I like most of the world have been watching the devastation resulting from the recent earthquake in China. It is a terrible tragedy. As of this mornings news, they are expecting the death toll to pass thirty thousand people! Having lived in a town of thirty thousand people I can imagine that number of people, but I can not imagine that number of people ceasing to exist in a little more than a blink of an eye.
From a more distant view I wonder if we, as in those of us living in highly developed nations contribute to catastrophes such as happened in this recent earthquake. There have been books written, and movies made for a number of years about living in a way that sustains a reasonable population, where barring a global tragedy we would never see numbers this high ever again.
Due to our technology, every year we squeeze ever more out of each acre of farm and ranch land, leading to huge excess of crops which we then ship to countries that are not so fortunate. While our intent is good, we have helped to create populations of people in various pockets around the world that is far denser than the land can support without our help. Because those pockets of people are better fed than any time in history, these pockets of people procreate faster, and sustain a larger population than at any time in history.
Because we have such an excess of grain that we both export and give away, we are in part responsible for this devastation. As hard as it is to imagine thirty thousand people dead as a result of an earthquake in China, it really is just a ripple in a country with the world’s largest population. As soon as the worst is over, new families will be moving into those areas, risking their lives to have the opportunity of a better future.
There is a book, The Story of B, which explains what we are doing better than I could explain it. I will try to convey an thought form the book in a condensed version: If you have a cage with two rats and they have access to fifty pounds of food a week, they will multiply until they have reached a population equal to the food supply. If you increase the food supply the population increases to meet the change. If you slowly cut back on the food supply, the population slowly shrinks to the new reduced food supply.
We are the story of B in human form. We have provided food over a few generations that allows some parts of the world to have a population that far exceeds the number that should be present. By default starvation is on a larger scale than ever before. Our grain and meat choices are shrinking in variety as science has become involved in genetic manipulation to further increase yield beyond what we can do on our own. I read that most of our wheat is produced from less than six different varieties. A little more manipulation and that number could be reduced to three, or maybe even one. What happens when that number is reached, and some long dormant bacteria arrives and ruins the world’s excess wheat crop, and/or meat surplus?
I have concerns that thirty thousand dead in China, and a thirty percent death rate during the Bubonic Plague of the Middle Age’s may look like small potatoes…or no potatoes if you were alive during the Irish potato famine. During times like this when I contemplate thirty thousand dead men, women, and children due to an earthquake, I have to wonder if we as a people have compassion or profit as a motivator for feeding the worlds hungry?
