NHV Paper 2
“Response to a Debate”
Caleb Micho
10 October 2014
Nature and Human Values Section A11
Rose Pass
There is no questioning the fact that the world population is increasing without bound, however, there is a debate if this increase is a good thing, or if it will prove catastrophic. In the article “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garrett Hardin. Hardin discusses how the ever-increasing world population will deplete the world of its natural resources, and thus human’s capability of survival. On the other side of the argument though, is Julian L. Simon who wrote the article “More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment.” This article proposes the theory that with an increase in population, human’s quality of life is amplified. One particular issue that they both touch on and have drastically different views on is the future of agriculture and human’s ability to sustain it.
Hardin goes into how the world only has so many resources and opportunity for agriculture to be expended. So with enough increase in population, these resources will become extinct. Thus humans, will run out, and eventually starve to death. As he so profoundly put it “a finite world can only support a finite population” (Hardin 98).
Simon goes on to discuss how humans always seem to come up with means to satisfy their needs. When discussing agriculture he goes as far as saying that food becoming a scarcity is a “benign trend” (Simon 24). Benign in this case meaning not harmful or in effect. Thus Simon does not see a worry about population increase and agricultural needs, as he has seen them being taken care of through agricultural advancements throughout the decades.
The main topic in the debate of the escalation...
... middle of paper ...
...d will be made through the decades. Simon approached the right idea by showing how humans are trending towards agricultural growth, but failed to paint the whole picture with food and survival. While Hardin had a blind view of agricultural engineering and failed to accurately predict what the future can hold for humankind.
Works Cited
"Farms, Land in Farms, and Livestock Operations 2010 Summary." U.S. Department of
Agriculture, 19 Feb. 2011. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
Gul, Hafiza Tahira. "Potential of Nanotechnology in Agriculture and Crop Protection: A
Review." Academia.edu. Bzujournal, 23 Jan. 2014. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
James, Clive. 2011. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011. ISAAA Brief
No. 43. ISAAA: Ithaca, NY.
Perlman, Howard. "Irrigation Techniques." Irrigation: USGS Water-Science School. U.S.
Department of Interior, 17 Mar. 2014. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
He stated that as the society’s technology improves their way of life we seem to forget the significance of the common knowledge about the land. Also he looks down of the competition within the culture that is competing with one another. He despises the fact that some small farmer cannot compete with the bigger farms because small farms lack money, resources and manpower to keep up. All of this replaces the distraction of the farming culture
In, The Population Bomb by, Paul R Ehrlich, he explains the problem of population increase, and how there are people everywhere! The feeling of feeling over populated. He talks about how if there are more people then there is more food that needs to be produced then ate. He explains on the rich people becoming wealthier and the poor are going to be even poorer and there is going to be a starvation. Population is doubling every year and how our energy is turning into
In today’s culture, society puts a lot of emphasis on utilizing technology. Technology’s influence has spread into the farming industry. In Wendell Berry’s article, “Renewing Husbandry,” he addresses the mechanical changes in the farming process. He stresses the idea of husbandry, taking care of the land and conserving the life the land offers. Berry describes the benefits and downfalls of technology. But the problems of technology exceed the benefits. Although technology aids in the farming process, the advancement in farming technology distorts the importance of cultivating the natural land.
After reading McKibben and Hurst’s articles in the book Food Matters, both authors present arguments on “industrial farming”, and although Hurst provides a realistic sense on farming, McKibben’s suggestions should be what we think about.
To begin, he introduces the idea that the food production farms aren’t these "happy farms" society makes us believe they are. For instance, the author Michael Pollan explains how farms began to expand causing corn to produce rapidly, leaving massive quantities of
“The Jungle” novel was written by an American journalist/ novelist name Upton Sinclair in 1906. “The Jungle” made a big hit and became his best-selling novel because it revealed so well about the economical and social reality during that time. The book mainly described about how unsanitary the meat packing industry was operated in Chicago and the miserable life of the immigrants going along with the industry. Through the story around the life and family of Jurgis Rudjus, a Lithuanian immigrant who comes to America with the belief to change their life and live in a better condition, Sinclair expresses that “The Jungle” is a symbol of capitalism. Sinclair’s contempt for capitalist society is present throughout the novel, demonstrated in the eagerness of Jurgis to work, the constant struggle for survival of the workers in Packing town and the corruption of the man at all levels of the society. Also, the author promotes socialism as a standard political society to replace capitalism.
