During 2009 activities concentrated on the relatively large technical assistance project for the management of the Monte Cristo trinational protected area, which is an important element of the Trifinio Plan, a land management and sustainable development effort in a border area that coincides for El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The assistance project has been contracted since November 2007 and APESA is acting under a consortium agreement with the Italian-Belgian AGRECO consulting group, who a are the leaders of the consulting contract. The project, originally datelined for July 2010, has fallen behind the original schedule due to the political problems in Honduras, between June and November 2009 and a possible extension of the contract is now under discussion. During all of 2009 APESA participated as partners with several European and Canadian firms in presenting proposals to several tenders in the Central American area. Two of these are pending as of March 2010. Also, on February of this year, APESA signed a contract with an agency of the European Union to execute a technical assistance program for the Presidential Planning Office (SEGEPLAN) in analyzing past land use planning in the Petén area, with special attention to the Integrated Development Plan and the results derived from its application.

OMENS OF DISASTER...?      by Joaquin Glaesel

At the close of the twentieth century and the start of a new millennium, a strong debate on the future of planet earth has gained momentum around several main issues: population growth, the ozone layer, natural resource exploitation  -mainly agriculture- climate change  -mostly around the global warming debate- the use of water resources and polar meltdown.

This paper tries to sum up the latest evidence on these issues, as the most significant elements affecting the environmental question and the conceptual debate that, somehow, also seems to relate to political claimers  -or disclaimers- that mark the environmental question in the left to right spectrum.    This in turn defines advocates who support a variety of interventions to avert disasters and those that oppose any such actions. This paper also tries to find a relational link of these five issues and to present a hopefully balanced account of what has been perceived.

1                    POPULATION GROWTH

In a span of over twenty years of experience on this issue, the author has found a general attitude of almost violent reaction in raising agreement or opposition on the population growth subject. Strange enough, there is agreement between far right and left advocates in each one�s particular approach, the former because of doctrinal religious opposition to planning practices and the latter�s belief that misery, revolution and eventual change are best fed by pressures of the increasing population numbers on the prevailing order.  Both positions are, unfortunately, dogmatic.

As any economist will tell, the starting point of the subject is the Malthusian Theory, that has a similarity with the subsistence theory of wages[1], with the difference that Malthus`s prediction encompasses several generations or even centuries, whereas the subsistence theory predicts over years or, at the most, decades.

Malthus starts from the unequivocal assumption that food is necessary to the existence of man and that there is a natural instinct to procreate, both as fixed laws of nature. However, granting this, population has a tendency to grow by geometric increases, whereas agricultural production does so in a linear growth tendency.  These assumptions were based on actual statistical information, as available during Malthus`s time (1766 � 1834).  

After Malthus, another significant indicator is the so called Demographic Transition Model (DTM), postulated in 1929 by the demographer Warren Thompson, that explains the transformation of countries from high birth rates and correlative high death rates to a situation of low death and also birth rates, as an intrinsic part of economic development from pre-industrial to industrialized economies.  This highly significant element of population growth has been explained in a five-stage model:

Stage 1: Pre-industrial society where birth and death rates are relatively high and more or less balanced;

Stage 2: In developing countries death rates have a tendency to drop significantly due to improvements in food supply and sanitation. This follows changes in farming technique, availability of better technology, health care and education. As birth rates continue to develop at high levels, an imbalance takes place and  significant increases in population is a deciding element at this stage;

Stage 3: As development in education and corresponding attitudes occur, contraception starts to generalize and birth rates fall. This happens in an environment in which there is an increase in wages, well beyond the subsistence level, and an increase in urbanization which enhances contraception practices through demonstrative process, increase in status and education of women, reduction in the values of child labor, an increasing parental investment in children�s education and other social changes that lead to a leveling in population growth;

Stage 4: Representative of present conditions in European countries and Japan, where development variables are high, with death and birth rates low, the latter at subsistence level or even lower. This characterizes itself as a threat to maintaining an industrialization process and, as average population age increases, an also increasing burden on the younger and shrinking working class takes place

Stage 5: This has been added to the original model that, at the time of its conception, did not go through the experience of what is now called the deindustrialization, or the transition from manufacturing based economies into services and information, which is very descriptive of some European countries and Japan, where population is reproducing well below replacement levels. To add to these new trends, an increase in deaths rates is expected, ironically due to what is called diseases of wealth, such as obesity and diabetes.

