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We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction
« on: 2009-03-10 10:49:02 » |
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[Blunderov] "When the old men do the fighting and the young men all look on.
And the young girls eat their mothers meat from tubes of plasticon.
Be wary of these my gentle friends of all the skins you breed.
They have a tasty habit - they eat the hands that bleed."
The Rolling Stones - MEMO FROM TURNER lyrics
(A mashed-up frame from the 1973 movie Soylent Green.*)
www.truthdig.com/report/
Chris Hedges' Columns
We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction
Posted on Mar 8, 2009
By Chris Hedges
All measures to thwart the degradation and destruction of our ecosystem will be useless if we do not cut population growth. By 2050, if we continue to reproduce at the current rate, the planet will have between 8 billion and 10 billion people, according to a recent U.N. forecast. This is a 50 percent increase. And yet government-commissioned reviews, such as the Stern report in Britain, do not mention the word population. Books and documentaries that deal with the climate crisis, including Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” fail to discuss the danger of population growth. This omission is odd, given that a doubling in population, even if we cut back on the use of fossil fuels, shut down all our coal-burning power plants and build seas of wind turbines, will plunge us into an age of extinction and desolation unseen since the end of the Mesozoic era, 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs disappeared.
We are experiencing an accelerated obliteration of the planet’s life-forms—an estimated 8,760 species die off per year—because, simply put, there are too many people. Most of these extinctions are the direct result of the expanding need for energy, housing, food and other resources. The Yangtze River dolphin, Atlantic gray whale, West African black rhino, Merriam’s elk, California grizzly bear, silver trout, blue pike and dusky seaside sparrow are all victims of human overpopulation. Population growth, as E.O. Wilson says, is “the monster on the land.” Species are vanishing at a rate of a hundred to a thousand times faster than they did before the arrival of humans. If the current rate of extinction continues, Homo sapiens will be one of the few life-forms left on the planet, its members scrambling violently among themselves for water, food, fossil fuels and perhaps air until they too disappear. Humanity, Wilson says, is leaving the Cenozoic, the age of mammals, and entering the Eremozoic—the era of solitude. As long as the Earth is viewed as the personal property of the human race, a belief embraced by everyone from born-again Christians to Marxists to free-market economists, we are destined to soon inhabit a biological wasteland.
The populations in industrialized nations maintain their lifestyles because they have the military and economic power to consume a disproportionate share of the world’s resources. The United States alone gobbles up about 25 percent of the oil produced in the world each year. These nations view their stable or even zero growth birthrates as sufficient. It has been left to developing countries to cope with the emergent population crisis. India, Egypt, South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, Cuba and China, whose one-child policy has prevented the addition of 400 million people, have all tried to institute population control measures. But on most of the planet, population growth is exploding. The U.N. estimates that 200 million women worldwide do not have access to contraception. The population of the Persian Gulf states, along with the Israeli-occupied territories, will double in two decades, a rise that will ominously coincide with precipitous peak oil declines.
The overpopulated regions of the globe will ravage their local environments, cutting down rainforests and the few remaining wilderness areas, in a desperate bid to grow food. And the depletion and destruction of resources will eventually create an overpopulation problem in industrialized nations as well. The resources that industrialized nations consider their birthright will become harder and more expensive to obtain. Rising water levels on coastlines, which may submerge coastal nations such as Bangladesh, will disrupt agriculture and displace millions, who will attempt to flee to areas on the planet where life is still possible. The rising temperatures and droughts have already begun to destroy crop lands in Africa, Australia, Texas and California. The effects of this devastation will first be felt in places like Bangladesh, but will soon spread within our borders. Footprint data suggests that, based on current lifestyles, the sustainable population of the United Kingdom—the number of people the country could feed, fuel and support from its own biological capacity—is about 18 million. This means that in an age of extreme scarcity, some 43 million people in Great Britain would not be able to survive. Overpopulation will become a serious threat to the viability of many industrialized states the instant the cheap consumption of the world’s resources can no longer be maintained. This moment may be closer than we think.
