population pandemics
When and how will growth cease?
Since Earth and the resources it can provide humanity are finite, both population and economic growth must cease sometime in the future.
Only with knowledge will humanity survive. Our search for knowledge will encounter uncertainties and unknowns, but search we must. The search must persist and adapt as humanity’s present knowledge is expanded and changed. Continued allegiance to the false belief that human population and our current economic system can grow indefinitely, runs directly counter to this search for knowledge. Those that espouse this belief hinder our search for the knowledge critical to humanity’s survival.
Since Earth and the resources it can provide humanity are finite, both population and economic growth must cease sometime in the future. To use ridiculous examples to prove a point– Earth could not support 1 trillion people for even one moment and Earth could not support an economy 1 trillion times as large as the current economy for even one moment. Therefore, the following questions arise:
1. When will growth cease?
and
2. How will growth cease?
We can debate when growth will cease, but we cannot debate the fact that it will cease. Those who take the position that growth in the number of people, the resources they use, and the waste they create can continue on a finite Earth are, again, arrogant fools. While new technologies, recycling and any other actions taken by humanity can reduce the amount of resources used per unit of economic activity/output, neither new technologies, recycling nor any other actions taken by humanity can convert the finite and limited resources Earth provides humanity into infinite resources that will permit economic activity and population to grow forever.
Almost every resource Earth provides humanity is finite. The more we use today the less we have for tomorrow. Theoretically, Earth provides humanity with two types of resources: renewable resources and nonrenewable resources. Nonrenewable resources include fossil fuels and minerals. Renewable resources include soil, water, forest growth, fish in the ocean, and similar items. In reality, humanity is using almost every theoretically renewable resource faster than it can be naturally replaced and, therefore, for all practical purposes, renewable resources have become nonrenewable. Well before these resources are exhausted, we will find them harder to exploit. Humanity in the past has used those resources which were the easiest to obtain, had the highest concentrations of the minerals desired, the easiest to process, and closest to the place where they would be used. In the future humanity will be forced to use resources which are harder to obtain, have lower concentrations, are harder to process, and further from the place of usage. We will therefore face the challenges of higher prices, reduced returns, and greater processing waste well before the resources are exhausted. In many cases we already are.
Yet many economists, politicians, and even environmentalists will have you believe that the economy can continue to grow in spite of the fact that resources and sinks are limited. The recent budget proposal from the Trump administration relies on the assumption of 3% growth of the U.S. economy as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP)[1]. Since the economy will grow in a compound manner, a 3% annual growth rate would cause the economy of the USA to double about every 23.33 years. In 233 years there would be 10 doublings resulting in a growth factor of over 1,000 and in 466 years there would be 20 doublings resulting in a growth factor of over 1 million. In under 100 years at the same annual growth rate, there would be over 4 doublings resulting in a growth factor of over 16–2,4,8,16. The resources that will be available to the USA in under 100 years will not permit the economy of the USA to be 16 times as large as the current economy. Do you have any facts that would support the position that the economy of the USA could become 16 times as large as the current economy in under 100 years?
Instead, the evidence suggests that attempting to maintain an annual compound economic growth rate of 3% which would result in four doublings in 100 years, or a growth factor of sixteen, would result in the collapse of civilization. Why? Economic growth requires the use of physical resources. Without the use of physical resources, economic growth cannot and will not continue. It is almost certain that the earth cannot supply humanity, on an overall basis, with four times the resources it presently supplies. History suggests that resource constraints are more likely to lead to wars and disease than previously unseen economic flourishing and wellbeing.
It is not my intent to pick on Donald Trump in this essay, as the majority of candidates and major political parties, across levels of politics, have taken the position that growth is the solution to all or almost all of the problems faced today by humanity. Anyone who believes growth is a solution to any of the problems presently faced by humanity ignores the fact that Earth and the resources it can provide humanity are finite, the power of compound growth and the fact that the human population is exploding. Almost all of the problems faced by humanity today were caused, in whole or in part, by the combined impact of economic and population growth.
Which brings us to the question: when will growth cease? At what level will human population and economic production cease to grow? There are two options of the level at which each of them will peak: 1) At the current level or, 2) At some level higher than the current level. There is also the very likely possibility that growth will not only have to cease, but that the number of people and size of the economy will have to be reduced to some level lower than the current level. These options amount to a simple question: What size of the economy and population would permit humanity to survive on this planet for the longest period of time? A simple question that can be complicated for some to answer, but ultimately only has one correct answer –at the lowest population level which will permit genetic diversity so that humanity can survive and at the lowest economic level which will satisfy the reasonable needs of all of humankind. The meaning of “reasonable” is where the debate and discussion needs to take place, not the statements that have preceded it –which are where we are currently spending too much of our time and energy.