 Relevant statistics on the growth of world population are, on the long term and from 6000BC to the 18^th century,  as shown on Graph 1. According to these figures, in a first span of 7,000 years total world population increased 10 times, whereas in the next 2,000 years, the increase was 61 times, vastly confirming Malthus` geometric growth concept.

Graph 1

WORLD POPULATION

6000BC-2000AC

(millions)

Table 1

WORLD POPULATION BY CONTINENT

(1900 � 2005 and Projections to 2050. In millions)

Source: Goddard Institute for Space Studies

 Table 1 shows total population statistics by each one of the six continents, every five years, from 1900 to 2000 and projections from 2005 to 2050. The historical first half of the 100 years (1900 to 1950) rate of growth for the total world figure is a yearly average of 1.4 percent, whereas the second half increased to  1.8 percent. The projected growth, from 2000 to 2050 has been estimated at a yearly 0.8 percent.

Predictions, such as the above, can be the subject of much discussion, due to the fact that population growth varies significantly between developed and developing countries, where birth rates are below and above replacement rates, in each case.  Death rates can also change due to wars, catastrophes or advances in medicine.  The United Nations and the U.S. Bureau of the Census regularly revise these forecasts.

However, these figures become more significant when related to density of population and available world food production.

Graph 2

WORLD POPULATION

(1900-2000. In millions)       

Graph 3

WORLD POPULATION

(1980 � 2050. In millions)

Between 1900 and 2005, population in Africa and Asia has grown 6.7 and 7.8 times, whereas Europe has grown 1.8 times. In our continent, North America[2] has grown 4.0 times and Latin America 7.5 times. This shows that there is a very high correlation between population growth and comparative development, which in turn proposes that population control measures -if undertaken- should try to find an equilibrium in reducing growth rates in the underdeveloped world sphere and strive to maintain replacement levels in the developed areas.  An ideal situation would be to reach replacement levels as a global policy.

All of this gains more understanding on how present population numbers play with natural resource availability -in principle, food production- and the density vis-�-vis land availability, all related to technological elements. 

Approximate figures on earth water and land cover, as well as estimated land use are as shown in Table 2.

If total land cover is used, the density of inhabitants per square kilometer was 8.1 in 1900, 16.9 in 1950, 24.8 in 1970 and 40.7 in 2000. In other words, an almost fivefold increase in one century. Projections are 52.7 in 2025 and 60.0 in 2050. If tillable land and permanent crops are not included, population density would raise to 59 in 2000 and to 86 in 2050.  Further deductions of forest cover to half the present figure would allow densities of 76.4 and 112.4 in the same two projected years. It must be assumed that projected population growth would necessarily imply more land cover use for food   -and probably fuel- production, which would restrict land availability for housing and other space requirements to meet population needs. A search of opinions on acceptable densities made in the Internet has recommended that an ideal average population density suggests 50 to 100 /square kilometer and a maximum of 150 inhabitants.

The analysis of population growth and its implications on human livelihood seems to refer, foremost, on the fact that enough food production is available to assure an adequate quality of life.    

Table 2

GLOBAL WATER AND LAND USE COVER

From 1950 to 1984 grain production worldwide had an increase of 250 percent. This veritable green revolution was made possible by the exploitation of fossil fuels to produce fertilizers, pesticides and fuel powered irrigation. This, however and true to economic structuralism concepts, has had other implications that have put Malthusian critics to the test, due to the events of 2008: an increase in grain prices following a diversion of grain supply levels to produce bio fuels and the sudden increase of crude oil to an all time high of $ 143 a barrel.