A world where 8 billion to 10 billion people are competing for diminishing resources will not be peaceful. The industrialized nations will, as we have done in Iraq, turn to their militaries to ensure a steady supply of fossil fuels, minerals and other nonrenewable resources in the vain effort to sustain a lifestyle that will, in the end, be unsustainable. The collapse of industrial farming, which is made possible only with cheap oil, will lead to an increase in famine, disease and starvation. And the reaction of those on the bottom will be the low-tech tactic of terrorism and war. Perhaps the chaos and bloodshed will be so massive that overpopulation will be solved through violence, but this is hardly a comfort.
(Page 2)
James Lovelock, an independent British scientist who has spent most of his career locked out of the mainstream, warned several decades ago that disrupting the delicate balance of the Earth, which he refers to as a living body, would be a form of collective suicide. The atmosphere on Earth—21 percent oxygen and 79 percent nitrogen—is not common among planets, he notes. These gases are generated, and maintained at an equable level for life’s processes, by living organisms themselves. Oxygen and nitrogen would disappear if the biosphere was destroyed. The result would be a greenhouse atmosphere similar to that of Venus, a planet that is consequently hundreds of degrees hotter than Earth. Lovelock argues that the atmosphere, oceans, rocks and soil are living entities. They constitute, he says, a self-regulating system. Lovelock, in support of this thesis, looked at the cycle in which algae in the oceans produce volatile sulfur compounds. These compounds act as seeds to form oceanic clouds. Without these dimethyl sulfide “seeds” the cooling oceanic clouds would be lost. This self-regulating system is remarkable because it maintains favorable conditions for human life. Its destruction would not mean the death of the planet. It would not mean the death of life-forms. But it would mean the death of Homo sapiens.
Lovelock advocates nuclear power and thermal solar power; the latter, he says, can be produced by huge mirrors mounted in deserts such as those in Arizona and the Sahara. He proposes reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide with large plastic cylinders thrust vertically into the ocean. These, he says, could bring nutrient-rich lower waters to the surface, producing an algal bloom that would increase the cloud cover. But he warns that these steps will be ineffective if we do not first control population growth. He believes the Earth is overpopulated by a factor of about seven. As the planet overheats—and he believes we can do nothing to halt this process—overpopulation will make all efforts to save the ecosystem futile.
Lovelock, in “The Revenge of Gaia,” said that if we do not radically and immediately cut greenhouse gas emissions, the human race might not die out but it would be reduced to “a few breeding pairs.” “The Vanishing Face of Gaia,” his latest book, which has for its subtitle “The Final Warning,” paints an even grimmer picture. Lovelock says a continued population boom will make the reduction of fossil fuel use impossible. If we do not reduce our emissions by 60 percent, something that can be achieved only by walking away from fossil fuels, the human race is doomed, he argues. Time is running out. This reduction will never take place, he says, unless we can dramatically reduce our birthrate.
All efforts to stanch the effects of climate change are not going to work if we do not practice vigorous population control. Overpopulation, in times of hardship, will create as much havoc in industrialized nations as in the impoverished slums around the globe where people struggle on less than two dollars a day. Population growth is often overlooked, or at best considered a secondary issue, by many environmentalists, but it is as fundamental to our survival as reducing the emissions that are melting the polar ice caps.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
"Set in the year 2022, Soylent Green depicts a dystopian future in which the population has grown to forty million in New York City alone. Most housing is dilapidated and overcrowded, and the impoverished homeless fill the streets and line the fire escapes and stairways of buildings. Food as we know it today–including fruit, vegetables, and meat–is a rare and expensive commodity. Half of the world's population survives on processed rations produced by the massive Soylent Corporation (from soy(bean) + lent(il)), including Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow, which are advertised as "high-energy vegetable concentrates". The newest product is Soylent Green - a small green wafer which is advertised as being produced from "high-energy plankton". It is much more nutritious and palatable than the red and yellow varieties, but it is -- like most other food -- in short supply, which often leads to riots."
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Fritz
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Re:We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction
« Reply #1 on: 2009-03-10 18:15:36 » |
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This has been cropping up in the media as of late, here in the 'Great White North'. I thought the musings of the budding new Political Party in Canada might interest the thread.
Thx [BL]
Cheers
Fritz
PS: "Soylent Green" is Memed in, it would seem.
