Father of Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, Dies at 95 227
countincognito writes "Norman Borlaug, a genuinely remarkable man and the father of the Green Revolution in agriculture, has died of cancer at his Dallas home aged 95. His life's work on developing high-yield, disease-resistant crops has been credited with having saved an estimated one billion people from famine, and one billion hectares of forest and rainforest from being cleared for agricultural production."
Public Enemy #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
And probably now heralded by most 'green' supporters as some sort of horrific monster that messed with nature to create these crops.
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http://www.openmarket.org/2007/10/23/cockburns-cockamamie-slur-on-norman-borlaug/ [openmarket.org]
So many idiots, so few plastic shredders...
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientists and engineers help find answers and solutions, radicals and reactionaries just complain. When they have a better solution for feeding the world, I'll take them seriously.
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
>radicals and reactionaries just complain
Well fed people are notoriously difficult subjects to be dragged into a revolution.
So they don't just complain, they are worried about their loss of power.
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore I suspect that it's not them trying to protect their own power, but rather their attempt to feel powerful - to feel like they can make a difference when faced with forces that really are beyond their control. Demonstrate, hold a picket, get a law passed, go home and enjoy the high standard of living they now don't have to feel so guilty about because they scored a point for the team.
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I don't think so either but I'm forever puzzled about the motives of the greens.
I think, ultimately we have to make sure we understand how earth is supposed to look like and how we are going to keep it close to that.
Sometimes the greens are too averse to any human endeavour and often enough use the irrational fears people harbour, for political goals. Granted other parties do so as well, but somehow I have the impression some green groups activities are counter productive.
I can't rule out that I'm seeing it
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... so that they can keep a diseased population in Africa, which now they can use to guilt-trip Americans and citizens of other developed nations into providing funds to their pet projects
Citation needed.
Puzzled. (Score:2)
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Likewise, oil can eliminate malaria. But, at what cost? Let's experiment - let's spread enough oil around the world to prevent any possibility that mosquitos can find enough clean water to breed in.
DDT is some deadly stuff, and I'm satisfied with the documentation that proves it.
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
DDT is some deadly stuff, and I'm satisfied with the documentation that proves it
And how much of a problem is malaria where you live? It's all relative; malaria is a very serious problem in some parts of the world. Serious enough that the problems associated with some chemicals like DDT are mild in comparison. Spritzing dilluted DDT on the walls of a hut in a malaria prone area prevents a LOT of malaria infections and as long as no one licks the walls or drinks from the spray bottle then the risks are quite low of getting some problem from the DDT. Think about the other peoples' complete situation before you condemn viable solutions to bigger problems.
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
DDT wasn't so very deadly to PEOPLE, as you point out. The DDT went into the food chain. Do we care about birds? The raptors in the United states were almost exterminated, thanks to DDT. Raptors don't even eat bugs and insects - instead they eat the creatures that prey on bugs and insects. DDT got into the egg shells, causing the shells to be extremely weak and fragile. When the parents rolled the eggs over in the nest, the eggs broke.
Again, I ask, at what cost are we willing to kill off all the mosquitos?
The question doesn't have any easy answers.
I do try to think of the entire situation. Sometimes, the most comfortable or most convenient answer causes other unforeseen problems. Would my judgement change if I lived in an area where malaria were a more serious problem? Maybe. But, I think that I'd still want to look at the big picture. Is my life worth the extinction of every bird of prey in the region?
Hubris, anyone?
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:4, Informative)
It nothing to do with DDT being a known Carcinogen, Neurotoxic, an abortifacient, terratogenic and an Endocrine disruptor in humans. Not a damn thing.
It doesn't take a conspiracy nut to see all this.
Why, yes, yes it does.
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
From Extoxnet: "DDT is slightly to practically non-toxic to test animals via the dermal route".
I guess you wouldn't want to swim in the stuff, but then you wouldn't want to eat a cup of table salt in one go, either.Malaria, on the other hand, is most definitely a major killer.
Are you opposed to vaccination on the same basis?
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not that they actively want the third world to be starving and disease ridden, so much as that they're willing to gloss over the facts and the consequences of their bitching if it means they can get the smug high of being 'green.' Many of them think what they're doing is for the best for everyone, citing far off 'what-ifs' to back their point. They're deadly wrong of course, and as a group should be held accountable for the results of their factless fearmongering and their love affair with ignorance, but I don't think it is consciously malicious.