The population growth question is best approached by a structural model; that is, the determination of a pattern of relationships that is assumed to exist among variables involved, in this case with a growing human presence on the planet earth and its sustainability. This model also has implications both in time and in space dynamics. The most simplified approach would establish as variables and their relationship, those shown in Diagram 1.  The functionality of this model and its coherence is backed by the fact that every one of these variables are current issues of intense debate and attention by governments and the scientific community, both in their cause as well as their effect.

Diagram 1

POPULATION GROWTH SUSTAINABILITY MODEL

2.                  AGRICULTURE

Global indicators on agricultural production seem to indicate a leveling off, congruent with population estimates. There are, however, two very important facts that need to be analyzed separately and that refer to countries in the developed part of the world, that are well off insofar as food availability and consumption is concerned and countries where undernourishment and straight-out hunger are high.  These regions also show demographic tendencies of high population growth rates and will thus require efforts in producing food stocks that are needed to mitigate or ideally erase hunger. If this is to be achieved, there will be increasing need to have available land to produce these additional food requirements, water for irrigation and fossil based fertilizers and insecticides, all of which will have a cause and effect relation that will filter through all the variables, as shown in Diagram 1.  These cause and effect relations also imply an iterative behavior of the whole model. 

The most informed source on global agriculture is the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), of the United Nations and the following is a condensed version of several documents and publications dealing on the subject.

The proportion of people who live in developing nations with average food intakes lower then 2,200 kcal per day has reportedly been reduced from 57 percent in 1964 to 10 percent in 1999. In spite of this seemingly positive indicator, to this date 776 million people still remain undernourished. Some areas, like the Sub-Saharan Africa, where numbers of poor rose steeply in the 1990s, seem likely to continue a similar growing trend.

Be it as it may, food production will have to increase, on one side to meet growing population needs and, on the other, to reduce under-nourishment taking into account that there are three sources of growth in crop production: expanding land areas, an increase in crop frequency  -which implies irrigation in many cases- and the improvement of crop yields.

Regarding additional land use and according to FAO, developing countries will need, in the next 30 years, an additional 1,200,000 km2 for crops, which is about 4.1 percent of total tillable land. From the figures of Table 1, an estimated 114 million km2 are, in some way, suitable for production of arable and permanent crops. This, however, is theoretical, as close to 40 percent  refers to shrinking woodlands that should not be converted to other uses. These generalizations have to be viewed, once more, in the context of developing countries: in the Near East and North Africa 87 percent of suitable land is already being farmed and in South Asia the same figure is 94 percent.  The stark reality of this last figure is that the population of this area, even with estimates that foresee a less dynamic growth rate, will double between 2005 and 2050, which means that the feeding of this population will very probably have to depend on crop productions of other  -most certainly developed countries- areas of the planet.

An increase in crop frequency mainly implies a growing use of water for irrigation. In the developing countries present irrigated areas total about 2.0 million square kilometers and FAO foresees that by 2030 the introduction of irrigation in land scarce areas will grow by about 20 percent. Once again, in developing areas such as South Asia, the Near East and North Africa where use of renewable fresh water resources for irrigation is as high as 58 percent, greater efficiency in water use for crops will be necessary.

Regarding the improvement of yields, most of the additional production that may be filled with yield growth has already been achieved.  This means that technological improvements have or are reaching the ceiling of possibilities. According to FAO and as an example, for wheat yields a 2 percent future growth versus 3 percent past growth will be a reality. For rice, the same figures are 2.3 to 1.1 percent. Also, growth in fertilizer use in developing countries is expected to slow to 1.1 percent per year in the next three decades.

All of the above has not considered advances in biotechnology and there seems to be a consensus that the 21^st century will need another green revolution, but much more accountable to environmental restoration and protection. All this is not quite defined, as discussions related to environmental issues, rage on.  

