Report from 2050: Too Many Mouths to Feed

Scientists warn current food crisis will worsen as human population growth rate officially outpaces world food output

[Note: This was originally published on 13.7 Billion Years as part of "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, based on current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions. To see what's real and what's not, click on the links within the text.]

by Reynard Loki, 13.7 Billion Years

JANUARY 3, 2050 (New York) -- Over forty years ago, in a 2009 interview with 13.7 Billion Years, executive director of the Living Oceans Foundation Capt. Philip G. Renaud said, "We’re really stressing the Earth’s natural resources due to population explosion...This is one of the most difficult issues we humans must come to grips with...If population continues to expand unchecked, we'll be facing food and water shortages and we'll quickly deplete our world’s natural resources."

The following year, in his book "The Coming Famine: The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It," Professor Julian Cribb wrote, "The world has ignored the ominous constellation of factors that now make feeding humanity sustainably our most pressing task -- even in times of economic and climatic crisis."

Now that the numbers are in, it is clear that humans did not come to grips with that issue back then. In 2010, the world human population was 6.9 billion. Today, with the population surpassing the 9.3 billion mark according to a new study released the U.S. Census Bureau, the demand for food and energy has jumped 50 percent and the demand for fresh water by 40 percent.

Central Africa faces another famine. Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay have been ravaged by near-constant food riots. China has placed a moratorium on food exports. Warlords across Central Asia exert power primarily by controlling regional water supplies.

In real terms, the world population growth rate has now officially outpaced the current global growth in food production and fresh water availability rates: There are simply too many mouths to feed.

"We have reached the apex of the perfect storm," said Professor Ignatius J. Reilly of the Institute of Climate Change Adaptation. "Unchecked human population growth has led to a list of worldwide crises -- the food crisis, the water crisis, the temperature crisis, the sea level rise, ocean acidification, desertification and the rapid loss of once-healthy ecosystems. Also, the spread of human habitat over the past several decades has put the final nails in the coffin of the Sixth Extinction."

Noting the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identification of human population growth as a "consistent contributor to growth in worldwide greenhouse gas," a Worldwatch Institute report released in 2010 argued that "assuring all women have access to contraception and taking steps to improve women's lives should be among key strategies in the fight against global climate change."

"Population is associated with sensitive issues like sexuality, contraception, abortion, migration and religion," wrote Worldwatch Vice President for Programs Robert Engelman, the report's author. "But increasing women's reproductive rights should be at the heart of the climate discussion, in the same basket as strategies like increasing energy efficiency and researching new technologies."

Though efforts like the Center for Biological Diversity's "Endangered Species Condom" Program (which distributes 350,000 free condoms annually in the United States), have expanded around the world, there simply hasn't been enough political or popular will to deal with the ills associated with human overpopulation, especially from the point of reproductive rights and contraception.

And when it comes to climate change, there has been a grand imbalance: The poor world is now paying for the past and current excesses of the rich world -- while having many more hungry mouths to feed.

"The dots have been there all along," said Professor Reilly. "But the rich world never really cared to connect them, as that would have revealed the cognitive dissonance that has marked the average Western-based consumerist lifestyle since the end of World War II. No one in the rich world wanted to change their behavior, and now the poor world is paying the heftier price."

image: world population from 1950 to 2050 (credit: U.S. Census Bureau International Database)

Report from 2050: Gardening on Mars

The first locally-sourced meal on Mars has been served -- plans for colonization on target

[Note: This was originally published on 13.7 Billion Years as part of "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, based on current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions. To see what's real and what's not, click on the links within the text.]

by Reynard Loki, 13.7 Billion Years

JANUARY 21, 2050 (RBO Press Office) -- Astronauts at the Free People of Earth Mars Station -- also known as "Red Base One" (RBO) -- celebrated the fruits of their "green thumb" labor yesterday when they sat down for the first meal made completely with vegetables grown in the Martian greenhouse.

"I would like to take this historic moment to thank all the astronauts and scientists of all the space agencies of the 21st century who have made the Martian greenhouse a great success," said Free People of Earth (FPE) president Willow Smith, at a press conference at Kid Cudi's Citadel, which will dock next week with the FPE Space Station for Jay-Z's 15th annual Roc-Tha-Planetz Tour.

"It was absolutely delicious and nutritious," said astroecologist Gaius Baltar, who arrived at RBO last month. "I was born and raised on a farm outside of the town of Cuffle's Breath Wash, so to be a part of the inaugural 100% locavore Martian dinner was a huge thrill that reminded me of how amazing food tastes when it's grown right in your own backyard."

The success of the Martian greenhouse is based on the groundbreaking HydroTropi research done four decades ago, in 2010, by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The HydroTropi study (short for "Hydrotropism and Auxin-Inducible Gene Expression in Roots Grown Under Microgravity Conditions") showed astroecologists how to control directional root growth through hydrotropism stimulus. On Earth, roots grow up and down, but in microgravity situations, roots grow sideways.

