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Father of Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, Dies at 95
countincognito writes "Norman Borlaug, a genuinely remarkable man and the father of the Green Revolution in agriculture, has died of cancer at his Dallas home aged 95. His life's work on developing high-yield, disease-resistant crops has been credited with having saved an estimated one billion people from famine, and one billion hectares of forest and rainforest from being cleared for agricultural production."
And probably now heralded by most 'green' supporters as some sort of horrific monster that messed with nature to create these crops.
A bit of an emendation:
That's what fundamentally made him a good recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He made high-yield new seeds, and encouraged farmers to use them, spread them, replant them in subsequent years, etc., giving them greater food security and freedom. He didn't, to the contrary, patent them, prohibit replanting seeds in subsequent years, and so on. That would have still increased crop yields, but would've made farmers dependent on Borlaug to buy seeds every year, which was the opposite of his intention.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
No, he will be eaten by his far descendants. And one day, you, too, shall be recycled. Soylent Green is medieval people!
Ezekiel 23:20
Sooner or later you hit a limiting resource. Land, water, energy etc. A better investment would have birth control and birth control education.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Just so slashdotters are aware, Norman Borlaug acted primarily as a humanitarian. His goals often intersected with common sense efforts in ecological preservation and education, but don't go off misinterpreting his "Green Revolution" as an environmental movement just because of the word Green. His greatest goals and achievements were the alleviation of human suffering and famine, and he typically pursued environmental goals as methods of achieving this, not as ends in themselves.
Hey, if you're so worried about overpopulation, I'm sure you'll take one for the team and off yourself right now, won't you?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Because those 1 billion people he saved had X billion children that are now facing starvation. I guess we'll just need to keep increasing crop yields rather than deal with the ultimate problem. When people have food they try and make more people, even if feeding those new people is untenable.
He wants his theory back.
That's 10,000,000 km^2 or larger than Canada, only Russia is larger.
That page mentions this: The total land area of the world is 148,940,000 km2 (57,510,000 sq mi)[3] (about 29.1% of the Earth's surface area).. In other words, what he did prevented the clearing of 6.7 percent of the Earth's surface for agriculture.
I find that figure a little difficult to believe, but I don't know that much about agriculture or what kind of impact deforestation for agriculture has. I did find this bit on forests though:
So what he did saved about 20% of the total forested areas from clearing.
Again, a bit difficult to believe, but whatever.
Why is this the first line of attack anytime the subject of overpopulation comes up? There are at least a few ways to try to reduce the number of humans expected to be inhabiting this planet years from now other than "offing people". Contraception in poorer areas? Raising the standard of living to statistically lower the number of offspring parents have? Just jumping to "OMG OVERPOPULATION KILL YOURSELF LOLROFL!!@#" doesn't add anything to the debate.
Then again, if they're advocating committing mass murder or genocide for the sake of conserving resources...
yep that is the plan, Rather then allowing people to starve to death today we hope someone can find a better way tomorrow.
What you fail to appreciate is that he changed the rules of the game. Where using previous crops, the world could only support x number of people, using his enriched crops, the world could support X+Y people. He increased the efficiency of agriculture, and thereby bushed back the numeric threshold for 'overpopulation' considerably. And since you can get more crops from less land, there was less species depletion, more concentrated land impact, and less ag pollution because of reduced fertilizer needs.
Are there still problems? Yeah. But this guy was a giant, and too an overwhelming problem and made it a little less insurmountable.
Without his contribution, one billion people would have died of famine, and one billion hectares of forest would have been cleared. In other words, the ecosystem could only sustain one billion fewer people, and the existing population would have cleared one billions hectares of forest.
With his contribution, the ecosystem now sustains that additional 1 billion: the total number of mouths is 6 billion. There is now not a need to clear that additional billion hectares of forest.
However, the population continues to grow. It will reach such a size that famine will kill one billion people and that hunger will force the clearing of an additional billion hectares of forest.
Overpopulation is the root cause of many problems: energy shortage, famine, global warming, etc. The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse are approaching. We can already hear the hooves of the horses.
"High-yield, disease-resistant crops" reduce both of these.
Which carbon?
You think global famine would be a good way to stop it?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Why is this the first line of attack anytime the subject of overpopulation comes up?
It's my way of conveying how irritating you are. Truth to tell, I'd be happy to see you check out even if we already had a steady population.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
(Pressed submit instead of preview...)
Would you volunteer to be one of the people who starves to prevent overpopulation?
Not to mention that any famine that doesn't wipe out the human race would results in only temporary population drop. The only solution that doesn't involve basically killing people by one method or another is to lower birth rates. To this end, I suggest that religion gets banned.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Wars are caused by 3 things, the top being food. One man actually was able to remove one cause that's plagued mankind for the last 20,000 years with science. For his credit, he even went as far as to push it into Africa. Unfortunately, when you have a vastly unstable region with no government control you can only do so much.