As the central issue is food production, livestock and fisheries should also be reviewed.

Between 1964 and 1999, per capita meat and dairy production in developed countries rose by 150 and 60 percent, respectively. According to FAO, yields are and will keep improving, which derives to a lower growth in animal numbers, is beneficial in avoiding additional environmental damage from grazing and wastes. One very clear example is the New Zealand dairy industry that has managed to become on of the most efficient worldwide and an important supplier to developing countries. In the case of developed countries, projected consumption of meat and dairies will be at the cost of a trade deficit.

Fish production has grown at geometric rates.  The 1999 average of sea products per capita consumption was 16.3 kg.  By 2030 it is expected to reach 20 kg/person an amount significantly lower than the potential demand due to the little discussed fact that ocean fish stocks are widely over-fished, if not depleted. Aquaculture will grow by 5 to 7 percent a year from now until 2015, but this also is expected to be done under forms of management that are sustainable and environmentally sound.

Land use practices, as described all along in this chapter, are directly related and exert definite pressures on two factors: forestry coverage and, in a very direct way, the environment. During the decade of 1990, world forest cover declined an average of 94,000 km2 per year. Addition of needed areas for croplands will increase by 17 percent between 2005 and 2030, most of which will mean forest cover clearance.  World demand for round wood is expected to raise 60 percent, in the same period. According to FAO, deforestation is expected to decrease due to the fact that countries such as Bangladesh, China, India turkey and Vietnam are planting more forest area then what is being cut.  This, however, is not the case in, for instance, Latin America and, notably Brazil, where the critical Amazon forest is under very large pressure, having already lost one fifth of its original extension and loosing forested areas at the rate of 11 thousand km2 each year.

The following is a summary of FAO�s stance on how agriculture and its development to feed world population plays a decisive role on the environment:  

-          Many of the environmental problems that have been associated with agriculture will remain, due to growing losses in biodiversity and its impact on the natural balance of nature; 

-          Use of Nitrogen fertilizers and emissions of methane and ammonia from livestock will continue to be a major source of water and air pollution, the latter expected to increase 60 percent by 2030. This will be a major source of atmospheric carbon dioxide; 

-          Global warming will have negative effects on agriculture in tropic and sub tropic areas, due to raising ocean levels and increased drought and excessive rain periods. In temperate and northerly areas, production will increase as climate becomes milder;  

-          Fossil fuel emissions can be reduced by slower deforestation and by adequate farm practices.

 3.   WATER

Water generation has a natural cycle defined by a circular motion through the atmosphere, geosphere and hydrosphere. The expanding human activity has impacted very seriously on this cycle, due to imbalances in demand and supply, pollution of water resources and ecosystem deterioration, all consequence of urban and industrial wastewater. There are evident signs of growing global water related problems and hazards, the most obvious being a more frequent occurrence of floods and droughts. 

Current statistics show that one third of world population is affected by water scarcity in 2005 and  one sixth of humanity  -over a billion people- live in areas where water is scarce or is available in rivers and aquifers, but the infrastructure to make it usable, is lacking.  Most of this is due, especially in developing countries, to an attitude that does not value water at its real economic cost, through wasteful practices.

Critical examples of scarcity, which could very well expand to other areas, are India, China, Mexico and the Colorado River basin in the USA.

Another significant cause of water scarcity in much of the world is the fact that crop production requires up to 70 times more water than what is used in drinking and other domestic uses, particularly in the developing countries.  Due to a growing urbanization as well as the use of fossil fertilizer and insecticide runoff, most of the water available is unfit for human consumption. 

As explained in Chapter 2, world population has to be fed, which greatly depends on the fact that crop production requires significant amounts of water. This plays against the fact that groundwater supplies are declining at an alarming worldwide rate, that loss of water rights and lack of proper access is growing, and the existence of frequent periods of pollution, flooding and drought are more frequent.