All indication is that the answer to –What size of the economy and population would permit humanity to survive on this planet for the longest period of time?– is not likely to be a level above what we are currently demanding of Earth. Which brings us to the question: How will growth cease? For population growth, I propose there are three, and only three, ways population growth will cease:
1. Wars, most likely with weapons of mass destruction, disease, starvation, civil strife and other horrors beyond the imagination.
2. Voluntary population control, which includes raising the standard of living of all of humanity, educating men and women, providing the most modern means of birth control to all humanity at no or very little cost, providing the safest and most modern means of abortion to all humanity at no or very little cost, changing the culture such that a person’s position in society is not determined by how many children he or she produces, restructuring all religions such that women are in every way equal to men, and taking all other similar actions that anyone can think of.
3. Coercive population control on a worldwide basis that would be enforced by penalties, that could range from very minor civil penalties up to and including major criminal penalties.
I am open to hearing other thoughts on additional methods through which human population growth can be curtailed, but I believe these three to be the only options. With that in mind, the first option is obviously undesirable and should be avoided. Which brings us to the two methods of reducing the number of children born –yes, two methods. Currently, we are putting all our faith in voluntary population control to the point that many people refuse to even enter discussions about coercive population control. That does not make sense. What evidence do we have that voluntary population control will reduce population growth to zero or make it negative in time to prevent the collapse of civilization? What evidence do we have that within the next 150 years there is no chance humanity will have to choose between coercive population control and the total and complete destruction of civilization? We should be prepared for that choice, and can only be if we openly discuss coercive population control.
If there is at least a 10% chance that voluntary population control will fail or if there is at least a 10% chance that humanity will face the choice between coercive population control and the total and complete destruction of worldwide civilization within 150 years, humanity must (and I have used the word “must” purposely) immediately discuss, evaluate, debate and consider all the problems and benefits of both coercive and voluntary population control so that a decision is made as to which method of population control is best for humanity. Anyone opposed to the consideration of both methods of population control must show why such a discussion will presently be more harmful to humanity than failing to have such a discussion.
To restate the position differently, there are two choices–discuss, evaluate, debate and consider both methods of population control to determine which method is best for humanity or not to have such an evaluation and discussion. Those that do not want to have such an evaluation and discussion must show why their position is better for humanity than having such an evaluation and discussion. On a personal level, I cannot think of one fact that would indicate not having such a discussion and evaluation would be more beneficial to humanity and to the survival of civilization than having such a discussion and evaluation.
Admittedly, such a discussion and evaluation may not provide sufficient evidence to guarantee the correct choice between voluntary and coercive population control. However, that should not prevent a discussion and evaluation from occurring. If, based upon today’s knowledge and facts, sufficient evidence to guarantee the correct choice between the two methods of population control is not available or cannot be agreed to, the intelligent action to take would be to have additional discussions and evaluations at later periods of time. We must make a choice between the two methods of population control based on our intelligence and the facts and knowledge available to us. We cannot and must not leave the choice between the two methods of birth control to be made by default. Default, almost certainly, will result in the elimination of the human species from the face of Earth.
At the beginning of this essay, I stated that knowledge is always better than the lack of knowledge and that those who refuse to obtain knowledge are fools. That statement applies to those who refuse to consider, evaluate, debate and discuss the two methods of population control, unless they show that such an evaluation and consideration would be extremely harmful today to humanity. The fact that a large portion of humanity would be opposed to such an evaluation and discussion should not and must not prevent such a discussion as a large portion of humanity has no understanding of the problems humanity presently faces and has no understanding of the power of compound growth. Humanity must not be ruled by those that do not have knowledge and refuse to obtain knowledge.
I could go on analyzing and describing every problem presently faced by humanity today that could cause the destruction of civilization and the deaths of billions by the year 2100. However, this essay is getting too long and if I did not convince you that humanity must start a discussion and evaluation of coercive population control today, nothing additional I could write would make you change your mind.
One last comment. Many of those who will read this essay are correctly concerned by the problems of enforcing coercive population control on a worldwide basis. I concur in your concerns that the problems will be monumental. Those problems must be part of the discussion and evaluation comparing coercive control with voluntary control. However, if humanity is faced with a final choice of coercive population control or destruction of civilization, the choice must be coercive population control and those challenges will need to be resolved. As no one can guarantee, with certainty, that humanity will not face exactly that choice within the next 150 years, those discussions need to start now.
[1] Noguchi, Yuki “Trump Budget Plan Relies On Optimistic Growth Assumptions, Analysts Say”
Jason G. Brent holds degrees in Engineering, Law and Business.
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The Holocene climate experience.
The history of climate and human health gives us a glimpse of the dramatically amplified risks we face if present trends continue.