Nah this guy is one of histories greatest individuals. If only the ignorant actually understood what he actually achieved, and what high-yield crop farming could do, they'd figure out that Africa could feed the world, and you wouldn't even need to worry about hunger anywhere.
Than again, maybe you're one of those assholes who believe in positive population checks. You know, all war is good war, all diseases that wipeout mankind are good, and all starvation that keeps the peasants dead are good.
Om, nomnomnom...
Not developing high-yield crops would have been indirect "offing people", so the suggestion was presumably intended to highlight the ridiculousness of blaming overpopulation on excessive food. It at least gave us some more time to try and lower birth rates before famine starts to kill people.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
There is no such thing as overpopulation that can't be solved by re-engineering our cities/factories and changing our lifestyles. Yes, other species and ecosystems will be be strained and always have been by growing human populations but the idea that the earth can only sustain a certain amount of humans is both naive and absurd. The biomass during this epoch is far less than the Triassic and Jurassic periods when huge 20 ton monsters roamed the country eating a good part of their body weight per day. This went on for 10's of millions of years. Even Americans aren't that big yet. According to the 1970's chicken littles like yourself we should all be dead by now. Well, um that didn't happen because technology solved many of the problems that were emerging at the time and we will continue solving them contrary to naysayers like yourself.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
You have it exactly backwards, my friend.
The population is already there.
Norman Borlaug, by increasing crop yield per area REDUCED the amount of land used for agriculture. This also has the effect of REDUCING deforestation, thereby INCREASING atmospheric carbon loading. By increasing the pest resistance of the crop REDUCED agricultural pollution.
And crop yields are still going up (thank you technology). Overpopulation is bad. But since we keep expanding the number of people we can support without overpopulating the planet, and Paul Ehrlich was wrong about the population bomb, there's still hope to save the planet and not be party to mass starvations that exceed anything we've seen up till now in human history by an order of magnitude.
Whoops, to read decreasing carbon loading.
25,000 die a day from lack of food; Borlaug reduced the problem but he was not able to eliminate it in his lifetime unfortunately. Problem is, yield increases (whilst absolutely essential of course) are only part of the problem. There is enough food produced in the world now to feed everybody, but most of it is wasted or deliberately destroyed.
Borlaug's work, whilst incredibly impressive, is unfinished.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
... is no more.
Future generations will scarcely believe that such a man walked the earth.
There are more human ways to control overpopulation. Limited food supplies is the way it works in nature, but we humans should use our intelligence.
Dr. Borlaug himself was aware of the overpopulation problem, but that's something for politicians and religious leaders to solve, a scientist should do his best to alleviate human suffering, even if it should create other problems.
Agreed. The shame of it is, it may very well take another global catastrophe that we were facing in the '50's to get another man like hm.
Om, nomnomnom...
MONSANTO
read about it!
1. Borlaug's wheat wasn't GM. He was saving hundred of million of people in the 1960s. GM crops weren't developed for another 30 years.
2. Seeds aren't organic. It's what you do to the them after you plant them that makes food organic or conventional.
3. Ask any of the Indian cotton pickers, who despite living on less than a dollar a day won't pick non-GM cotton because of the huge amount of pesticides they're exposed to, if they don't want GM crops.
4. Not having anything to eat (called starvation) has been proven by scientists to be bad for your health. Borlaug's wheat wasn't more nutritious, it produced more food on the same land, so people who otherwise would have starved didn't.
5. Most of current GM crops don't increase yield (though there's really cool stuff coming out over the next five years). BT crops reduce the use of toxic insecticides. Herbicide resistance crops let us switch from more toxic herbicides like atrazine to less toxic ones like glyphosate and also promote no-till agriculture which reduces the erosion of the top soil we'll need if we ever want to feed our grandchildren.
In conclusion, you seem to know nothing about these topics (food and agriculture and genetic engineering). If you're interested, educate yourself, I wish more people were engaged. Otherwise don't be surprised if no one takes you seriously.
The checks and balances are still in place and killing an irritating voice won't change anything.
The problem is that antropomorphosizing earth and nature through giving them political tools like "checks and balances" doesn't really shed any light on the real problem that not all people have access to the education/knowledge that puts them in control of how many kids they will have.
There is nothing wrong about recognizing natures limits and living accordingly I would say.
What might arrise from using his particularly unfitting words is that some people may go ahead and enforce the checks and balances before "mother nature" does it, much like your need to keep the idiot count low.
Je me souviens.
His work was funded by the US Government, the Mexican Government, and the Rockefeller foundation among others. Seeds, like software, do more good for more people when they're free. But if we want more Norman Borlaugs, we (the public) need to support their research and their outreach to the farmers who need their help. Otherwise all the new breakthroughs will be made by for-profic companies like Monsanto with the negative intellectual property consequences you mention.
The best example of this I can think of is golden rice, which would be fighting vitamin A deficiency around the world, but still hasn't been released because of a lack of public funding for safety trials and introgressing the trait into the kinds of rice best adapted to different parts of the world.
