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Autism and Disappearing Bees: A Common Denominator?
A few days ago the Salt Lake Tribune’s front page headline declared, "Highest rate in the nation, 1 in 32 Utah boys has autism." This is a national public health emergency, whose epicenter is Utah, Gov. Herbert. A more obscure story on the same day read: "New pesticides linked to bee population collapse." If you eat food, and hope to do so in the future, this is another national emergency, Pres. Obama. A common denominator may underlie both headlines. 
A honeybee pollinates a flower in a citrus grove just coming into blossom. (Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images)
A Stanford University study with 192 pairs of twins, with one twin autistic and one not, found that genetics accounts for 38% of the risk of autism, and environmental factors account for 62%.
Supporting an environmental/genetic tag team are other studies showing autistic children and their mothers have a high rate of a genetic deficiency in the production of glutathione, an anti-oxidant and the body’s primary means of detoxifying heavy metals. High levels of toxic metals in children are strongly correlated with the severity of autism. Low levels of glutathione, coupled with high production of another chemical, homocysteine, increase the chance of a mother having an autistic child to one in three. That autism is four times more common among boys than girls is likely related to a defect in the single male X chromosome contributing to anti-oxidant deficiency. There is no such thing as a genetic disease epidemic because genes don't change that quickly. So the alarming rise in autism must be the result of increased environmental exposures that exploit these genetic defects.
During the critical first three months of gestation a human embryo adds 250,000 brain cells per minute reaching 200 billion by the fifth month. There is no chemical elixir that improves this biologic miracle, but thousands of toxic substances can cross the placenta and impair that process, leaving brain cells stressed, inflamed, less well developed, fewer in number and with fewer connections with each other all of which diminish brain function. The opportunity to repair the resulting deficits later on is limited.
The list of autism’s environmental suspects is long and comes from many studies that show higher rates of autism with greater exposure to flame retardants, plasticizers like BPA, pesticides, endocrine disruptors in personal care products, heavy metals in air pollution, mercury, and pharmaceuticals like anti-depressants. (Utah’s highest in the nation autism rates are matched by the highest rates of anti-depressant use and the highest mercury levels in the country in the Great Salt Lake).
Doctors have long advised women during pregnancy to avoid any unnecessary consumption of drugs or chemicals. But as participants in modern society we are all now exposed to over 83,000 chemicals from the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the consumer products we use. Pregnant women and their children have 100 times more chemical exposures today than 50 years ago. The average newborn has over 200 different chemicals and heavy metals contaminating its blood when it takes its first breath. 158 of them are toxic to the brain. Little wonder that rates of autism, attention deficit and behavioral disorders are all on the rise.
How does this relate to vanishing bees and our food supply? Two new studies, published simultaneously in the journal Science, show that the rapid rise in use of insecticides is likely responsible for the mass disappearance of bee populations. The world’s food chain hangs in the balance because 90% of native plants require pollinators to survive.
The brain of insects is the intended target of these insecticides. They disrupt the bees homing behavior and their ability to return to the hive, kind of like “bee autism.” But insects are different than humans, right? Human and insect nerve cells share the same basic biologic infrastructure. Chemicals that interrupt electrical impulses in insect nerves will do the same to humans. But humans are much bigger than insects and the doses to humans are miniscule, right?
During critical first trimester development a human is no bigger than an insect so there is every reason to believe that pesticides could wreak havoc with the developing brain of a human embryo. But human embryos aren’t out in corn fields being sprayed with insecticides, are they? A recent study showed that every human tested had the world’s best selling pesticide, Roundup, detectable in their urine at concentrations between five and twenty times the level considered safe for drinking water.
The autism epidemic and disappearing bees are real public health emergencies created by allowing our world to be overwhelmed by environmental toxins. Environmental protection is human protection, especially for the smallest and most vulnerable among us.
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Show AllThis is a very interesting article that outlines some areas that need further research, and soon. Heavy metals and endocrine disrupters are suspects. It seems from the article that blood tests on young women could suggest some treatments to mitigate the risks of autism in their babies. Sad but true that chelation therapy and other forms of detox might be part of preparing for having a child. Then, in order for healthy development to continue, we should move on to detoxify our world, to convert to wind and solar energy, to simplify what we consider material necessities, to stop buying plastic crap.
Meanwhile, reconsider Roundup in a precautionary mode. Which would you rather have, some merry yellow dandelions and their delicious edible leaves in your yards and parks, or kids with developmental difficulties. Fighting weeds is a symptom of our wish to dominate nature, not co-exist with it. Also in a precautionary mode, we could use glass vessels rather than plastics. However, it is almost impossible to know about or eliminate all chemicals that disrupt brain development.
