Can the earth feed 11 billion people.

Part 1

Monday October 31, 2011 is marked as the day that the world’s population reached 7 billion. Humanity is on course for a population greater than 11 billion by the end of this century, according to the latest analysis from the UN’s population division. Over longer timescales, the recent increases look practically vertiginous. We seem to be on a trajectory that would surely exceed whatever the carrying capacity of the Earth is.

In a simple sense, population is the root cause of all sustainability issues. Clearly if there were no humans there would be no human impacts. Discussions on population growth often start with the work of Thomas Malthus, an English economist whose Essay on the Principle of Population published at the end of the 18th century is one of the seminal works of demography. Populations change in response to three driving factors: fertility – how many people are born; mortality – how many people die; and migration – how many people leave or enter the population. Malthus observed that more births than deaths would lead to exponential growth which would always outpace any improvements in farming and increases in yields. Consequently, unchecked growth was doomed to end in famine and population collapse.

In forming his dark forecast Malthus failed to take several factors into consideration. First, he wasn’t able to appreciate that the process of industrialisation and development that decreased mortality rates would, in time, decrease fertility rates too. Higher living standards associated with better education, in particular female education and empowerment, seem to lead to smaller family sizes – a demographic transition that has played out with some variations across most of the countries around the world. And second, far from food running out, as Malthus had feared, it became abundant as trade expanded and low-cost agricultural producers joined the world economy.

If industrialised agriculture can now feed seven billion, then why can’t we figure out how to feed 11 billion by the end of this century? However there are a number of potentially unpleasant problems with this prognosis.

First, some research suggests global food production is stagnating. The green revolution hasn’t run out of steam just yet but innovations such as GM crops, more efficient irrigation and subterranean farming aren’t going to have a big enough impact. The low-hanging fruits of yield improvements have already been gobbled up.

Second, the current high yields assume plentiful and cheap supplies of phosphorus, nitrogen and fossil fuels – mainly oil and gas. Mineral phosphorus isn’t going to run out anytime soon, nor will oil, but both are becoming increasingly harder to obtain. All things being equal this will make them more expensive. The chaos in the world food systems in 2007-8 gives some indication of the impact of higher food prices.

Third, changing lifestyles arising from rapid economic growth especially in Asia are a new worry. As the Chinese have become more affluent, they have started to consume more meat, raising the underlying demand for basic food since cattle need more grain to feed than humans.

Fourth, it is not even certain we will be able to maintain yields in a world that is facing potentially significant environmental change. We are on course towards 2℃ of warming by the end of this century. Just when we have the greatest numbers of people to feed, floods, storms, droughts and other extreme weather will cause significant disruption to food production. In order to avoid dangerous climate change, we must keep the majority of the Earth’s fossil fuel deposits in the ground – the same fossil fuels that our food production system has become effectively addicted to.

If humanity is to have a long-term future, we must address all these challenges at the same time as reducing our impacts on the planetary processes that ultimately provide not just the food we eat, but water we drink and air we breathe. This is a challenge far greater than those that so exercised Malthus 200 years ago.

 

3. Read part 2. Quote the sentences in which the following words and word-combinations occur, give their definitions and translate them into Russian.

Scaremonger, level out, poised, populous, densely populated, population density, take the brunt, ripe old age, congested roads, packed trains, overburdened hospitals, oversubscribed schools, top-heavy.

 

Part 2

Some commentators who study the phenomena of population believe that the majority of the world’s population growth will occur in Africa (plus 2Bn), Asia (plus 1Bn) and the Americas (plus 1Bn). So there is nothing for Europeans to worry about. Their cry is: scaremongers put away your prejudices and relax. World population will rise in the next few decades and then level out as more parts of the world become more developed.

News that England is poised to become the most crowded nation in western Europe will come as little surprise to the millions who already battle their way to work in London and the South East. Within two years, England will overtake Holland as the most populous major country - and it will get progressively worse. According to the Office for National Statistics, England's population will rise to 521 people for every square kilometre by 2056, compared with 390 individuals per sq km in 2006. England is already one of the most densely populated countries in the world, let alone in Europe. It has nearly twice the population density of Germany, four times that of France and 12 times that of the USA. Inevitably, the South will take the brunt of the increase, placing further strain on housing and transport, which are already almost at breaking point.

But the main driver for this increase is immigration. Some experts claim that Britain and the rest of the European Union are ignoring a demographic time bomb: a recent rush into the EU by migrants, including millions of Muslims, will change the continent beyond recognition over the next two decades, and almost no policy-makers are talking about it. The numbers are startling. Europe's Muslim population has more than doubled in the past 30 years and will have doubled again by 2015. In Brussels, the top seven baby boys' names recently were Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza.

There are other factors of course. Last year the Office for National Statistics indicated that mothers had more children than at any time since 1973. Immigrant mothers accounted for more than half of the increase in births, but the fertility rate among British-born women also rose sharply. More people are also living to a ripe old age.

Until fairly recently, demographers believed the population would stabilise at around 60 million and then decline. In other words, there was no long-term policy planning for the population we have today, let alone what we now face. The inevitable consequences are less space, more costly land, smaller but dearer homes, congested roads, packed trains, overburdened hospitals, oversubscribed schools, new towns and pressures on resources.

Since England will remain an attractive destination for many immigrants, who often bring their entrepreneurial dynamism with them, it would help matters if more people moved to other, less crowded parts of Britain. But we are such a top-heavy nation, with a capital city more dominant than any in Europe, that this is unlikely to happen unless more jobs are created elsewhere in the country.

No matter where you live overpopulation will become the greatest dilemma facing humanity in all of history. Either we solve it gracefully, or Mother Nature will solve it brutally. We must call for human population stabilization. If not, Mother Nature will presume that you chose to increase your numbers beyond her ability to feed, water, warm, house and transport your numbers. Once you do that, she will act swiftly, without mercy and with deadly intent. Mother Nature always bats last.

 

4. Sum up text 2 using the vocabulary from exercises 2,3. Were there any new or surprising facts?

 

Vocabulary

The following words have noun forms ending in –ion. Write the noun form and match the verbs to their meanings (a-n). Make your own sentences with them.

deplete
devastate
evaporate
pollinate
deteriorate
contaminate
decimate
deforest
consume
degrade
disrupt
extract
rehabilitate
proliferate

 

a) interrupt sth and prevent it from continuing

b) turn from liquid into vapour

c) help (a person, an animal) to live a normal life again

d) to spoil or destroy sth, for example by getting rid of a lot of people

e) reduce the amount of something

f) pollute

g) use a supply of sth

h) make the condition of sth worse

i) increase rapidly in number

j) damage sth badly or completely

k) clear an area of trees

l) remove sth from a particular place

m) become worse

n) enable a plant to produce seeds

 

Rendering