This is a thread about using straw men to attack the enviro-nazi's who want to take away our SUV's and make us stop eating bacon!!!! The thread discussing the issues rationally is on metafilter.
And since you can get more crops from less land, there was less species depletion, more concentrated land impact, and less ag pollution because of reduced fertilizer needs.
Despite all the great things about Green Revolution, reduced fertilizer use isn't one of them. The high-yield crops outperform the traditional crops under "certain conditions", and that certain conditions are: (1) high pesticide use, to counteract the possibility of widespread pest due to the monoculture nature of high-yield crops, (2) high fertilizer use, since just basic chemistry tells you that it would need more nutrients to produce more seeds, (3) high water use, for the same reason.
Green revolution may have helped reduce the overall use of these three things per capita and help concentrate the use to limited area of lands, but I wouldn't be so hasty to claim that without some proof somewhere—and since this is a case of what might have been, chances are, it's hard to prove it one way or another.
1 - large scale energy intensive ag controlled by multinational corporations has replaced and displaced subsistence and native farmers
2- exacerbated unfair land distribution
3 - creation of single ubiquitous strains of crops farmed only in 1 country increases risk of ag. collapse
4 - heavy reliance on pesticides and herbicides
5 - erosion of biodiversity
6 - overall food security
7 - decline in quality of diet
The so called green revolution if anything had no net impact on global hunger and starvation as it simply does not address the core cause: overpopulation. It sounds great to increase yeild, but the reason we had a food shortage in the first place was growth that outstripped supply. Unless the growth is arrested, you will end up right back where you were before, with billions starving, and thats where we are today. There are more children starving to death today than ever before in the past. This is not success, this is failure to recognise real solutions in zero population growth. Eventually you will hit a limit as to how much the chemicals and breeding will improve yeild. You just cant make plants grow in the desert. So the idea that we can yield our way out of famine is futile.
Furthermore, aggressive farming techniques are causing loss of topsoil and depletion of soil quality which reduces th nutritional density of food. 60% of agricultural pesticides are carcinogenic and as such we are causing an increase possibly in death and reduction in quality of life due to mutagenic and cancer disorders and birth defects, a whole array of toxic effects, even reduced IQ and mental retardation. Maybe this is just me but i seem to see an increasing stagnation in artistic and mental development, and intellect as time goes by compared to past centuries.
Population growth is also fueling the global warming problem and destruction of the carbon sink, oxygen producing and biodiversity harboring forests on many continents including north and south america. This is leading to extinction of many plant and animal species which vanish off the face of the earth forever. This coms with a loss of human quality of life that comes from the quality that scenic beauty and wilderness recreation adds to our lives, and as well thinghs like bird watching, botany and animal watching.
Genetically modified organisms have been proven to cause cancer, liver and kidney damage, allergies and have less nutrients and more antinutrients than regular non GMO foods. GMOs should not be confused however with cross bred plants. Cross bred plants are safe by comparison. GMO introduces entirely new, scientifically documented, deadly consequences for humans and the entire environment. The documentation and scientific evidenc is clear, GMOs are a deadly experiment that is ruining peoples health. Read th book Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey Smith for more info. The only reason that the GMOs were ever approved was due to bribes from large corporations to politicians. If the decision were based on a precautionary principle and public health, they would have never been approved. The studies of cancer, mortality and liver and kidney damage is shocking and is simply ignored by the agribusiness lapdog FDA which is basically a part of the agribusiness corporations. GMOs are a great danger and cannot be underestimated. Even without a nefarious intent it is dangerous, but it is purely greed and profit motivated, and furthermore could be used for other evil agendas by controlling peoples bodies through engineering and designing food to cause certain physical effects in the body. At least nature does not have such agendas. Humans have evolved for millions of years to consume naturally coded food. GMOs by crossing species boundary and violating normal limits and safeguards of natural breeding, implement entirely novel protiens which would not occur in nature. The body does not know how to deal with this and often its like throwing a wrench into that delicate system. hence rats fed GMOs develop cancers, high mortality and kidney and liver issues.
Overall all of this stuff is basically going to kill us and destroy our quality of living and our planet. I dont want your pesticide contaminated GMO shit, no thanks.
I apologize for not being clear... I was the author of the second anonymous coward post, not the original. I in no way endorse the views of the first, and understand your sentiment in your response to them. Feeding hungry people should never be denigrated. Nonetheless, jumping to the "just kill yourself if you think the world is overpopulated" line of attack doesn't really contribute anything to the conversation. The best way to fight ignorance isn't always to ridicule; sometimes, clarity of argument and thought goes a long way.
Perhaps people are tired of those in the "green" movement giving their leaders a pass for flying on private jets and having huge homes while those same "greens" bitch at them because they dare have more than one child or because they drive a car. Al Gore uses more energy in 2 days than the typical family of 4 does in a year and no one calls him on it. When it comes time to have a "Green" meeting he doesn't teleconference he fly's a private jet.