What can we learn from the past to guide us in adapting to future climate change? What does the story about human experiences of past natural climatic changes tell us in broad terms? At the least it points to the types of risks to the health, survival, and social stability that may result from this century’s human-driven climate change.
The Holocene spans 11,000 years, a mere sliver of the total Homo sapiens experience of climate variation, but it provides a good entry point. The rigors of the preceding ice age gave way to climatically congenial times which have been sustained, by and large, throughout the Holocene epoch.
This latest of the nine interglacial periods during the past million years has been the one in which anatomically and behaviorally modern humans began exerting increasing control over the environment and its carrying capacity by shifting toward growing crops, herding animals, managing water flows, and building settlements.
Overall, cooling and drying episodes during the Holocene outnumbered heating episodes and there is an important point here. Excursions beyond the “just right” comfort-zone temperatures, either by warming or cooling, impair biological function and well-being.
This applies widely: to human health and survival in the face of extremes of heat or cold, to mosquito survival and rates of development of the malaria pathogen inside the mosquito gut, to plant photosynthesis and crop yields.
For many health-related outcomes, such as the ease of cholera transmission, food yields, and the reproductive capacity of plague-transmitting fleas, both too much and too little rain increase the risks to health.
Excursions beyond the “just right” comfort-zone temperatures, either by warming or cooling, impair biological function and well-being.
Whereas warming in Central Asia around 1300 C.E. helped trigger the bubonic plague pandemic, it was rapid cooling during the late 530s that prompted the spread of the disease and then, in Constantinople, ignited the explosive Plague of Justinian
The main general conclusion to be made about climatic impacts on health and survival during the Holocene is this: whether in the Arctic, temperate regions, or the tropics, the climatic comfort zone that sustains food and water supplies, stability of ecosystems, and other basic needs is confined within a narrow range of temperatures and a particular pattern of seasonal rainfall.
Outside that comfort zone, stresses mount, biological function is compromised, and human health is impaired.
The historical record indicates that most of the natural world’s species, ecosystems, and regional physical processes that our societies and biological health depend on are sensitive to rather small changes in climatic conditions.
Those plants, animals, and ecosystems must take the climate as it comes; if stress, disease, deaths, displacement, and extinction follow, that is part of the uncompromising currency of life and survival in the natural world.
We humans, however, have partially insulated ourselves with cultural assets and technological skills that can mitigate or adapt to—but not eliminate—our vulnerability to the vicissitudes of climate and environmental changes.
For all our cleverness, there is a serious chink in our species’ armour. Humans, as products of evolution’s central “survive the present” criterion, lack a strong hardwired instinct to act on behalf of the distant future and on behalf of species and ecosystems that are far away and unfamiliar.
Earlier societies typically made reactive responses to climatic adversity, and often did so too late. They had limited information and awareness that critical environmental limits were being breached and limited formal knowledge of the workings of ecosystems and the climate system, and accordingly they had little forecasting capacity that could support proactive planning.
So they did little more than build city walls, irrigation systems, and granaries to buffer them against any future floods and droughts. Today we know much more about the workings of the planet, the biosphere, and the climate system, as well as the mounting pressures on those systems.
This knowledge, teamed up with our cerebral capacity for abstract thought and imagining the future, should enable us to respond in more proactive fashion. But will it?
Humans lack a strong hardwired instinct to act on behalf of the distant future and on behalf of species and ecosystems that are far away and unfamiliar.
The rear view mirror of history offers a view of the world’s climate as two-faced: sometimes friendly, sometimes fearsome. Both sustained and abrupt changes in climate have left their mark on food production, epidemic outbreaks, and conflict, leading in each case to deaths, injuries, and a trail of disease.
The extent of a change in climate is very often as important as the actual direction of the climatic change. Human cultures, their built environments, and, most important, the natural resource base on which they depend have been shaped over several thousand years to the Holocene climate that prevailed in that region.
Both significant cooling and warming, acting via biological, ecological, and social impacts, may endanger food yields, contribute to infectious disease outbreaks and spread, affect water quality and availability, and exacerbate social disruption, impoverishment, and displacement.
Some will argue that humans have coped with past climate changes and can therefore do likewise in the future. Two points should be understood. First, historically, many populations and whole societies did not cope well; much misery, impoverishment, illness, and early death resulted, and some societies went into hastened decline.
Second, the future climate and environment will not be a simple variation on the Holocene experience.
Given our current trajectories, within a century or so this planet is likely to have a distinctly different climate, landscape, and biotic profile from the world that we and our Homo sapiens ancestors have known.
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WEF: Environment dominates threats to global economy.
The world’s fast degrading environment now represents a major threat to the global economy, the World Economic Forum warns.
The world’s fast degrading environment now represents a major threat to the global economy, the World Economic Forum warned on Thursday.
Its annual Global Risks Report lists extreme weather, water shortages, natural disasters and a failure to prepare for climate change as four of the top five perils of 2017 in terms of impact.
