From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Subject: Re: Habitat and economy (was: Ecocentri
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 00:21:24 GMT

In article <1466601927@igc.apc.org> alanm@igc.apc.org (Alan McGowen) writes:
>
>The discussion Michael is trying to start is the same as the one 
>I have long been trying to start. With two of us trying, maybe 
>some discussion is now possible. 
>
>Michael:
>>I'd appreciate if you could expand on this at your leisure, as I see
>>many questions arising from the relationship between human comfort and
>>adequate wildlife habitat. For instance:
>>
>>Firstly, I take it from this that you think the impact of the 4 billion
>>at subsistence levels is less than the impact of the 1 billion in affluent
>>nations. 
>
>Not exactly. The percapita impact of the billion in 
>affluent areas is maybe 10 times that of the very poorest billion 
>and something less, like 2-6 times, that of the rest. The net 
>effect is that the most affluent contribute a large fraction of 
>the whole impact, but probably not the largest fraction.  

I hear this a lot, but I'm not sure I beleive it. Certainly the energy
consumption is much higher among the affluent. But if we acknowledge that
habitat conversion is the sominant problem, this assertion is much less
clear. As Dean points out, it isn't CPAs and insurance salesmen who are
chopping down forests for firewood.

>>Is this why you think that 2 billion affluent people would demand
>>yet more land? I am not convinced of this. Do you have evidence?

>The most affluent 1 billion *are* demanding continued habitat 
>conversion -- oil drilling in the Arctic, logging and mining in 
>tropical areas, and conversion necessitated by unsustainable 
>production of tropical-region crops such as coffee, tea, sugar 
>and tobacco. They also demand many other impacts: pesticides used 
>on Mexican crops for US consumption find their way into Mexican 
>food chains and some of them bioconcentrate. As affluence 
>increases in the poorer parts of the world, so do these demands. 
>However, local demands among the less affluent also contribute to 
>habitat destruction to a very important extent: the problem would 
>not go away if the most affluent dissappeared, it would just slow 
>down a bit -- and only for a while, as populations in many of 
>those areas soar. 

Well, you made a quantitative statement, that 2 billion affluent would
demand more land than 1 billion affluent and 4 billion poor. I don't consider
that paragraph a good defense of that quantitative statement.

As for the issues you raise, each of them could drive a lot of discussion,
which may be part of the problem in focusing on the big picture. I suspect
that some of them are overstated. The word "demand" has two meanings here:
the existence of economic "demand", meaning a willingness to pay for a 
commodity, and the more colloquial, coercive sense. Yes, there is a demand
for coffee, but no one is forcing its production, at least not directly.
More affluent tropical countries could afford to refuse to produce more
than they thought sustainable, and would be more likely to do so. (Without
prejudice toward the vexed question of the sustainability of coffee production.)

>>Secondly, you seem to agree with me that loss of habitat is the predominant
>>problem. Is this true? Can you provide better evidence than I can?

[...]

>But right now, habitat loss is the main evolutionary threat.  

>>Thirdly, why are you so certain that affluence is so tightly tied to 
>>land demands? I suspect that many of the most damaging uses are of small
>>economic value, the burning of the Amazon being an obvious example.

>I guess I'm more cynical about what is of "economic value". I 
>think our best guide is not what we would wish, but what is 
>actually happening. The indications don't support the idea that 
>the most damaging uses are of little economic value -- the 
>extraordinary lengths to which poor people will go to carve out 
>a chunk of rainforest, or to gather a bit of firewood or some 
>water miles away from home, suggest to me that these are vital, 
>not little, economic needs. 

A little firewood or water may be vital, but it isn't particularly
valuable in an economic sense. If the world community realizes that
the value of what is being lost is much greater, it would make sense
to provide those people with other ways of meeting their immediate needs.
Those people's economic impact is tiny compared to their ecological impact.

>Reduction of the A factor of I=PAT is 
>the most problematic of all. It is clearly way too large in the 
>most affluent parts of the world, but for very many humans A is 
>too small. What we need to do is to rethink the whole set of 
>concepts underlying A, and find what is really the right value or 
>range of values of A for a human. I realize that this statement 
>is absolute heresy. But I think that there *is* a "right range of 
>values" -- it's the one which is coevolutionarily supportable, by 
>which I mean that humans can live with it, and the biosphere can 
>live with it (without even slow degredation) for as long as there 
>are humans -- maybe millions of years, if we can do that. 