"Martian fare will be 100% vegan," said FPE Secretary of Ethical Consumption Natalie Portman, who presided over the dinner on Mars. "Part of my reason for being vegan is because it practices respect and love for life all through the day, so three times a day, you make a decision to eat food from things that have not been killed or abused," Secretary Portman told the guests at the dinner's opening ceremony.

"And part of the reason that planet Earth is in such a bad state today is because of the meat industry, which has not only inhumanely slaughtered billions upon billions of sentient animals who can feel pain, but has also destroyed the atmosphere through greenhouse gas emissions and decimated the rainforests -- and the species that used to live in those ecosystems -- through land conversion for livestock feed lots," said Secretary Portman. "For life as we know it to survive -- and when I say 'life,' I mean all living things -- the human diet must be vegan. The alternative is simply not sustainable, both technically and morally."

In 2010, the United Nations told the world to eat less meat. But carnivorism still increased over the past 40 years as the human population exploded to the current and unsustainable 9.3 billion.

Secretary Portman's speech received a standing ovation by the dinner's attendees, who included Ambassador Sandra Oh, Ambassador Zooey Deschanel and Captain Lilliolani (“Lani”) Paula Lum Watson, the daughter of Captain Paul Watson, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2030 for his work defending whales as the founder of Sea Shepherd. The dinner menu featured Seitan and Mushroom Stroganoff, Rosemary New Potatoes, Broccoli with Kasha and Black Bean Sauce and Fettucine Alfonso.

"The only thing missing was a big glass of Martian Nebbiolo," Dr. Baltar quipped, referring to the Italian wine grape variety that he brought to Mars last month. Dr. Baltar is leading a group of scientists working on the RBO Viniculture Program, which hopes to produce the first batch Martian wine and brandy in 2053.

This year, the meat industry officially broke through the Earth's "safe limit," according to a new report released by the Brussels-based Institute of Planetary Change (IPC). "The increase in livestock production to feed the Earth's humans has officially pushed the levels of greenhouse gas emissions, biomass consumption and nitrogen emissions into the red zone," said IPC director Ty Thorn.

"Earth has been our home for the hundreds of thousands of years," said President Smith. "But it will not last. We have used it and abused it and now it can no longer support us."

President Smith has been a longtime advocate of the Human Population Control Solution, also known as POCOSO, developed by the Center for Biological Diversity. According to a Cornell University study, "12 billion miserable humans will suffer a difficult life on Earth by the year 2100." The colonization of Mars will begin in earnest by 2065.

"Mars is our future," President Smith said. "But as we look forward, we must be very careful not to make the same mistakes that have led to the extinction of millions of species, the suffering of so many people and other sentient Earthlings and the destruction of so much of what made our Big Blue Marble so special. After all, as American philosopher George Santayana rightly said, 'Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.'"

image: garden on Mars (source: Obama Foodorama)

Report from 2050: Water - Fluid of Life, Victim of Our Indifference

Water and wisdom have rarely mixed. Too bad

[Note: This was originally published on 13.7 Billion Years as part of "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, based on current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions. To see what's real and what's not, click on the links within the text.]

by Reynard Loki, 13.7 Billion Years

JANUARY 24, 2050 (Cicely, Alaska) -- "Water is the only drink for a wise man," wrote Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 book Walden.

As he penned his famous text in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, the American transcendentalist could hardly have guessed that the precious fluid would be in such scarce supply as it is today.

Climate change, desertification, overpopulation and extreme weather events have put the world into a water crisis of extreme proportions. According to Mongabay, 75% of today's human population does not have access to enough fresh water. And now, water security has joined climate change and the food crisis as the greatest challenges facing mankind in the 21st century -- all issues stemming from human overpopulation.

"Drinking water supplies, agriculture, energy production and generation, mining and industry all require large quantities of water," wrote Mike Hightower and Suzanne Pierce, water experts at Sandia National Laboratories, in 2008 in the journal Nature. "In the future, these sectors will be competing for increasingly limited freshwater resources, making water supply availability a major economic driver in the 21st century."

In some places, the landscape is so dry that when rainfall does occur, the ground cannot retain it. "The most important change is in the increasing drying out of the landscape as drier periods get longer and are followed by bursts of intense rainfall which the dry soil cannot absorb," Professor Michal Marek, head of the EU-funded CzechGlobe climate change research project told IPS News. "This has a very significant effect on underground water supplies."

A 2010 University of Arizona study found that for every 1.8 degree Fahrenheit (1 C) of warming in the future, the Colorado River flow would decrease between two and eight percent. Seven western states in the U.S. and two states in northwestern Mexico -- including major cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque -- depend on water from the Colorado. Since the report was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the population of Colorado has doubled to 10 million, and as a result, water use has also doubled.

But water problems are not limited to the United States. The water requirement in Kabul, Afghanistan has grown six times since 2010. The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute has reported that some of the country's rivers have dried up completely. Pakistan and India continue a decades-long border war over water rights in the Indus River Basin.

But all this should not be surprising. At a 2010 Future Directions International (FDI) Global Food and Water Research Crisis Programme roundtable, David Molden, the Deputy Director-General for Research at the Sri Lanka-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI), said that increased demand for water in 2050 would be a result not just from individual use due to population growth in general, but from an increase in the demand for milk, meat and other agricultural goods that require large amounts of water to produce.

