Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and ozone-depleting chemicals are expected to increase at rates that could alter the world’s climate and upper atmosphere significantly by 2050. Acid rain threatens damage to lakes, soils, and crops.
•
Extinctions of plant and animal species will increase dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of species—perhaps as many as 20 percent of all species on earth—will be irretrievably lost as their habitats vanish.
•
Regional water shortages will become more severe.
What are Global 2000’s projections on climate change to the year 2000? It says this: Because climate has a profound effect on our lives and economies and has possible consequences for the future, we cannot ignore it, yet there are unresolved problems which make statements about future climate very uncertain. This is to say, not enough is known about climate to provide us with a reliable predictive capability. . . Before the future climate can be reliably
. .
estimated, science must understand it well enough to build realistic quantitative models that relate cause and effect. . . Such models are yet primitive and
. .
incomplete.
And on the carbon dioxide crisis:
Carbon dioxide increase is thought to produce a warming of the earth by the so-called greenhouse effect. (p. 51, Vol. II)
As discussed in Chapter 4 and in the climate section of this chapter, the experts are more or less evenly divided over the prospects for warming or cooling, and most felt the highest probability was for no change. (p. 337, Vol.
II)
Therefore, in Table 13-46, “Summary of Impacts on the Environment” projections, the global, regional, and local climate effects are in every case given as “No impact projected.”
(p. 392)
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This same table projects many forms of severe environmental devastation from expanding consumption of fossil fuel and nuclear energy technologies. It says this about carbon dioxide:
•
CO emissions will increase from 26 to 34 billion short tons per year, 2
roughly double the CO emissions of the mid-1970s.
2
•
446 million hectares of CO -absorbing forests will be lost.
2
•
Burning of much of the wood on 446 million hectares will produce more CO . (446 million hectares equals 1,070,400,000 acres)
2
•
Decomposition of soil humus will release more CO .
2
•
A doubling of the CO concentration by 2050 could increase the average 2
temperature of the earth by about 3 degrees C, melting much of the polar ice.
And about Agriculture and Food:
Land productivity is declining in many industrialized countries as well as LDCs (Less Developed Countries). Losses of range and farmland to desertification by 2000 could total 2,800 million hectares… One half the total irrigated land is already damaged by waterlogging, salinization and alkalinization.
If it is not obvious at this point, it is important to realize that the projections given by this report, and those offered by John Hamaker, while similar in some ways, are fundamentally different in a number of ways, including these three:
1.
Hamaker’s whole thesis emphasizes ecological problem solutions beginning now on a worldwide scale. Global 2000 admittedly suggests no solutions, but concurs with Hamaker in asserting, “Prompt and vigorous changes in public policy around the world are needed to avoid or minimize these problems before they become unmanageable. Long lead times are required for effective action. If decisions are delayed until the problems become worse, options for effective action will be severely reduced.”
(p. 5, Vol. I)
2.
Hamaker, to a great degree, performs the absolutely essential task of recognizing and understanding the many interactions and “feedbacks” within the whole man-environment ecology, and he realizes where we are in the long-term soil-climate cycle. In contrast, Global 2000, “the foundation of our longer-term planning,” took this approach: The elements of the Government’s global model were not, of course, designed to be used together as an integrated whole. The constituent models were developed separately and at different times to serve the various projection needs of individual agencies (Vol. II, p. viii).
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Exercises cutting feedback within integrated world models reveal that the omission of system linkages greatly influences the results of forecasts, which suggests that the Government’s Global Model. . . is presenting a
. .
distorted picture of the probable future. The predictive error incurred by omissions of feedback is cumulative over time: in most cases it is not highly significant over a 5-year period, but becomes important in a 20-year period and may become paramount over a 50-year span.” (Vol. II, p. 681) John Hamaker has already made it abundantly clear that the errors of such a fragmented approach can become quite “paramount” in only a 5-year period at this point.
The Report concludes Vol. I with the admission: “The inescapable conclusion is that the omission of linkages imparts an optimistic bias to the Global 2000 study’s (and the U.S. Government’s) quantitative projections.” (p. 45)
3. Hamaker’s fundamental assumptions and perceptions of the present state of the biosphere—and of humanity’s capacity to build up its health and fertility, should also be seen in sharp contrast to the assumptions and projections of the Global 2000 authors. No better nor more important example of this could be presented than their views of the soil and future productivity therefrom.