Car analogy: A drunk driver who honestly believes beer makes you a better driver, despite all the mountains of evidence to the contrary, wrecks and kills a family of four.
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
More like billions.
Borloug has to be the most influential and under-appreciated man who has ever lived and most will never know or care, because he doesn't have a sex-tape, play basketball or football, or star in movies.
Borloug has not only been on my list of heroes for a very long time, but has been on my list of "guys who will die in the next decade or two during my lifetime that I am dreading."
The world could never possibly thank Borloug enough. If anyone deserves his own holiday, it's this man. If anyone deserves statues and his face on currency and battleships named after him. It's this man.
That such an amazing man who contributed so much in his life died not of old age, but of *cancer* is evidence that there can be no great deity out there watching over everything. If any man deserved a peaceful, painless, quick passing it was this man.
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
"Nice straw man argument used to attack environmentalists"
Bullshit. Norman Borlaug was attacked by these (self proclaimed) environmentalists from the moment his innovations started saving millions lives. From the wikiedpia entry:
"...Of environmental lobbyists he stated, "some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things""
Re:Public Enemy #1 (Score:4, Interesting)
A shame this guy posted as AC.
I have to admit - this story was published at the Houston Chronicle last night. I saw "green" in the title, and I clicked on it, intending to post some smart ass comments. As I read the story, I realized who was being discussed, and what he had accomplished. I do recall reading about him in the past - Mr. Borlaug was a truly remarkable man, worthy of all our respect.
That wasn't enough to make him a hero to some of the "green" movement's that are out to scalp you and I of our hard earned money to pay for "carbon credits" and assorted other bullshit.
Whatever - rest in peace, Mr Gorlaug. You have my respect and gratitude.
It's blessing... and a curse. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand (and I'd say the bigger hand), the Green Revolution ushered in the world-wide use of many really good technologies for helping to feed the planet -- high-yield crops and better use of irrigation.
On the other hand, it also ushered in a world of heavy use of herbicides and pesticides (much of which is petroleum based) and nitrogen-fertilizers (which are made in a process that burns natural gas). Fertilizer run-off is killing huge swaths of the Gulf of Mexico due to algal blooms and anoxic zones, and pesticide use in some Midwestern states taints the groundwater and causes birth defects. The dependency on petroleum resources in our agriculture bodes ill because of climate change and dwindling oil supplies over the next century.
In the balance between the two, it's undeniable that the Green Revolution has saved far more lives than it has harmed, but a lot people in the environmental movement tend to less aware of the problems solved by the solutions of half a century ago than the problems they cause today. That latter fact tends to lead (as ANY political argument about ANYTHING does) to demonizing people responsible for the problems we face today, when we should view the Green Revolution as a great achievement with a few flaws here and there that can be improved upon with better science and with grassroots demand for cleaner, greener food (and not just cheap food). We can thank the Green Revolution for the luxury to demand that.
worth noting one additional thing (Score:5, Insightful)
A bit of an emendation:
That's what fundamentally made him a good recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He made high-yield new seeds, and encouraged farmers to use them, spread them, replant them in subsequent years, etc., giving them greater food security and freedom. He didn't, to the contrary, patent them, prohibit [monsanto.com] replanting seeds in subsequent years, and so on. That would have still increased crop yields, but would've made farmers dependent on Borlaug to buy seeds every year, which was the opposite of his intention.
Borlaug's invention only delayed a problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Without his contribution, one billion people would have died of famine, and one billion hectares of forest would have been cleared. In other words, the ecosystem could only sustain one billion fewer people, and the existing population would have cleared one billions hectares of forest.
With his contribution, the ecosystem now sustains that additional 1 billion: the total number of mouths is 6 billion. There is now not a need to clear that additional billion hectares of forest.
However, the population continues to grow. It will reach such a size that famine will kill one billion people and that hunger will force the clearing of an additional billion hectares of forest.
Overpopulation is the root cause of many problems: energy shortage, famine, global warming, etc. The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse are approaching. We can already hear the hooves of the horses.
Ok, Chicken Little (Score:5, Interesting)
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> There is no such thing as overpopulation that can't be solved by re-engineering our cities/factories and changing our lifestyles.