Finally, if Utah women have to take so many anti-depressants, then they, and the Mormon church, should be examining the lives of Utah women to see where the stress is coming from. It means that something is very wrong with the culture.
Glass (though not crystal/lead-containing glass) is preferable over plastic. When scientists want to make an ultra-clean prep of compounds for analysis by, say, mass spectrometry, we use ultra clean water and solvents (purchased in glass bottles) and glass or stainless steel containers/equipment for extraction (although, sometimes the steel can contaminate preparations in which metal ions are being detected), otherwise we get too much contamination from interfering substances in our results (plastic residues leach out in even the mildest of solvents - just imagine how much acid and/or heat, which we commonly use in cooking or are found in our food can impact the leaching process). Just as an aside: there are some plastics that can be used for prep work and mass spec, sometimes the prep doesn't necessitate worries about plastic contamination, and there are compounds that sometimes coat plastic containers/tubes/etc. that can also interfere with readings, but those issues aren't pertinent to this comment.
For use at home, glass and stainless steel containers can be a little more expensive than plastic containers, but the price is worth it. I no longer trust plastic or ceramic/porcelain containers, unless they have been manufactured *in* a country that has rigorous, enforced safety standards or they have been tested for safety. And, for things reheated in microwaveable glassware, one can always remove the plastic tops before reheating to avoid substances leaching out from the plastic tops into one's food.
The high energy of microwaves turns most foods into toxins.
Although there are health risks associated with the misuse of microwave ovens, and heating foods in containers prone to "contributing" to the food can introduce toxins into one's diet, I am highly skeptical about your claim here. Do you have any peer-reviewed research publications from scientific journals to back your claim? Otherwise, I've liked your previous comments, Robert.
Needless to say, there's not a lot of mainstream research on this topic, but Dr. Mercola is one of the best sources of non-conventional health information.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/05/18/microwave-hazards.aspx
A New York Times Best Selling Author, Dr. Mercola was also voted the 2009 Ultimate Wellness Game Changer by the Huffington Post, and has been featured in TIME magazine, LA Times, CNN, Fox News, ABC News, Today Show, CBS’s Washington Unplugged.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1972-1976
Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine 1978-1982
Chicago Osteopathic Hospital 1982-1985 Family Practice Residency. Chief resident 1984- 1985
Board Certified American College Osteopathic General Practitioners July 1985
State of Illinois Licensed Physician and Surgeon
• A study published in the November 2003 issue of The Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture (5) found that broccoli "zapped" in the microwave with a little water lost up to 97 percent of its beneficial antioxidants. By comparison, steamed broccoli lost 11 percent or fewer of its antioxidants. There were also reductions in phenolic compounds and glucosinolates, but mineral levels remained intact.
• A 1999 Scandinavian study of the cooking of asparagus spears found that microwaving caused a reduction in vitamin C (6).
• In a study of garlic, as little as 60 seconds of microwave heating was enough to inactivate its allinase, garlic's principle active ingredient against cancer (7).
• A Japanese study by Watanabe showed that just 6 minutes of microwave heating turned 30-40 percent of the B12 in milk into an inert (dead) form (8). This study has been cited by Dr. Andrew Weil as evidence supporting his concerns about the effects of microwaving. Dr. Weil wrote: "There may be dangers associated with microwaving food... there is a question as to whether microwaving alters protein chemistry in ways that might be harmful."
• A recent Australian study (9) showed that microwaves cause a higher degree of "protein unfolding" than conventional heating.
• Microwaving can destroy the essential disease-fighting agents in breast milk that offer protection for your baby. In 1992, Quan found that microwaved breast milk lost lysozyme activity, antibodies, and fostered the growth of more potentially pathogenic bacteria (10).
[5] Vallejo F, Tomas-Barberan F A, and Garcia-Viguera C. "Phenolic compound contents in edible parts of broccoli inflorescences after domestic cooking" Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture (15 Oct 2003) 83(14);1511-1516
[6] Kidmose U and Kaack K. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica B 1999:49(2):110-117
[7] Song K and Milner J A. "The influence of heating on the anticancer properties of garlic," Journal of Nutrition 2001;131(3S):1054S-57S
[8] Watanabe F, Takenaka S, Abe K, Tamura Y, and Nakano Y. J. Agric. Food Chem. Feb 26 1998;46(4):1433-1436
[9] George D F, Bilek M M, and McKenzie D R. "Non-thermal effects in the microwave induced unfolding of proteins observed by chaperone binding," Bioelectromagnetics 2008 May;29(4):324-30
[10] Quan R (et al) "Effects of microwave radiation on anti-infective factors in human milk," Pediatrics 89(4 part I):667-669.
