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This is the story of Dr. Norman Borlaug who was trying to breed wheat, in 1945, which could resist stem rust, a disease that ruined many crops.
In, 1968, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich and his wife Anne (who is uncredited) published an explosive book. In The Population Bomb, they noted that in poor countries such as India and Pakistan, populations were growing more quickly than food supplies. In the 1970s, they predicted: "Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death".
Thankfully, Ehrlich was wrong, because he didn't know what Norman Borlaug had been doing. Borlaug would later be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the years he had spent shuttling between Mexico City and the Yaqui Valley, growing thousands upon thousands of kinds of wheat, and carefully noting their traits: this kind resisted one type of stem rust, but not another; this kind produced good yields, but made bad bread; and so on.
[...] Borlaug produced new kinds of "dwarf" wheat that resisted rust, yielded well, and - crucially - had short stems, so they didn't topple over in the wind. By the 1960s, Borlaug was travelling the world to spread the news. It wasn't easy.
[...] Progress has slowed, and problems are mounting: climate change, water shortages, pollution from fertilisers and pesticides. These are problems the green revolution itself has made worse. Some say it even perpetuated the poverty that keeps the population growing: fertilisers and irrigation cost money which many peasant farmers can't get. Paul Ehrlich, now in his 80s, maintains that he wasn't so much wrong, as ahead of his time. Perhaps if Malthus were still alive, in his 250s, he'd say the same. But could more human ingenuity be the answer?
[...] Since genetic modification became possible, it's mostly been about resistance to diseases, insects and herbicides. While that does increase yields, it hasn't been the direct aim. That's starting to change. And agronomists are only just beginning to explore the gene editing tool CRISPR, which can do what Norman Borlaug did much more quickly. As for Borlaug, he saw that his work had caused problems that weren't handled well, but asked a simple question - would you rather have imperfect ways to grow more food, or let people starve? It's a question we may have to keep asking in the decades to come.
The man who helped feed the world
[Related]: An Essay on the Principle of Population
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:33AM (6 children)
> I'm old enough to remember the handwringing from overpopulation, acid rain, the ozone hole, and now climate change. We'll fix it.
I'm also that old and like to think that I did a little bit to try to fix these things - one example (of many) for each --
+ no kids (mostly for other reasons)
+ minimize electric use (and thus coal burning)
+ stopped refilling R-12 systems, switched to a newer refrigerant before strictly necessary
+ ride a bike instead of take my compact car, when it is feasible
But I don't see too many others around here (USA) living this way, they are all driving trucks with one person in them, for chrisssake. And as far as I can see, none of these problems are fixed to any great extent, perhaps pushed off some years?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:03PM (5 children)
Why would you "like to think" that the rest of us should make the same choices? You already acknowledge it is merely a "little bit". We have other priorities than merely minimizing greenhouse gases emissions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @11:26PM (2 children)
And this selfishness is why we can have a nice world to live in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @11:27PM
typo: can --> can't
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 15 2019, @05:26AM
BUT I find it remarkable how poorly people who claim to help the world actually help the world. Slight optimizations for resource consumption or pollution reduction aren't that useful even if the whole world were to fully embrace it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @12:46AM (1 child)
Hey khallow,
> they are all driving trucks with one person in them
How about we reframe this as the result of bad regulation instead of self-imposed restraint?
The truck/SUV craze in the USA started when the Feds allowed trucks easier safety, emission and fuel economy regs than cars. First result, trucks were cheaper to make and the manufacturers passed this along. Pretty soon, the manufacturers noticed that people were buying lots more trucks (because of the lower price) and using them like cars, so they started to make them more comfortable. And also to advertise them as aspirational vehicles. It's spiraled from there.
The rest of the world has done a better job of regulating, only in USA do we have masses of these huge vehicles for personal use (although I hear that Europe is trying to copy us).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 17 2019, @03:41AM
And if the US hadn't regulated cars to the point that there will be only one major US manufacturer of cars in a few years? Needless to say, modern economies are a lot like the internet. It routes around the damage.