I'm not sure how you solve the problem of the estimated population of the earth in, say, 200 years if it continues increasing at the current rate. Quite apart from questions about the source of food and energy, packing more and more people into towns and cities is going to produce quite a lot of social problems when there is no countryside to escape from all the noise and po
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I'm not sure how you solve the problem of the estimated population of the earth in, say, 200 years if it continues increasing at the current rate.
People were famously worrying [wikipedia.org] about overpopulation 200 years ago, I'm sure that 200 years in the future, we won't have run into a Malthusian Catastrophe, but people will still be worrying that we might.
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I think we're pretty safe for the next 200 years. But what about the next 200,000?
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I'm not sure how you solve the problem of the estimated population of the earth in, say, 200 years if it continues increasing at the current rate.
If I were a betting man, I'd put my chips on nanotechnology to handle the bulk of it. But lots of people have proposed - and are working on - quite a few plausible solutions, including, but not limited to, colonization of other planets, arcologies on- and off-planet, and more efficient production of energy and crops.
Nobody's sure how it will be solved, but your lack of ideas appears to stem from a lack of looking for them.
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There is no such thing as overpopulation that can't be solved by re-engineering our cities/factories and changing our lifestyles.
There's only so much energy we receive from the sun, and only so much available land. Population growth is not infinitely sustainable. At some point (not necessarily soon) there will be overpopulation. It may happen at 10 billion people, it may happen at 100 billion people, but it will happen. Ignoring this fact will not make it go away.
Why not? (Score:3, Interesting)
Your assumption is based on the idea that the only energy we can receive is from the sun, and the only land we can populate is Earth. Why is that the case? While we can't currently populate other worlds, it seems pretty stupid to declare we'll never be able to. We have no idea what our future technology will make possible. However, it is fair to say, that it'll be far and above what we have now, including some things that are inconceivable at this point.
There is no reason that overpopulation will happen. It
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
He makes an excellent point.
Re:Ok, Chicken Little (Score:4, Insightful)
"The prediction of a problem from too [much|little] ___ is naive because 100 years ago ___, and 20 years ago ___ predicted the same thing, and it has never come to pass. Since it has never yet ___, it is only reasonable to expect that it never will. Those who are warning us against it are obviously fulfilling their own [psychological|political] need, rather than being useful contributors to the public conversation about the real dangers that may be ahead of us."
The wonderful thing about this formula is that it always works; until it doesn't. The vast majority of people living comfortably in modern civilization (only a minority of people currently living, but still a large number) has no personal memory of serious effects from too much or too little of anything. And we certainly are comforted to be told that we don't have to listen to those warning us of possible trouble ahead. There's a good living to be made by telling us what we want to hear. Even the nonprofessionals can get praised at dinner party conversations and modded up at /. by helping make sure we don't suffer from too little comforting about how the danger from ___ obviously won't come to pass, just because it hasn't yet, and [God|science] loves us, and our comfort will never be spoiled.
Fortunately Population Growth Rate is Slowing (Score:2)
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Overpopulation is the root cause of many problems: energy shortage, famine, global warming, etc. The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse are approaching. We can already hear the hooves of the horses.
Good. Let them come. When they're here, science will kick their assess too.
All about where the money comes from (Score:3, Interesting)
The best example of this I can think of
Perspective, please (Score:3, Informative)
True, but that was possible only because his work was financed by the Rockefeller Foundation. Ironically, the biggest "robber baron" the world ever saw started a philantropic foundation that made possible the work of Dr. Norman Borlaug.
Re:worth noting one additional thing (Score:5, Insightful)
He didn't, to the contrary, patent them, prohibit [monsanto.com] replanting seeds in subsequent years, and so on.
I for one can't wait for the day when we see large scale open source GMO crops, and we can be done with the Monsnato thing for good. Many anti-GMO arguements are, at their core, not scientific in nature, but anti-corporate/anti-patent (both, of course, involving Monsanto). And that's sad that a legitimate and viable technology with so much potential should be forced to be weighed down with that sort of stuff.
I'm sorry you're wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Seeds aren't organic. It's what you do to the them after you plant them that makes food organic or conventional.
3. Ask any of the Indian cotton pickers, who despite living on less than a dollar a day won't pick non-GM cotton because of the huge amount of pesticides they're exposed to, if they don't want GM crops.