>The best way to fight ignorance isn't always to ridicule; sometimes, clarity of argument and thought goes a long way.
Just to nag you a bit, sometimes putting your name on the line helps with the clarity of argument ;).
Je me souviens.
The so called green revolution if anything had no net impact on global hunger and starvation as it simply does not address the core cause: overpopulation.
Your statement is completely incorrect. Famine does not exist to any great extent today, 40 years after Borlaug's seeds went to Pakistan. At the very least Borlaug bought us 40 years to solve the popultion problem, and probably longer since the growth rate of world population has decreased due to improved economic conditions in much of the world.
As far as pesticides, there is no epidemiological study that backs up your wild claims. And as far as topsoil erosion, that issue has largely been resolved by no or low till farming. And in any case why would Borlaug's work have any negative impact on that at all - in fact by reducing the amount of land in cultivation it has had a remarkable beneficial effect on stopping desertification and soil erosion that we saw so dramatically in the American Midwest in the 1930s, and we still see in the sub-saraha where politics has kept traditional farming techniques and rampant famines ongoing.
If we were to go back to traditional farming methods we would have to reduce the world population by a factor of 4 in order to keep the amount of cultivated land where it is today.
Since you seem to feel so strongly about this issue I STRONGLY recommend that you do your personal best to reduce the overpopulation problem immediately.
Oh no! Cancer and liver problems! That's sure a lot worse than starvation.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The primary reason for this is interference by environmental groups preventing the dissemination of Borlaug's methods in Africa.
These idiots should have to experience a famine personally.
Better food production was important until maybe the early 20th century, but beyond the point where a single farmer can support dozens of non-farmers, more efficient food production doesn't help anymore.
Beyond that point, the effect of the "green revolution" has simply been new population growth until disease, environmental destruction, famine, and war limit population size again. Worse yet, a lot of the techniques of the "green revolution" are unsustainable, have caused social upheaval, and have cause traditional, sustainable methods to disappear.
Overall, we're worse off with these methods than we would be otherwise.
"His life's work on developing high-yield, disease-resistant crops has been credited with having saved an estimated one billion people from famine..." ...allowing them to give birth to, and raise to adulthood, an estimated 2-3 billion more people, who in turn...
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Actually reduced fertilizer use is one of them because the varieties grown are more efficient in producing food in the following ways:
Less land in cultivation = less wasted fertilizer
Better grain rust resistance = less losses of crops (and therefore fertilizer)
Better plant structure (stronger shorter stems) = more efficient harvesting
Well, as I said, I recognize that possibility: even though a single planting of high-yield variety does use more fertilizer than a single planting of normal variety, in terms of how many people they feed, high-yield variety may use less.
But where is the proof or some sort of concrete evidence? Without it, all we can say is that cultivating high-yield variety is highly dependent on heavy fertilizer use. I don't want to miss the forest for the trees, but right now, all I have are evidences that some trees (i.e. what happens in small scale) exist, but no indication to the size or character of a forest that may or may not exist.
..."greens" bitch at them because they dare have more than one child or because they drive a car.
The predominant view among environmentalists isn't quite so extreme. It's not that people shouldn't have children or drive cars but that people think carefully about such decisions and consider not just the impact of such decisions on themselves personally but also on the population of the world as a whole (including none human species).
What annoys the environmentalists is when someone does something that (slightly) degrades the quality of life of everyone on the planet for bogus reasons (e.g. I'm having lots of children not because I enjoy the process of raising children but because I subscribe to a bizarre mythology that some sort of "God" entity wants me to.)
He makes an excellent point.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
Touche. First time contributor, long time lurker. =D
Bolaug is one of two Americans and the only scientist to have won:
The Congressional Gold Medal
The Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Nobel Peace Prize
The other winners are Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Elie Wiesel.
The following is a list of Norman E. Borlaug's major awards and honors:
- Nobel Peace Prize, 1970.
- Election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 1970 and nine Foreign Academies.
- Aztec Eagle, Government of Mexico, 1970.
- Outstanding Agricultural Achievement Award, World Farm Foundation (USA), 1971.
- Presidential Medal of Freedom (USA), 1977.
- Jefferson Award, American Institute for Public Service, 1980.
- Distinguished Achievement Award in Food and Agricultural Sciences, Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (USA), 1982.
- The Presidential World without Hunger Award: Educator/Scientist category (USA), 1985.
- The 1988 Americas Award, The Americas Foundation (USA).
- Jefferson Lifetime Achievement Award (USA), 1997.
- Altruistic Green Revolution Award, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, 1998.
- Recognition Award for Contributions to World Wheat and Maize Research and Production, Republic of El Salvador, 1999.
- Dedication of Norman E. Borlaug Center for Southern Crop Improvement, Texas A&M University, 1999.
- Vannevar Bush Award, National Science Foundation (USA), 2000.
