I = PAT revisited
Allen Myers sophistic article dealing with Paul Ehrlich's I=PAT equation (GLW 20/1), is based on the specious argument that until a pure mathematical formula is provided, there is no real "proof" that the world's environmental disintegration is or is not caused by people and their level of consumption/affluence.
Scientists the world over are predicting a rapid worsening over the next 50 years of the catastrophes that we have already begun to witness today — total destruction of rain forests, further ozone depletion, seas dying, chronic water shortages, soil loss, plague and pestilence, further loss of biodiversity, mass starvation etc. To date, I don't believe that one single scientist has come up with a water-tight mathematical formula to "prove" that these things are, or will happen.
Eminent scientists, Paul and Anne Ehrlich's two most recent publications, The Population Explosion, published in 1990, and Healing the Planet, published 1992, both contain references throughout to the I=PAT equation to illustrate what scientific research has shown — that environmental destruction is accelerating as human numbers and consumption of resources continue their exponential growth.
With regard to the words "multiplied by" as applied to the I=PAT equation by myself and others recently and which Allen and Graham Matthews (GLW 20/1) found so particularly "unscientific", the Ehrlichs use the same words in the same context.
Emeritus Professor Charles Birch describes The Population Explosion as "the definitive book which gives the key to the environmental crisis." He adds, "This is the book of the century on the environment."
Indeed, these books are a "must" for anyone with an open mind, genuinely concerned to know how the human species has brought the world to its knees in the geological time-span equivalent to the blink of an eye.
Diana Evans
Balwyn, Vic
Maths
I did year 7 maths but I cannot grasp Mark O'Connor's assertion "that if two factors are to be multiplied together, then clearly each is equally important." Surely this is so only if the factors are actually as important as each other.
For example, historically the Australian Labor Party began when concern for protecting skilled workers in the 1890s depression merged with the aspirations of a new group of people (largely professionals and partly union bureaucrats) to partake in existing structures of political power. This took place in a racist colonial environment alism.
The results cannot be appreciated by assuming without evidence that all sources of the ALP were equally important. The power of any mathematical equation to explain social problems is very limited, not only because factors are rarely if ever equally important, but also because the they often have different values, when considered even in simple positive-negative terms by conflicting interests.
The assumption that environmental disaster derives equally from population growth, affluence defined as wasteful consumption and technology is based on absurd generalisations. Modern technology need not be destructive, affluent consumption need not be ecologically stupid, and all children born in the future are sources of hope until social evils intervene.
Mathematics will not help O'Connor when he faces up to the political dilemma which his simplistic theory creates: who decides who will have less children? His enthusiasm for the narrow urgency of 'zero population growth' suggests that those who benefit from inequality will force the poor to have less kids.
Many Aboriginal women like big families. Will O'Connor ask the government to make them conform to his theory? I hope he is not so bloody inhuman. He could not be if he had learnt more from indigenous people than from maths.
Finally, an old fashioned communist like Marx was much more honest about humanity's problems than were decimators of population such as Columbus and Stalin. Marx knew that any population is inherently social, not just numerical. We cannot really count people without first considering their social relations.
Roderic Pitty
Epping NSW
I=PAT and apple trees
I found the articles on population and the formula I=PAT very disappointing (GLW 20/1/93). In his article explaining the formula Mark O'Connor makes a comparison between communists and Catholics that is unnecessary and insulting.
On the other hand Allen Myers in his article appears to do his best to deliberately misunderstand the formula I=PAT. This is not comparable to a formula in physics. It is a "model" that represents common sense. Ignoring the slightly obscure T factor, the model simply reflects the common sense in the calculation that if five people require the produce of one apple tree then five billion similar people will require the produce of one billion apple trees. At one level this model, I=PA, is more certain than any formula in physics could ever be as it relies only on arithmetic, not on observation.
At another level it is fair to question how well the model reflects the real world. In practice, there may be economies of scale and hence fewer than one billion trees would then be required. Diseconomies of scale are also likely. (These economies and diseconomies of scale actor).