Adding to the above, is the proven fact that glaciers in every region of the world are melting. Recent examples are evident in Switzerland, Norway, Canada, and Bolivia.  The melting rates cannot be explained by known historical trends, but the fact that they are the world�s largest fresh water supply, presently running off to the oceans, is worrying.

The water cycle variations can have remarkable changes from one continent to the other. One such occurrence is associated with Asian monsoon season and with land conditions related by unique tectonic plate dynamics.   This causes large seasonal and annual variations in precipitation and in the agricultural activity, primarily in paddy cultivation on alluvial flood plains that are, due to the large population increase, undergoing an urbanization process. All of this will shortly worsen current water problems in Asia.

To sum up, the availability and use of water is undergoing a crisis that has a tendency to worsen in the medium term. This is not due to the fact that there is not enough water, but because of choices that societies make. It is possible to reduce water scarcity, use it to feed an ever-growing population and address poverty, but the key tradeoff is with the environment. Communities and their governments will have to make decisions on how to allocate and manage water resources and some of the parties involved will have to accept drastic changes in lifestyles and particular interests. This can be politically very sensitive.

4.           CLIMATIC CHANGE

 4.1          Basic Concepts

There is nothing new in climate changes as a common event in the planet�s history. The basic indicator that has been used to measure these changes is average yearly temperature, taken as the monthly mean of daily (24 hours) temperature.

Climate changes, represented by relatively large cooling and warming periods have occurred and been registered geologically from the Tertiary Period, as far back as 60,000,000 years ago.  Dominance of human presence in the Late Pleistocene Period started about 1,000,000 years ago, all of which indicates very large periods of time, measured in millions of years and signifying events from ice ages to long periods of warmth. Historically, these very long-term periods came from natural factors, such as huge volcanic eruptions, changes in the Earth�s orbit and changing amounts of energy released by the Sun. Recent Antarctica ice cores have been known to span 800,000 years, which included 8 glacial periods timed by orbital variations with warm interglacial periods, comparable to present temperatures. 

In a very shorter time span, during the last 2,000 years, climate has been found to be quite stable, with three distinct periods of instability: the so called Medieval Climate Anomaly (900 to 1300AD) where evidence has been found that Europe, Greenland and Asia experienced relative warmth; the Little Ice Age between 1500 and 1850 which did not register the formation of new ice sheets, but was characterized by an average temperature drop of 3.6� Celsius; the Industrial Era, an additional warm period that has started in the last 100 years, coinciding with a technological capacity of measuring and understanding such events, as a result of human activities.

 Graph 4

WORLD  AVERAGE TEMPERATURE

(1867 � 2001. Degrees Celcius)

These recent developments show that the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation  - events not registered in a known span of millions of years- have apparently caused what is known as a concentration of green-house gases, a natural occurrence that prevents heat from escaping to space and provide the necessary warmth for life, as it is known on the planet. This concentration has prompted an average increase in temperature, since 1850, of between 0.6� and 0.8� Celsius when the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 1998, correlated with changes in rainfall patterns, snow and ice cover as well as raising sea levels. 

Graph 4 shows world average yearly temperature from 1867 to 2001, where two trends are very obvious: 1867 to 1891 with a decreasing trend, 1892 to 1978 with a moderately upward trend, and from here to 2001 at a greater raising trend  

Climatic models generated from a large amount of information that has been gathered predict that, if present trends continue, by the end of the 21^st Century, average temperature of the earth surface may increase from 2.1� to  4.0� Celsius.

There seems to be a generalized consensus that the global average temperature during the last few decades has been warmer than in any comparable period, in the last 400 years. Certain locations have registered higher temperatures in a 25 year span, since AD 900.  However, the farther back, the more uncertainties arise on the credibility of the information. At the writing of this paper, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the U.S. government has proposed regulating carbon dioxide and other gases as pollutants, citing potential impacts on climate and diseases, especially malaria and dengue fever.