- Memorial Centennial Medial of the N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (Russia), 2000.
- Public Welfare Medal, National Academy of Sciences (USA), 2002.
- The 2002 Rotary International Award for World Understanding and Peace, Barcelona, Spain.
- The Philip Hauge Abelson Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2002.
- Award for Distinguished Achievements to Science and Medicine, American Council of Science and Health, 2003.
- National Medal of Science (USA), 2004.
- Padma Vibhushan in Science and Engineering, awarded by the Government of India, 2006.
- Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture created as part of the Texas A&M University System, 2006.
- Congressional Gold Medal, 2006.
- Honorary Degrees:
Punjab Agricultural University (India), 1969
Royal Norwegian Agricultural College (Norway), 1970
Luther College (USA), 1970
Kanpur University (India), 1970
Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University (India), 1971
Michigan State University (USA), 1971
Universidad de la Plata (Argentina), 1971
University of Arizona (USA), 1972
University of Florida (USA), 1973
Universidad Católica de Chile (Chile), 1974
Universität Hohenheim (Germany), 1976
Punjab Agricultural University, (Pakistan), 1978
Columbia University, (USA), 1980
Ohio State University (USA), 1981
University of Minnesota (USA), 1982
University of Notre Dame (USA), 1987
Oregon State University (USA), 1988
University of Tulsa (USA), 1991
Washington State University (USA) 1995
Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University (India), 1996
Indian Agricultural Research Institute (India), 1996
De Montfort University, (United Kingdom), 1997
Emory University, (U.S.A) 1999
University of the Philippines, 1999
University of Missouri, (USA), 2002
Williams College, (USA), 2002
Wartburg College (USA), 2003
Dartmouth College (USA), 2005
Doctor of Agricultural Sciences:
University of Agricultural Sciences (Godollo, Hungary), 1980
Tokyo University of Agriculture (Japan), 1981
Doctor en Ciencias Agropecuarias Honoris Causa, Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Turena, República Dominicana, 1983
Doctor en Ciencias, Honoris Causa Universidad Central del Este de la República Dominicana, 1983
Doctor Humane Letters:
Gustavus Adolphus College (USA), 1971
Iowa State University (USA), 1992
Cape Coast University (Ghana), 2000
Doctor of Law:
New Mexico State University (USA), 1973
Doctor of Agriculture:
True, but that was possible only because his work was financed by the Rockefeller Foundation. Ironically, the biggest "robber baron" the world ever saw started a philantropic foundation that made possible the work of Dr. Norman Borlaug.
You first then. If you really believe overpopulation is the problem, then how about you do what you can to solve it and off yourself? After all, the fact that you have Internet access and time to mess around on Slashdot shows that you are privileged, you live in an industrial nation and use more resources than many in the world, so you'll do more good.
Don't want to kill yourself? Then let's not hear how bad someone is who worked to keep others alive. If you think it is ok for you to stick around, you don't have the right to hate on others for wishing to do the same.
Then there's your idiotic GMO rant. Never mind that total factual inaccuracy (with corresponding lack of support) there is the fact that as Pauli said "That's not right. It's not even wrong." Borlaug's work did not start with GMOs, it was with cross breeding and the like, introducing new strains to harsh areas. If you oppose selective breeding too, well then you are going to find it hard to eat anything. Next to nothing we eat, not even "organic" foods haven't been engineered in that fashion. It has been going on for over a century in a systematic way, and long before that in a less precise way.
So tell you what, if you aren't interested in putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak, and removing yourself and your resource usage, how about you go and live in a developing country for a while. I don't mean visit one and stay in a hotel, I mean go live a subsistence lifestyle. Go live without power, running water and so on for a bit. Live where your ability to eat depends on what you can grow or kill. See how things are. Then see if maybe your opinion on people like Dr. Borlaug changes a bit.
I get more than a little annoyed with people who live privileged lives bitching about those trying to help people without. STFU and enjoy your nice life. That, or prove you are serious about overpopulation being the real problem and are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in that regard. But don't hate on those that disagree with you, and just want to make things better for everyone.
I can certainly understand why the GP was modded Troll, but why was the parent modded Troll as well?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Your assumption is based on the idea that the only energy we can receive is from the sun, and the only land we can populate is Earth. Why is that the case? While we can't currently populate other worlds, it seems pretty stupid to declare we'll never be able to. We have no idea what our future technology will make possible. However, it is fair to say, that it'll be far and above what we have now, including some things that are inconceivable at this point.
There is no reason that overpopulation will happen. It may, but it is far from certain. There are two major things that could prevent it:
1) Technology grows at a rate that allows us to produce resources at a greater rate than the population grows. That's what has been happening so far. Our technology has been progressing fast enough that we can produce enough to feed our growth. These days, sadly, the problem with hunger is usually one of politics, not one of production limitations. You have places like Zimbabwe that could produce massive amounts of food, but don't because of the people in power. So far, we haven't started needing more than we can produce, our technology has grown faster.