Thanks. Will look into those publications. Sometimes data can be overstated or experiments poorly controlled/conducted. For instance, when I've microwaved milk in the past (which I only do very rarely, anyway, when I'm sick), I usually only do it for 1 minute, maximum. More than that, and the milk is too hot. That study looking at B12 in milk zaps the milk for 6 minutes. Did they do a time course experiment to look at what happens to B12 after shorter periods of microwaving? Haven't looked at the paper, yet.
Check out what PubMed has to offer: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22microwave%20cooking%22
Here's another search to check out: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=microwave%20cooking%20nutrition
Here's a study that indicates that microwaving of food may not be as bad as pressure cooking, frying, or boiling food: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19397724
However, I'm not opposed to the idea of microwaving resulting in reduced nutritional quality of food. Cooking, in general, seems to do that for many vegetables. And, I'm open to new research findings - I just like to be convinced that the data really do indicate that a stated hypothesis is *most likely* true (everything in science boils down to probability, in the end).
Here's some info from Harvard Medical School about microwaving food: http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/Microwave-cooking-and-nutrition.shtml
I think that one more issue to consider is the feasibility of cooking every meal (or even getting fresh food) for most folks. Would it be worse for someone to eat a dinner from a vending machine or a restaurant, when that person could just reheat last night's or last Sunday's made-from-scratch dinner in a microwave? In that case, I'd think that the microwaved meal is likely to be healthier and more nutritionally rounded.
Not ONE of these studies demonstrated that microwaves "turned food into toxins". They demonstrated that food lost its nutritional value, but did not become toxic.
Listen, if you are going to say something, please drop the melodrama and hyperbole. We get enough of that from Fox News.
The effects that microwaves have on the food being cooked is worth considering for sure, but how about the possibility that microwaves are leaking from the appliance into the room and the body of the cook. How many of us check our microwave for leakage?
"Fighting weeds is a symptom of our wish to dominate nature, not co-exist with it." This!
Just to tie this story to another one on CD today, there is some investigations going on to see if prions similar to the ones that cause mad cow disease might have something to do with Autism and other diseases of the mind. Pink slime contains spinal tissue and prions are know to be found in that tissue along with cow brains.
Something to think about while you still can...
http://betaamyloidcjd.blogspot.com/2010/09/alzheimers-autism-amyotrophic-lateral.html
"This project proposes to link the chemistry of the prion protein to the new territory of other nervous system diseases, such as ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and the socialization disorder autism-diseases which are at least one thousand times more common than prion diseases. It is believed that a different type or prion protein may operate in other types of brain diseases, which could lead to new ways of thinking about incurable disorders. "
Thanks NC-Tom for making this connection.
I believe every person diagnosed with Alzeihmer's disease should have an autopsy after death. I believe many cases diagnosed as Alzeihmer's would show prion disease instead.
The government successfully has suppressed most popular talk about prion disease, which comes primarily from eating cows. (It also can come from eating virtually any meat product, including in the American south squirrel brains, which we know have lead to prion disease).
America runs the most brutal and inhumane of all cow slavery gulags, with millions of cows living in worse than Auswitchz conditions (the little baby Jesus gave humans the right to torture these beings). Prion disease must run rampant in these herds, but no one tests them.
Although variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (mad cow disease) can strike the young, it has a very long potential incubation period and nothing says it can't strike people at the Alzeihmer's age level in the 50s, 60s, or later.
"(the little baby Jesus gave humans the right to torture these beings)"
Be fair. Jesus ate only loaves and fishes (and a little red wine).
What did the fish do to Jesus that he could kill them and eat them? He murdered the swine, too.
"There is the instance of the Gadarene swine, where it certainly was not very kind to the pigs to put the devils into them and make them rush down the hill into the sea. You must remember that He was omnipotent, and He could have made the devils simply go away; but He chose to send them into the pigs."
Bertrand Russell — Why I Am Not a Christian
The little baby Jesus leads all the Empire's wars.
"The little baby Jesus leads all the Empire's wars."
You might want to review world history. None of the following were Christian.
The Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great (24th century BCE), the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt ruled by Thutmose III (15th century BCE), the Assyrian empire (2000–612 BCE), the Median Empire of Persia, the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE), the Maurya Empire of India (321 to 185 BCE), the Mongol Empire of the 13th century, the Turkish-Muslim Ottoman Empire (ca.1300–1918), the Buddhist Srivijaya Empire (7th century) which thrived for 600 years and was succeeded by the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit Empire in the 13th to 15th century, the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire of Southeast Asia which flourished from the 9th to 13th century, the Bulgarian Empire…
tomcarberry... Yes, prion disease has been covered up for a long time. A few years ago, there was a tiny article that did make it to the newspaper near Albany, NY. The news reported that a hunter who slaughtered his deer, probably developed a prion disease. He died. There needs to be more publicity on prion disease. I guess that won't happen as long as the Cattlemen lobby. Remember when a farm wanted to test their cattle for the disease so that the meat could be exported to Japan - the USA government would not allow the farm to test their herds at their own expense. Once again, the government is not your friend or protector.
"So the alarming rise in autism must be the result of increased environmental exposures that exploit these genetic defects." (Dr. Brian Moench)
------------
Yes, I agree.
This is another aspect of "the perfect storm", spoken of in the last days before the US officially descends into what Chris Hedges might call 'gulag status'.
Extraordinary times - dangerous beyond anything ever experienced.
Manysummits
=======
I agree. Moreover, it isn't just autism. The asthma rate has also increased. Although the survival rate for childhood cancer has improved, the incidence of childhood cancer has increased by 30% since the 1970s. Something is wrong. One thing that bothers me a lot is that new chemicals are being introduced into our environment without testing. Also, I have seen nothing on what happens if you have numerous chemicals acting together. Where are we headed?
It's true that most new chemicals are untested for human safety, and those that are tested aren't checked for synergistic interactions.
But the problem is not insufficient testing, it's the fact that we've chosen to introduce into our environment and into our bodies more than 80,000 petrochemicals which never before existed on earth and with which no living organism has evolved. This is no different from introducing genetically-modified organisms. In both cases, it's impossible to know in advance what the outcome might be.
To bee, or not to bee? That is the question. Though it is better for lobbyists to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than to actually give a fuck.
With all the information flying around in the cybersphere, it's hard to know what to think any more... but I can go along with the plausible connection pointed out in this article. These ailments must be the result of one of our countless tamperings with the natural environment.
I find that the heart of our problems is our restlessness. People can't sit still and deal with the matters at hand without resorting to technology or counterproductive methods of control. We always have to do SOMETHING about it, even though we always open up dozens more plagues and misfortunes. I'm convinced if we got this restlessness out of the way (not gonna happen, but what if...?), these problems wouldn't increase into maddening proportions.
Not the result of "one of our countless tamperings", but the result of untold numbers of tamperings that have conspired to attack the integrity of life on earth.
But you're quite right about our insatiable restlessness. This is the core of the myth of progress - that standing still is death, while racing forward into the unknown is the goal of life.
In Why America Failed (2012), Morris Berman makes a profound case that, from its earliest beginnings, America was a nation intent on technological and material progress at the expense of everything else. Progress demands elimination of any obstacles, and it was for this reason (more than any other) that the industrial North had to destroy and colonize and "reconstruct" the agrarian South (which became the template for all our imperial expansions). The Southerners knew how to appreciate sitting still on a hot afternoon, sipping mint juleps. The rest of us could not tolerate such impertinence.
Our new motto should be "Don't just do something, stand there!"
@Robert Riversong
Yes, they certainly could "sit around". That's because they had SLAVES doing all their work, including dressing the women and doing their hair. Jesus! What a dumb comparison. Try thinking before posting.
I really liked this article, Brian. Only one small request: can you please include references next time? Those of us who enjoy reading the original science articles would appreciate it.
Anyway, this was informative, and thank you for helping to "make the connections" for folks. The fact of the matter is that many studies that are conducted on other organisms in labs can be used to extrapolate onto human populations. This is why rodents, zebrafish, fruit flies, and even nematodes are used as "model organisms" for many lab studies. It shouldn't be too much of a leap for folks to take results from a wild population of critters, like bees or aquatic organisms, and extrapolate those results onto human populations, as well. Yes, the outdoor environment isn't as "well controlled" for wild populations of animals as it is for lab animals, but then again, humans don't live in well-controlled environments, either. The "well-controlled" environment is good for pinpointing the effects of one experimental condition at a time, but we don't live like that, and the "canary in the coal mine" observational approach can be extremely important to public health studies, as well.
Thanks, WonderWoman, i too would love to have references to what seems a carefully thought out, well-written and worthwhile article. and when i read claims like "There is no such thing as a genetic disease epidemic because genes don't change that quickly", i would like a bit more clarity--e.g., we know that alpha emitters cause substantial damage to genetic material over longer periods of time in adults than in children; but what do we know about the length of time required for similarly significant damage from the thousands of new chemical agents being released into the environments annually?