4.2                          Ozone Layer 

In 1974 two chemists from the University of California, Irvine, published a scientific paper warning that human generated chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) could cause serious damage to the earth�s protective layer. The loss of ozone would increase the amount of ultra-violet UV-B reaching the earth�s surface, increasing skin cancer and cataracts and potentially cause destructive climate changes. It is also suspected of a variety of biological consequences such as damage to plants and reduction of plankton populations.

The theory was severely attacked by corporations and politicians linked to the fluorocarbon industry,  until 1985 and the sudden discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, which prompted the Montreal Protocol, a 1987 agreement to phase out ozone destroying chemicals. In spite of this, ozone depletion worsened in the 1990`s, with peak losses reaching 70% in Antarctica, 30% in the Arctic, 8% in Australia and 15% in New Zealand. A phase out of CFC use is now well on its way.

Discussion on the connection between ozone depletion and global warming is still undecided. A long- term modeling of the process, its measurement, study, design of theories and testing will take decades to document and gain acceptance to, ultimately, become the dominant paradigm. The latest proposed theories suggest that between 78 and 89% of the ozone has been lost and that present restrictions agreed on in the Montreal Protocol, estimate a recovery of from 75 to 150 years.

Given that the ozone layer is, in effect, undergoing a depletion process and that this coincides, in time, with observed climatic changes, a relation between these two would seem evident. This same coincidence might be true in the case of the polar meltdowns, as the ozone depletion is more critical in these areas, as shown in Diagram 2.

Diagram 2

ANTARTIC OZONE HOLE

(Record size, September 2000)  

                                    Source: NASA

  4.3                          Polar Meltdown

The Polar Regions have profound effects on global climate and climatic conditions in the Arctic have noticeable effects on the Antarctic, and vice versa. In March 1994 the fastest atmospheric warming since world-wide temperature records were started 130 years ago, was reported in the Antarctic Peninsula. This coincided with ice shelves disintegrating along the coastlines of the northern Peninsula. As air and sea temperatures increase, the line of average temperatures at which ice shelves can no longer be viable, is moving southward.

Other changes such as the disappearance of colonies of penguins and the spreading of plant colonies are also evident.

Feedback effects are also occurring. The loss of sea ice reduces the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide and heat. Climate change caused by warming of lower atmospheric temperatures cause decreasing temperatures in the upper atmosphere, which exacerbates stratospheric ozone loss and, added to this,  increase in UV-B levels  -consistent with the ozone hole over Antarctica-  result in decreased productivity of phytoplankton, a major link in the Antarctic food chain.

Computer models that have processed data such as ancient climate changes derived from fossils, sediments and ice cores show that melt water from Greenland and other Arctic ice sheets caused sea level increases, in one instance up to 3 meters, during the Last Interglaciation, about 120,000 years ago, which in turn triggered melting in Antarctica, causing sea levels to rise further.  Rising seas from Arctic melt water probably destabilized ice shelves in Antarctica, causing them to melt, break apart and fall into the ocean, thus adding to the rising water levels.

The Environmental Protecting Agency estimates that sea levels have been rising 30 centimeters each one hundred years. In the case of a worst-case scenario, seas could rise one meter by 2100. Each vertical 2.5 centimeters can translate into a meter or more of flat lowlands. Thus small islands, farmland and coastal cities with populations to hundreds of millions could be swamped.

Noticeable trends are best described in the Antarctic by the Ross Ice Shelf, the largest mass of floating ice covering an area de size of France, that is showing signs of a massive collapse that, in the event, would cause a measurable increase in sea levels.   And less ice, at the poles or anywhere, means less sunlight is reflected, accelerating global warming.

The situation in the Arctic is best seen in the loss of ice cover in Greenland, clearly evidenced below.