4. Not having anything to eat (called starvation) has been proven by scientists to be bad for your health. Borlaug's wheat wasn't more nutritious, it produced more food on the same land, so people who otherwise would have starved didn't.
5. Most of current GM crops don't increase yield (though there's really cool stuff coming out over the next five years). BT crops reduce the use of toxic insecticides. Herbicide resistance crops let us switch from more toxic herbicides like atrazine to less toxic ones like glyphosate and also promote no-till agriculture which reduces the erosion of the top soil we'll need if we ever want to feed our grandchildren.
In conclusion, you seem to know nothing about these topics (food and agriculture and genetic engineering). If you're interested, educate yourself, I wish more people were engaged. Otherwise don't be surprised if no one takes you seriously.
Re:I'm sorry you're wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The best article I ever read about Norman Borlaug himself and his contribution to the Green revolution wasthis one. [dallasobserver.com]
For a better grounding of the problems faced by both conventional ag and conventual organic, read the first two sections of Michael Pollen's the Omnivores Dilemma (you can read the other two sections of the book if you like too, they're just not as relevant). His science and stats are sometimes off, and I don't always agree with his conclusions but it's a fun read.
There was a BBC documentary that came out last fall called "Jimmy's GM Food Fight" which, if you can track a copy down did about as good a job as possible of summing up the issue in 60 minutes.
If you're more interested in the history of agriculture than the recent Organic vs Conventional vs GM split, there's a lot of good background in Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.
Hope this is helpful. I can cite blogs as well, but it's harder to find ones that are informative rather than pushing an position. Good luck and I wish more people were interested in the subject!
On Terminator Seeds (Score:3, Informative)
1. The technology was developed mostly because of environmental concerned about pollen drift. Farmers have been buying hybrid seed since the 1940s.
2. When the technology was announced, everyone hated it (as you well know). To the point where Monsanto hasn't actually sold a single seed containing the trait. I'm serious.
Find me a field of commercial (not research) corn or soybeans or cotton or anything else that'll produce nothing by sterile seeds and I'll eat my words. Until then stop spreadi
Just delayed the inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
Sooner or later you hit a limiting resource. Land, water, energy etc. A better investment would have birth control and birth control education.
Re:Just delayed the inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
First world nations tend to have negative population growth rates, except by immigration influx, or population growth amongst recent-generation immigrants.
C//
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Sooner or later you hit a limiting resource. Land, water, energy etc.
Which is the same theory Thomas Malthus [wikipedia.org] had in the early 1800s. Fortunately for us he turned out to be wrong.
A better investment would have birth control and birth control education.
People don't have a lot of children because they don't understand what birth control is. People have a lot of children in high mortality rate parts of the world to guarantee some of them will live to adulthood. Part of the mortality rate is from malnutrition.
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Anywhere you have a limiting resource, Malthus is right. Water, potable water, enough arable land, food, proper distribution of food Malthus is right.
In those situations you have 2 choices; misery or live within those resource boundaries.
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Malthus argued that we can never rise above subsistence poverty because the population will always expand to consume the resources. He was wrong about that since he didn't foresee people voluntarily controlling birth rates once their children gained the ability to survive with a high likelihood.
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Not true. See Mormons, Catholics and some other religous groups who are in wealthy developed nations and yet maintain high birth rates.
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Yup, a flat earth could technically be infinite in size.
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If the universe was Euclidean. Which it is not.
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Great, let me challenge the existence of gravity then. Man naturally is sucked into hell and to make things more interesting the gods inserted a layer of arbitrary thickness and infinite extension called earth into the heaven/hell boundary.
Infinite, because they really wanted to be sure.
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From what I've understood it's more about social security, let's face it not that long ago being old and childless was rather nasty. In practice you depended on your children for economic support, caring for you and if you didn't have anyone there was really noone to take care of you. With more children you split the burden, of course higher survival rates lowers the risk but I don't think that's the main driver. These days it can still be lonely and I'm not saying the minimum pension is great, but most peo
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Which is the same theory Thomas Malthus had in the early 1800s. Fortunately for us he turned out to be wrong.
No, you're assuming too short of a time scale for the experiment.
