Garrett Hardin offers an alternative to the “Spaceship Earth” theory with a “Life Boat Earth” theory. His argument relies on the notion that unalienable rights do not apply to the ethics of population growth or third world hunger. In effect one does not deserve the right to consume food unless they pay for it in some way. His argument up to this point is sound but one large caveat emerges as the argument continues. Hardin says in relation to this lifeboat theory “First we must acknowledge that each lifeboat is effectively limited in capacity.” While this remains true to a certain extent Hardin does not recognize that while the carrying capacity does not change, he does not say once throughout the whole article the word sustainability. He makes it seem that our food production is finite. I disagree with this claim in so far as he does not offer an alternative to simply shutting out the poor countries from reaping out benefits. We have the ability to produce more food than we are, but in today’s economy we are apt to produce food a greater cost the environment than we did before the industrial revolution. Why does he not leave room for technological advances or social trends changing within the framework of American food production?
In light of the recent trends to make everything we do “sustainable” I wonder where is this argument in Hardins piece. I understand this was written in the mid seventies however it does not excuse this oversight. In his book The Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan notes that America can produce food at more sustainable level than it is today. We use to get two calories of food energy for every one calorie of fossil fuel energy we put into our agriculture. Now we get one calorie of food energy out of ten calories of fossil fuel energy spent on out agricultural and food needs. Polla further notes that the average item of food in your super market as traveled fifteen hundred miles, and on top of that we eat ten percent of the fossil fuel energy we use in this country. All of these statistics show us that our food source is not being kept healthy. Pollan offers empirical data to suggest that as a nation we are begging to realizing that sustainability is a necessity to our future ability to eat. Citing data such as the large growth of Whole Foods and the twice as many farmers markets around today than there were twenty years ago, it seems that our nation is able and willing to make the necessary changes. This data suggests that if one of the most consumer based societies can begin the make incremental changes, than why can’t other poorer nations. Hardin may say to this claim that those nations don’t have the resources we have he would be right. However in writing the starving people of these nations off as dead he condemns to death. As we move towards sustainability in America, we can control what we eat and what we export. If we are more conscious of what is on our tables it could result in being able to send food technologies places that don’t have any food on their table.
Hardin does say that simply feeding people does not improve their condition it just masks it for a while. The whole Bible story about giving a man a fish or teaching him how to fish is precisely the issue of starvation in third world countries. Hardin recognizes this but still seems to suggest that richer nations should leave those poor naves to figure it out for themselves. I would like to think since we have enough food and plenty of leisure time we should be the ones helping these poorer nations, while being very careful not to support them. Hardin and I would both agree that richer nations cannot be a crutch to the starving population of the world. I however take a nations carrying capacity to be in its own hands to a certain extent. We can help to improve our carrying capacity in terms of food and also help other poorer nations to do just the same thing.