways to limit population growth.

Transcript ("Ockham's Razor" Commentary - ABC Science - ABC Radio National)

Robyn Williams: Do you remember a book by Professor Paul Ehrlich called'The Population Bomb'? It was published in 1968. Or perhaps, 'Limits toGrowth', put out by the Club of Rome in 1972? Both offered scenarios ratherthan forecasts about the future, some bleak, some fair, but mostcommentators picked up only the bleak. We had someone from the Limits toGrowth exercise pointing that out on ABC Radio National last week, sayingthat only the first grim scenario was reported, the other eleven ignored.

So what about growth and population all these years later, as we approach2007? Dr John Reid has a view, though a challenging one. He does hisresearch in Melbourne.

John Reid: I have titled this talk, 'Apocalypse Now', a title borrowedunashamedly from the film director, Francis Ford Coppola, because itexpresses both the magnitude and the immediacy of the problem I'mdiscussing.

Most people seem to have a 'business-as-usual' approach to the future oflife on Earth. They assume Planet Earth will keep revolving and generationwill succeed generation. And each generation will be more affluent than thepreceding generation. As one bank advertisement put is, 'Every generationshould live better than the last!'

Science, people believe, will find solutions to the problems that seem topreoccupy Greenies and other doomsayers. Well, I am a scientist, and I haveto say I am more than somewhat sceptical about the ability of science torescue humanity from its own folly.

The fact is, Planet Earth cannot support the present human population.

The Global Footprint Network estimates that in 2001, and I quote,'humanity's Ecological Footprint ... exceed the Earth's biological capacityby about 20%', and the latest WWF Living Planet Report 2006 now puts thefigure at 25%.

Current estimates of world population growth over the next 50 years showthe population stabilising at 9-billion to 11-billions, at least half asbig again as the present population.

The consumption of resources, due to the growing affluence of emergingeconomies, such as China and India, would then require at least fourbiospheres to satisfy the demand.

Or to put it another way, if everyone alive today had a standard of livingequal to ours in Australia, we would need 3.7 biospheres to meet thedemand.

But we only have one planet, although there are people (mostly engineers)who seriously contemplate moving off-planet as a way to solve the problem.

Many people would say the character that most distinguishes human beingsfrom all other animals is language. I suggest the only attribute thatreally distinguishes our species from all others is our ability to deludeourselves.

Human beings are self-deluders. We can convince ourselves, in the face ofirrefutable evidence to the contrary, that black is white and heat can flowfrom a cooler to a hotter body.

It is this power of self-delusion that leads us to believe that somehow wewill find a way to fix the problem of our unsustainable consumption of theEarth's resources.

In the discussion of human impact on the biosphere, two separate butinteractive issues are being conflated. These two issues are climatechange, due to the emission of greenhouse gases, and the excessive demandfor resources, due to overpopulation.

(Bear in mind, population and consumption, like mass and energy, are interchangeable qualia -

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/,
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia(*)
  

Unchecked, both climate change and the overuse of resources are at thelevel of 'catastrophic' on the scale of their impact on the biosphere.

But the problem of climate change is soluble by means we can discuss. Wecan talk about alternative sources of energy, carbon trading,energy-efficient buildings and a host of other technological fixes,including esoteric notions such as a sunshade-in-the-sky, as discussedrecently on The Science Show.

By engaging in this discussion, we can feel at least we are addressing theproblem. And as long as we feel we are doing something about climatechange, we can relegate to the back burner having to think about the muchmore confronting, unmentionable problem of how to reduce the humanpopulation.

I believe the problem of overconsumption/overpopulation will not be solvedby civil means, as the United Nations Millennium Ecosystems Assessmentoptimistically suggests. By the time there is consensus that drastic actionmust be taken to reduce over-consumption it will be too late.

Consider just a few examples of the measures people will have to accept:

First and foremost, the notion of steady economic growth, every year anincrease in the world's GDP, as The Wentworth Group of Scientists, and theStern Review envisage, will have to go into reverse. We in the affluentworld will have to accept substantial reductions in our standard of livingto allow space for the poor, mainly in Africa, to improve their nutritionand health status.

To achieve this, income and wealth distribution within our societies willhave to become much more equal. The higher up the tree one is, the greaterthe sacrifice one will have to make.

Stringent measures will have to be put in place to reduce waterconsumption, particularly in countries like Australia where water is ascarce commodity. Using potable water to cool industrial processes and aswash-water will have to stop, and this includes air-conditioning equipmentsin large buildings, power station cooling towers, paper mills, dairying andagriculture, etc., etc.

And forget the idea that water can be used to grow cotton in Australia. Ihave heard it argued that the return on the cost of the water is higher forcotton than the return on the same water used to grow food.

This is the private-benefit-at-the-expense-of-public-cost argument, and itwon't wash!

Contrary to a recent forecast that the world's fleet of fossil-fuel-burningmotor vehicles will triple over the next 50 years, the fleet will have tobe reduced to no more than about 10% of the present number.

Perhaps water meters that turn off automatically after a household's dailyration of water has been consumed will be fitted to every house.

Meat will be rationed to no more than, say, 200 grams per person per week.

Municipal authorities will provide allotments so that people can grow theirown fruit and vegetables. We could turn some iconic sports arenas intovegie gardens.

And Private Property Rights will be severely curtailed to preventlandowners from engaging in environmentally-damaging behaviours.

And many, many more such infringements on what we now regard as our rightswill have to be accepted.

I'm afraid, by the time this consensus could be reached, we will havecrossed the threshold of the event horizon.