Diagram 3

GREENLAND. ICE COVER LOSS

1992 - 2002

The situation in Greenland and its proximity to the polar area leads to present conditions in glacier formations in the northern and southern hemispheres and similar conditions of meltdowns due to rising temperatures.  A 1999 study by the National Science Foundation found that the Columbia Glacier near Anchorage, Alaska was melting rapidly and had increased its forward speed from 25 meters per day to 115. It is expected that in a couple of years the Glacier might begin breaking off at a rapid pace, or it could melt so quickly that it stops before reaching the sea

The scale of all this is revealed in photographs of dozens of glaciers as far apart as Alaska and Austria and from Greenland in the north to the Andes in the south. In Switzerland there has been a 50 percent decrease in the area of the Alps covered by glaciers over the past 150 years. However, the rate of loss between 1979 and 2000 was three times faster.

During 2003, average glacier thickness of the Alps shrunk three meters, twice the amount lost the year before. At these rates, almost half of the total volume of Alpine glaciers would melt by 2025 and less than 10 percent would remain as ice cover by the end of the century.  

In India and Pakistan, the rivers that drain the huge glaciers of the Himalayas will run strongly for the next forty years and then die away bringing flood and then famine, as a consequence of glacier melting increasing up to 30 percent. Studies made find the biggest impact in Pakistan, where the Indus irrigates half the country�s crops. Flows in this area could double, before decreasing to less than half the current levels by the end of the century. The declining flows predicted for the Ganges will also throw into disarray a vast Indian government scheme to avoid drought by diverting water from the country�s glacier fed northern rivers.

The largest glacier in the French  Alps, the Mer de Glace near Mont Blanc has increased its thinning rate from around one meter between 1979 and 1994 to 4.1 meters between 2000 and 2003.

In Ecuador a team of investigators has documented and eight year relationship between El Ni�o and the erosion of glaciers.

In the Peruvian Andes, some places are seeing increased water supplies, but as the ice melts down, people will be hard hit during the dry summers, when glaciers normally release water. In La Paz, Bolivia and its suburb of El Alto, more than 2 million people get about a third of their drinking water from glaciers and these have shrunk by more than half since the 1960s.

It is believed that the loss of glaciers is probably part of a natural process that began with the end of the last ice age, but man made climate change is no doubt playing an important role in accelerating the process.     

The presence of man on planet Earth has, as any living entity that develops and grows, a cause and effect relationship on its surroundings. For tens of thousands of years this presence had a minimum impact, first during the era in which a nomadic presence defined man�s activities and, later, as the provisioning of food changed from hunting and gathering, to agricultural practices.  As nature led its course, man had to adjust his activities to it, moving when climatic conditions became difficult and settling where these conditions were less severe. Nature dictated and man adjusted to nature�s dictates.

Before the beginning of the Christian Era, total world population barely reached 100 million. Before this, it took over 50,000 years �a mere fracture of a second in the clock of earth�s evolution-, for man to reach 10 million.   

In the middle ages, the presence of man began to impact the natural biological balance of earth through the first recorded occurrence of plagues that seriously diminished population numbers in certain areas. In spite of this, in 3,000 years population increased by one hundred fold over the former recorded 6,000 years.

By the middle of the 18^th century, world total reached 791 million, prompting economists such as Thomas Malthus to predict an oncoming unsustainability in the planet�s capacity to feed its population if recorded growth rates did not diminish drastically. The so called Malthusian catastrophy was not far off in predicting that population would continue to grow at a geometric rate, but did not foresee technological advances that would increase agricultural yields.  The apparent fact is that Malthus`s dyer predictions on world hunger due to unchecked population growth did not happen in the lapse of time predicted, but have probably been pushed up by a couple of more centuries.

The situation at the beginning of the 21^st century seems, from a global standpoint, sustainable. The information gathered for this paper seems to imply this. This, however, unfortunately is a generalization. A more detailed approach shows that some of the areas of the world are responding to unsustainable situations in feeding resident population by either having reached a point of crisis or are well on their way of reaching it by the end of the century. 