“Weapons of mass destruction” topped the list – a nod to rising tensions on the Korean peninsula and fast-cooling relations between Russia and Europe.
Despite agreement on a UN climate pact in 2015, the “pace of change is not fast enough” said the report, released every year ahead of the two-day World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
What is the WEF?
It’s an annual talking-shop for 3,000 delegates who include world leaders, business executives and the media to discuss how the global economy is shaping up. Held in a swanky skiing resort, it’s famous for its parties, huge egos and conspicuous wealth on show. But it does attract big hitters: this year China’s president Xi Jinping, US vice president Joe Biden, secretary of state John Kerry and a member of the Trump transition team will attend.
Changing weather patterns and a lack of access to clean water could “trigger or exacerbate societal risks such as domestic or regional conflict and involuntary migration,” it added.
“The World Bank forecasts that water stress could cause extreme societal stress in regions such as the Middle East and the Sahel, where the economic impact of water scarcity could put at risk 6% of GDP by 2050.
“The Bank also forecasts that water availability in cities could decline by as much as two thirds by 2050, as a result of climate change and competition from energy generation and agriculture.”
Extreme weather, water shortages, natural disasters and a failure to prepare for climate change top 2017 @wef risk study pic.twitter.com/XD3e6bgQoA
— Climate Home (@ClimateHome) January 11, 2017
Underlining fears that climate change is already impacting countries, the report said global impacts from extreme weather are more likely than those from migration, terrorism or data theft.
And it pointed to legal action in the US, UK and Netherlands as evidence of a threat to governments who do not appreciate the risks linked to environmental degradation.
“With power and influence increasingly distributed, however, there is a growing recognition that the response to environmental risks cannot be delivered by international agencies and governments alone.
“It requires new approaches that take a wider ‘systems view’ of the interconnected challenges, and that involve a larger and more diverse set of actors.”
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Health official warns Zika could spread across US Gulf.
Record flooding in Louisiana may promote spread of the virus.
The New York State Department of Health unveiled a Zika Prevention Kit for pregnant women during the rollout of a Zika Information hotline and website, in New York, NY, U.S., August 2, 2016. Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor/Handout via REUTERS
By Chris Prentice
One of the top U.S. public health officials on Sunday warned that the mosquito-borne Zika virus could extend its reach across the U.S. Gulf Coast after officials last week confirmed it as active in the popular tourist destination of Miami Beach.
The possibility of transmission in Gulf States such as Louisiana and Texas will likely fuel concerns that the virus, which has been shown to cause the severe birth defect known as microcephaly, could spread across the continental United States, even though officials have played down such an outcome.
Concern has mounted since confirmation that Zika has expanded into a second region of the tourist hub of Miami-Dade County in Florida. Miami's Wynwood arts neighborhood last month became the site of the first locally transmitted cases of Zika in the continental United States.
"It would not be surprising we would see additional cases perhaps in other Gulf Coast states," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the allergy and infectious diseases unit of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said in an interview on Sunday morning with ABC News.
Fauci noted that record flooding this month in Louisiana - which has killed at least 13 people and damaged some 60,000 homes damaged - has boosted the likelihood Zika will spread into that state.
"There's going to be a lot of problems getting rid of standing water" that could stymie the mosquito control efforts that are the best way to control Zika's spread, he said.
U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies. The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last fall in Brazil, which has now confirmed 1,835 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers.
On Friday, Florida Governor Rick Scott confirmed that state health officials had identified five cases of Zika believed to be contracted in Miami Beach.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told pregnant women they should avoid the trendy area and suggested those especially worried about exposure might consider avoiding all of Miami-Dade County.
NIH's Fauci on Sunday said the conditions of most of the country make it unlikely there would be a "diffuse, broad outbreak," even though officials need to prepare for that possibility.
He compared it with diseases such as Dengue, which is endemic in certain tropical and subtropical regions of the world but rarely occurs in the continental United States. In Miami's Wynwood area, experts have seen "substantial" knockdowns of mosquito populations.
Still, its containment is more complicated because Zika can be sexually transmitted, Fauci said.
"This is something that could hang around for a year or two," he said.
The World Health Organization has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.
(Reporting by Chris Prentice in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby)
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Scientists tease out climate change’s role in Zika spread.
Athletes and tourists converging on Brazil this week are crowding into a country where rapid environmental change and natural weather fluctuations nurtured a viral epidemic that has gone global.
Athletes and tourists converging on Brazil this week are crowding into a country where rapid environmental change and natural weather fluctuations nurtured a viral epidemic that has gone global.
The Zika virus has exploded throughout South America, up through Mexico and Puerto Rico and into Florida, but the conditions it needed to fester in northern Brazil were rooted in urbanization and poverty. The initial Brazilian outbreak appears to have been aided by a drought driven by El Niño, and by higher temperatures caused by longer-term weather cycles and by rising levels of greenhouse gas pollution.