This book’s first six chapters have presumably made clear Hamaker’s findings, findings that are based on the documented natural cycles and observable, easily-proven processes of fertility creation. The following section on the Global 2000 views of soil, food and agriculture is needed to make unmistakably evident the distinctions between the two views on the most basic factor of health and survival. Certainly the truth in either or both views must be recognized and applied on an unprecedented scale if humanity is to prevent either the rapid and quickly irreversible socio-ecological decline and glaciation projected by Hamaker, or the relatively slower, eventually irreversible decline into misery conservatively projected by the U.S. Government—were those government projections valid.
Global 2000 On The Soil Support System
As noted, Global 2000 does not acknowledge the prior 10,000 years of interglacial soil demineralization; in fact, loss of soil minerals is not recognized specifically at all in its listing of “the five major agents of soil loss.” (Vol. II, p. 277). These are given as a classification for
“what is now known of world land degradations” as follows:
1. Desertification;
2. Waterlogging, salinization, and alkalinization;
3. Soil degradation that follows deforestation;
4. General erosion and humus loss from “routine agricultural practices’’; 5. Loss of lands to urbanization and related developments.
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Before quoting the report’s somewhat fantastic food production increase projections, a few of its views on the deterioration of soils are important to note: Soil is a basic agricultural resource, but it is a depleting, salifying, and eroding resource. Lost soil fertility can be restored, but only after long periods of time and at great cost. (Vol. II, p. 297)
Restoration of mildly damaged soils could be accomplished over a decade with fallowing and green manuring. . . but restoration of severely damaged
. .
land would require much longer. . . (Vol. II, p. 416)
Accelerated erosion, loss of natural fertility and other deterioration. . . may
. .
have more effect in the coming years than is indicated in the Global 2000 food projections. (Vol. I, p. 20)
To what extent does soil deterioration on existing croplands affect the world’s agricultural potential? The limited data available suggest the outlines of an answer. . . showing scattered but alarming examples of soil deterioration.
. .
The primary problems include: (1) loss of topsoil to erosion, (2) loss of organic matter, (3) loss of porous soil structure, (4) build-up of toxic salts and chemicals. (Vol. II, p. 276)
Apparently, the most basic underlying cause of all these problems—worldwide soil demineralization—is outside the awareness of the authors. This statement is made regarding the present state of deterioration:
Changes in soil quality cannot be directly and accurately measured over large geographic areas, and too few sample measurements have been made to obtain a detailed statistical picture at the global (or even, with a few exceptions, at the national) level. . . The study of world soil conditions is
. .
further complicated in many regions by the use of synthetic fertilizers and high-yield varieties, which may maintain or even increase production for a time, temporarily masking losses of soil and deteriorating soil structure. (Vol.
II, p. 276)
Concluding the section, “Deterioration of Soils,” the authors state a message as significant and clear as any in the report:
Whether the soils of the world will deteriorate further or be reclaimed will depend in large part on the ability and willingness of governments to make politically difficult policy changes. . . Assuming no policy change—the standard assumption underlying all of the Global 2000 study projections— significant deteriorations in soils can be anticipated virtually everywhere including in the U.S. Assuming that energy, water, and capital are available, it will be possible for a time to compensate for some of the deterioration by increasing. . .inputs. . . (fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc.),
.
but the projected increases in energy (and chemical fertilizer) costs will make this approach to offsetting soil losses ever more expensive. Without major policy changes, soil deterioration could significantly interfere with achieving the production levels projected in this Study. (p. 283)
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Global 2000 food projections, and the means to achieve them, “assuming no deterioration in climate or weather” (Vol. II, p. 13) are based upon “the food and agriculture projections developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture which foresee a 90 to 100
percent increase in total world production over the 1970-2000 period. . . The projection
.
increases are based in part on a projected 4 percent increase in arable area.” (Vol. II, p.
