The Really Inconvenient Truth

I was reading through wikipedia the other day, as I love to do. I somehow started reading the article 'what wikipedia is not' for some reason or another. That got me onto something else, which got me onto something else, etc etc, which got me onto the articles about Malthusian theory and the Malthusian catastrophe. Of course these sorts of theories have been around for a while and can't be claimed to be the thoughts of a single person, but they serve as a nice succinct theory to refer to here.

In a nutshell, these theories predict that when unchecked population growth outgrows our agricultural capabilities, a number of inevitable processes will work to reduce the population in various horrible ways, not the least of which is famine on apocalyptic levels. It makes sense -- reports have found that the population of the world will likely exceed our abilities to feed by 2030. That's 18 years, not meaning to be sensationalistic about it.

Now think about it in a different way. Running out of food in 2030 relies on levels of famine and poverty remaining what they are today or increasing proportionally. Read that sentence again, and let it sink in. If we were to attempt to give ever undernourished person in the world a typical day's food intake of a modern western urban family, as is the ideal scenario, we would likely already be past our ability to supply the world with food. Right now there are more overweight people in the world than there are undernourished -- with both groups likely now at or above 1,000,000,000 people -- so there is some slack that we can take away from Western cultures to feed the poor. And if we somehow reduce the immense amounts of waste in the world then we could survive a few more years of continued growth. But the truth of the matter, the hard cold inevitable truth is that the world, as it is, relies on a seventh of the world's population going hungry. Is the malthusian crisis something that will happen in 2030, or are we simply in its birthing throes now?

So, assuming that we are utterly unsuccessful in solving the poverty crisis, and assuming that population growth doesn't increase any more, we have 18 years before we can't feed ourselves. 18 years to before you, reader, having a good meal might mean that my family doesn't eat tonight. Given enough nights of that, I might think about taking some of your food no matter what it takes. And that will play out on a global scale as major food producers such as the United States and Australia will seek to reduce exports to improve standard of living. Other countries will flex their muscle because food is a basic human necessity that, when it's in short supply, is more valuable than anything else that can be traded, and so other exports are worth nothing. And thus we will find ourselves stuck in a Malthusian catastrophe, where through famine or plague or war, our population will reduce back to the point where we can feed ourselves. It is not something that is immoral, or unethical, it is simply something that will happen.

Unless something changes. And that, my friends, will be the subject of a post hopefully in the next few days. Or I might make a series of posts about this whole issue, because I have a few things to say about it. We'll see.

Stay Circular,

Circle

And Now For Today's Science News...

Namaste! I thought I'd share something that I've been thinking about for a while. Warning: it may only apply to Australian broadcast TV stations, but I'm fairly sure it doesn't. Let me know in the comments if this doesn't happen in your country, and if you'd like to see it!

TV stations all across the world broadcast news as an integral part of their daily programs (indeed, there are many channels now dedicated to news, which highlights its special importance to an increasingly global and connected world). The origins of news is difficult to find -- in my short time researching I found references saying it was mandated as a public service in America, and then soon spread. Others say that the earliest radio programs didn't have sponsors, so newspapers paid them to promote their papers and thereby spread the news that the newspaper was carrying. Whatever started it, it now is a very important source of information and a critical part of keeping a country's population up to date with current local and global events.

So what do we see on the news? Without fail (you count), you will see probably at least 5 people get injured. Sure the general news section has some good news, but for the most part it's people getting charged, people getting stabbed, another paedophile or drug bust, all things that are important to hear about but not exactly things you let your children see. Following the main news is the sports section. Here in Australia 80% of the sports section is Australian Rules Football (AFL). After all those car crashes we just watched, AFL is much more pleasant but it doesn't really have much importance in the grand scheme of things. I don't mean to say that sports is not important. I'm trying to say that the news is missing something.

The news, aside from the weather, is mostly based on what has happened. Whether it be murders or war crimes or who won the game last night. I propose a new paradigm in nightly network news. Besides covering current affairs and sports, the news must cover, I believe, the breakthroughs that our scientists make. What got me thinking was seeing a news item the other day where a team at Melbourne University had found a molecule that potentially could be applied as a cream that killed melanoma cells and left healthy cells alive. It struck me that we never hear about important scientific discoveries unless they're either done by an Australian university, are causing ethical concern, or are just so big that it couldn't not be covered (eg the work at the LHC). If the prestigious journal Nature can find enough to publish over 100 pages of broad interest breakthrough science every week then there is enough happening in our labs to fill a 10 minute period in a general news broadcast.

To increase the general public's grasp of current events in the local and global community is a general goal of our benevolent Government, then I strongly believe that higher scientific literacy should be at least at the same priority as them. After all, science is the future of our species, technology, machinery, medicine -- every single aspect of our future is influenced by the work being done right now. A lot of research done now is complex and based on the results of similarly complex past research. But if the news can adequately explain melanoma cancer treatment research then there should be no reason why other fields couldn't be made accessible. If you skip out the terminology and detailed techniques, most experiments can be explained relatively simply -- after all, it's much easier to get a simple, easy to understand method published than a convoluted one. Facebook pages such as this one are doing a great job of bringing science to a broader audience in an original and exciting format, so it is possible.

So why not, I say. Why don't we have people talking in the streets saying 'ooh, did you see the work that Smith and colleagues are doing to find out how smell recovers after we've had a blocked nose?? How interesting!'. Or 'did you see the story last night about the lab in America turning skin cells into working heart cells?'. I get excited by science, as do many, and I firmly believe that if we push science to the front of the public spotlight the general public will see that the money they put into charity events such as the Multiple Sclerosis Mega Home Lottery doesn't just put you in the chance of winning a house -- it enables truly ground-breaking research that is fascinating and highly worth spending the money on in its own right.

Am I crazy? Maybe. But I envision a world where scientists can join the general ranks of the heroes we celebrate on our news stations. Where they don't need to spend half of their time going after grants, because the general public actually knows the importance of the experiment that they want to do and will bay for blood if they don't get funding. I want kids to say that they want to be scientists because they've seen all they can do, all the problems they can solve and see that the world has actually been improved because of their work. Because I fear that nowadays the only thing that people see moving forward with any pace is technology.

Science literacy should be something that our Governments strive for! I dream of a world where I can switch to the news at 6pm and see what has happened in science.

So what do you think? Is the general public interested enough to watch this every night, or would they prefer that scientists just work in the background? Would you watch a science section in the news? Leave a comment!

Cheers,
Circle