The links are there -you just have to click around a bit:
Non-genetic factors play surprisingly large role in determining autism, says study by group
http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2011/july/autism.html
Autism Risk Linked To Distance From Power Plants, Other Mercury-Releasing Sources
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424120953.htm
Autism Spectrum Disorders in Relation to Distribution of Hazardous Air Pollutants in the San Francisco Bay Area
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1570060/
Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders — Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 14 Sites, United States, 2008
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6103a1.htm?s_cid=ss6103a1_w
All I know is this just angers me beyond belief. We are such complete assholes in this country regarding our refusal to err on the side of caution by employing the "precautionary principle" first. Instead we go ahead with the release of chemicals with unknown risks then deal with the consequences of the toxins later. Talk about a stupid bunch.
Europe has banned many of the chemicals attributed to the loss of honeybees and CCD. (colony collapse disorder). They do employ the precautionary principle. But not here; no, it's all about the goddamn money and the yahoo corporations and their rich lobbyists.
There are probably many of us who have watched as neighbors, clients, you name it, spray weed killers and other obvious poisons around like they're water. I refused to do it when I was a practicing landscaper. I told my clients if they wanted bugs and weeds eradicated they had to do it themselves. I simply would not touch the stuff. Trying to convince them of the benefits of many insects and a few weeds was like trying to talk a Wall Street banker into growing a conscience.
My honeybee colony disappeared this year. It was here for seven years, healthy and productive as can be. Then one day this year in February I went out to see how they were doing (it was a feral colony that lived in a birdhouse on the property so I left them alone) and poof! No more bees. There were no signs of dead bees either. Nothing. They just vanished. And they vanished within the course of a month or two. I had checked on them around December and all was fine. Everything I read and studied about colony collapse disorder suggested that may have been what happened. I would have had to completely disassemble the birdhouse and pull it apart to really know. I couldn't do that.
Michael Desautel, you listed the many problems facing Earth on Reich's column yesterday; thank you again. I love Earth and all her wonders. I grew to love and appreciate Her by spending countless hours outside immersed in the cycles and wonders of the seasons. We deserve every ugly thing coming our way. But the plants and animals don't. In my heart, that more than anything leaves me doubled over in grief. Homo Stupidis; what ever happened in the evolutionary cycle it's obvious our appearance proved a fatal mistake for the rest of life on Earth.
Yes, the European approach is much better than ours here, Stateside. It's awful that we let Big Business dictate public health concerns. If we had government funded healthcare for all, our government would be more likely to favor reducing the costs of increased disease risk by addressing risk factors over corporate profits. One hopes that that would be the case, anyway.
Yep, just like they ban the use of Corexit and require oil companies to drill 2 wells, the US lets the oil industry tell them what they will do.
When told to stop using Corexit, the said FU, and did it anyway.
I feel bad for the dead people walking in the Gulf area after being sprayed with that stuff.
Especially the animals.
God, what a horrible mistake you made letting humans be in charge instead of the animals.
Don't blame God. According to the Book, He put us in the Garden and warned us not to get too big for our breeches, and eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which would make us like gods.
But did we listen? Damn good apple, though.
I don't agree with your "Homo stupidis" meme. How much power does the public have over a corporation like Monsanto that's bent the rules so far that few know they're purchasing/eating genetically tampered with food stuffs? How much power does the citizen have over forced immunizations? How much over all those entities that pour unused medicine down their sinks and toilets, only to have it end up accumulating in public waterways? How much influence did WE have over the production of the hundreds of toxic chemicals now part of a great many products? After all, there's only ONE Ralph Nader to stand up against all this...
I generally like your posts, but I find this one to be yet another tiring take on blame the citizen-consumer for what ALEC and its for-profit-only progeny elect to do in our names. And with congress/the senate beholden to these same interests, it's a huge fight for every INCH of accountability garnered from big corps and/or industrial polluters. This is NOT about an apathetic public. To the extent the public is ill-informed is largely attributable to a Captured media and the corporate interests it presents and protects. Many still think the EPA and FDA are doing their jobs.
Fair enough. I don't expect anyone to agree with me all the time. That doesn't change my feelings about humans in general. I've never been a big people fan probably because I've spent most of my life rescuing wild and domestic animals from their careless, anthropocentric attitudes.
