Environmental Issues: Mankind's Relentless March to Oblivion

By Jon Van Loon

Environmental issues are a pressing concern for governments globally. World overpopulation, causing subset problems such as, water scarcity, climate change, and resource depletion, is at the top of the environmental issues list. Environmental policies supporting global initiatives need to be enacted immediately, in order for our environment to continue sustaining future generations. As an environmental scientist with the University of Toronto for over 25 years, I traveled the world and witnessed firsthand many of the issues discussed in this book. The clock is relentlessly ticking toward environmental catastrophe and the time for action is upon us if we are to enact the changes necessary to alter the course of our trajectory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Van Loon
• Release date: Jan 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9780991785933

Jon Van Loon

My life has been complicated by 3 factors. A severe learning disability and a bipolar condition could have easily doomed me to a troubled, non productive existence. However a prodigious unrelenting manic drive was the burr under my saddle that propelled me to unexpected achievement in academia. Of interest here in this regard was that developments in my laboratory at the University of Toronto lead me to opportunities to work, teach and live for short periods in many locations on the 6 continents over a 25 year period. During these intervals, I chose to live in local category accommodation thus maximizing my exposure and participation in parochial experiences. In contrast to the calamitous relationships dogging present world interrelationships my experiences were entirely welcoming and solicitous.I was born in Hamilton Ontario Canada. My interests include jogging and other fitness programs having run in and completed 4 marathons together with numerous 5, 10 and 20 km events. My prowess in sport to say the least was very average. Non-the-less I participated in and then later coached ice hockey both in Canada and Australia. My reward for all this activity is that I have a healthy cardiovascular system and have endured 3 knee replacement operations. Most particularly I have a passion for work related to environmental concerns. In this regard I have 120 peer reviewed research papers in Environmental Chemistry, one of which nearly landing me in jail.

Book preview

Environmental Issues: Mankind's Relentless March to Oblivion

Jon Van Loon

Copyright 2012 Jon Van Loon

Smashwords Edition

Dedication

To those citizens of the world who have worked to have enacted long term solutions to the problems that could have helped prevent man’s now unstoppable march to oblivion.

Preface

If you have been lulled into a false sense of security after reading the book 'Abundance', and you believe that all the world's problems will be taken care of mainly through a flood of new technology, then you may not want to read this book. Yet If you really seek the truth about the future of mankind and long term bio-sustainability of this planet for future generations then this book is truly a must read.

I have spent my life working in the field of environmental science, and my wide ranging world wide experience suggests much more complex problems in enacting solutions are now upon us and worse will be faced in the future. Material presented in this treatise will demonstrate why overpopulation coupled with practical and deeply ingrained inertia spawning obstacles will prevent abundance even born of technological genius from becoming practical solutions to the growing worldwide grave problems.

Introduction

Inventing revolutionary technology especially at exponential rates is just the first and often the easiest step in an overall glacial speed multistep process that ends in a practical solution to a world problem. Within a single industry adoption of in-house inventions or otherwise acquired revolutionary technology can be relatively straight forward and relatively quickly enacted. However when such a technology is meant to have application over widespread jurisdiction(s) many complex factors come into play. At worse these often negate the practical implementation of the technology. At best they cause unacceptable long time delaying impediments to its adoption. So we can produce new technologies at exponential rates but governments and people still implement change at an almost imperceptible pace.

Thus since having a revolutionary technology and making that technology actually operational in the real world as a practical reality is two very separate things. This is something that would seem the worldly hands on inexperience of the Abundance authors prevent them from really understanding the difficulties of achieving a useful outcome. In an ideal world a technology developed which had the potential for correcting one of its critical problems would gain immediate acceptance and be sped through the essential stages into full scale operation wherever needed. We are all aware of how far from ideal this world can really be. People themselves at the ground-roots level but particularly their leaders, governments, religions, sects and other institutions often provide time consuming impedance to the acceptance of anything no matter how outwardly advantageous it seems. To add to this the world population is dotted by career technological criminals who particularly in the IT world badly use their ample skills. I can’t see any of these problems of mankind changing for the better anytime soon if ever.

It is crucial to note that admirably the First Author possesses degrees in molecular biology, aerospace engineering and has an MD which places him potentially in good position to forecast and develop the wonders of technology in fields of urgent world need. However for such technology to become a real world functional solution to the world’s problems demands the involvement of experts from many other disciplines and the hands on experience of having worked in a variety of jurisdictions outside the USA.

I possess a double major degree in Geology and Chemistry and a PhD in Chemistry also broad but nothing near capacious enough on its own to allow me to forecast my own developed technological firsts as to their impact or lack thereof on solving major problems worldwide. As will be shown below, I also worked in multidisciplinary research teams consisting of more than a dozen experts in other fields when proposing solutions to widely based real world problems. Additionally I lived and worked for short periods doing research and teaching in various jurisdictions on 6 Continents of the world.