We will be on an accelerating, irreversible downhill run to the HoloceneMass Extinction.

In the words of Elliot Morley, Britain's Special Representative on climatechange, we will 'sleepwalk to oblivion.'

A few years ago, the possibility that our beautiful, life-sustaining planetcould become a Venusian hell was dismissed as being impossibly alarmist.

It's still a highly improbable scenario, but it is no longer seen asimpossible.If we do not delude ourselves, and if we accept the calculations made bythe Global Footprint Network and WWF (and I know of no scientific analysisthat refutes the basic validity of the model) there is only one ineluctableconclusion. The population of the world must be very quickly reduced to5-billions (that is, if 6 billions = 120% of capacity, then 5 billions =100%). And then, as the average level of affluence rises, fairly quicklyreduced further to, say, 2 to 3 billions.

The urgent discussion then becomes, how do we achieve these targets?Leaving aside uncontrollable natural events, such as a collision with alarge asteroid or comet, or the eruption of a super-volcano, there is onlya limited number of ways population decrease can be achieved. These waysare all painful, and most are brutally painful in their effect.

Let us canvass them.

When we consider ways to reduce the human population there is a naturaldichotomy between ways that kill a very large number of people and waysthat control the growth of the population, that is, ways that preventpeople from breeding.

War, Pestilence, and Famine, three of the horsemen of the apocalypse, canbring about a reduction in the human population. But these kill on a scaleof tens of millions, which is not enough to solve the problem ofover-population. And they are most brutal in the ways they kill.Consequently, let us consider the alternative.

The most humane way to achieve a reduction in the human population would befor people to voluntarily stop breeding, but this would never happen. Theurge to procreate and the innate belief that people have the inalienableright, if not the duty, to have children is too strong to be suppressed,just to save the planet.

One small, but appropriate, token gesture would be to ban immediately allforms of assisted conception, including the use of donated sperm or ova.

The fact that relatively affluent couples, or single women who cannotachieve pregnancy by good old-fashioned copulation, or even choose not todo so, can demand the use of expensive medical technology to satisfy their'need' for parenthood is unacceptable in a hugely overpopulated world.

The next most human way to reduce the population might be to put somethingin the water, a virus that would be specific to the human reproductivesystem and would make a substantial proportion of the population infertile.

Perhaps a virus that would knock out the genes that produce certainhormones necessary for conception.

The world's most affluent populations should be targeted first. Accordingto the 2006 Living Planet Report, the six populations that have the biggestper capita ecological footprint live in the United Arab Emirates, theUnited States of America, Finland, Canada, Kuwait, and Australia.

A question I have been told I should address is this: If we interfere withthe 'natural' structure of the population by limiting the production ofchildren, how do we support an ageing population?

Dealing with a healthy aged population would be manageable. If all theworld's aged were like the 80 to 90 year old Okinawans we could probablymanage quite well. But dealing with an aging population beset by theconsequences of over-eating the wrong food and under-exercising will be anorder of magnitude more difficult.

Societies will not be able to provide the health care services needed tokeep large numbers of unhealthy old people alive.

A triage approach will be necessary so that scarce medical resources go tothose who can contribute most to the long-term viability of the planet.Consequently, many middle-aged-to-elderly people will die uncomfortabledeaths. Not every problem is soluble.

I have also been challenged to say why I claim Australia cannot support alarger population. But how do you explain a self-evident fact? Consideringwater alone, all our capital cities, except perhaps Darwin, and manyprovincial cities are running out of water.

Then there is salination of our agricultural land, which is increasing atthe rate of about 10% per annum.

Not only must Australians cut their own consumption, we are exacerbatingthe problem by producing agricultural products from an increasinglyunproductive land for consumption by other societies.

Our global footprint is worldwide.

Meanwhile, people like the Federal Treasurer promote population increase.Sorry, Mr Costello, your 'One for the wife, one for the husband, and onefor Australia', will have to be changed to 'None for the planet'!

My plea is that we should face reality and begin to discuss theunspeakable. Humanity must undergo a mind-shift. If you must have a God, atleast recognise he/she/it did not give humanity licence to trash theplanet, whatever the Bible may tell you.

Indeed, humanity has been all too compliant with the Biblical injunction tobe fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.

The precepts of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islamrepresent the quintessential perversion of the human mind. They must beabandoned and the notion of the sanctity of human life must be subjugatedto the greater sanctity of all life on Earth.

Robyn Williams: Some startling suggestions there from John Reid, who livesin Melbourne and does research in cognitive neuroscience there. Of courseit's often suggested that the greatest force for limiting population isaffluence, and the education of women.

Next week some dark thoughts about Charles Darwin: Tony Barta from La TrobeUniversity looks at his record on race.

I'm Robyn Williams.

GuestsDr John ReidNeuroscientistMelbourne

PresenterRobyn Williams

ProducerBrigitte Seega



Qualia (from the Latin, meaning "what sort" or "what kind"; Latin andEnglish singular "quale" (IPA: [?kw??le])) are most simply defined asqualities or feelings, like redness, as considered independently of theireffects on behavior. In more philosophical terms, qualia are properties ofsensory experiences by virtue of which there is something it is like tohave them.

Whether qualia exist is a hotly debated topic in contemporary philosophy ofmind. The importance of qualia in philosophy of mind comes largely from thefact that they are often seen as being an obvious refutation ofmaterialism. Much of the debate over their existence, however, hinges onthe debate over the precise definition of the term, as various philosophersemphasize or deny the existence of certain properties.