For this blog, I wish to select my topic as Human Population. In completing the readings last week and conducting research on Malthus, I became increasingly interested in this subject. Specifically, I became aware of the exponential growth we have experienced in the last two hundred years and its effect on this Earth. I am interested in the new problems that will arise due to huge populations that the world has never seen. I hope to learn about why humans got to this position. And then look at future population growths and the problems that will arise. Furthermore, I want to look at the future course of the human population and its preservation of Earth. Through this blog, I hope to gain valuable information on the subject of Human Population and becoming informed solutions to these complex issues.

Pre-Industrial Revolution

About 15,000 ago (during the Holocene Epoch), humans were hunter-gatherers that thrived on predation. The mastery of fire equipped humans with powerful tool unavailable to other species. Humans used fire to ward off dangerous animals while hunting protein-rich food. Their diet was low caloric intake, which lead to low body fat, late menarche, and fertility at later age. Furthermore, Women collected food, resulting in vigorous exercise that lead to low body fat. In addition, as women collecting food, nursing women could not carry more than one infant at a time. Hence, a woman may only have a child every four years due to these restraints. Finally, the lack of food storage technology increased the frequency of famine as undernourished women could not conceive, carry fetus to term, or have successful childbirth. 

However, around 11,000 years ago, the warming of the climate resulted in the spread of agriculture across the world. Agriculture involves the domestication of plants and animals. It was discovered over ten times independently, in Holocene Epoch, throughout the world. The shift from forager to producer societies is known commonly as the Neolithic Revolution. With agriculture, birth rates increased rapidly. In fact, the population multiplied over 1200 times in 11,000 years. Agriculture allowed sedentary existence and reduced energy for carrying infants. In addition, the agricultural diet provided larger, more diverse amounts of high-calorie food. In addition, advent of agriculture was also met with better food storage. With this stable resource and increased trade, women were capable of reducing intervals between their births, thus increasing the birth rate of the world.

Figure 1: population explosion of Neolithic Demographic Transition

Figure 1 describes the population explosion of the Neolithic Demographic Transition. Before agriculture, the proportion of 5-to-19 year-old skeletons in cemeteries across Northern Hemisphere is approximately constant and remains around 0.23. However, after agriculture, there is significant larger proportion of 5-to-19 year-old skeletons in the cemetery. This suggests that there was much larger birth rate at this time, explaining the changes in population size.

While agriculture allowed birth rates to increase, the sedentary lifestyle also brought about larger death rates. Coupled with a sedentary village life, the population density within societies increased, thus caused increase in transmission of diseases. Also, there existed a lack of clean water as humans lived with waste. In addition, humans lived alongside their domesticated animals, which brought their own diseases. Children were most susceptible to these diseases, which included Cholera, diphtheria, measles, malaria, yellow fever, typhus, rotavirus, and coronavirus. The increase in juvenile deaths in Figure 1 can be attributed to these diseases. As a result, with extremely birth rates, this agricultural lifestyle resulted in high death rates. For the next 9,700 years, humans continued living in societies with high birth and death rates. During this period, the growth rate was less than 0.5% over 10,000 years. Over the years, humans improved at reducing disease, so the death rate edged down. The birth rate remained high as food remained bountiful. However, at the end of the 18^th century, a new demographic transition began. 

Industrial Revolution & Malthus

Around the year 1800, the industrial revolution spreads across the world, as the wide spread use of fossil fuels shattered the bottleneck on human population. With loose constrains on energy supply, in many countries, including England, went through the Modern Demographic Transition (Figure 2). The death rates drop rapidly due to improvements in food supply and sanitation, which increased life spans and reduced disease. These improvements include access to technology, public health efforts, and improved farming techniques. Without a corresponding fall in birth rates, this produces a large increase in population. In fact, many African countries are stuck in this stage due to stagnant economic growth and effect of AIDS.  In the next stage of the Modern Demographic Transition, birth rates fall due to access to contraception, increase in status and education of women, increase in parental investment in education of children, and transition in values. During this stage, population growth begins to level off. At the final stage of the Modern Demographic Transition, there are low birth rates and death rates. Today, many countries, such as Germany and Japan, have birth rates dropping below the replacement level, resulting in shrinking populations. Furthermore, all developed nations have undergone the Modern Demographic Transition while many developing countries are in various stages.

Figure 2: Modern Demographic Transition in England

As these population dynamics were changing at the end of 18^th century, many scientists began proposing ideas and publishing literature on the subject of population growth. In 1798, Thomas Malthus, intrigued by poverty existing in all societies, publishes An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the Future Improvement of Society with remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers. In this essay, Malthus, articulating as a pure biologist, hypothesized populations would grow in areas with plenty resources. Further, when these resources are strained, some population wouldn’t survive. He pointed to factors such as famine, warm, and disease as checks on the population. Malthus organized checks into two categories: positive checks and preventative checks. Positive checks were solutions to population growth that raised the death rate while preventative checks were solutions to reduced birth rate. Malthus’ essay fired off great debate and discussion of the topics.

In 1803, Malthus wrote the second edition of his essay, An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, a View of its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness. In this edition, Malthus spoke both as a biologist and social scientist, with large empirical backing. He responded to criticism of his paper, revised some of his arguments, and outlined other influences. Specially, Malthus traveled to different continents to examine the principle of population on various regions of the world. Furthermore, the Modern Demographic Transition is under effect. Malthus sees countries reducing their death rate and populations exploding as birth rates remain high.