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Everything that makes life better for more people is only delaying the inevitable, that doesn't mean it isn't good or isn't worthy of recognition.
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Sooner or later you hit a limiting resource. Land, water, energy etc. A better investment would have birth control and birth control education.
I don't know about you, but sooner or, for example, 200 years later does seem like a big difference.
I certainly wouldn't be alive today if Malthusian prediction came true in his time, and I personally might go through a lot of hardship (even in U.S. high food cost has its prices) today if it hadn't been for the Green Revolution.
And who knows? Maybe if we delay "the inevitable" long enough we can leave this rock and find resources in far flung places. I suppose then some wise guy will say that the free energ
Green != Environmentalism (Score:5, Informative)
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In a political sense I agree he wasn't part of any mainstream environmental movement, but from his writings, he was clearly interested in environmental issues, and they were one of his motivating factors as well. In particular, two of his goals were to: 1) slow down deforestation by increasing yield of existing farmland; and 2) reduce the usage of pesticides by engineering hardier crops.
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I'm pretty sure most people who want to "save the planet" are actually motivated by a need to make sure the Earth continues to be habitable by human beings. The Earth isn't going anywhere for a few billion years even if we cause catastrophic nuclear winter or global warming. Humanity is a lot more fragile.
In that sense, they're just as "selfish" as Norman Borlaug. Then again, nobody else has been credited with saving one billion lives that I know of, so anybody who remotely suggests he's selfish is being
Ten billion hectares is a LOT ... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's 10,000,000 km^2 or larger than Canada, only Russia is larger [wikipedia.org].
That page mentions this: The total land area of the world is 148,940,000 km2 (57,510,000 sq mi)[3] (about 29.1% of the Earth's surface area).. In other words, what he did prevented the clearing of 6.7 percent of the Earth's surface for agriculture.
I find that figure a little difficult to believe, but I don't know that much about agriculture or what kind of impact deforestation for agriculture has. I did find this bit on forests [wikipedia.org] though:
So what he did saved about 20% of the total forested areas from clearing.
Again, a bit difficult to believe, but whatever.
Re:Ten billion hectares is a LOT ... (Score:4, Informative)
I find that figure a little difficult to believe, but I don't know that much about agriculture or what kind of impact deforestation for agriculture has.
I suspect you've never chopped down a tree or pulled a stump? Logging is hard work with western mechanization, but in third world conditions, doing it by hand must be unbelievably difficult.
For some background, check out the wikipedia link "In Pakistan, wheat yields nearly doubled, from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 7.3 million tons in 1970"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug#Expansion_to_South_Asia:_The_Green_Revolution [wikipedia.org]
If you want to double your production (and who doesn't?) its pretty hard to justify the immense effort of clearing land, when you can simply import genetically superior seeds...
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I wasn't doubting what he did was a good thing, nor am I questioning the "billion lives saved". I'm just questioning the billion hectares/10 million km^2 figures. I'm questioning the figure which is quoted from someone's speech to congress.
The billion lives I can believe with the amount of people living in 3rd world countries and the population growth they have. But preventing deforestation of 20% of the world's forests? That figure I doubt.
Re:Ten billion hectares is a LOT ... (Score:4, Informative)
His work increased the yields of most major crops by a factor of 4. That simply means that in order to get the same food output you would have to increase the amount of land under cultivation by a factor of 4.
That this would exceed the area of Canada should not be a great surprise.
The environmental and human impact of this work is left as an exercise to the reader.
Borlaug is firmly in the running as the greatest human benefactor.
The Greatest Living American (Score:3, Insightful)
... is no more.
Future generations will scarcely believe that such a man walked the earth.
Kind to be cruel (Score:2)
"His life's work on developing high-yield, disease-resistant crops has been credited with having saved an estimated one billion people from famine..." ...allowing them to give birth to, and raise to adulthood, an estimated 2-3 billion more people, who in turn...
Awards (Score:4, Informative)
Bolaug is one of two Americans and the only scientist to have won:
The Congressional Gold Medal
The Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Nobel Peace Prize
The other winners are Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Elie Wiesel.
The following is a list of Norman E. Borlaug's major awards and honors:
- Nobel Peace Prize, 1970.
- Election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 1970 and nine Foreign Academies.
- Aztec Eagle, Government of Mexico, 1970.
