Caring for the J Curve

By John Trotter

When plotted against time, human population is best represented by a J curve, an otherwise orderly line which takes a sudden leap upward. If bacterial counts in a baby followed a J curve, it would cause despair. If the population of fruit flies in an experiment jar follows a J curve, that population soon collapses.
The nature of the Earth-human relationship now places humans (who are at the top of the intelligence chain), in a unique position : we have become responsible for the course of all life’s existence through all of deep-time. This book is about this Earth–human relationship, with a focus on gratitude, service, and responsibility. It uses published and internet sources interwoven with the author’s own voice to reveal the importance of population care.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543919882

John Trotter

John Trotter has been a photographer for more than fifty years. Some of his recent work may be viewed at www.johntrotterphotography.com.

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©2017 John Trotter. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Reprinted from Black Elk Speaks, John G. Neihardt, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press Copyright 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press.

From the book Native American Wisdom, copyright © 1991 by Kent Nerburn and Louise Mengelkoch. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA.

From the book The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks. Reprinted with permission of Coleman Barks.

William Stafford, Ask Me from Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems. Copyright © 1977, 2014 by William Stafford and the Estate of William Stafford. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press.

Copyright © 1998 by Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint.

Copyright © 1990, 2010 by Wendell Berry, from What Are People For?: Essays. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint.

Copyright © 1977 by Wendell Berry, from The Unsettling of America. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint.

Reprinted from World As Lover, World As Self (2007) by Joanna Macy with permission of Parallax Press, Berkeley, California.

Alles wird wieder gross.../All will come again into its strength, Losch mir die Augen aus.../Extinguish my eyes..., and Was wirst du tun, Gott.../What will you do, God... by Rainer Maria Rilke; from RILKE’S BOOK OF HOURS by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, translation copyright © 1996 by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. Used by permission of Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-54391-987-5 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-54391-988-2 (ebook)

Table of Contents

Preface Introducing the Author and the Pieces

First Piece Our Relationship with the Earth

Second Piece The Implications of Being Human

Third Piece A Survey of Issues and Discovery of a

Common Factor

Fourth Piece Discussing the Common Factor

Fifth Piece Plain Talk From the Earth’s Point of View

Bibliography

REFERENCES

Preface

Introducing the Author and the Pieces

Disclaimer

I feel a bit like Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz must have felt when he spoke about his work on the Talmud. He said

... there was a feeling that there is something that has to be done. ... Now I know that I am not qualified, I am not the best person to do it, I am not the right person to do it, but I’m here. So in a way it is not hubris.¹

Like Rabbi Steinsaltz, I have no sense that I’m the right person to write this. I have no qualification greater than my interest in the health and well-being of the Earth and care for great-grandchildren. I have only the deep sense that I’m here and this elephant needs to be outed.

My education is basically irrelevant and there’s little particularly special about who I am or what I’ve done.² I’m a long-time supporter of Zero Population Growth (now Population Connection). I’ve read some books.³ I tend to believe peer-reviewed science and agree with reasonable conclusions. But these Pieces carry weight only to the degree that they expand your understanding. After all, all this emerges through observation followed by reflection and so is subject to confirmation by your experience and reflection.

Intention

These five Pieces explore how I feel and care about the Earth, though I know the futility of that, for very little I read really changes my mind. In truth, I often dismiss other peoples’ words or writing, or else I take them as confirmation of my own sense of things. Only rarely do they challenge me to rethink and reexamine my position, which I then may or may not do. So I present these Pieces as the sum of my experience, my curiosity, and my desire for a healthy Earth and I invite your similar consideration.

These Pieces present my sense that we live in intimate partnership with the Earth and all its creatures; that our best response to the Earth’s fruitfulness is deep gratitude which leads to responsible service. I believe that being at the top of the intelligence chain means serving from a planet-wide point of view. And I want that planet-wide point of view to lead to a global dialog about quality of life for how many creatures and for what length of time.

Contents

This preface sets the context for the Five Pieces that follow:

• 1) Relations – our relationship with the Earth.

• 2) Implications – the implications of being human.

• 3) Issues – a survey of issues and discovery of a common factor.

• 4) Population – a discussion of the common factor.

• 5) POV Earth – plain talk from the Earth’s point of view.

