To save the planet (and ourselves), we need to ignore our survival instincts
Humanity’s most basic and primal natural instincts are to further the survival of our species: to eat, reproduce and self-improve for future generations. This once animalistic drive has evolved in scale and ingenuity to the point that we are almost too clever for ourselves.
Even a paleo diet doesn’t require anyone to hunt and gather. On the contrary, Western cities now boast a plethora of worldly cuisines and year-round available produce, which we can request over our smart phones and have delivered on a bike. Reproductively, we continue to outwit age and infertility with new technologies, while the primal expectation of parenthood remains robust within societies and individuals. But we might soon have to question if our cunning self-improvement will cost us. In the context of an exploding population and the impending depletion of natural resources, perhaps it’s time for Westerners to reconsider our natural craving for many kids and increasingly luxurious tastes in food.
Food is a natural human instinct, and let’s face it, an almost ludicrously significant part of our daily lives. As I’m writing this I am struggling to keep my mind off the lunch in my bag, a shame I’m justifying by the fact that it includes a perfectly ripe avocado, the greatest weapon millennials have in the culture wars. My older brother at New Year’s Eve remarked — somewhat jokingly — that his New Year’s resolution was to think about food less. I wondered then how much of this was our primal, animalistic drive to satiate hunger and how much was Western society’s hyper-emphasis on food.
For what it is stripped-down — appeasing cravings and maybe ten minutes of pleasure — the Western world really does put a ridiculous emphasis on food and its convenience. We are now at a point in history where we can consume mass amounts of pre-cooked food at literally any time and place of our daily lives, whether it be behind the wheel of a car, at work or in bed — and we pay dearly for this convenience.
Like everything tempting and commercialised, the sustenance industry has a sinister side that most of us sweep under the placemat. Food production remains the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, well-above the more publicly acknowledged culprits of electricity and transport. Not only do we eat too much — Psychology Today found that the average American consumes 25% more than 100 years ago — but we eat too much of the foods that are worst for our planet. The raising of livestock and their by-products generates 50% of the human-caused greenhouse gas emissions world-over, more than all global transport combined. A 2004 study from Melbourne University revealed that the average Australian consumes 90% of their water through diet — in reality, a very small amount of water is required to directly sustain our bodies and households. Likewise, 62% of Australian landmass is used for agricultural production, land that we deny desperate human beings on the basis of being “too full”.
Fortunately, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the catastrophic unsustainability of meat and animal products through documentaries such as “Cowspiracy” and even Leonardo diCaprio’s recent “Before the Flood”.
The importation of produce from all over the world is another luxury that costs us in money and energy. Back in the Australian winter I was excited to find a bunch of grapes in a small central-coast grocery store while on the road — excitement that quickly dissipated when I realised I’d spent $10 for Californian-imported grapes. It seemed ridiculous my fruit had seen parts of the world that I had not. Currently in the U.S. peaches will be imported from all over the world until Springtime — their closest origins being Thailand and Argentina. Would it really be the worst thing if Australians went without grapes for half the year? If Americans swapped from peaches to apples in winter? Here is a great site where you can calculate the distance your food has travelled to reach you.
While westerners munch on worldly grapes and dream of beef and the perfectly ripe avocado (damnit!), world population is projected to push 10 billion by the year 2050, challenging our perception of unlimited fruit and meat. This brings us neatly to the oncoming clash between the “purpose of life” and the inevitability of overpopulation. Most pressingly, the majority of the world’s population increase will occur in impoverished Africa, which will double in size to 2 billion in this time. Poverty is a huge driver of population growth: inaccessibility and cultural stigma being barriers to contraception. In regions like Zamfara in Nigeria, the current fertility rate is 8.4 children per family, and culturally offspring are still considered to be the greatest gift a woman can give to the community. These are the people that will bear the true cost of the west’s indulgence, past and present.
Western women are lucky to be both financially and reproductively autonomous from men, and independent womanhood is fortunately increasingly acceptable. In 2009, for the first time ever, more than 50% of American women were widowed, divorced or had never married. While we may think we have evolved beyond the primal expectations of women to reproduce, a powerful stigma still surrounds single and childless women above a certain age, particularly if it is by choice. During the time Julia Gillard was Prime Minister of Australia — the most important and busiest woman in the country — she was continually chastised as unfit for leadership due to being “deliberately barren.” The unquestioned obligation for every woman to desire children — if not make an attempt to have them — is not only blatant sexism but also incompatible with a sustainable future. After all, a woman who chooses to dedicate her life to plant science could offer far more to society than popping out several kids, regardless of the well-read, high achieving angels they would undoubtedly be.
Humanity has survived 200,000 years on our survival instincts to eat as much as we can and pass on our genes — these instincts were formed to ensure we were fit enough to live through struggle and disaster and to combat the threat of extinction. Dr Jim Taylor discussed the hard-wired fight or flight response in the Huffington Post and concluded that: “unlike threats of the past, today’s are often neither immediate, nor foreseeable, nor understandable, much less controllable. In fact, not only is this hardwired response often not effective, but it can be counterproductive to our survival.”
The impending disasters of today (the foreseeable ones, at least) are climate change, resource depletion and overpopulation. We do a lot of eating, fucking and talking about one or the other, but our greatest assets are our brains. We’re not animals after all — we are intelligent, functioning societies with the power to choose how we think, behave and govern. While humanity in 2016 is the product of our proud advancement and constant self-improvement, perhaps a humble retreat back to basics is what can save us.
So what might this look like? For a start, a societal push towards mindful eating — and I promise diet advice is not about to follow. If you take the time to learn about where your food has originated, who suffered for it and how much land, energy and water was used in the process — what you discover will likely shock you.
Plus improving access and education surrounding birth control in developing nations is a must — you can read more on the issue here — but let’s also not drop the ball at home. A woman’s value is no longer in her uterus, and with an exploding population it seems an outdated and possibly deadly expectation.
This article by Sophie Trigger was originally published on The Vocal.