2) Voluntary reduction in population growth. Something you discover is that in nations with a high standard of living, growth rate tends to be low or even negative. People voluntarily stop having so many children. As such it stands to reason that if we can bring up the standard of living around the world, over all birth rate will fall. Eventually, we may reach a slow/no growth level, simply by choice, rather than any kind of scarcity forcing it.
I'm not saying this is how it will go. I have no idea, nor does anyone. What I'm saying is that this idea of overpopulation being inevitable is bunk. No, we may well develop technology that more or less allows us to grow infinitely, we may choose to slow our growth, maybe both.
Personally, I have no issue at all with Al Gore spending his money as he sees fit. His hypocrisy doesn't bother me much, either. It's when governments use his line of crap as a basis for misanthropic policies that I have a problem.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The so called green revolution if anything had no net impact on global hunger and starvation as it simply does not address the core cause: overpopulation.
OK then, kill yourself, do your bitch Gaia a favor.
Oh, did you mean just poor brown short people should die/never be born then?
I'm having lots of children not because I enjoy the process of raising children but because I subscribe to a bizarre mythology that some sort of "God" entity wants me to.)
Who are you to second-guess anyone's motivations for whether or not to have a kid? If they're able to take care of their own offspring, it's their business.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There is a reason for the high birthrate in developing countries, which is the high child mortality rate. Since parents depend on their children to help with working the farm, herd cattle etc. it makes sense to hedge their bets by producing more children, in case the current batch dies from disease or accidents. Overpopulation has been overblown as global problem. It is still a local problem but we probably won't see any of the dystopian overpopulation scenes narrated in sci-fi novels. Dispassionately speaking, as a country develops, the birth rate will fall and eventually the population will age. If the country gets stuck in the undeveloped stage, then migration, disease and wars will control the population. Note that I am speaking dispassionately here. I however support who ever had flippantly suggested people off themselves if they are so concerned about the effect of overpopulation .Especially if you're from industrialised countries where your so-called energy and carbon footprints will be enough to maintain a whole village in Africa.
While I realise you want to suggest that he kills himself, his personal best isn't killing one person, it's killing off a few dozen. Nothing like a trailer park or high school massacre to reduce the local populace.
Next time, choose your words wisely.
Their point is simply that people who want to prevent "overpopulation" are being completely unrealistic. Reproduction is something that living creatures do instinctively. It's not going to stop, and it probably won't even slow down of it's own accord unless you are able to educate *everyone* to believe it. You might as well say that we should start offing ourselves as well, because individual survival is only one step up from reproduction on the importance scale. It would also be a more efficient means of dealing with overpopulation since you are getting the problem at the root... assuming you are someone who is someday going to reproduce.
Let's be clear here, when there was high mortality rates, people didn't stop having kids, they kept having kids until some of them survived long enough. That is what you are facing when you are making the overpopulation argument. People do not *want* to control the population. On a macro scale, they cannot do it, unless repression is employed, and even then, I'm not convinced that it can be maintained.
That's why "solving" overpopulation is really not where you are going to get much traction on the problem. And that is why it is absurd to cut down the achievements of someone who increased the carrying capacity of the planet to allow for more people to suffer less with less environmental damage.
... mass murder or genocide ...
Whoa, easy now. Those are bad words, bad. No need to spread terror, wouldn't you agree?
Far more simple, economical, feasible, humane, agreeable methods are available.
I remember when our pussy cat had "a little accident" we merely had her spayed.
I believe, that one day, science and engineering will allow us to fix our food
problems to ensure first-rate life experience, a healthy and sustainable populace.
Actually, you can make plants grow in the desert. Also, while it is a travesty that we don't adequately feed every human being on the planet, we should not only be able to do so, but we should be able to do so even if the current world population doubles.
Your statement is completely incorrect. Famine does not exist to any great extent today, 40 years after Borlaug's seeds went to Pakistan.
I don't think you meant to make that broad a statement, but I'll correct you anyway; famine does exist today. Many countries, especially in Africa and Asia face starvation. Here's two BBC articles, one from 2003 and the other from 2009, referring to famines.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/south_asia/8178636.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2635089.stm
overpopulation that would be the catholic church for threatening hell for using birth control.
Norman is the closest the thing the human animal has to a real hero. An entire life of service with one goal simply, Feed everyone.
Unlike most with grand ideas he rolled up his sleeves and did something about it. Earth has lost one of her greatest sons.
The green fanatics are simply that fanatics, like all other fanatics they are overly un/misinformed and tend to follow someone who has grand ideals but prefers to use their mouth only.
Actually reduced fertilizer use is one of them
Interestingly, world fertilizer use went up from 69 million tons in 1970 to 145 million tons in 1988, more than doubling while population only went up 30%.
Since then, we've leveled out around 140 million tons with nearly twice the population of 1970, so we are about at the same amount of fertilizer per capita.