- Outstanding Agricultural Achievement Award, World Farm Foundation (USA), 1971.
- Presidential Medal of Freedom (USA), 1977.
- Jefferson Award, American Institute for Public Service, 1980.
- Distinguished Achievement Award in Food and Agricultural Sciences, Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (USA), 1982.
- The Presidential World without Hunger Award: Educator/Scientist category (USA), 1985.
- The 1988 Americas Award, The Americas Foundation (USA).
- Jefferson Lifetime Achievement Award (USA), 1997.
- Altruistic Green Revolution Award, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, 1998.
- Recognition Award for Contributions to World Wheat and Maize Research and Production, Republic of El Salvador, 1999.
- Dedication of Norman E. Borlaug Center for Southern Crop Improvement, Texas A&M University, 1999.
- Vannevar Bush Award, National Science Foundation (USA), 2000.
- Memorial Centennial Medial of the N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (Russia), 2000.
- Public Welfare Medal, National Academy of Sciences (USA), 2002.
- The 2002 Rotary International Award for World Understanding and Peace, Barcelona, Spain.
- The Philip Hauge Abelson Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2002.
- Award for Distinguished Achievements to Science and Medicine, American Council of Science and Health, 2003.
- National Medal of Science (USA), 2004.
- Padma Vibhushan in Science and Engineering, awarded by the Government of India, 2006.
- Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture created as part of the Texas A&M University System, 2006.
- Congressional Gold Medal, 2006.
- Honorary Degrees:
Punjab Agricultural University (India), 1969
Royal Norwegian Agricultural College (Norway), 1970
Luther College (USA), 1970
Kanpur University (India), 1970
Uttar Pradesh Agricultural University (India), 1971
Michigan State University (USA), 1971
Universidad de la Plata (Argentina), 1971
University of Arizona (USA), 1972
University of Florida (USA), 1973
Universidad Católica de Chile (Chile), 1974
Universität Hohenheim (Germany), 1976
Punjab Agricultural University, (Pakistan), 1978
Columbia University, (USA), 1980
Ohio State University (USA), 1981
University of Minnesota (USA), 1982
University of Notre Dame (USA), 1987
Oregon State University (USA), 1988
University of Tulsa (USA), 1991
Washington State University (USA) 1995
Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University (India), 1996
Indian Agricultural Research Institute (India), 1996
De Montfort University, (United Kingdom), 1997
Emory University, (U.S.A) 1999
University of the Philippines, 1999
University of Missouri, (USA), 2002
Williams College, (USA), 2002
Wartburg College (USA), 2003
Dartmouth College (USA), 2005
Doctor of Agricultural Sciences:
University of Agricultural Sciences (Godollo, Hungary), 1980
Tokyo University of Agriculture (Japan), 1981
Doctor en Ciencias Agropecuarias Honoris Causa, Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Turena, República Dominicana, 1983
Doctor en Ciencias, Honoris Causa Universidad Central del Este de la República Dominicana, 1983
Doctor Humane Letters:
Gustavus Adolphus College (USA), 1971
Iowa State University (USA), 1992
Cape Coast University (Ghana), 2000
Doctor of Law:
New Mexico State University (USA), 1973
Doctor of Agriculture:
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WOW
I mean WOW
If each one of us can do 10% of what that man did, we can make the world a better place.
I hope God judges him Kindly.
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And they would all be leading meaningful lives advancing the human condition.
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Re:Now we know who to blame for... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this the first line of attack anytime the subject of overpopulation comes up? There are at least a few ways to try to reduce the number of humans expected to be inhabiting this planet years from now other than "offing people". Contraception in poorer areas? Raising the standard of living to statistically lower the number of offspring parents have? Just jumping to "OMG OVERPOPULATION KILL YOURSELF LOLROFL!!@#" doesn't add anything to the debate.
Then again, if they're advocating committing mass murder or genocide for the sake of conserving resources...
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Their point is simply that people who want to prevent "overpopulation" are being completely unrealistic. Reproduction is something that living creatures do instinctively. It's not going to stop, and it probably won't even slow down of it's own accord unless you are able to educate *everyone* to believe it. You might as well say that we should start offing ourselves as well, because individual survival is only one step up from reproduction on the importance scale. It would also be a more efficient means
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The checks and balances are still in place and killing an irritating voice won't change anything.