This combination of human and natural forces is emerging as the possible incubator of a disease that’s painfully elusive to detect, despite its cruel effects on unborn children.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an unprecedented domestic travel advisory this week, warning pregnant women to avoid a Miami neighborhood where more than a dozen Zika cases were confirmed.
The warning came six months after the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency “of international concern” in Brazil, where the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics is scheduled for Friday.
Most Zika infections produce no symptoms, turning their hosts into unwitting harbors for the disease, which is mainly spread through mosquito bites. Unborn children risk microcephaly when their mothers are infected, meaning their heads are small — the result of unusual brain development.
While the effects of El Niño and other weather cycles are beyond the control of humans, the recent spread of the disease into the U.S. is a savage reminder of the heavy toll that humans are taking on their planet — and of the potential for those changes to bite back.
Climate Central research recently showed that warming temperatures have lengthened the mosquito seasons in three quarters of major cities in the U.S.
For Americans unaccustomed to fearing tropical diseases at home, the northward march of the outbreak is delivering an exotic threat. Researchers are warning that the disease could reach the halls of power in Washington D.C. and the dense metropolis of New York.
Mosquitoes rely on water to breed and flourish, yet a drought that beset northern Brazil amid a heatwave in 2014 and 2015 — while the disease was stealthily taking root — is thought to have worked in the mosquitoes’ favor.
That’s because households began storing more water, ushering breeding mosquitoes and their larvae inside their homes. Like other developing countries, many in Brazil lack regular access to piped water.
“If you have a drought, you don’t have reliable water access, and that makes you go and get water and store,” said Sadie Ryan, a medical geographer at the University of Florida. “By storing it, you’re creating mosquito habitat.”
Small puddles and ponds of water that accumulate in urbanized areas also tend to favor the lifestyles of the types of mosquitoes that spread Zika, compared with those that tend to thrive in more remote regions. Ryan called these types of mosquitoes “urban capable.”
“In South America up to the ‘70s, there was a really big push for vector control,” Ryan said, referring to efforts to control mosquito populations, such as spraying insecticides. “Then the money went away for it.”
Meanwhile, temperatures have been rising globally because of the polluting effects of fossil fuel-powered industrialization, deforestation and livestock farming, and natural climate cycles have been exacerbating the rate of warming in some places, such as in northern Brazil and California. That’s significant, because mosquitoes can only survive above certain temperatures.
“Once you’re over that minimum temperature, there’s nothing killing the vector,” Ryan said. “There’s nothing slowing it down.”
In a February letter published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, the University of Haifa’s Shlomit Paz and Jan Semenza of the Stockholm Environment Institute and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported discovering a “striking overlap” between areas in Brazil that were afflicted by extreme weather linked to El Niño, and areas where Zika was lurking one month later.
"We definitely think temperature and climate have an impact on transmission, but that relationship is often complex,” Semenza said. "It’s always very difficult to attribute one single climatic event to climate change, and then draw a causal link to health outcomes.”
More recently, a team of American and Venezuelan scientists took a closer statistical look at the relationship between climate and the Zika outbreak, and reported that El Niño and climate change were not the only important factors — though they were both important.
While the team blamed El Niño for the drought that fueled the Zika outbreak, they concluded that climate change and long-term weather cycles, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which is a long-term cycle in trade winds that influences surface temperatures globally, played important roles in pushing temperatures up to those favored by Zika-carrying mosquitoes.
The findings were hurriedly pre-published without being peer reviewed on the website bioRxiv. That provided health officials and policymakers with rapid information about the findings while the details continue to be reviewed and improved.
Anthony Janetos, a professor of earth and environmental studies at Boston University, who wasn’t involved with the recent study, warned that it does not definitively prove the links that the researchers reported.
Because of that, Janetos criticized the researchers for their choice of headline for the paper, which states that the Zika epidemic was “fueled by climate variations.”
“If they’d been able to show that the same patterns occurred in other outbreak regions, such as Puerto Rico, then their circumstantial case would be stronger,” Janetos said. “But they haven’t done that.”
Ángel Muñoz, a climate scientist with affiliations at Princeton and Columbia universities who led the research, acknowledged Janetos’s criticisms, and he said the headline would be changed prior to final publication.
“This paper is not an answer for a lot of the questions that we have, but it’s an important step,” Muñoz said.
“It’s not possible right now to show a formal link between Zika and climate, because no one has enough data,” Muñoz said. “You need years, not months.”
With models warning that the epidemic will worsen before it begins to improve, the human suffering that’s expected in the months and years to come may help scientists continue to tease apart roles of natural forces in driving the outbreak from those of climate change and other problems caused by humans.
