Rethinking Lifestyle

If yeast is introduced into a bowel of suitable media, the behaviour of the yeast is quite predictable. The population will grow exponentially (like compound interest in the bank), until all food is consumed. Then the population will collapse.

29 reindeer were introduced to St. Matthew Island in the Northwest Territories in 1944. There were no predators on the island and food was abundant. The environment was ideal. By the summer of 1963, they had increased in number to 6,000. But in the winter of 1963/64 most of these reindeer died. They starved to death. The reindeer had exhausted the food supply. Only 50 animals survived that winter. Humans did not interfere and ultimately they all died.

The human population of the earth has been steady just below a billion people for thousands of years. Depending of the locale, there would be times of prosperity. It was during these times of prosperity that civilizations would achieve impressive feats, such as the building of the great wall of China, or building of the pyramids. It’s likely that the energy for these feats came from slaves, Nevertheless, the labourers building these structures were not producing food. Others needed to produce enough surplus food to provide for these labourers. But these times of prosperity were then followed by hard times due to food shortages and disease. Because the historical record is weak, and because historical records have always focused on the elite, we have few details of these hard times.

In the Old Testament there are many references to famines and plagues. We are all familiar with the famine centering around Joseph. References to plague are many, although there is no story about plagues as such. For example “Death has come up into our windows, it has entered our palaces, to cut off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.” (Jeremiah 9:20)

We in the West know nothing about famine and starvation, nor plague and pandemic. Industrialization and medical science have conditioned us to believe that we can, with our knowledge and ability master the world around us. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, we have not known of famine or serious disease. We have been able to reduce infant mortality, we have been able to address other aspects of health, and we have been able to increase food production phenomenally. It seems likely that we will master COVID 19. The first wave seems to be subsiding and vaccine is on the horizon.

But there is a limit to how much growth the planet can tolerate. Similarly, we should not assume that we will always be able to master new pathogens. It is not clear what we need to do to prepare for the next pathogen. But it is clear what we need to do to deal with the inevitable exhaustion of the planet’s resources. We humans have the intellectual ability to conserve the resources we depend on to live. We can avoid collapse if we choose to. The question is: will we? Or will we let our voracious appetite for more and more determine our destiny?