Click here to search commentonline

Watter Ower A Stane - March 06

by David Renwick Grant

Between 1967 and 1969 I was studying for a Master of Science degree in Ecology and Wildlife Management at the newly created Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at Edinburgh University. Among the major topics was that of range biology, in which the phrase ‘carrying capacity’ was frequently used. It is a descriptive and accurate term. Just as a shopping basket can hold only so many messages before being full up, so any given piece of territory can contain only so many animals before it reaches the maximum number that it can hold.

When a shopping basket reaches its capacity, one has the choice of using a second basket to carry the extra items, or perhaps deciding not to buy them. However, this is not the case with territory. Consider, say, red deer. Originally a forest animal, now more of a moorland one. There is a finite amount of suitable terrain on which deer can thrive; a slightly larger amount on which they can survive but in ever-poorer condition. On the marginal land, the deer will be smaller, antler growth stunted and breeding success low. The ultimate point is reached where there is no more land on which the deer can live and a number will die as a result.

This is true of all species, whether insects in a forest or mammals in the ocean. When they run up against limits, they fail to thrive and the ones at the edge die off. In the worst case, if all their habitat is destroyed they will become extinct.

So it was that a small column in a recent Courier headed “Call for limits on ‘climate changers’” caught my eye. It was a report about the findings of a body I had never heard of, the Optimum Population Trust. The thrust of their findings is that the emphasis on climate change as the main environmental threat to the Earth ignores the huge population problem.

The OPT point out that the predicted 10.5 million or 17% rise in UK population by 2074 means a 17% rise in CO² emissions. It also means 17% less space for the rest of us, a decreasing quality of life and a completely unsustainable use of natural resources.

Some argue that Earth can feed and shelter many more even than the present seven billion. Indeed it will probably have to. But it is not merely a question of equitable distribution between rich and poor nations. If we don’t tackle our uncontrolled population rise soon, the effects will be far more catastrophic than a couple of degrees rise in temperature – although if the oceans rise and reduce available land, it will certainly compound the problem. We may not become extinct but we shall certainly cease to thrive.

We have the solutions, but politicians run scared on the subject. However surely Greenpeace, Friends and the Earth and similar ‘conservation’ bodies ought to be flagging it up in banner headlines? Trouble is, it’s a hot potato and far less sexy than opposing nuclear power….

Moan of the month

Well two actually. The ‘hot air factory’ in Edinburgh have voted to ban docking of all dogs tails, including working gun-dogs, thus ensuring a great deal of pain for a lot of them, when they injure the tails MSPs decree they must now have.

Far more sinister, the ‘factory bosses’ have decreed all Scots school-children are to be given identity numbers, for their ‘protection’. I wonder which arm they plan to tattoo them on?

<< Guest Columns Home
<< Post your views and opinions here