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What cities can learn from Key West's Zika controversy.
The South Florida island wants to use genetically modified mosquitoes to control the disease, but residents are skeptical.
This story originally appeared in Spanish on our sister site, CityLab Latino.
Miami-Dade County reported ten new cases of locally transmitted Zika on Monday, bringing the total number of native U.S. cases to 14. In the wake of the outbreak (which is so far limited to a small area just north of downtown Miami), cities around the country are preparing for their own outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease that has been linked to microcephaly and other birth defects in Latin America and the Caribbean.
From New York to Los Angeles, urban areas are in danger of outbreaks this summer because of the proliferation of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes which carry the virus.
But in few cities has the debate about possible solutions grown so heated as in Key West, a community of 25,000 people on the southern tip of the Florida Keys. Despite strong opposition from some residents, authorities there are considering the use of genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the Aedes aegypti population.
The method has been endorsed by many scientists, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported in May that it would not have any “significant environmental impact” on the Keys.
But opposition from residents has complicated the process and raised important questions about how city governments should approach the grave public health crisis. In the face of public opposition to what could be the most effective defense against Zika, must community leaders always obey residents' wishes? Or should the priority be to protect people from danger, regardless of their complaints?
The proposal and its opponents
Officials have proposed a test in the Key Haven neighborhood by Oxitec, a British biotechnology company linked to Oxford University that has carried out similar tests in parts of Brazil, Panama, and the Cayman Islands. Company scientist Darrid Nimmo says those tests reduced the population of dangerous mosquitoes by 90 percent.
Oxitec created a variety of the Aedes aegypti mosquito with a gene that prevents offspring from surviving. Mosquitoes are bred in laboratories and the males are released to mate in the wild. But their offspring die before adulthood, drastically reducing the mosquito population in the test area.
The Key West test would be Oxitec's first in the United States, and would be carried out for free as an evaluation, says Beth Ransom, a spokesperson for the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD).
Key West has been trying to hire Oxitec since a 2010 outbreak of dengue, a disease also carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, and some residents have been fighting the proposal tooth and nail since that time.
Key West real state agent Mila de Mier has become the face of the opposition, running an online petition against the test that has been signed by more than 168,000 people in about four years.
The overwhelming majority of the signers, however, are not Key West residents, says Michael Doyle, executive director of the FKMCD. “The last time we checked, 85 percent of the signers did not live in Florida,” he says. Doyle points to several surveys carried out by his team that suggest city residents are mostly behind the measure.
However, a poll published by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in May showed 58 percent of Key Haven residents opposed the project, although only 22 percent of the approximately 1,000 residents in the area responded. The poll (like every poll taken in Key West on this subject) was taken before Zika started to make U.S. headlines.
De Mier says Doyle and others at the FKMCD are trying to dismiss her petition and residents' concerns.
“I am not anti-GMO, a vegetarian or an activist,” she says. “I used to be a nurse. So when all this started, I said, 'This looks like a good idea.' But then I went to meetings with Oxitec, and the more I asked about the project the more uncomfortable I felt."
She argues that Oxitect has changed their story over the years, and that neither she nor many of the residents of Key West feel they’re being given reliable information. “First, they said that one out of every 1,500 males released turn out to be females. Now they say it's one in 10,000. Which is it?” says de Mier. (This factoid could turn out to have great importance, as only females bite humans and spread the Zika virus or other diseases).
Nimmo says it’s true the numbers have changed. The company's method of separating males and females during the pupae stage (using what is basically a sieve) is precise but imperfect. In 2012, it was indeed one in 1,500, he added, but the Panama test allowed the company to build more precise tools and reduce the number to one in 10,000. What's more, he added, it's been proven that the genetically modified female mosquito bite is no different from that of a wild mosquito.
De Mier also complains that 3 to 4 percent of the mosquito offspring with the modified gene manage to survive in the laboratory. Nimmo says that's true, but it's never been known to happen in the real world, where survival is much harder. Even if a few mosquitoes survive, he added, the overall population is still being reduced (probably by far more than even the most effective pesticides and insecticides, which can achieve only 30 to 40 percent control even at their most effective).
The risk for cities
Just last week, Miami-Dade County and Broward County in Florida recorded the first cases of locally transmitted Zika in the United States—meaning the first infected mosquitoes in the country.
It could be a matter of time before the disease spreads rapidly to other parts of Florida and the United States. Oxitec's mosquitoes could be the most effective defense any city has, but the potential solution faces strong opposition.
“People must give their consent. Without consent for the experiment, Oxitec should get out of here,” says de Mier. “Why does the municipal government want to experiment with biotechnology on me and my family against my will?”
Key West residents will vote on the Key Haven test project in November. The result will not technically be binding, but three of the five commissioners on the board of the FKMCD—including the one that represents the Key Haven area—have promised to follow voters' wishes.
