Often when I talk about potential solutions to pollution, waste and food production problems I'll tend to get the response: “well, the population is just too high”. This kind of response tends to make me nervous, because while yes, the world population is very high, how can this be quickly remedied without a mass cull or drastic removal of people's rights. I'm not gong to sit in denial that this wouldn't happen, because, lets be honest, it already has happened in recent history. Do the names Hitler and Mao ring any bells? I bet their people didn't want to believe that their government could really sterilise or kill them.
So do I believe that there are solutions to these problems without needing a sudden population reduction? Well let's say I'd rather try other solutions and I certainly don't believe that we can't feed this population without monoculture and factory farming.
(Is this beautiful planet really beyond saving by the people who live on it?)
Somebody recently said that even a well run permaculture farm can't produce as much as a monoculture farm, but I don't see why not. Okay, so the permaculture farm won't be producing as much of one crop, but if all farms moved away from the monoculture format to produce multiple crops then surely you'll still have the same amount of produce, just not all coming from one source. Is that such a bad thing? Even if more sustainable farming methods can't produce as much as monocultures it's estimated that we have nearly 50% food wastage in first world countries. Much of this waste starts before it even reaches the shops, as rejects. So I really don't see how we can't produce enough food for the current population.
There are things that can cause pollution besides people. For example one volcanic eruption can cause more pollution than we might make in years. A really bad one can put us in an extended winter for a few years. Thankfully this isn't something that happens very often and nature is pretty efficient at cleaning up. Where nature starts to struggle is when she is constantly bombarded with pollution along with her clean up crew (trees and other plants) being under attack. Admittedly, if we had a much smaller population, nature could probably cope with cleaning up after it, but does anyone have the right to decide how the population should be reduced, just so a few can carry on being as wasteful and polluting as they want?
In a utopian world if we could all see the damage we do and try and minimise it then the current population could easily live in balance with nature. Unfortunately, most people prefer to take the easy path which continues to support the companies wanting to make money out of that laziness and continues the cycle of waste and pollution. I’m not judging them. Ask anyone who tries to live a zero waste life how hard it is, especially with little to no support in this consumer system we live in.
I'm under no illusions as to how important I am to the people with the power to call about a population cull. How about you?
Also find us on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minismallholding/
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/minismallholding/
YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCBwcsmyIkW_hIEJdLUSd44g