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/92/92osoylent.phtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clhgSBYyYWk
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Source: Green Party of Canada Blog
Date: May 2008
OVERPOPULATION: The Elephant in the Room ?
Submitted by Rob Nevin on 15 May 2008 - 7:08pm.
Is the world overpopulated ?
Using the types of calculations developed by Wackernagel et al at UBC, various groups have estimated the global average ecological footprint [f] to be 2 to3 hectares per person. 2.3 is often quoted. A group of academics who make up The Sustainable Scale Project state the world’s total number of bioproductive hectares [h] to be 11.2 billion. As the world’s population is currently living, a sustainable population [p] can be calculated using the equation
p = h/f
11.2 divided by 2.3 = 4.9 billion people, leaving no room for error and no hectares exclusively for nature. Current population = 6.6 billion.
Yes. The world is overpopulated, and to make matters worse, the bioproductive hectares will continue to shrink as the effects of climate change, destructive agricultural practices, deforestation, over fishing etc. march on, thus, making the planet able to support fewer and fewer people.
Is there a scientific consensus that overpopulation is a problem?
The IPCC refers repeatedly to “population growth” in its reports as a driver of atmospheric GHG accumulation. eg“In overall terms, however, the impacts of population growth, economic development, patterns of technological investment and consumption continue to eclipse the improvement in energy intensities and decarbonization” http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/a...
A search for “overpopulation”, of The National Academies web site yields 126 hits detailing the problem’s effects leading to environmental degradation. http://search.nationalacademies.org/search?q=overp...
Nicholas Stern in the Stern Report states that overpopulation with erosion, eutrification, exploitation and climate change will adversely impact coastal systems and resources. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk./media/5/0/climatech... Also “CC will still pose very serious threats to Asian countries. In particular, health related issues could also become important due to the overpopulation of these regions.“ http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk./media/5/0/climatech...
Edward O. Wilson, Harvard biology professor and winner of 2 Pulitzer and many other prizes explains in “The Future of Life” that the world’s ecological problems can be viewed under 3 main and interconnected headings: overpopulation, climate change, and species loss.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, whose members included a majority of the world’s Nobel Laureates, in their “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity (1992)” stated: “Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth.”
The above does not represent an exhaustive search. Although not formally stated as such, it is evident that among credible scientists a consensus exists. Political will has not gelled around the issue as it has around the more narrowly construed “climate change”.
Is Canada overpopulated?
Using the equation another way, f = h/p a global average sustainable footprint would be
11.2/6.6 = 1.7, again, leaving no safety margin and squandering nothing on nature.
Using an ecological footprint calculator http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index_reset.asp?...
one can see how to live to achieve a footprint of 1.6. This just barely sustainable person has to live in a large city [Toronto], be vegan, eating mostly unprocessed unpackaged locally grown food, generate much less waste than neighbours, live with 4 other people in a small green designed 1000 to 1500 sq. ft. residence with energy conservation and efficiency, travel 25-100 km per week by public transit and never drive in a car, ride on a motor bike or fly on an airplane.
All of the Green Party’s policies would have to be fully implemented with the agreement of every single citizen in the country to live like this for Canada to be on the borderline of being a sustainable country.
One can now see that for the equation to allow us any chance at all, p has to be a lot smaller, thus making a larger footprint sustainable. Why should we expect this to happen without doing our part here in this country, especially when Canada’s average footprint is now 8.8, about 4 times greater than the global average? Canada only has to reduce its’ population by 1 person to provide the same benefit as reducing by 4 peolple somewhere else.
In other words, just changing the way we live is not going to get us out of this mess. We also have to change the number of us that there are.
We now recognize that the changing climate is a crisis. In crisis mode one does not ignore ½ of the measures that contribute to the solution.
Many, inside and out of the country, believe that Canada has lots of empty space. There is no empty space here. Every square inch of Canada is occupied by natural habitat or human construct. In Canada there is much of the earth’s vast expanse of habitat. This should be viewed not as belonging to us, but as one of the world’s last treasures. We as custodians have a duty to preserve it for future generations of all of the world’s peoples.
What does immigration have to do with overpopulation?