I agree, but I think the use of a single variable is misleading. Again
there are areas whose impact is disproportionately large. For instance,
most people care little whether their vehicle is powered by an internal
or an external power source. The amount of energy wasted by all those
engines hauling themselves (the engines) around has negligible impact
on lifestyle, but enormous environmental implications. If long distance
telephone tolls were a tenth of what they are, I would talk to many of
my friends and relatives much more. I would consider this a great boon
to my lifestyle, but the environmental impact would be negligible.

>>Fourthly, if currently available wilderness ceased 

Whoops. Did I write that? My intended question was about an end to
NET conversion not to wilderness itself!

>>but efforts were made to
>>trade scatterred and fragmented wilderness areas for large contiguous
>>areas, would that suffice to stabilize the sitation if habitat loss were
>>the only significant factor? (Clearly this depends on the 
>particular>
>>ecological and economic uses of the land. What I'm asking for here is
>>evidence that large scale reconversion of economic use to wilderness is
>>necessary, as opposed to tradeoffs resulting in larger contiguous wild areas
>>without major changes in total land usage.)
>
>The value of restored lands or lands made contiguous is in their 
>potential to be recolonized by species in wild areas, or to 
>reestablish gene flow between disconnected populations -- in 
>other words their value arises from existing diversity, which it 
>must be our first priority to protect. There can be no "tradeoff" 
>between remaining wilderness areas an restored areas -- the 
>restoration is impossible without the centers of diversity to be 
>the seed sources. [And no, ex situ conservation in zoos or 
>cryogenic preservation is *not* sufficient, because it can't 
>maintain population genetic diversity and adaptedness, and it 
>only samples a tiny fractioneven  at the species level.]

An interesting point. This would complicate the process in a few 
cases, I think, but surely wouldn't invalidate it. The effort would
be to consolidate regions around existing pockets of wilderness, I
expect.

>I sense that you regard wildlife corridors as a kind of "magic 
>bullet" for all ills of population declines. They are popular 
>precisely because they are an inexpensive way to accomplish an 
>important step -- but we are deluding ourselves if we think that 
>the problem would dissappear after that step is taken. Eventually 
>we will have to face restoring areas that cut our economic bone 
>-- and that will only be tolerable if our population is 
>decreasing.

I certainly think that they will be extremely important in the context
of rapid climate change - without them the "island" effect may severely
hamper the already very rapid range shifts that will probably be necessary.

The question of how much "bone-cutting" is necessary, EVEN WITH FIXED
TECHNOLOGY is the one I am trying to address. You seem to assume that
lifestyle changes will require a cutback of N % in every form of consumption.
I respond that surely that is a very weak upper bound on what is necesary -
that targetting changes with the largest ecological impact per economic
impact will surely be more effective.

>I can't address this now. Clearly you are right that any 
>reduction in population, generated any-which-way (e.g. nuclear 
>war) doesn't instantly translate into lots of restored ecosystem. 

This pessimistic statement is the flip side of what I am saying.
I am saying that we can hold on to most of what we enjoy and find the
relatively smaller sacrifices that will preserve nature, and that 
history indicates that it is the more affluent societies that manage to
make progress along these lines.

I agree with you that a substantial effort is needed, nut I don't agree
that a fundamental reorganization of society is either necessary or
possible. I suggest instead that we try to show people the implications
of their existing value systems, and to convince them that there are 
relatively modest sacrifices which could have enormous impact.

>In fact one of the reasons I favor 500 million as the target 
>rather than the lower figures some advocate is precisely that 
>there would be centuries of restorative labor ahead of us -- and 
>you want the largest (supportable) workforce possible for that. 
>But I'm not sure that there is much point in trying to talk about 
>the right way to go about such a massive conversion in this forum 
>at this stage. I would just be drowned in screams of "Pol Pot!" 
>if I tried to do it.

Yeah, that's ridiculous. Much as I differ from you on many points, the
equivalence of birth control and and genocide that some folks have made
here is utterly repugnant, bizarre and unwarranted. 

On the other hand, I still don't see where you get your number.

mt