“The Tragedy of the Commons” written by Garret Hardin explains how the human population is degrading the environment. When Hardin refers to commons he is talking about a resource that is owned by no one and used by a group of people. Some examples of commons include the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the oceans we fish. The tragedy is that people don’t look at the bigger picture; the over use of commons for our own personal benefit leads to the destruction or extinction of these commons. For example if one fisherman wants to fish the oceans as much as possible that’s fine, but now imagine if every fisherman wants to fish the oceans as much as they can, this is one example of a common being destroyed by the human population. The fishing lab we did the other day is a good example Tragedy of the Commons. Every student was placed into groups of four, each group received a bowl (which represented the ocean,) and 20 M&M’s (which represented 20 fish; salmon.) Ms.Engen told the class it was a competition but what she did not say is that if we catch all our “M&M’s” we will not receiv...
Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” is an article that identifies the nation’s current problems and predicaments that can’t be resolved through the use of technical solutions. Hardin’s work heavily focuses on overpopulation, a prominent and unceasing issue that significantly distorts and affects the stability of the Earth and the abundance of the planet’s resources. In his article, he mentioned some reasonable and important solutions to overpopulation, but he also explained its downside and how the said solutions may not be ideal and practical. “Tragedy of the Commons” revealed that the human population will continue to flourish and how it will be greatly detrimental to our society unless individuals get the education that they need and
Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population, he states “I think I may fairly make two postulata. First, that food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, that the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state.” He came up with the Population Principle in which he argued that population, when unregulated, increases geometrically, whereas subsistence increases arithmetically. This then becomes an issue when the population outweigh the amount of food available. Malthus then said that once this level was surpassed, that famine would be the main source of the limit to population growth and that premature death was the most natural way to control the
Simon goes on to discuss how humans always seem to come up with the means to satisfy their needs. When discussing agriculture, he declares an extreme saying that food
"What his father. . .felt powerless to counteract was the overwhelming pressure to use unsustainable agriculture practices, to embrace newer technologies without question, to grow larger and larger and divorce themselves from those seasonal rituals that brought meaning to their lives. . ." (Deninger 13).
This problem of population growth leads to a number of solutions that could have significant implications on the quality of life. Taking no action and allowing population to grow unchecked could possibly risk the entire human species if food or clean water were to become unavailable worldwide. Aiming for zero population growth would in theory maintain the existing quality of life since a stable population would not increase their use of resources. However not all resources are renewable, so scarcities could still occur with a fixed population size. In an extreme case permanent resource depletion under zero population growth could have the same extinction effect that unchecked growth can lead to. Despite the escalating risk of unchecked population growth, technological advances necessitated by the increase in population will at least maintain the quality of life and could possibly improve conditions.
One of the major effects of the huge population increase has been the depletion of natural resources and the destruction of ecosystems. In the 1960's, theorist Paul Ehrlich predicted that, given the skyrocketing figures of human population, the amount of food produced would not grow at a fast enough rate for human survival (Professor Carr Everbach, personal communication). He predicted mass starvation and death by the year 2000 as the result of uncontrolled population growth. Clearly, this did not occur. Ehrlich did not foresee the advancements ma...
One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will almost double in size. This means that we will need more food to support us. A study in 1986 by Peter Vitonesk, a Stanford biologist, showed that the humans are already consuming about 38.8 of what is possible for us to eat. Thus, if the population keeps increasing, the percentage will increase also, making us closer and closer to the biophysical limits. By studying the earth's capacity, Dr. Cornell, another biologist, believes that we are already crowded for this would. He believes that our world can only support two million people. Not only this, but population can cause complicated problems to the countries with very high population. These countries will need more schools to educate its people, they will need more hospitals and public health to take care of their people, and they will need more water and more soil for farming to feed all the people. In order to solve the population growth problem, the people should be educated. Once the people are educated they will be aware of the problems they ca...
Overpopulation is a growing problem all over the world. This is a very important environmental issue and needs to be dealt with. This environmental problem is affecting many countries around the world, but mostly the poor and impoverished countries that don’t have the resources to help deal with these issues. It also affects the environment like plants, animal life and air quality. When the population of people expands we need more natural resources from the environment, so we consume more than we can produce.