One thing is certain. The number of apples trees required will depend on the number of people who desire apples. Those who deliberately refuse to understand that human numbers as well as human greed play a part in how much people seek to extract form the environment are doing themselves a great disservice. This refusal to accept logic because it may shift some attention away from the evils of the capitalist system makes these people and their otherwise worthwhile ideas seem ridiculous if not sinister.
David Kault
Townsville Qld
[Edited for length.]
The great silence
The great silence regarding letters to the editor in all the major newspapers these past three weeks over the US-Iraqi conflict, is astounding.
One short letter in the In Brief column of the Australian (21/1) was the only mention.
When I phoned the news editor of the Sydney Morning Herald on January 18 to inquire if they had received any letters re the missile attacks, I was informed that a batch had been received that morning, mostly of anti-US sentiments.
I asked if any of these would be published and received the curt reply: "maybe'. End of conversation.
What does this say for democracy in this country?
Meanwhile, "Saddam the madman" and "Saddam the monster" still emblazon headlines in leading newspaper articles signed by well-known journalists and other agencies. The other agencies could be either Reuters, UAP, AAP or the local taxi driver at the international airport.
My mate had an idea the other day of some cartoonist drawing a dust bin, while some individual (face unseen) stands to one side holding the lid, and calling out to a servile and broken George Bush "jump in!"
This still does not explain the dearth of protesting letters.
If the journalists can't call their soul their own and are subject to the whims of their editors, the editors in turn tremble before the might of media moguls.
With this scenario you can't win unless you read the Green Left!
Marcus Finnane
Bondi Junction NSW
Cambodia — 1
On reading Helen Jarvis's article (GL Jan 20) about the Cambodian prime minister's appeal to the United Nations to take action "to safeguard the Cambodian people from the second Khmer Rouge genocide and to rescue the Paris agreements", some readers may wonder why the situation described is tolerated?
The explanation lies in the history of the relationship between the United States and its allies with the KR. The KR's murderous rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1978, during which 1.5 million people died is generally known, what happened after 1978 when the KR retreated to the Thai border is not much mentioned.
Although the KR government had ceased to exist KR representatives continued to occupy Cambodia's seat in the UN. In 1980 the US began to secretly fund Pol Pot and the KR received $85 million between 1980 and 1986. The Kampuchean Emergency Group (KEG) was set up in 1980 to ensure that the KR border camps were fed.
Britain, the US's staunchest ally, trained KR in mine laying. A Sun Telegraph correspondent who had connections with the Special Air Services revealed this story in 1989. China and Singapore back the US and insist that KR be part of the settlement in Cambodia.
The UN is used as an instrument for the punishment of Cambodia, which is barred from international agreements on trade and commerce and denied help from the World Health Organisation. The law from world war one — the "Trading with the enemy Act" — is applied to Cambodia and Vietnam.
An excellent and full explanation is given in chapter 5 of John Pilger's book Distant Voices.
Betty Downie
Erskineville NSW
Cambodia — 2
What is the role of the United Nations, two years after George Bush declared his new world order? John Pilger commented in the British New Statesman and Society, December 11, that the question is "... whether a UN, reborn of the 'new world order', has any credibility, other than as a means of imposing the will of the great powers, and as an agent of recolonisation. Significantly, the UN Cambodia operation is being seriously discussed as a model for Somalia, in the wake of the US Marines."
When Pilger interviewed the UN's Australian commander, Lieutenant-General John Sanderson, last November in Phnom Penh, he referred to the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge. Sanderson answered by saying "Genocide is your term."
Pilger stated that that was how the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 1979 described Pol Pot's crimes, "... the worst to have occurred anywhere in the world since Nazism". Again in 1985, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Genocide said Khmer Rouge actions were "genocide ... even under the most restricted definition".
Sanderson still said the word was "inappropriate" and he was "committed to impartiality".
The sham "peace process" has allowed the Khmer Rouge back into Cambodia — not to stand trial for their crimes against humanity, but as part of bringing "peace to Cambodia"!
John Tognolini
Katoomba NSW
[Edited for length.]