On the "apathetic citizen/consumer" front, unfortunately my experience with many people is they don't want to hear most of what's going on in the world. They tell me to "Chill out!" then ask, "What can you do to change it anyway?". Maybe that's not the true definition of apathy but it's a definition of silent complicity as far as I'm concerned.
I respect your opinion Siouxrose. Perhaps on this one we just plain disagree.
If anything, I think you were too charitable toward the species. Human behavior is largely hardwired by evolution for environmental conditions that have been displaced by the effects of runaway industrialization and population growth. Even the existence of all these multinational, soul-sucking corporations that strive for more and more power in order to more efficiently exploit people and resources, is probably an inevitable result of the socially evolved drive for status that influences most everything we do. The cancer analogy is an apt one I think, except that we will probably kill ourselves off before killing the host completely. But for the host's sake, the sooner the better.
This is pretty bad form of the typical "after me, the deluge" argument and tbh I really dislike it. The reason for that is that it's actually NOT "human beings" in general fucking shit up. It is particular human beings (or particular groups), in particular societies, with particular cultures. If it's my particular society and my economic system, I have to take some degree of responsibility of it. But if it's "human nature" - well, I can just go ahead doing what I'm doing because everyone else would do this in my place too, along with denying the right of other cultures and civilisations and forms of organisations to have a go at it - after all, it's all in our hardwired genes and the outcome cannot be different. I understand your disenchantment of course, but I still think this is a pretty fucked up argument if you think it through.
The cancer analogy is still good imo, except it is not a cancer of "human beings" but the positive feedback social and economic structures our civilisation has created. An economic system that doesn't serve anything but its own growth is cancer, no doubt about that. Whether this is an inevitable result of "human nature" is not something we should just decide though.
At this point, the number of human beings NOT playing a part in the general fucking up, is almost too small to mean anything. Have any children? Drive a car? Live in the First World? Buy stuff? So many of the things considered normal that we do every day contribute to the downward spiral. I agree that much of problem lies in the fact that the current iteration of many of our social structures and institutions actually encourage the dominance of genetic and cultural dispositions toward unsustainable behavior. We need social structures which recognize and work to attenuate our problematic subconscious drives, rather than exacerbate them. But the rich and powerful entities that essentially run this world will do whatever necessary to preserve the status quo, which is treating them very well.
Whether or not one has much hope left that we might claw our way out of the predicaments we now find ourselves in (I guess you can see that I don't), we shouldn't be naive about what we are up against. It isn't simply malignant social systems. It's also our own nature, out of which these systems arose.
"At this point, the number of human beings NOT playing a part in the general fucking up, is almost too small to mean anything. Have any children? Drive a car? Live in the First World? Buy stuff?"
If this was true, than at least we could say that most people benefited from fucking up the Earth. That would have been something at least. But this is factually *wrong*. Europe, the USA et co and Japan are directly responsible for most resource use and pollution - with quite a bit of the rest (about half of Chinese pollution iirc) serving us indirectly. Most of the world lives on nothing compared to us. And quite a few people would have preferred (and still would prefer) not to be bothered by the intrusion of Western civilisation (mostly in the form of robbing them). This is actually the most important point of my argument: most of the world is not the First World, not by far.
"It isn't simply malignant social systems. It's also our own nature, out of which these systems arose."
These systems don't only arise from "our own nature" - they arise from the dialectical relationship between the complex natural environment and our "nature", whatever it is. Saying that this is determined biologically (which is basically what this "human nature" argument boils down to) is a very strong statement that you should be able to support with more concrete arguments.
"most of the world is not the First World"
That's true, but it's also sadly true that most of the rest of the world wants what we have and is racing to catch up (but for the few uncontacted tribes in the Amazon).
Sorry to be rude, but you only say this because it's convenient from your point of view, not because this is true. (Don't forget, even in your country the drive for high consumption levels must be maintained by a very large propaganda industry - as no products can be sold without propaganda any more. Loads of people would prefer more free time and better work to more consumption - but they're not given the choice.) And even if it were true, it doesn't change the fact that most of the rest of the world did NOT participate in the destruction of the world so if we were fair, we should be sharing our stuff with them - even if everything collapses afterwards. No, the psychology you attribute to other people ("they would've done this in my place too") doesn't in any way change the fact that they are in actual reality NOT the source of the problem. Whether it's because of their inherent goodness or their external circumstances doesn't change anything.
"Loads of people would prefer more free time and better work to more consumption"
And that must be why formerly peasant Chinese communists are now working 16 hours a day to afford an apartment and a car and trendy clothes.