Voting against the genetically modified mosquitoes could leave residents largely unprotected from the virus. Other city officials in Florida have trouble seeing how they could opt out of such a potentially effective solution, even in the face of public opposition.
“The truth is that if you ignore your constituents, they will vote you out. It is important to have them on your side when you do something," says Philip Stoddard, the mayor of South Miami and a biology professor at Florida International University. “But at the same time, some people are totally resistant to information, and they hate anything GMO. For them, perhaps you will have to wait for the disease to come. And then they will change their minds.”
No other method is as effective as Oxitec promises, and insecticides and pesticides damage the environment, Stoddard added. What's more, using too much insecticide on mosquitoes allows them to develop an immunity.
Stoddard acknowledged a problem with Oxitec's modified mosquitoes: deploying them in large cities could be very expensive, he says. But perhaps the arrival of Zika may lead voters to justify any expense to fight it, or perhaps it could be used only in small pockets of a city that are particularly high-risk for transmission of disease.
“I am completely in favor of using this method,” says the mayor. “Oxitec has done all the necessary tests to prove it works and is safe. But people will never be satisfied. It makes no sense.”
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For Virgin Islands, being on the frontlines of climate impacts is grounds for a lawsuit.
Facing an existential threat from climate change helps explain why the territory's AG is investigating ExxonMobil's record of discrediting climate science.
Facing an existential threat from climate change helps explain why the territory's AG is investigating ExxonMobil's record of discrediting climate science.
BY PHIL MCKENNA
FOLLOW @MCKENNAPR
JUN 21, 2016
A man walks through the debris after a hurricane swept over Charlotte Amalie in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In explaining his climate fraud investigation of Exxon, the territory's attorney general has said climate action is an issue of survival for the Virgin Islands. He fears a loss of population as hurricanes and droughts are projected to intensify. Credit:Gary WILLIAMS/AFP/Getty Images
The long white sand beach dotted with palm trees at Richard Doumeng's Bolongo Bay Beach Resort in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, is slowly disappearing.
"There is no doubt our beach is narrower than it used to be," said Doumeng, the managing director of the family-owned hotel. "The tide does seem to be rising. It's not just erosion."
People in this island territory in the Eastern Caribbean deal with the fickle ocean as a matter of survival. They live in the path of hurricanes and deal with natural forces that erode the tourist-luring beaches. But while shifting sands are hard to pin on a single cause, rising seas are most likely playing a role.
The government here understands the islands are bracing for the accelerating effects of climate change. In an Oct. 15 executive order that laid out efforts to formally assess those impacts and begin to adapt to a warming planet, Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp cited the islands' vulnerability. Higher temperatures, severe droughts, flooding, storm surge, sea-level rise and increased spread of tropical disease are all the effects of climate change caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.
The territory's 350-year-old capital city, Charlotte Amalie, could be swamped by 2050, studies show.
Almost none of that industrialization happened here among palm trees and sun-splashed beaches, but like all islands, the Virgin Islands will disproportionately suffer its impacts. That helps explain why the territory's attorney general, Claude Walker, is one of several attorneys general investigating ExxonMobil's decades-long record of discrediting the science of global warming, even though its own scientists had confirmed the consensus. In a subpoena issued in March, Walker became the first attorney general to investigate the company under racketeering statutes when it told Exxon it was suspected of violating the territory's Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by misrepresenting what it knew about the role of its fossil fuels in causing climate change.
"To us, it's not an environmental issue as much as it is about survival," Walker said March 29 in New York as a group of Democratic attorneys general announced a coalition to hold fossil fuel companies legally accountable for climate change. "We experience the effects of global warming," he said, citing threats to the territory's main industry, tourism.
Attorney General Claude Walker of the Virgin Islands. Credit: David Sassoon/ICN
Walker had subpoenaed climate change documents from Exxon going back to Jan. 1, 1977. (A separate subpoena seeking information from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, has been withdrawn.)
READ - Exxon: The Road Not Taken
Walker's efforts are in many ways part of a global movement by islands to force action, to hold accountable those responsible for the forces that threaten their existence. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded nearly a decade ago that small islands will be among the first and worst affected by climate change. Some people are already fleeing low-lying islands. It's a problem they didn't cause and one they are fighting with increasing outspokenness and moral conviction.
One vocal organization is the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a group of roughly 40 low-lying island states that pushed for a 1.5 degree Celsius (rather than 2 degrees) warming limit in the text of last year's international climate agreement in Paris.
"Our members are particularly vulnerable to climate extremes and climate change impacts, and we are acutely aware of the vanishingly little time remaining to adopt a legally binding climate treaty," said Thoriq Ibrahim, environment and energy minister of the Maldives and chairman of Aosis, in the lead-up to Paris.