272—emphasis added)
Such tremendous gains in global food production could, without a doubt, occur if generous soil remineralization programs are instituted (and, of course, greater gains could come from replacing certain unnecessary non-food crops with essential food crops). How do the USDA authors involved in the study believe the gains will occur? Such gains obviously require greater soil fertility and thus “fertilizer”—presumably the balance of elements and materials which are responsible for producing fertility and life. However, for this most crucial study, the authors have decided to impose on it the narrow, commercially-institutionalized definition of “fertilizer”: packaged concentrates of acidic “nitrogenous fertilizer, phosphates (P O ) and potash (K O).” (Vol. II, p. 100) More of these authors’
2
5
2
views are best related, if not fully comprehended, by further direct quotes from the study: Because of this tightening land constraint, food production is not likely to increase fast enough to meet rising demands unless world agriculture becomes significantly more dependent on petroleum and petroleum-related inputs.
Increased petroleum dependence also has implications for the cost of food production. . . the real price of food is projected to increase 95 percent over the 1970-2000 period. . . (Vol. I, p. 16-17)
A world transition away from petroleum dependence must take place, but there is still much uncertainty as to how this transition will occur. (Vol. I, p.
27)
Farmer’s costs of raising, and (costs of) even maintaining yields have increased rapidly. . . Costs of. . . fertilizers, pesticides, and fuels have risen very rapidly throughout the world, and where these inputs are heavily used, increased applications are bringing diminishing returns. (Vol. I, p. 18) While there have been significant improvements recently in the yields of selected crops, the diminishing returns and rapidly rising costs of yield-enhancing inputs suggest that yields will increase more slowly than projected.
(Vol. I, p. 19)
The 90 to 100 percent increase in food production projected through 2000
under Alternative I suggests roughly a 180 percent increase in fertilizer use, from 80 million metric tons in 1973-75 to 225 million in 2000. . . Measures of fertilizer per arable hectare. . . point up the increasingly input-intensive nature of food production through the end of the century. (Vol. II, p. 99) P . 1 6 7
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Note: “the ‘fertilizer’ projections are intended to apply to a full package of yield-enhancing inputs,” including “pesticides, herbicides, irrigation, etc.” (Vol. II, p. 283) Chapter 6 projects that by 2000 global use per hectare of “fertilizer” (as defined in that chapter) will be 2.6 times that of the record levels reported in the early 1970s. Usage in LDCs is projected to quadruple. “The per-hectare usage of fertilizers in all regions can be expected
. .
to increase at essentially the same rates as total applications.” (Vol. II, p. 283) While U.S. Department of Agriculture officials regard the global levels of fertilizer use projected for 2000 to be safe when applied carefully by trained personnel, they are aware that improper use leads to increased dangers.
Improper use can aggravate rather than alleviate problems of soil deterioration and declining fertility. (Vol. II, p. 284)
Nitrous oxide from fertilizer usage. . . depletes the ozone layer. If this phenomenon turns out to be serious, the world could find itself in the tragic situation of having to support the human population at the cost of subjecting the world’s biota to damaging doses of cosmic and ultra-violet radiation, at least one effect of which would be increased incidence of skin cancer in human beings. (Vol. II, p.284)
From the perspective of ecology, the known terrestrial effects of increased fertilizer usage are surprisingly benign. The addition of large amounts of three critical nutrients (phosphorous, potassium and fixed nitrogen) might be expected to produce many changes in soils. The most apparent effect is simply the intended increase in plant growth. . . (“the number of malnourished people in LDCs could rise from 400 to 600 million in the mid-1970’s to 1.3 billion in 2000. . . ”—Vol. I, p.17) Increased nitrogen usage contributes to reduction of soil organic matter, thus degrading soils and contributing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. . . Generally soil organic matter declines to. . . 40 to 60 percent of
.
the original content. Soil quality deteriorates as well. While in most cases crop yields can be maintained through the continual applications of chemical fertilizers, through plowing with large tractors, and through irrigation, the modern methods of farming tend to lock agriculture into a particular mode of cultivation and resource allocation if high yields in degraded soils are to be maintained. (Vol. II, p. 284)
While mortality from methemoglobinemia is now extremely rare, the presence of high levels of nitrate in drinking water supplies poses a health hazard that is already a valid concern in the United States, and the projected doubling-to-quadrupling of fertilizer applications by 2000 could make this disease more serious and more widespread. (Vol. II, p. 285)
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The reader has perhaps already posed the question: What can the short and long-term value be of such fertility-depleting “fertilizers” and overall increasing fossil fuel dependence be? And how can anything but overall degradation of soil, humanity, and the “globe” result from pursuing these “traditional” but ecologically out-of-date technologies? The Global 2000 authors, being oblivious to soil remineralization and recycling potentials, believe that ecological destruction must result from human food production methods, as shown by this conclusion to Chapter 6, “Food and Agriculture Projections”: Fertilizer and pesticide pollution problems can also result from misuse.
