cow and calf

A long time ago in FFA I heard a factoid that has stuck with me. A cow and a calf need an average of six acres of good pasture to survive without suppliment. Surprised me since you always see cattle in large crowds. Of course you always see them on feed lots.

It resurfaces in my thoughts when ever I see the stress of city living or hear someone argue against the reality of climate change.

In the 70s a book came out called the "Population Bomb". The main thesis of the book was that this planet could only support approximately 3 billion people. Twenty years later I heard an interview with the author who pointed out that all his predictions were coming to be. Even though the world then contained 5 billion people, many of these people were starving or in danger of starving and the stress on the environment was creating deserts and wrecking the oceans. It's the cow and the calf, I thought.

Some 15 years ago Dr. Carl Saegan co-wrote a book called In The Shadow of Ancient Ancestors. Really great read for all you Biology majors out there. In this book he discusses genetic predispositions in mammals. One of these was the typical reaction to overcrowding. In labs they put groups of happy content lab rats in crowded situations and limited the food resourse. Immediatly the rats formed gangs and began attacking weaker rats - babies, females, older rats. There were even 'rat gang rape events'. He said it was like watching any ghetto situation.
Again the six acres for one cow and her calf comes to mind.

So when I watched the movie An Inconvenient Truth I was struck by how the chart of CO2 followed the exponential increase in human population. Seems to me that we might be having the wrong argument. Which came first, over population or climate change?

Look. The Dust Bowl happened. We got photos and everything. So, was it the 10 year drought that caused the event or the poor farming practices? Both right?

Rainforest deforestation is a calamity for our atmosphere, agreed? Yet the hunger that is forcing landless peasants to try and farm the Amazon is also a pressing issue.

Warlords in Africa are creating mayhem, yet it is the desperate grabbing for limited resources that drives them.

Let's pretend that Global Warming isn't an issue. Let's just look at the results of overpopulation and agree that we got too many head of cattle on this tiny ranch. What do we do?

It turns out that the fixes for one problem also repair the other problem. For instance, if we try to address over-population instead of global warming what do we end up with?

Number one - Educate women in the third world and elevate thier social stature to be on equal footing with men. Time and again this has lead to women in the developing nations choosing to wait for the right husband, choosing when to have children and choosing to have fewer children that they can better provide for. It has NEVER failed. Educate a son and you improve the individual, educate a daughter and you improve the village.

Number two - Provide for the folks that are already here. If we are going to feed 6 billion people we have to globally improve farming operations, water conservation, and educate native populations on wise land use ie; not clear cutting rainforest for farming because the soil is too poor to grow crops, instead harvest what the rainforest has to offer.

Number three - Stop turning our back on environmental devistation and imagining it will not harm us if we can't see it. If Jesus came back today, he would have a hard time finding enough fish to feed the masses. Factory ships continue to drag enormous nets across the oceans, essentially plowing the ocean floor, and damaging, killing and consuming all that are caught in the nets. This carelessness has lead to the destruction of breeding grounds for many variety of fish, decimating the populations for generations to come and wrecking a food source for the planet. It's like harvesting a field then spraying the entire area with Roundup. You wont be getting anymore crops out of that piece of land for a long, long time.

All three of these actions will turn around this planets' wild ride to oblivion without having endless debates about whether global climate change is real or not. But it's going to be up to us individuals to make the million tiny decisions that will save us all - conserving resources, boycotting companies that make their money destroying the planet, voting for political candidates that aren't ludites, buying local, supporting public education, all that hippy junk we've been making fun of for the past 20 years. And if someone sneers at you and says "Are you one of those 'global warming nuts'?" Say "Not at all, I'm a 'feed the hungry nut'." or "Im a 'conservation nut'." or whatever kind of nut you wish to be. That way you stimulate thought and discussion instead of kneejerk rancor. Or just tell them about the Cow and the Calf.