The problem is that antropomorphosizing earth and nature through giving them political tools like "checks and balances" doesn't really shed any light on the real problem that not all people have access to the education/knowledge that puts them in control of how many kids they will have.
There is nothing wrong about recognizing natures limits and living accordingly I would say.
What might arrise from using his part
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>The best way to fight ignorance isn't always to ridicule; sometimes, clarity of argument and thought goes a long way.
Just to nag you a bit, sometimes putting your name on the line helps with the clarity of argument ;).
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Use contraception, not starvation (Score:4, Insightful)
There are more human ways to control overpopulation. Limited food supplies is the way it works in nature, but we humans should use our intelligence.
Dr. Borlaug himself was aware of the overpopulation problem, but that's something for politicians and religious leaders to solve, a scientist should do his best to alleviate human suffering, even if it should create other problems.
There is a reason for high birthrate (Score:2)
Re:Overpopulation results (Score:5, Informative)
Are there still problems? Yeah. But this guy was a giant, and too an overwhelming problem and made it a little less insurmountable.
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And since you can get more crops from less land, there was less species depletion, more concentrated land impact, and less ag pollution because of reduced fertilizer needs.
Despite all the great things about Green Revolution, reduced fertilizer use isn't one of them [wikipedia.org]. The high-yield crops outperform the traditional crops under "certain conditions", and that certain conditions are: (1) high pesticide use, to counteract the possibility of widespread pest due to the monoculture nature of high-yield crops, (2) high fertilizer use, since just basic chemistry tells you that it would need more nutrients to produce more seeds, (3) high water use, for the same reason.
Green revolution ma
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Actually reduced fertilizer use is one of them because the varieties grown are more efficient in producing food in the following ways:
Less land in cultivation = less wasted fertilizer
Better grain rust resistance = less losses of crops (and therefore fertilizer)
Better plant structure (stronger shorter stems) = more efficient harvesting
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Actually reduced fertilizer use is one of them
Interestingly, world fertilizer use [findarticles.com] went up from 69 million tons in 1970 to 145 million tons in 1988, more than doubling while population only went up 30%.
Since then, we've leveled out around 140 million tons with nearly twice the population of 1970, so we are about at the same amount of fertilizer per capita.
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"High-yield, disease-resistant crops" reduce both of these.
Which carbon?
You think global famine would be a good way to stop it?
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Would you volunteer to be one of the people who starves to prevent overpopulation?
Not to mention that any famine that doesn't wipe out the human race would results in only temporary population drop. The only solution that doesn't involve basically killing people by one method or another is to lower birth rates. To this end, I suggest that religion gets banned.
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Wars are caused by 3 things, the top being food. One man actually was able to remove one cause that's plagued mankind for the last 20,000 years with science. For his credit, he even went as far as to push it into Africa. Unfortunately, when you have a vastly unstable region with no government control you can only do so much.
Nah this guy is one of histories greatest individuals. If only the ignorant actually understood what he actually achieved, and what high-yield crop farming could do, they'd figure ou
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25,000 die a day from lack of food; Borlaug reduced the problem but he was not able to eliminate it in his lifetime unfortunately. Problem is, yield increases (whilst absolutely essential of course) are only part of the problem. There is enough food produced in the world now to feed everybody, but most of it is wasted or deliberately destroyed.
Borlaug's work, whilst incredibly impressive, is unfinished.
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Agreed. The shame of it is, it may very well take another global catastrophe that we were facing in the '50's to get another man like hm.
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The primary reason for this is interference by environmental groups preventing the dissemination of Borlaug's methods in Africa.
These idiots should have to experience a famine personally.
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You have it exactly backwards, my friend.
The population is already there.
Norman Borlaug, by increasing crop yield per area REDUCED the amount of land used for agriculture. This also has the effect of REDUCING deforestation, thereby INCREASING atmospheric carbon loading. By increasing the pest resistance of the crop REDUCED agricultural pollution.
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Whoops, to read decreasing carbon loading.
Re:And are things now worse? (Score:4, Insightful)
But, by altering the local environment to increase the chances of an individual offspring making it to adulthood, technological societies reduce the dependence on high birth rate to maintain a genetic lineage. Increased access to nutritional food, clean water, and basic health care will increase survivorship leading to a short lived population boom, but at this time the perceived value of an individual life is increased somewhat. The key here is allowing some level of self interest where a person can pursue goals which are not merely survival oriented, but for the long term betterment of themselves, and thus society.