Keeping it simple, here are important interdependent stages before a technology becomes useful; invention and development usually through several prototype stages, acceptance by the officials and governments involved, implementation and trouble free operation and skillful maintenance. In California typical environments where a plethora of this innovation originates is far from representing real world conditions from a variety of perspectives. Placing these technologies in much less ideal environments usually involves time consuming large scale prototype testing. Although the Abundance innovators try to extrapolate how such required technology for future abundance might work worldwide; their lack of real world hands on work and experience in dealing with other diverse political, religious and social situations is in large part lacking. Thus these ‘Californian type’ originating technologies most often fail at the acceptance, implementation, operation and maintenance stages. In a world that because of procrastination on urgent problems has already placed us in dire need of operational fixes; if total failure does not occur these processes drag on so long and have so many practical pitfalls that from any practical sense they are failures. Quite often just the human factor is enough to guarantee failure in this overall process.

History has many times demonstrated the potential difficulty in adopting poorly vetted plans to solve serious problems that ended up causing worse problems than they were intended to alleviate. Then we have the side effect deleterious potential of even tested technology, the pharmaceutical industry yielding some prime examples. To this must be added procedures like widespread use of genetically modified seed in agriculture to improve crop yield and resistance to insect damage and disease. This technology sounds wonderful on the surface but little research exists to demonstrate the safety of such an innovation.

Perhaps a good way to end this discussion on the practical uselessness of exponential technology development proposals proposed in the book Abundance is to cite the climate change conundrum that remains in worldwide dispute despite ample evidence that this issue threatens the very existence of mankind. This example has the advantage of exposing the typical factors that prevent agreement which are manifold but boil down mostly to trumped up disagreements between various forms of government and their selfish economic concerns. If mankind cannot even agree on the world threatening issues like climate change then what help will be an exponential flow of technology which itself is bound to often end up in disputes.

The Real Problem

Human Overpopulation has arguably become the dominant predicament facing the world today.

The influential journal Science devoted a special edition to the question of population, in July 29/11. The lead editorial written by Babatunde Ostimehin, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, states As the World’s Population reaches 7 billion this year, we should reflect on the many ways in which population dynamics matter to the planet’s future. Population growth patterns are linked to nearly every challenge confronting humanity, including poverty reduction, urban pollution, energy production, food and water scarcity and health.

World population expansion at unsustainable rates is the main problem threatening mankind’s earthly sustainability and continues unabated. Those dealing in the subsets of this issue are constantly forced to play catch up with the variety of resultant predicaments. The most pressing of these other than those mentioned by Ostimehin include climate change, resource depletion, economic inequities and recycling and waste disposal.

David Pimentel, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Agriculture at Cornel University, has stated that With the imbalance growing between population numbers and vital life sustaining resources, humans must actively conserve cropland, freshwater, energy and biological resources. Further a United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) entitled ‘Global Environmental Outlook’ involving 1,400 scientists over a 5 year period found that human consumption had far outstripped available resources. Each person on earth now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the planet can supply. It faults a failure to respond to or recognize the magnitude of the challenges facing the people and the environment of the planet. It further notes The systematic destruction of the earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the viability of economies is being challenged – and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay.

Many will be familiar with China’s 1 child per family population control initiative introduced in 1979. This laudatory program however has a spotty history of implementation and enforcement throughout the country. The result has been a continued pattern of substantial population increase through the latest figures available to me of 2010.

Using the World Population clock provided by Princeton University on their website http://opr.princeton.edu/popclock/popupclock.htmlthe world population at the time of writing was 7 billion and increasing by an astounding 2.4 persons a second. Relating births to deaths the figures for 2010, according to the UN population Reference bureau show there are 19 births and only 8 deaths per 100 people. The world population was estimated to have reached the 1 billion mark in 1805 and has increased almost 700% in the last 200 years. With a World already facing overpopulation, a 30% increase from 7 billion to an estimated 9 billion in 2050 is truly frightening. The pre-eminence of the overpopulation problem prompted Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry W. Kendall to state, If we don’t halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity – and will leave a ravaged world.

It is difficult for most to conceive that North America, a relatively large area with a population of about 370 million, could suffer from overpopulation when compared to our usual benchmarks of India and China with combined populations in the billions. However when considered in the light of interrelationships related to disproportionate consumption of resources, consumer demand for goods and services and the wastes generated there-by, a relatively small highly developed population can indeed exhibit the properties consistent with a population surplus. US National Research Institute on Food and Nature (INRAN), estimate the maximum US population for a sustainable economy at 200 million. According to their theory, in order to achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the US would have to reduce its population by at least one-third and the world population would have to be reduced by two-thirds.

An appreciable portion of the population in Canada and the USA were born In North America and have had little need to contemplate the world in its most urgent contexts, with the probable exception of climate change. Yet consider the large number of world citizens migrating to Canada and the USA in search of an improved future. What better indication of the good fortune that most enjoy simply because of their birthright. Thus it becomes clear that North Americans have the duty to amplify their global concerns and send strong directives to the government to