Approach

These Pieces are best read adagio—slowly, thoughtfully, critically. They present the opinion that the majority of our ecological and social issues have a common factor—so many people—and that any long-term solution includes fewer people. This is just an opinion, intended to open up discussion about population, the earth’s carrying capacity, and our responsibility to the future. Such a discussion will be difficult, complex, and nuanced, best done with positions considered thoroughly but held flexibly so that everyone can be heard and respected. Listening is central to understanding.

Gabriel García Márquez once said transforming the incredible into the believable was a matter of telling it straight. As Marquez suggests, I have worked to keep these Pieces straight. I hope those places where I may have failed are both obvious and forgivable.

Endnote

Once I started to write, I was relieved to find as many others as concerned as there are and then dismayed to discover how ignorant I was. As soon as I started into research, my rant was shredded.

So I want to thank a few of those whose books and writings have supported my education: Wendell Berry, Dee Brown, Pat Buchanan, Carlo Cipolla, Joel Cohen, Meghan Daum, Ruth DeFries, Mei Fong, Martin Ford, Jonathan Haidt, Tim Jackson, Joanna Macy, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, Nate Silver, Shel Silverstein, and Alan Weisman.

I have only been the organizer of these pieces, having in truth been supported by a vast cast of other authors, co-authors, co-writers, and co-contributors. Here is a partial list, in alphabetical order of last name (for my ease of mind):

Tom Burger, Heaven Edwards, Colleen Kelly, Julie-Ann and Tom Kosakowski, Lorraine Kumpf, Karen Maneely, Rosa Martinez, Roshi Wendy Nakao, Carol Schmitt, Judith Searle, Burt Wetanson, and members of the Zen Center of Los Angeles Brown-Green Circle.

I want this conversation about population care to be most tender, while being convincing of its necessity. My taking action is to offer these Pieces. Your taking action is yours.

First Piece

Our Relationship with the Earth

Infinite gratitude, infinite service, infinite responsibility⁴

Intention

This First Piece presents the opinion that we fit so naturally with the creatures and features of the Earth that life is a gift, as if of a higher power. It considers the relationship between Earth and human beings, suggesting that humans have stood in awe of the Earth as a source of life and nourishment, as an ineffable treasure. It suggests how to respond to this generosity, these blessings.

Relationship

Whether you subscribe to evolution or to Creation, it’s possible to agree that we live in intimate relationship with the Earth. All that we have, all that we are starts from the Earth; all that we use, all that we enjoy is harvest of the Earth; and all that we put down, all that we discard returns to the Earth. Indeed, as we venture into space this relationship expands to the stars. Whether you call it evidence of our grandeur or of our hubris, we have established a relationship throughout the universe, putting stuff onto the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, onto a comet, and out of our solar system into the universe at large.

Evolutionists say that we co-evolved with the Earth over hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years. Creationists say God brought us all into being in seven days. Either way, emergent or intricately, lovingly designed, we fit and belong here. We intermingle and interact naturally with all the other creatures and features of the planet. And though as individuals we are small compared to the Earth, the aggregate of what we do—whether through predestination or divine partnership or free will or random chance or unconscious indifference—matters.

The Earth–Human Relationship

Until recently the goodness of the Earth–human fit and the close balance between birth and death rates allowed us to view life in the biosphere as a virtually inexhaustible gift. (See Figure 2.1, High Stationary, in the Second Piece). The air, water, soil, plants, and animals, and the Earth’s ability to regenerate what we used and to absorb our wastes had stayed quite balanced. We lived this way for millennia, naming the planet Gaia, Mother Earth. If we thought of this at all, we thought of the Earth as a cornucopia.

Expressions of these blessings have emerged throughout the ages. The Bible, Native Americans, poets, religious leaders, and astronauts have all responded to these gifts, suggesting how we should consider them. Here are some of those expressions:

The Bible

The Green Bible⁵ has made a detailed study of the verses in the Bible that address the relationship between God and Creation. It begins with essays from respected theologians and conservationists and a collection called Teachings on Creation through the Ages, such as:

Irenaeus (120–202)

The initial step for a soul to come to knowledge of God is contemplation of nature.

Basil the Great (329–379), Hexaemeron, Homily V, The Germination of the Earth.

I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that wherever you go, the