Immigration per se is not the problem. It is only one factor which at the present time just happens to be the main contributor to our rising population. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with immigration. It should be adjusted upwards or downwards depending on our overall sustainability, birth and death rates. At this particular time, of course it will have to be adjusted downwards until we become sustainable and birth and death rates are low enough for it not to increase our population. When we reach this point I am 100% FOR immigration. Exceptions for now could be genuine refugees.
Certainly many want to come here. Often their footprints are low and would be high after settling into current Canadian life, another problem. Many people have wants [flying on airplanes, meat, SUVs, etc.] but that does not mean we have to enable them.
The above concepts are really quite simple but can be difficult to assimilate if there is a concern about being called racist or there is an emotional or idealogical attachment to immigration. We will just have to work away at explaining them. The science of climate change is actually more complicated, but we have all been working away at explaining it for quite some time and most now get it. We just have to now pick up the ball on population. Future generations of all races of homo sapiens depend on it.
A challenge to all readers
Estimate your footprint [f] with the calculator. Plug this into the equation using 11.2 for h.
P = h/f
The value p will be the population of the earth that your behaviour is telling us that it should be. If you don’t think we need to do something about population and your p value is less than 6.6, then there is an inconsistency.
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Overpopulation is not an anti-immigration argument
Submitted by Ard Van Leeuwen on 16 May 2008 - 11:13am.
In the past there have been many academics proven wrong about how much population the world can sustain, mainly because they didn't take into account increasing levels of productivity (of food in particular). This has made us somewhat immune to similar warnings on overpopulation but obviously there has to be a limit somewhere even if it does turn out to be smaller than 2-3 hectares per person.
It all begs the question what can be done about overpopulation even if there is no doubt that it is a problem? I know of two things that can lead to lower population growth. One is the economic prosperity that results in the below replacement rate births of rich countries. The other is China's one child policy and associated carrots and sticks to enforce it.
Immigration however doesn't enter into it in my mind. Overpopulation is a global issue and restricting immigration to Canada or elsewhere doesn't reduce world population. On the contrary, it could be argued that immigration to rich countries will help alleviate overpopulation once those immigrants are exposed to the same forces that cause rich countries to have lower birth rates in the first place.
In the long run the best way to combat overpopulation is with a more equitable distribution of prosperity (wealth, education, political stability, etc) around the world. It would be in the "enlightened self interests" of rich countries to nudge things in that direction.
Ard Van Leeuwen (Dufferin-Caledon, ON)
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population stabilization/poverty reduction/reproductive health
Submitted by Rob Nevin on 20 May 2008 - 12:14am.
Thank you. You are thinking along the same lines as myself with respect to global overpopulation. The solution appears to be, at least in part, funding universal access to family planning/contraception as called for by the UN in its Millenium Development Goal of universal access to reproductive health by 2015. The concept is discussed at length in 2 recent books:
More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want by Engelman of Worldwatch Institute, ISLAND PRESS 2008
Plan B 3.0 Chapter 7 Eradicating Poverty, Stabalizing Population by Lester Brown at Earth Policy Institute. free download at http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/Contents.htm
According to Engel, "the use of contraception expanded by 75 to 80 % on average every decade beginning with the 1960's. Today more than 3/5 of reproducive age women or their partnersuse contraception, a proportion made moreimpressive by the fact thatanother 1/5 of such women at any given time areeither trying to get pregnant, are already pregnant, or are not engaging in heterosexual intercourse. One result of all this planning of families is thattheir size has shrunk in every part of the planet. The average woman gave birth to 5 children in 1965. Today the average is 2.6."
"If fertility rates had not fallen as they did from the 1970's to the present, with all else equal, population would now total about 8.5 billion, instead of 6.7 billion. With a worldpopulation that size-growing economically at today's rates and with today's technologies-humanity would be a lot further down the road toward a human-warmed planet, peak production of oil, fresh water scarcity, and theloss of nature and the wild."
"Next to no one notices that the world's current fertility rate [2.6 children per woman] is just 1/4 of a child above its replacement fertility rate [2.34] and much too high for comfort." So, we have come along way and if we can now just reach the 201 million couples who still do not have access to reproductive health/family planning/contraception, we can get the rest of the way to population stabilization.