At the roundtable, FDI Associate and water expert Dr. Munir A. Hanjra said, "We simply don’t know how humans, technology and markets will respond to the kind of challenges that we face around the globe." For the past four decades, that question has remained unanswered. Julian Cribb, author of The Coming Famine, correctly predicted today's annual water shortfall -- some 6,000 cubic kilometres, about the size of six Nile Rivers.

"Worldwatch Institute warned that with nearly seven billion people now in the world, and an increase of up to 40 percent expected by 2050, governments still need to take urgent action," according to a 2011 AFP article. Unfortunately for the majority of people living today, no urgent action was taken.

"Considering the rate of human population growth, individuals, governments and businesses should have changed their behavior long ago," said Dr. Mari Ner of the Rio de Janeiro-based Institute of Hydrologic Studies. "Continued water waste, the destruction of arable land, urbanization and an increasing reliance on water-intensive agriculture have all combined with the effects of climate change to result in the water crisis that we are now experiencing and will continue to experience for the foreseeable future."

"Water doesn't come from outer space," said Dr. Neri. "Earth has a finite amount. We cannot be cavalier with its usage."

Thoreau, like the other American transcendentalists, believed in an ideal spiritual state that favored intuition over physical or empirical concerns. But he wasn't lacking for fresh water. Today, his spiritual explorations in self-reliance might be seen as a bit of a luxury. After all, who can achieve an ideal state without enough water?

"In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival," noted American biologist Rachel Carson, "water...has become the victim of his indifference."

image: noqontrol

Report from 2050: Epilogue - Why This Century Is Special

And you thought the 20th century was rough

[Note: This was originally published on 13.7 Billion Years as part of "Reports from 2050," a series of imagined reports from the year 2050, based on current news, recent discoveries and scientific predictions.]

by Reynard Loki, 13.7 Billion Years

It is often said that the real beginning of the process now known as "anthropogenic climate change" was the Industrial Revolution. No longer were things done by human sweat and draft animals. Machines did the dirty work. And boy was it dirty.

Burning the decomposed remains of prehistoric animals and plants in the form of coal, petroleum and natural gas, we pumped out so much global-warming carbon dioxide that the planet's natural carbon cycle couldn't absorb it all. But back then, no one knew. Steam engines and internal combustion engines created the modern world -- and it was wonderful. Or was it?

With all that creation came the rather rapid destruction of the Earth's terrestrial environment and its atmosphere, making life difficult -- and in many cases, impossible -- for countless species whose habitats were destroyed by the advancement of the industrialized human civilization. And by increasing the planet's surface temperature through the emission of greenhouse gases, we have endangered our own habitat.

This past month, 13.7 Billion Years touched upon a host of predictions about the year 2050 -- from the extinction of a Peruvian tribe to the rise of the cyclist, from crop failures affecting the World Cup in Nepal to gardening on Mars -- but the one that really sticks out (and is related to the others) is the unchecked growth of the human population, which is expected to hit a staggering 9.3 billion in four decades. To put that number in perspective, there were less than 3 billion people on the planet in 1960. It's very simple math but a very scary proposition. The rate of human population growth is simply not sustainable.

But there is "one firm forecast that's important," as cosmologist and Royal Society president Martin Rees wrote in a 2009 article in The Guardian: "A widening gulf between what science enables us to do, and what applications it's prudent or ethical to pursue."

And there you have it, the crux of the modern human condition. Just because we can doesn't mean we should.

We can take all the fish out of the oceans, cut down all the rainforests, use plastic bags and drink bottled water. We can experiment on, wear and eat other species. We can use pesticides and antibacterial soap and products tested on animals. We can eat out of season by buying food that comes from thousands of miles away. We can drive big cars and live in big homes. But even a cursory assessment of the rational or moral basis for doing these things clearly shows that we really shouldn't be doing any of it. These behaviors are unnecessary. And all of them have grave consequences.

"Our sun formed 4.5 billion years ago, but it's got 6 billion more before the fuel runs out," Rees writes. "Any creatures who witness the sun's demise, here on Earth or far beyond, won't be human. They will be entities as different from us as we are from a bug. But even in this 'concertinaed' timeline -- extending millions of centuries into the future, as well as into the past -- this century is special. It's the first in our planet's history where one species -- ours -- has Earth's future in its hands, and could jeopardise not only itself, but life's immense potential."

Indeed, we are the first species to have changed the Earth's environment and atmosphere. That is no small feat. And as a result, the 21st century will likely see a tipping point, a culmination of centuries of human civilization. Without enough food to feed the human population, with rainforests cut down to make room for livestock, with higher surface temperatures and a rising sea from melting glaciers and polar ice caps, it is going to go from bad to worse in a very short period of time.

A 1999 Cornell University study found that without "democratically determined population-control practices and sound resource-management policies...12 billion miserable humans will suffer a difficult life on Earth by the year 2100."

Most of us won't be around for that. But make no mistake -- the decisions that we make today will most certainly affect those who will.