The U.S. Virgin Islands consists of St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas, as well as a number of smaller islands. The territory covers about 135 square miles of land with 117 miles of coastline and has a population of roughly 100,000. In his March remarks, Walker said he feared a loss of population as hurricanes and droughts are projected to intensify.
"We are a part of the world that doesn't contribute significantly to climate change but is impacted significantly by it," said LaVerne Ragster, former president of the University of the Virgin Islands and a member of the recently formed Virgin Islands Climate Change Council.
Gov. Mapp's executive order called for the formation of a council with representatives from government, businesses and nonprofit organizations to develop a comprehensive strategy for adaptation.
Members of the Climate Change Council testified April 1 before a Virgin Islands senate committee. Sea levels in the territory could rise 4-6 feet by 2050, according to Kostas Alexandridis, director of the institute for geo-computational analysis and statistics at the University of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas.
St. Thomas seen from the sky. Credit: S F photographs/flickr
"Even under the most conservative estimates, with 4 feet of sea-level rise, the whole downtown area of Charlotte Amalie will be under water," Alexandridis said. "We have to start thinking about climate change adaptation now if the communities are to have any meaningful response in the next 30 to 50 years."
On March 28, the council received a grant of $828,050 from the U.S. Department of the Interior to further assess the territory's vulnerability.
The Virgin Islands are relatively late to investigating the impacts of climate change. Previous assessments suggest the changes will be significant.
"Rising sea levels, together with the associated coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion, an escalation in the frequency and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes, and disruptions in rainfall and fresh-water supply threaten the very existence of the [Caribbean Community] countries," concluded a study in 2009 by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre in Belize.
A report from the neighboring British Virgin Islands found in 2010 that the Caribbean's climate will be as much as 25 percent drier and as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by the 2080s. At the same time, the region will experience heavier rainfall and a greater likelihood of category 4 and 5 hurricanes as temperatures warm, according to the report.
For some, increased storm intensity is the biggest worry.
"Having 100-year storms become 20-year or 10-year cycle storms—that would be disastrous for our communities," said Roy Watlington, a former physics professor at the University of the Virgin Islands and current board member of the observing arm of the Caribbean Regional Association for Integrated Coastal Ocean Observing. "It wrecks our infrastructure. It makes it hard for us to rebuild. It discourages our tourism industry and wreaks havoc with agriculture."
Signs of a drying climate are also beginning to emerge. Last year, the worst drought in decades hit much of the Caribbean. Samuel Tyson, who along with his wife runs RA's Sonrise & Daughter Stand Farm, had to cut back cultivation of fruits and vegetables from five acres to less than an acre after a nearby reservoir dried up.
"You could actually see cracks in the bottom of it and smell the dead fish," Tyson said. "I've never seen that before."
The couple was able to grow only a small fraction of the cassava, papaya, passion fruit and bush beans they typically harvest on their farm. Their coconut trees dried to the point that the trunks wrinkled and the branches sagged until they touched the ground. In September, Tyson helped a neighbor bury three sheep that died of malnutrition.
"I could tolerate the death of plants more than the death of animals," he said.
The cost of climate change's impact on the coasts and nearby waters of the U.S. Virgin Islands over the next 35 years could be as much as $2.8 billion unless greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced, according to a report submitted to the U.S. Department of the Interior by Archibald Energy Group, an independent consulting company led by University of the Virgin Islands engineering professor Wayne Archibald. The figures do not include damage further inland or costs from disasters such as hurricanes. The territory's annual GDP as of 2014 was $3.7 billion.
This summer, Stacy Mulcare's wedding business, Ceremonies of St. John, is showing just how vulnerable the tourist trade can be. The Zika virus—its rapid spread has been tied to climate change—means Mulcare will obtain marriage licenses, line up photographers and secure hotel accommodations for two-thirds fewer brides and grooms than last summer, she said. She started losing clients after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned women of childbearing age against traveling to the Virgin Islands and other destinations in the region.
"Either brides are picking different destinations to go to or the group size we originally thought we'd be working with for June, July and August weddings has dropped to half or even 75 percent less," Mulcare said. "A lot of the girls that attend weddings are of childbearing age, and they are afraid of getting Zika."
Mulcare said she'll weather this year's downturn but worries bookings may not bounce back next year.
"By November, December if we don't see any change in the numbers and don't see anything that anyone is doing to help us combat this disease, I think 2017 will really be a problem," she said.
How the Virgin Islands is impacted by and responds to the effects of climate change in the coming years may provide a test case for the rest of United States, Ragster said.
"We're a country where we think that we control everything," but climate change has been an eye-opener for all islands, she said. "We need to pay attention in order to actually deal with it in a rational way. Islands don't have the luxury of sitting around thinking they have control."
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