While I realise you want to suggest that he kills himself, his personal best isn't killing one person, it's killing off a few dozen. Nothing like a trailer park or high school massacre to reduce the local populace.
You aim so low! Mao starved 30 million people to death during the Great Leap Forward farm collectivization. Think about how many people you can kill if you are a politician!
As well-informed geeks, I'd like to think we're all well aware of the unexpected population growth side-effects of high-yield hybrid grains.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
"Oh no! Cancer and liver problems! That's sure a lot worse than starvation."
Arguably, yes. Thalidomide babies disturbed people a lot more than mere infant deaths.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
"we would have to reduce the world population by a factor of 4 in order"
Since a factor of 1 would wipe out all of the population, the factor of 4 seems a bit of over kill.
i'm not sure if there was less suffering with less environmental damage.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
He provided the world the breathing room that it needed to get our population problem under control before we trashed the planet beyond human habitability. Family sizes in the third world have dropped, population growth has slowed. and we still have some reasonable areas that contain wildlife on this planet.
People with starving children will take to arms if there is food to be had. Without Borlaug's green revolution we would probably lose the large creatures of Africa, and many parts of Asia. The amazon would be mostly farmland. And the planet would lose millions of potential sources of bio-pharmacuticals to exploit.
Storm
Right now so many basic tools in molecular biology are still under patent. And the approval process for a GM crop is very expensive. Basically the only option crop biotech start-ups that actually develop something cool have is to license it to Monsanto or another couple of big players. No start up has the cash to license all the patents they've infringed and bring a crop all the way through the approval process to market themselves.
As patents expire and (hopefully) the approval process gets less onerous as it continues to be clear that GM crops are no more risky than conventional ones, the market will hopefully become more open to competition and address some of those concerns.
In 1965ish there were 3.5 billion people and basically no food surplus. Today we're nearing 7 billion. If yield hadn't done up on existing agricultural land there'd be 3.5 billion people with nothing to eat (well not all at once since many of them would have starved before now), you can bet starving people would have cut down every tree they could lay their hands on. (Which would be pretty much everything but the Boral forests of Russia and Canada). Between keeping their family alive and saving a tree, no one is going to pick the tree. (The key is to keep it from coming to that choice)
Have you ever read about what happened on Easter Island? Bird colonies extinct. Reefs harvested of every large fish. Tree species driven to extinction which meant they couldn't build the boat they needed to fish farther out at sea, and finally turning on each other as starvation set in. Imagine that going on around the world.
If the tribbles eat the hungry's grain, feed the tribbles to the hungry?
I wonder what the energy efficiency of the grain to tribble meat conversion is? Must be pretty good, after all they don't move around much, which would burn off calories.
Pompous idiot...try telling the people of North Korea, or Kenya, etc. that there is no 'famine' problem at the moment.
As for me, I don't have, or plan on having any children, so yes, I have indeed helped ensure that there will not be a line of suffering children following me. How about you?
Not that this is going to show up on anyone's radar, but I noticed those posts that got modded up to the point of visability are either people saying "he's a great man", or "overpopulation's the problem", or "if you think overpopluation's the problem, kill yourself."
Some factors that were missed were: single strain crops growing in areas where that crop is not native, and how sustainable that is overtime. The costs of fertalizers and insecticides (yeah, the seeds are free, but...), and who controls the market of those things. And no, there's no magic bullet - we still have to consider irrigation and the upcoming depletion of fresh water resources.
So yes, he's a great humanitarian who fought long and hard to achieve his goals - and I honor his contribution and his willingness to get it done. Issues like these, however, are never simple in the medium to long run. There's never a 100% gee-that-was-easy and there's no side effect solution that works perfect always. Problems will crop up, and we'll have to keep working on them. For now things are going well enough, but the issue isn't solved and in the spirit of his work we CAN do better.
On the one hand (and I'd say the bigger hand), the Green Revolution ushered in the world-wide use of many really good technologies for helping to feed the planet -- high-yield crops and better use of irrigation.
On the other hand, it also ushered in a world of heavy use of herbicides and pesticides (much of which is petroleum based) and nitrogen-fertilizers (which are made in a process that burns natural gas). Fertilizer run-off is killing huge swaths of the Gulf of Mexico due to algal blooms and anoxic zones, and pesticide use in some Midwestern states taints the groundwater and causes birth defects. The dependency on petroleum resources in our agriculture bodes ill because of climate change and dwindling oil supplies over the next century.
In the balance between the two, it's undeniable that the Green Revolution has saved far more lives than it has harmed, but a lot people in the environmental movement tend to less aware of the problems solved by the solutions of half a century ago than the problems they cause today. That latter fact tends to lead (as ANY political argument about ANYTHING does) to demonizing people responsible for the problems we face today, when we should view the Green Revolution as a great achievement with a few flaws here and there that can be improved upon with better science and with grassroots demand for cleaner, greener food (and not just cheap food). We can thank the Green Revolution for the luxury to demand that.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Quite simply.