Even relatively small quantities. . . can generate major environmental problems. . . The fast growth in the use of fertilizers and pesticides implied by the projections for most LDCs over the next three decades point up the need for expanding and upgrading farm education programs and monitoring input use to insure the optimum trade-off between food production increases and environmental quality.
In summary, while solutions to foreseeable environmental problems in expanding food production are theoretically available, their application—particularly in those parts of developing countries experiencing the greatest environmental stress—is in question. Ultimately, the environmentally positive or negative nature of increases in food production is likely to depend on short-term versus long-term costs. The real food price increases projected for the decades ahead could well make the short-term costs of environmentally positive agriculture seem high and the long-run costs of an environmentally negative agriculture seem small. In the industrialized countries, internalizing the costs of pollution. . . could narrow the margin between short-term and long-term costs and accelerate the move to an environmentally positive agriculture. In most developing countries, however, questions of grain gaps and calorie gaps are likely to outweigh problems of environment well beyond the year 2000. (Vol. II, p. 104)
Presumably no commentary is needed on those statements. A section on “Feedback to the Food and Agriculture Projections” (p. 414) reveals another interesting assumption, namely:
“Yields are assumed to continue increasing at essentially the same rates as in the past two decades,” despite the fact that former USDA researcher Lester Brown, now Worldwatch Institute president, has documented that chemically-induced yields have been falling or leveling off in the U.S., China, France, and elsewhere ( The Worldwide Loss of Cropland, 1978, Worldwatch paper No. 24).
Also:
Pollution by pesticides and fertilizers is assumed not to constrain the use of pesticides and fertilizers (p. 414). . . over the period of the projections there will be no major improvement in the food supply for the world’s poorest populations, and what improvements do occur will require an increase of 95
percent in the real price of food… (p. 415)
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For the LDCs, the food projections assume that land deterioration will not be more serious than in past decades, because farmers will be aware of the problems, will institute practices preventing more extensive deterioration, and will charge more for their crops to cover increased costs. There is a significant discrepancy between these assumptions and the environment projections. . .
(they) anticipate significant increases in the intensity of use of agriculture lands in the LDCs and very few preventative or remedial measures. The primary LDC remedial measures implied by the food projections are a fourfold increase in the use of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides and a large increase in irrigation. . . Furthermore. . . deforestation will increase the degradation of the LDC agricultural lands. . . increased erosion and. . . a fuelwood shortage. . .
will result in an increase in the burning of dung [150 to 400 million tons/year—ed.] that would have otherwise been returned to the soil as nutrients.
The food projections assume that agricultural pests and diseases will not present more difficult problems in the future than they have in the past. The projections indicate that these problems will be managed through a global doubling in the use of pesticides. A still larger increase is anticipated for the LDCs.
By contrast, the environmental projections suggest that pest and disease problems will increase, especially if reliance continues to be placed primarily on pesticides. (p. 415-17)
These excerpts should more than suffice to make plain the contrast between the approach designed to restore the entire Biosphere from the soil up, and that approach found effective, in years past, for extracting soil fertility reserves via fossil fuel-based chemical technologies.
The crucial choice to move ahead swiftly and intelligently with the one, or to attempt an intensification of the other (as Global 2000 “projects”), should be seen in its total ramifications for human life on Earth, now and in the potential future. If this can be done, the sensible human mind may well perceive that there isn’t actually any choice.
In this connection may be considered these words from Global 2000’s “Conclusions” of Vol. I:
Vigorous, determined new initiatives are needed if worsening poverty and human suffering, environmental degradation, and international tensions and conflicts are to be prevented. . . New and imaginative ideas—and a willingness to act on them—are essential.
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Global Future: Time To Act
This is the title of the 200-page follow-up (released in January, 1981) to the Global 2000 Report, intended to begin developing solutions, says the preface, for the “problem areas needing priority attention. . . The report presents a collection of considered assessments and new ideas for actions the United States could take, in concert with other nations, for a vigorous response to urgent global problems.”