The future of course can only be envisaged by theoretical assumptions of trends that have been calculated considering birth and death rates and that are permanently being corrected by such organizations as FAO and the Bureau of the Census of the U.S. government.    The bottom line differs in accordance to areas that are economically developed and those that are not, which once again shows that there are significant deviations between the global figures and those that refer to specific areas. A sense of alleviation that the low or negative reposition figures show for most of Europe and North America seems far fetched in most of the other corners of the world, very notably in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, and probably most of the Latin American nations.  

Besides the political implications of growing unrest due to an inability to feed people, there are implications that have a domino effect involving continued technological development that will be forced to find solutions to, foremost, assure food availability and this alone has repercussions on land use, growing production of fossil fuel availability, growing use of water and  -less known at this stage and subject to divided opinions from the political and science establishments - effects on climate and the natural environment.

The facts seem to indicate that technological development to substantially increase food production seem to have reached a ceiling. Some consideration has been given to a so-called second green revolution based entirely on biotechnology, but the feasibility of this is still doubtful. The more obvious effects of producing more food are increased use to already scarce resources: land, water and the extraction of fuel, be this fossil or bio.

If the model here defined is used to build a matrix that could be fed with reliable data, the result would undoubtedly be a drastic reduction of land that will have to be taken from the already thinning forest cover and, according to data that has been gathered and analyzed, this will have unmeasured effects on climate  -probably equivalent to an acceleration of natural changes-   and unquestionable negative impact on water availability.  If one is less conservative on all these issues, a probable domino effect, measured in hundreds of years versus hundreds of thousands of geological and climate changes, could signify massive changes in polar and glacial cover, an announced catastrophy is within the realm of possibilities that should be considered. 

If one accepts that the origin of all these predictions is growing population numbers, the obvious solution is to find ways that to reduce growth rates.  China is doing it successfully. 

As the population question does not stand alone, related factors as modeled here will also have to be seriously dealt with and the axis is new and appropriate technology: if technological development has been able to change nature by accelerating super long trends, it should also be able to revert them. The unknown element in the equation is time. The lighting of the fuse is political decision making in an environment of honest consensus.          

BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

Data and other information was gathered from a thorough search in the Internet. The following are the sources that were used and researched:

United Nations. 1992. Long Range World Population Projection: Two Centuries of Population Growth. 1950-2150. New York.

Caldwell, John C. 1976. Toward a Statement of Demographic Transition Theory. Population and Development Review.

Coale, Ansley J. and Susan J. Watkins. 1997. The Decline of Fertility in Europe. Princeton University Press.

Davis, Kingsley. 1963. The Theory of Change and Response in Modern Demographic History. Population Index

The United States Census Bureau. Washington, D.C., as cited in various blogs.

Stockholm Environment Institute.  Stockholm, Sweden. Reported source in a paper on the Ozone layer.

Congressional Report. Hearing on Scientific Integrity and the Public Trust: the Science behind Federal Policies and Mandates. Case Study 1 � Stratospheric Ozone: Myth and Realities. 104^th Congress.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. FAO. World Agriculture 2030: Main Findings . Rome, 2002

-          World Agriculture. Towards 2015/2030. Summary Report. Economic and Social Department.

     Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 1995. Report to IPCC from Working Group 1: Policy Makers Summary of the   Scientific Assessment of Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.

University of Colorado. National Snow and Ice Data Center. Various opinions and data cited in Internet blogs.

Journal of Geophysical Research. Various opinions and data cited in Internet blogs.

Berthier, Etienne. Laboratory for the Study and Geophysics and Oceanography from Space. Toulouse, France. Images and information monitoring changes of the Mer de Glace.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Washington, D.C. Various opinions and data cited in Internet blogs.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Information on greenhouse effect described and cited in Internet blog.

NOAA and NASA. Washington, D.C. Data on temperature changes cited in an EPA webpage.

National Academy of Sciences.  Washington, D.C.  Data on history of world temperature changes.

Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia.  Search on world population statistics and information.

Earth Policy Institute. Eco-economy Indicators. Temperature statistics taken from Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Science Directorate. Global Temperature Anomalies.