1. The technology was developed mostly because of environmental concerned about pollen drift. Farmers have been buying hybrid seed since the 1940s.
2. When the technology was announced, everyone hated it (as you well know). To the point where Monsanto hasn't actually sold a single seed containing the trait. I'm serious.
Find me a field of commercial (not research) corn or soybeans or cotton or anything else that'll produce nothing by sterile seeds and I'll eat my words. Until then stop spreading the misinformation that'll be mindlessly echoed by poor people like Starcub who trust you.
Then again, if they're advocating committing mass murder or genocide for the sake of conserving resources.
I thought a future variant of the H1N1 that doesn't have a vaccination was supposed to do that as per the illuminati's master plan. /popcorn
/tinfoil hat
It's a sad sad sad day for me. Tears on my face.
The greatest man in mankind history has died it will take many years (if ever) until we see that we TRULY had a Jesus Christ (no I'm not religious...) walking on earth, and not the "fake" one saving "just a few" people 2000 years back.
Here we have a man that dedicated his life in a way I can never ever understand, but I can appreciate what he has done. Too bad there are morons (green fanatics and other type of fanatics) too busy thinking they are the second coming of Christ to do the same.
Millions (billions?) of people mourn (and some kill them self) when Michael Jackson die, but I bet everything I own on that not even 1/10 of them has ever heard of Norman Borlaug less mourning him.
Kill 5 people and the whole world will know who you are, save 1 billon+ and only a "handful" will know of you, we humans a sad excuse for a race.
If one single man ever have deserved a holiday in his name it is Norman Borlaug. I will, no matter what the rest of the world does, for the rest of my life celebrate my own Norman Borlaug holiday, it's the least I can do (for my self, as it gives me some hope on the human race).
The problem is that all he did was "kick the can" down the road by a generation. So, rather than N number of people in danger of starvation (and Y dying off), there's N*X number in danger of starvation, and Y*X*Z who will die.
Triage is a fact of life when dealing with famine or other consequences of over-population. We have too many people. More than 2 kids? Mandatory sterilization of both parents, termination of any pregnancy, confiscation of all assets as penalties - it'll help prevent future generations from facing even worse choices.
Yes, it's cruel - but would you rather have a 1 child per family limit in 20 years?
And yes, apply this to the whole world, not just the so-called "third world". Share the pain.
(... and for you fundies who will bitch and moan - there's an easy solution - STOP FUCKING! You tell kids that they should practice abstinence, but you and your leaders can't seem to keep your dicks in your pants or your legs closed, never mind the whole "do not commit adultery" bit. F*ing breeders!)
Famine in these countries is nowhere near the scale of say the Chinese famine of 1959-1961 which killed 15 million, and is clearly the result of political actions, wars, etc. rather than problems with food supply.
Like I said, famine does not exist to any great extent today. If it did you would hear about it, and the dead would number in the 10's of millions per year rather than a few hundreds.
DDT is not now, nor has it ever been, illegal to use as a house spray to control malaria.
Also malaria, after they got DDT banned to save all the wittle birdies.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I agree. It is counterproductive that people get hysterical when overpopulation is mentioned, like you want to do some terrible thing. There are smart intelligent ways to solve overpopulation, abstinance, contraception, education, for instance. We are allegedly an intelligent species. We can, I think, when people are better educated, make wiser choices and have zero population growth. In nature, starvation would limit growth but we can make an intelligent choice and avoid that suffering. A scientist should do this, advocate zero population growth, they are in the best position to explain scientifically why its a problem and put evidence behind it. But you dont need a degree to see its a problem, its common sense, the earth only has so much land, water, space, oil, and other precious resources, sooner or later, growth will overrun all these and people will die. Its better, I think, to leave a huge margin between that and our population level, leaving room for other species and a huge safety margin in our land resources so that avialable resources are far more than what we actually need at any moment, to compensate for unexpected things like droughts and so for. Some evidence suggest we already are overpopulated globally and the situation with the fact 2 billion people live in poverty is pretty strong evidence for that. The load carrying capacity is not a steady thing but changes with weather patterns and so on. Plus we have that fact we have passed a point where we have comsumed so much of the lands surface area, we are not really starting to eat into criticla emaining wildlife refuges, increasing the risk of loss of species biodiversity forever. Overpopulation is the main thing driving destruction oif rainforests globally and loss of species.
Actually yuour wrong. 20 million or so children die every year or so of hunger. Sounds a lot worse than some educational programs and contraceptives to keep population growth at a sustainable level to me. Care to reply?
I want to point out a good interview with Norman Borlaug on Penn Jillette's short-lived radio show.
Go to www.pennfans.net/category/Audio_Archive/PennRadio/20,120/ and hit the link for "Penn.Jillette.Radio.Show.2006.08.09"
It was interesting, and Mr. Borlaug is one of Penn's greatest heroes.
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