From Brown: “When the United Nations set Millenium Development Goals [MDGs] in 2000 [reducing the ranks of those who are hungry by half, achieving universal primary school education,
halving the number of people without access to safe
drinking water, and reversing the spread of infectious diseases,
especially HIV and malaria], it unaccountably
omitted any population or family planning goals. In response to
this, the U.K. All Party Parliamentary Group on Population
Development and Reproductive Health chaired by M.P. Christine
McCafferty convened hearings of international experts to
consider this omission. In a January 2007 report of the findings,
M.P. Richard Ottaway concluded that “the MDGs are difficult or impossible to achieve with current levels of population
growth in the least developed countries and regions.”7
Summarizing the report’s findings in an article in Science,
Martha Campbell and colleagues explained the need for “a substantial
increase for support in national family planning, particularly
for the 2 billion people currently living on less than $2
per day.” Although it came belatedly, the United Nations has
since approved a new target that calls for universal access to
reproductive health care by 2015.8”
“In an increasingly integrated world with a growing number
of failing states, eradicating poverty and stabilizing population
have become national security issues. Slowing population
growth helps eradicate poverty and its distressing symptoms,
and, conversely, eradicating poverty helps slow population
growth. With time running out, the urgency of moving simultaneously
on both fronts is clear.”
“U.N. projections show world population growth under three
different assumptions about fertility levels. The medium projection,
the one most commonly used, has world population reaching
9.2 billion by 2050. The high one reaches 10.8 billion. The
low projection, which assumes that the world will quickly move
below replacement-level fertility to 1.6 children per couple, has
population peaking at just under 8 billion in 2041 and then
declining. If the goal is to eradicate poverty, hunger, and illiteracy,
we have little choice but to strive for the lower projection.23
Slowing world population growth means that all women
who want to plan their families should have access to the family
planning services they need. Unfortunately, at present 201
million couples cannot obtain the services they need. Former
U.S. Agency for International Development official J. Joseph
Speidel notes that “if you ask anthropologists who live and
work with poor people at the village level...they often say that
women live in fear of their next pregnancy. They just do not
want to get pregnant.” Filling the family planning gap may be
the most urgent item on the global agenda. The benefits are
enormous and the costs are minimal.24
The good news is that countries that want to help couples
reduce family size can do so quickly. My colleague Janet Larsen
writes that in just one decade Iran dropped its near-record population
growth rate to one of the lowest in the developing world.
When Ayatollah Khomeini assumed leadership in Iran in 1979,
he immediately dismantled the well-established family planning
programs and instead advocated large families. At war with Iraq
between 1980 and 1988, Khomeini wanted large families to
increase the ranks of soldiers for Islam. His goal was an army
of 20 million. In response to his pleas, fertility levels climbed,
pushing Iran’s annual population growth to a peak of 4.2 percent
in the early 1980s, a level approaching the biological maximum.
As this enormous growth began to burden the economy
and the environment, the country’s leaders realized that overcrowding,
environmental degradation, and unemployment were
undermining Iran’s future.25
In 1989 the government did an about-face and restored its
family planning program. In May 1993, a national family planning
law was passed. The resources of several government ministries,
including education, culture, and health, were mobilized
to encourage smaller families. Iran Broadcasting was given
responsibility for raising awareness of population issues and of
the availability of family planning services. Some 15,000 “health
houses” or clinics were established to provide rural populations
with health and family planning services.26”
“Religious leaders were directly involved in what amounted to
a crusade for smaller families. Iran introduced a full panoply of
contraceptive measures, including the option of male sterilization—
a first among Muslim countries. All forms of birth control,
including contraceptives such as the pill and sterilization,
were free of charge. In fact, Iran became a pioneer—the only
country to require couples to take a class on modern contraception
before receiving a marriage license.27”
“The costs of providing reproductive health and family planning
services are small compared with their benefits. Joseph
Speidel estimates that expanding these services to reach all
women in the developing countries would take close to $17 billion
in additional funding from both industrial and developing
countries.33
The United Nations estimates that meeting the needs of the
201 million women who do not have access to effective contraception
could each year prevent 52 million unwanted pregnancies,
22 million induced abortions, and 1.4 million infant
deaths. Put simply, the costs to society of not filling the family
planning gap may be greater than we can afford.34
Shifting to smaller families brings generous economic dividends.