This report may be summarized briefly by noting that nothing is yet forthcoming on the requirement to remineralize the soils and stabilize or restore degenerating ecosystems, although its recommendations to begin immediate worldwide communication and cooperation are a beginning.
One of the authors, Gus Speth, Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, has been informed by a number of people of John Hamaker’s breakthroughs in understanding.
Speth writes:
“What the recent reports do emphasize in a new way are the accelerating pace and scale of the problems and their interrelationships—the web of causes and effects that bind them together.” Yet he does not offer a single word on remineralization potential, just a vague statement that “soil enrichment techniques” should be encouraged. Here is the brief paragraph, under “Techniques for sustainable agriculture,” where this possibility is mentioned:
The Global Report projections assume that global use of agricultural chemicals will accelerate. However, continued rapid increases in their use may not be feasible. The manufacture of nitrogen fertilizers and. . . pesticides, is based on fossil fuels and will be subjected to steeply rising costs. In addition, many of these chemicals produce a wide range of serious environmental consequences, some of which adversely affect agricultural production.
Alternatives that can contribute to raising agricultural yields on a long-term sustainable basis are available and should be encouraged. Among them are integrated pest management and soil enrichment techniques. (p. 34-5) Finding ways to assist soil microorganisms in assimilating atmospheric nitrogen is also highly recommended (p. 38), but no connection between this and the aforementioned soil enrichment techniques is made.
Recommendations on reforestation, renewable energy, and CO are also given—in 2
isolation from their relations to the soil system—as follows: U.S. support for a global fuelwood program that would double the rate of tree planting in developing countries over a 5-year period is highly desirable.
U.S. efforts should take at least three forms: support for the large expansion of World Bank fuelwood-forestry lending recently proposed by the bank, a major expansion of AID and Peace Corps fuelwood assistance, and support for adoption of a global fuelwood program at the 1981 UN Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy.
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The World Bank has concluded that massive reforestation is essential and recommends raising the global rate of tree planting five-fold, from 1.25 million acres a year to 6.25 million acres. [About 50 million acres of forest are being
“consumed” yearly— Global 2000, Vol. II, p. 126]
An interagency task force should be established to chart a realistic path for achieving the goal of getting 20 percent of our energy from renewable energy by the year 2000.
The United States should ensure that full consideration of the CO problem 2
is given in the development of energy policy. Efforts should be begun immediately to develop and examine alternative global energy futures, with special emphasis on regional analyses and the implications for CO buildup.
2
Special attention should also be devoted to determining what would be a prudent upper bound on global CO concentrations. (Vol. II, p. 125-130) 2
The World Conservation Strategy
This strategy, published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, is the result of three years of research and discussion involving more than 450 government agencies and over 100 countries. It was “launched” on March 5 , 1980 in London and 32 other capital cities across the world. A summary of the WCS appears in the April 1980 Not Man Apart. It is difficult to criticize a document and worldwide educational effort that represents a giant leap forward from no strategy or concern at all, but as well-meaning as it may be, it too fails to recognize the naturally-retrogressed and humanly over-exploited state of the present late-interglacial soil and biosphere. Instead, according to “How To Save The World: A Bold New Campaign” (Not Man Apart), it suggests that: “The biosphere is like a self-regenerating cake, and conservation is the conduct of our affairs so that we can have our cake and eat it too. As long as certain bits of the cake are not consumed and consumption of the rest of it is kept within certain limits, the cake will renew itself and provide for continuing consumption.”
It also says that most countries are poorly organized to conserve, that severe soil degradation is already a critical problem, that deserts may soon adversely affect 630 million people, that tropical forests are quickly becoming extinct, and that time is running out. In spite of these realizations, the strategy gives no emphasis to remineralizing or otherwise
“enriching” soils, reforesting large areas or establishing biomass energy plantations, nor to restoring—implying giving to or nourishing—Earth’s poverty stricken ecosystems in any sufficient way.
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Apparently, its authors have accepted the common belief that policies of “conservation,”
even on a worldwide scale, will function to prevent collapse of Earth’s (late-interglacial) life support systems, and human civilization. ( The Survival of Civilization will of course be sent to the Global Future and World Conservation Strategy authors as soon as possible.) In concluding, the growing perspective of the reader may well consider these wise words of this “How To Save The World. . .” article:
The devastation of the biosphere is the ultimate threat to the sur