They do that because there is no other choice of lifestyle. (Just like there's no other real choice of lifestyle for a lot of Westerners btw - totalitarian capitalism doesn't allow for individual or small-community self-sustenance in most places, and definitely exerts constant pressure to destroy such communities.) And of course a lot of people work only temporarily and go back to their village community later.
"The cancer analogy is still good imo, except it is not a cancer of "human beings" but the positive feedback social and economic structures our civilisation has created."
It's both. It's not only our cultural institutions which have overspread the Earth, but our numbers as well. We've been converting the Earth's ecology into human flesh for thousands of years. We are literally devouring the planet.
The vast majority of human beings alive consume and destroy very little compared to us. They could die now and things would go back to normal, leaving no real long term issues (like an unliveable climate or radioactive farmlands). Human flesh is quite natural as far as I know. But you know, if we killed everyone except Americans and Europeans, some of the impending crises would be delayed by a few decades at the very best, but the AGW collapse eg. would continue anyway. I can't get angry about this any more, but the concrete destructive effects of overpopulation aren't in any way comparable to those of our social and economic structures. "We" are not devouring the planet, if that "we" includes the half of the global population earning and thus living off about $4 a day :-/
You need to do better research. Yes, the over-consumption of the developed world, the West, and particularly the United States is the biggest part of the problem, but the shear numbers of people in the undeveloped or developing world are already beyond the environmental carrying capacity.
Nothing is "natural" if it grows beyond the carrying capacity of the environment, either local or global. We humans have been able to temporarily exceed the earth's carrying capacity - first locally and then globally - by the technological exploitation of the earth's resources and particularly its fossil fuels and uranium. But we have vastly exceeded the balance point.
If we determine a "fair share" ecological footprint for each person on earth by dividing up all usable land area and leave 3/4 of that for the other 10 million species, then every region on earth is already using at least double this "fair share" of the earth's productive capacity because of sheer numbers.
The loss of species that we've initiated is not simply due to their dying off because of pollution or loss of habitat, but rather because we are literally converting the other plant and animal species into human biomass.
Let us not forget that the last time humanity lived sustainably on the Earth, as hunter-gatherers, there were probably no more than four million. Some optimistic population ecologists suggest we might be able to achieve sustainability at a global human population of one billion, if we were to return to a pre-Civil War agrarian lifestyle.
I cannot help but get angry at (relatively) privileged Western assholes who put the blame not on their own overconsumption, but on the fact that there are too many people in poor countries (whose numbers, btw, are most often a direct result of Western colonial interventions (or ideological influence)).
"Nothing is "natural" if it grows beyond the carrying capacity of the environment, either local or global. "
Oh yes it is - and "nature" will be able to sort it out in time, as it always does. What it cannot sort out fast is CO2 and methane in the atmosphere, nuclear waste, plastics, lack of biodiversity, globally fucked up farmland, desertification and so on - ie. the shit *we* are overwhelmingly responsible for. Not overpopulation, but our civilisation and technology.
Don't misunderstand me: I agree that there are much more moral solutions than letting people die of hunger and we should try to help if we can (although tbh I don't think we really can...or want - at least I'm willing to bet a lot of money (that I actually don't have hehe) that we won't) - but this is not what'll kill the Earth. Again: if you killed off most of the world, but left Europe, the US, Japan, environmental collapse would still come almost as fast - maybe a decade or two later at best, but since this would free up resources for extremely inefficient capitalist exploitation and allow even more waste and consumption for the West, this may not slow things down at all.
As for "carrying capacity": it's an abstract concept, not something that exists in this form - it is composed of several components which are damaged separately (although of course since it's an organic concept, the components are tightly interconnected, but this isn't really important in this question). Once you go beyond the abstraction and look at the individual components (deforestation, water overuse and pollution etc), you will basically always see that in history our civilisation initiated the fuckup.
"We humans have been able to temporarily exceed the earth's carrying capacity - first locally and then globally - by the technological exploitation of the earth's resources and particularly its fossil fuels and uranium."
"We humans"? Please. In the actual existing reality, it is Western civilisation that did all this, not "we humans". Not indigenous people. Not even the Chinese who were living for thousands of years in their own (not really that resource rich) country. Not Africans or other people. It is us, Westerners. Not "humans".
Maybe, maybe it's true. Maybe all humans are the same. We really don't (and can't) know that. All we know is *history* and history tells us that it was Western civilisation, not all humanity, that started this crap AND it was Western civilisation who profited. This is how things are. The claim that it's "all humans" is just...ugh.
The question that "we" (ie. Westerners) have to answer is how to rein in OUR OWN overconsumption, waste and pollution - NOT how to solve other people's problems. Which, btw, we caused in a large part - without colonialism, old or new, a lot of the issues would not even exist.