Our ability to manipulate our environment such that a literally supernatural proportion of children survive to adulthood, and thus the care this affords us to put into each individual child, allows human beings to place an extraordinarily high value on an individual life: contrary to the opinion that many have of humans being a violent species, our rate of intraspecific killing is about 1/1000th that of the average animal. This lower rate of person on person killing of course leads to higher value of human life, so more care put into an individual child and therefore lower birth rates. As has been pointed out elsewhere, this is to the point that most Westernized societies actually have negative internal population growth (I.E. death rate minus birth rate) and population sizes are only increasing due to immigration from poorer places with higher population growth.
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The so called green revolution if anything had no net impact on global hunger and starvation as it simply does not address the core cause: overpopulation.
Your statement is completely incorrect. Famine does not exist to any great extent today, 40 years after Borlaug's seeds went to Pakistan. At the very least Borlaug bought us 40 years to solve the popultion problem, and probably longer since the growth rate of world population has decreased due to improved economic conditions in much of the world.
As far as
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While I realise you want to suggest that he kills himself, his personal best isn't killing one person, it's killing off a few dozen. Nothing like a trailer park or high school massacre to reduce the local populace.
You aim so low! Mao starved 30 million people to death during the Great Leap Forward farm collectivization. Think about how many people you can kill if you are a politician!
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Oh no! Cancer and liver problems! That's sure a lot worse than starvation.
Ok Malthus Jr (Score:5, Insightful)
You first then. If you really believe overpopulation is the problem, then how about you do what you can to solve it and off yourself? After all, the fact that you have Internet access and time to mess around on Slashdot shows that you are privileged, you live in an industrial nation and use more resources than many in the world, so you'll do more good.
Don't want to kill yourself? Then let's not hear how bad someone is who worked to keep others alive. If you think it is ok for you to stick around, you don't have the right to hate on others for wishing to do the same.
Then there's your idiotic GMO rant. Never mind that total factual inaccuracy (with corresponding lack of support) there is the fact that as Pauli said "That's not right. It's not even wrong." Borlaug's work did not start with GMOs, it was with cross breeding and the like, introducing new strains to harsh areas. If you oppose selective breeding too, well then you are going to find it hard to eat anything. Next to nothing we eat, not even "organic" foods haven't been engineered in that fashion. It has been going on for over a century in a systematic way, and long before that in a less precise way.
So tell you what, if you aren't interested in putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak, and removing yourself and your resource usage, how about you go and live in a developing country for a while. I don't mean visit one and stay in a hotel, I mean go live a subsistence lifestyle. Go live without power, running water and so on for a bit. Live where your ability to eat depends on what you can grow or kill. See how things are. Then see if maybe your opinion on people like Dr. Borlaug changes a bit.
I get more than a little annoyed with people who live privileged lives bitching about those trying to help people without. STFU and enjoy your nice life. That, or prove you are serious about overpopulation being the real problem and are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in that regard. But don't hate on those that disagree with you, and just want to make things better for everyone.
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Well, Borlaug didnt invent running water, electricity and so forth. So I wouldnt thank him for any of those things. The fact I think we need to do what works to prevent poverty, that is zero population growth, I dont know how you connected that to an idea that I am against technology. I am for technology. Overpopulation itself will actually lead to such resource depletion that there will be people who will never be able to enjoy such technologies. If anything the man totally ignored the real causes of pover
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The so called green revolution if anything had no net impact on global hunger and starvation as it simply does not address the core cause: overpopulation.
OK then, kill yourself, do your bitch Gaia a favor.
Oh, did you mean just poor brown short people should die/never be born then?
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Beyond that point, the effect of the "green revolution" has simply been new population growth until disease, environmental destruction, famine, and war limit population size again.
War, disease, and population growth happen regardless. If people are farming just to eat, they can't afford any sort of education, entertainment, or intellectual stimulation; but guess what form of recreation is free? Likewise, people who are well fed and don't have to spend their entire life just trying to grow some food to stay alive, have the time and resources for the above things; most importantly, education. You can say "well, they should have brought education/birth control before you brought foo