This Week in Critter Science

Oh, science, always with the learning and the wackiness. Here are two fabulous tidbits that i learned last week. They may not really be science news, per se, but they were news to me.

This week I learned the best kept secret in ornithology. You didn’t know that ornithologists were secretive, did you? But it turns out they are positively Cheney-esque in their surreptitiousness when it comes to this little tidbit. You may or may not have heard that bird bones are hollow. Easier to fly, ligher, etc. Sure, why not? “But how can they just be hollow? Where does that air come from Where do they put their bone marrow?” you may ask yourself, if you are me, and watching Winged Migration has made you feel particularly investigative. Well I’ll tell you. It comes from their lungs! Bird lungs do not have the same little oxygen absorption thingees in their lungs that we do. Their lungs are connected to a bunch of air sacs, and the air sacs are connected to the insides of their bones! They breathe, and the air goes in their lungs and the oxygen exchange happens (like us) but also the air flows through their bones! I think this is weird and crazy cool, and have been very disappointed with the less-than-enthusiastic response I get when I share this awesome knowledge. But you nerd patrols reading the internetz for fun are bound to be enthused about this wacky science, right? I know I am.

It turns out that Cat Scratch Fever is not just a Ted Nugent song, but also a real disease. Called CSD, for Cat Scratch Disease. You can get it if a kitteh with some special kind of bacteria scratches or bites you. Kittens are more likely to have the bacteria than adult cats, so be careful around adorable pets; it causes swollen lymph nodes, fever, tiredness, and can take up to 3 weeks to go away.

Homos: You Can Find Them By Measuring Their Fingers and Stuff

Eco Freaks Want to Steal Your Babies!

Not really.

They would, however, like to gently encourage you to consider having a maximum of two children. The Optimum Population Trust, a UK organization devoted to studying the human population and its impacts on the planet where we live, released a study yesterday saying that with each additional child comes a ton of consequences that no amount of separating your recyclables or switching off the lights can counteract. This is kind of obvious. What makes pollution? Humans. What turns the rainforest into beef-raising country? Humans. What makes carbon emissions, destroys habitats, creates overflowing landfills? Humans, humans, humans. And (sorry guys), what’s your baby? A new human.

Of course, nobody wants to hear their bundle of joy (or potential bundle of joy) characterized as simply a collection of ecologial consequences. And so the study is already being bashed repeatedly by people who don’t want to be told what to do, and certainly aren’t going to take it from the granola-eating, birkenstock-wearing hippies at the OPT. This is a matter of spin – it’s no fun to write an article about an idea that some people had that they would like to educate other people about. It is fun to write an article declaring that those patchwork-pantsed environmentalists have declared it an “eco-crime” to have more than 2 kids.

But that will not stop people like Mark at the Blogs for Bush from misinterpreting the study and demonizing people who advocate zero population growth. He writes,

“If you have faith in the life of the world to come, then wish to be good stewards of what God has provided, but all the while you know that in a conflict between human needs and non-human needs, human needs come first.”

Here’s the problem with this analysis. This is not about a conflict between human needs and non-human needs – it’s all about human needs. Your children? Your children’s children? They are humans too, and they will need stuff! Every time I buy something with too much plastic packaging and throw it in the trash, it goes to a landfill and takes up space. If I do that every day for the rest of my life, my unnecessary trash is now taking up a whole lot of space. Space that not only cannot be used by other species as a natural habitat, but can also not be used by human beings to grow produce, or as a place where my children could one day live. This applies to everything we do. Sorry to be so Captain Obvious about this, but the OPT is not advocating for slowing population growth in order to save the Golden Throated Platypus of Northeastern Croatia or something (although I would think that stewards of God’s creation might show a little interest in this sort of project) – they’re doing it out of concern for future human beings. I have heard environmentalists called a lot of names, but this is the first time I’ve heard them accused of hating other people and being motivated by greed. Making sacrifices for other people (including future people) is the opposite of greedy. He goes on,

“Ah, save the planet! For what? Supposing you could actually figure out the optimum number of people and the optimum amount of resource consumption so that the earth replenishes as fast as it is used – the world would last for ever! You would have saved the planet! But, for what?”

There are some basic scientific misunderstandings here. Curbing population growth isn’t about allowing the earth to “replenish as fast as it used to.” It’s about quality of life for human beings. We need things to live here – we need a certain amount of plant life to intake our carbon dioxide and expel oxygen so that we have something to breathe. We need a certain amount of animal and plant life so that we have something to eat. And those plants and animals, the tasty ones that we like to munch on? They need things to. They’re part of an ecosystem – and we can kid ourselves about it as much as we want – we are too. Through technology we’ve taken away the natural controls that keep other populations in check. We’re not subject to predation in any real way; we control the temperature of our homes and so escape the effects of the elements, etc. etc. And thank goodness – I don’t want to live in a cave and run away from bears. But it also means that our population growth curve looks like this:

When normal population growth curves look like this:

It grows up to a certain point, and then it becomes limited by the availability of some resource, and the growth tapers off. So what? Well, ecological systems operate according to some rules, like Verhulst’s Law, which states that no population can go through ongoing periods of unlimited growth without negative consequences. In other words, duh, when there are too many individuals in a population, you run out of stuff/space/air/food and havoc ensues.

The argument here is not that having 10 babies is immoral. It is simply that having 10 babies has consequences beyond the size or your diaper bill and the added joy the youngsters will no doubt bring to your home. It’s a matter of considering global happiness in addition to your own personal happiness. And of course, we all consider our own happiness first. But let’s please just not misunderstand the entire purpose of the study, like this woman who was interviewed in the Times piece. Sayeth the article:

The suggestion has been criticised by family rights campaigners. Eileen McCloy, a geography graduate from Glasgow with 10 children, said: “How dare they suggest how many children we should have. Who do they think are going to look after our elderly?

“According to this I would have five couples’ quota of children. I believe my children will be productive members of society.”

Eileen misunderstands. The OPT does not think that her 3rd through 10th children will unproductive members of society, it is just noting that those children go beyond replacing her and her husband. Two children per couple would equal zero population growth, and we could taper off around a cool 7 billion. Instead, in our lifetime there will be over 9 billion humans. All the OPT is saying, Eileen, is before you have your 11th child, you might want to think about where they will live, and what will they have to eat/drink/breathe in 50 years.