For Bangladesh, analysts concluded that $62 spent by the
government to prevent an unwanted birth saved $615 in expenditures
on other social services. Investing in reproductive health
and family planning services leaves more fiscal resources per
child for education and health care, thus accelerating the escape
from poverty.”
What do you think about a resolution such as:
Whereas population growth is a driver of atmospheric GHG accumulation, aquafer depletion, deforestation, over fishing, and other ecosystem stresses
And whereas access to effective contraception/family planning results in family sizes of 2 children or less
And whereas slowing population growth helps eradicate poverty
And whereas the UN MDG is universal access to reproductive health by 2015 and 2 UN conferences [ Human Rights, Tehran 1968, declaring universal access to family planning a human right;
Population and Development, Cairo 1994, agreeing to make family planning universally available by 2015] have committed to it
Be it resolved that the GPC advocate that Canada work with other nations through theUN, take a leadership role, and contribute 0.14% of GDP or 1.7 billion dollars yearly, which is 1/10 of the 17 billion estimated necessary to achieve the UN MDG of universal access to reproductive health by 2015.
Rob Nevin,B.ENG., M.D.,
Environmental Health Peer Presenter,
Ontario College of Family Physicians
My opinions are not necessarily those of the College.
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What's a "driver"?
Submitted by Daryl Vernon on 6 June 2008 - 12:06am.
Numbers of humans do not "drive" any of the listed problems. If bad thought & attendant bad action "drive", say, in terms of greed & grabbing, numbers only maybe magnify where applicable. Access to "family planning" methods & materials should not be framed in terms of population reduction for whatever purpose, unless in case of true famine, which would in any case be a localized matter not to pronounce upon from afar. It's unfortunate that possibly beneficial things get justified by questionable attachment. Above all, offering education & equalized access to resources, here regarding "family planning", is in & of itself in no need of justification by misperceivable problematic motive, especially politically misperceivable. For our country, there is plenty; let's get serious about reforming & sharing. For others less blessed, it is not for us to decide and we should be reticent about theorizing for them. Ignoring historical, cultural, linguistic factors in speaking too globally about population is to avoid dealing with human ecology. At worst, it can smack of descendants & relatives of population-decimator Euro-connected peoples, also the same leading us to a cliff, more than hinting that descendants & relatives of the decimated should self-decimate further. As far from the mind of a Green as such stuff is, Greens' must be considerate of human ecologies in concert with general ones. It is a species of too-simple thinking to rest satisfied with raw numbers, mere quantification, when it distracts from more fundamental conceptual conversion. Frame the topic in terms of equity of access to education & resources, intrinsically valuable in no need of connexion to possibly sullying causes. I expect that this is recognized to an extent in UN documents as well, recommending funding for wider fairer access not on the basis of desire to control others' populations.
"Population control" per se is also not worthy as justifier of poverty eradication. There are easily imaginable localized situations where population increase would serve better to "eradicate poverty". If Canada is not contributing as reasonably expected to a UN programme, why should this require a resolution? The impression given is then of basal desire to have curtailment of others' reproduction not sensitively nor logically connected to other goals. It bears repeating that this could be politically damaging, esp. in the hands of some right-of-centre campaigners who could criticize and be right, even if for wrong reasons.
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Hermit
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Re:We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction
« Reply #2 on: 2009-03-10 20:02:05 » |
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If we don't reduce our numbers below 2.2 billion in a hurry (extreme breeding management like that of the Chinese, resulting in substantial reductions in numbers as fossil fuel runs out), we will have a war which will probably reduce them below 1 billion even if it does not result in extinction. I estimate that under those circumstances that a population of about 600 million, or what was sustainable prior to the use of fossil fuel might be possible if most scientific knowledge is not lost.
Drastic reduction in resource demand or a resource war are the only two paths for which any supportable arguments exist. In the event of war, those in the Southern hemisphere and higher than 30m above current sea level probably have the best chance of survival, but it still likely will not be pretty.
Kind Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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