"Let us not forget that the last time humanity lived sustainably on the Earth, as hunter-gatherers, there were probably no more than four million. Some optimistic population ecologists suggest we might be able to achieve sustainability at a global human population of one billion, if we were to return to a pre-Civil War agrarian lifestyle."
And who exactly went around - and is still going around - the world destroying that lifestyle with military might for private profit? And which parts of the world get the better part of that deal?
Carrying capacity is anything but an "abstract concept" – it is what has naturally limited populations until the agricultural revolution.
"The adoption of agriculture, combined with its two major consequences – settled communities and steadily rising populations – placed an increasing strain on the environment. That strain was localized at first but as agriculture spread so did its effects. Agriculture involves the clearing of the natural ecosystem in order to create an artificial habitat where humans can grow the plants and stock the animals they want. The natural balances and inherent stability of the original ecosystem are thereby destroyed." – Clive Ponting, A New Green History of the World
"in history our civilisation initiated the fuckup…it is Western civilisation that did all this:
Agriculture, deforestation and desertification began in ancient Egypt and Persia, and to some extent in China, India and the Americas. Ancient civilizations rose and fell because of this.
Western civilization only improved on the concept. Learn your history.
"Agriculture, deforestation and desertification began in ancient Egypt and Persia, and to some extent in China, India and the Americas. Ancient civilizations rose and fell because of this."
Ancient civilisations (except of course insignificant China) did fall becaused of this - and in ten thousand or at most a hundred thousand years, the Earth would easily reclaim what they fucked up. This is clearly not the same as Western civilisation that can fuck up the Earth for a much, much longer time, maybe even forever if we manage to turn it into Venus (although tbh I hope that's not possible) :-/ The scale of destruction is not even remotely comparable for fucks sake.
But really, we are not talking about potentialities. We are talking about what ACTUALLY HAPPENED. And what happened is that *WE* fucked up. Most importantly, it was US who got ALL the benefit of this crap. OUR civilisation needs to be changed. We're not "all in this together" - absolute bullshit.
Maybe others would have too, but "you would have done that too in my place" is simply not an acceptable defense when talking about responsibility. I'm pretty sure that you yourself wouldn't accept any kind of injustice based on this argument and would be quite disgusted by people trying to sell it to you.
Seriously. It's not "our" (humanity's) fault. "We" are not in this together. Saying "you would have done this too in my place" is not an acceptable argument and will most importantly get you NO COOPERATION AT ALL from people based on whose exploitation and robbery our civilisation has thrived.
"Western civilization only improved on the concept. Learn your history."
Get off your high horse, smartass. I know some history and that's exactly why I do not accept that all crises are on the same level and why I am not willing to equate our fuckups wit earlier ones and blame it all on "human nature". I'm not better than other people, I also rationalise shit all the time, but there are limits to my self-deception. And this argument just serves to spread the blame and most importantly the duty to act to other people (to everyone basically).
According to "Food Not Bombs" the food wasted by Britian and the USA everyday could feed the earths hungry. The elites (bloated) may very well be pushing this overpopulation meme prior to depopulating the earth to a large extent.
You're missing the point. The amount of (poor quality) food we produce today is almost entirely dependent on about 10 calories of petroleum for every 1 calorie of food. It is not only thermodynamically unsustainable but also contributes significantly to environmental pollution, climate change, soil salination, top-soil erosion, desertification, siltification and eutrophication of water ways, oceanic dead zones, loss of rain forest and other significant habitat, species extinction...
The only reason we have such a bloated global human population is because we have cheated nature in order to feed our bodies. If our food production system is completely unsustainable, then the current global population is just as unsustainable.
THIS IS WHAT WE DO FOR FUCKS SAKE. This is all what we do. It is not what people in general do. Of course we force people to use our food - but that happens by actively DESTROYING their sustenance agriculture. This is happening even in China (where a lot of farmland is owned publicly and regularly redistributed according to need), although there's a lot of popular pressure against it (and some very nice successes). But a lot of previously common farmland has already been "enclosed" for Western (and Arabic and Chinese) use. The urbanisation resulting from this appropriation of common land is one of the most important historical pressures behind overpopulation.
Try to control your temper - you might learn something.
Settled agriculture, growing human populations, the rise of cities, and environmental destruction began 10,000 years ago all over the globe and long before Western civilization. We are merely the last in a long line of empires, but the problem began well before us. The problem is not America - it's the exploitation paradigm that we merely inherited and that nearly the entire human population has adopted.