Snuff It #3

Confessions of a Heretic

I feel that you're mistaken in your definition of earth pertaining to the top few meters of arable land or water. First off, I'm not sure how much you know about "world" agriculture. Ever been to a Mexican or African farming system and compared it to the US/Europe methods? Third world countries' agricultural methods are not usually adequate to feed their needs so they receive crops from elsewhere. Of the arable land that is presently used there, production can be dramatically [Should be: "temporarily" -Ed.] increased with better husbandry techniques, superior seed lines and choosing the most productive crops. Biotechnology, in regards to standard soil-grown crops, is only capable of increasing production at incremental levels (1-5%), while advances in tillage, post- and pre-site care, fertilization, pest management, harvest methods, etc. will allow the earth to continue to produce enough food for the growing population over the next century or so. Intensive farming needn't mean destruction of precious topsoil, as has been demonstrated in the midwest and Europe. [Ah, Earth to Gamma-Ray, please adjust your transmitter, we are not receiving you... -Ed.] Also, if demand truly increases, the way we presently use our land will change. As you know, support of our modern source of food animals requires lots of space and resources. If meat demand goes down, which it probably won't, that land can be used for vegetable crops. Also, there's a lot of arable land out there that is presently unused for food-production. As population demand rises, rainforests, mountain steppes, the great Canadian Basin, the Soviet Tract, etc. will all be plowed over and planted with agrosnacks. Species diversity will plummet, yes, but human survival will increase...

There is more than one way to grow a strawberry. Due to advances in technology, soil will become less necessary over time. The basic needs of your average plant are: carbon source, vitamins, nitrogen source, water, antibiotics, elicitors, support structure, light. Soil environments presently provide these, but soil is not inherently necessary for all life. I could go on for a while, but won't. Production of food is not a problem, access to it is. The body politik and personal selfishness deny access. Would you be willing to give up all that you have, in terms of resources, and be content to subsist in a desert so that 10 others who are now subsisting in the desert can live another 20 years and make 50 more babies? Luck, also known as drift, plays a huge role is the chances of one's survival. You got the long end of the stick and I don't imagine you'll be giving it away any time soon...

Exactly what defines harmony, anyway? Are you implying that one set of lifestyle circumstances is better than another? Nonsense. Who's to say that good 'ol Americans driving along in plastic cars to plastic malls to buy plastic food is any less harmonious than a person on a horse, riding through a canyon on a cloudless starry night to visit a lover by the sea? Both situations strike images, mental music if you will, and thereby "sound" different. Peaceful nature scenes have a certain quality to them, but so does the construction of a spaceport. Both "feel." There is music, harmony, beauty in everything. Yourself a musician, I am surprised that you don't appreciate that. The smooth flowing rhythms of the last centuries will soon be replaced by the staccato, random, often painful symphonies of the near future. The Earth and our relationship to it is constantly changing, will always change. Such is the nature of life. To stand still is to die. To strive and conquer is to survive.

[The bottled water] already is [poisonous] (checked it for DDT lately?). The mass accumulation of toxins in our environment is forcing us to evolve. [Should be: "devolve" -Ed.] Because we are unable to biologically evolve, we will (and have) evolve(d) socially. Modern medicine has been in the business of keeping bad genes alive to reproduction age. And by bad genes, I mean those individuals unable to survive in our presently toxic environment. If "nature" were allowed to take its course without human intervention it would take out a good chunk of the population in coming generations. Right now, medical technology is being used to treat people for diseases/manifestations that would never have arisen were it not for the presence of toxins in our environment. I think, over time, you will see such selection for "toxin-immune" genotypes among population groups without access to medical care. In reality, those who survive will be more fit in the long run.

I am simply stating the following as fact, not intending to shock, nor am I one who is pleased about it: We have not yet begun to rape the Earth.

You are obviously well read and cognizant. In the end, though, we differ in a very fundamental way: you view mankind's present actions as a destructive end while I view them as a necessary means to a higher future. And by higher, I mean spiritually, biologically and socially. In the distant future, we will reclaim much of the Earth that we are about to scour. The Earth is a stepping stone for mankind's destiny, not its final destination. Earth is not my mother and I refuse to live at home for the rest of my life.

See you in the stars, my dear.

-Alex K., Gamma-Ray, P.O. Box 4117, Ithaca, NY 14850

We get a lot of bizarre mail, but this is without a doubt the most frightening letter we have ever received. In the words of the immortal Walt Kelly, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." If it didn't frighten you, read it again, and if it still doesn't, please drop this magazine in the nearest recycling bin. We'll let Dr. Erlich handle the obvious lunacies about escaping to outer space...:

A British physicist, J. H. Fremlin...has made some interesting calculations on how much time we could buy by occupying the [other] planets of the solar system. For instance, [at the current rate] it would take only about 50 years to populate Venus, Mercury, Mars, the moon, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn to same population density as Earth...It would take only about 200 years to fill [the remaining planets] "Earth-full."... What then?... Using extremely optimistic assumptions, [Professor Garrett Hardin of the University of California at Santa Barbara] has calculated that Americans, by cutting their standard of living down to 18% of its present level, could in one year set aside enough capital to finance the exportation to the stars of one day's increase in the population of the world.

-Dr. Paul Erlich, The Population Bomb

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