Over the course of the first third of 19^th century, Malthus provided copious, detailed evidence to his arguments. After traveling the world, he advocated moral restraint, in the form of sexual abstinence and late marriage, as a check on population. In addition, he expanded on his ideas of preventative checks. Malthus noted that moral restraint produced misery for those practicing it, as saw these strains led to vice. Vices included use of prostitution and birth control. Malthus found that vices led to increased unhappiness and exposure to disease and drugs. However, Malthus concluded that these vices were consequence of constrains on population growth. 

Human Population Today

While I began researching for this topic, I came across a fascinating population clock.
Link: http://www.census.gov/popclock/

From the Population Clock:

One birth every 8 seconds
One death every 12 seconds
One international migrant (net) every 44 seconds
Net gain of one person every 14 seconds TOP 10 MOST POPULOUS COUNTRIES 1. China 1,349,585,838   6. Pakistan 193,238,868 2. India 1,220,800,359   7. Nigeria 174,507,539 3. United States 316,668,567   8. Bangladesh 163,654,860 4. Indonesia 251,160,124   9. Russia 142,500,482 5. Brazil 201,009,622   10. Japan 127,253,075

One Person Every 14 Seconds

Wow! From my previous post, I learned that there is net one more person on this Earth every 14 seconds! 14 seconds! By the time I finish writing this paragraph, there are potentially a dozen new inhabitants on this earth.

That means there are 6171 more people on Earth every day!
That means there are 2,254,066 more people on Earth every year!

From taking this class and my own reading, I am worried about Earth. How are we going to feed all these people? Clean water for all these people? How can we all live together? What about the CO2 levels? And the biodiversity we're killing due to deforestation? What are we doing to all the other animals? What is the Earth's carrying capacity? Why do China and India have such huge populations? What is role of food engineering and pesticides on our food production?

So many questions. I hope to start investigating these one by one soon enough.

Food for Population

As I began thinking about the large population we have, I pondered the state of our agriculture. How exactly are we feeding over 7 billion people? And I live in the suburbs, where I can easily get fruits and vegetables from the world for few bucks.

For my next topic, I have decided to research the agricultural side of human population. More to come soon

Agriculture: Part I

            As the world population balloons over seven billion people, the food and energy demands across the world pose fundamental questions regarding the use of the world’s finite resources. As a result, two divergent camps in agriculture emerge: conventional agriculturalists and alternative agriculturalists. Each side proposes different opinions for food production and population growth reduction. Conventional agriculture is usually characterized as capital intensive, large-scale, highly mechanized, extensive use of fertilizers and pesticides, and little crop diversity. Many view this intensification of agriculture as the only viable way to feed the growing global population (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). However, the widespread use of conventional agriculture has led to various criticism of the ability of conventional agriculture to sustain food production without severe economic, social, and environmental effects. With the reality of global climate change and energy strains, conventional agriculture has been challenged by an alternate agriculture movement that advocates a more “ecologically sustainable agriculture” practice. The movement has produced a variety of other production systems in an effort to improve the sustainability of agriculture, such as organic agriculture, sustainable agriculture, natural farming, and low-input agriculture (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). Collectively, these have been coined as alternative agriculture. Alternative agriculturalists advocate smaller farms, reduced energy use, conservation of finite resource, and reduction of chemical use. Further, alternative agriculture yields greater crop diversity, sustainable practices, and usually more nutritious product (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). However, with an increasing demand for food to follow the rising global population, agriculturists must unite to a common ground and employ science and technology to increase their agricultural output while maintaining sustainable practices for the long term.

            To combat the large population growth, there are two ways to improve food production: extensification and intensification. Extensification increases production by devoting larger amount of area to food production. However, humans have occupied most of the world so increasing the area for food production is extremely limited. Intensification is characterized by the high use of inputs such as capital, labor, pesticides and fertilizers to improve yield.         Conventional agriculturalists view this intensification as the only viable way to feed the growing global population, as it allows for producing more food on the same amount of land (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). Furthermore, global temperatures are projected to increase dramatically in the next century. By 2100, seasonal temperatures are likely to exceed the hottest season on record in temperature countries. These temperature increases will threaten global food security as food deficits will exist in one region while surpluses in another (Battisti and Naylor, 2009). As a result, conventional agriculturalists insist on utilizing technology and science to best of its ability to improve crop yields. Fundamentally, conventional agriculturalists believe in the continual improvement of science and technology such that food production will meet the needs of tomorrow (Beus and Dunlap, 1990).

             However, alternative agriculturists accept the concerns of feeding a growing world population, but continue advocating a more ecologically sustainable agricultural practice. Alternative agriculturalists are quick to point that the inputs to increasing crop yield are based on heavy non-renewable resources (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). High fertilizer use leads to increased emission of gases that play critical role to air pollution (Matson, 1997). At the same time, the notion of alternative farming is better for the environment has been challenged by many conventional agriculturalists, but most famously by Norman Borlaug, the father of the “green revolution” and winner of the Nobel peace prize. Borlaugh advocates the use of synthetic fertilizers to increase crop yield. He claims that organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land to produce an equal amount of food. Hence, the savings in land and energy through increased output efficiency offsets the input of non-renewable resources (The Economist, 2006). Alternative agriculturalists criticize conventionalists for not including the long term effects of high input agriculture. More specifically, the use of these dangerous chemicals often leads to soil erosion, pollution to water bodies, and shortened lifespan of a farm (Berry, 1987) (Santucci, 2010). Furthermore, these toxic inputs result in less nutritious product, which ultimately harms the consumer (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). Hence, agriculturalists must unite against the challenges of global population and climate change by utilizing intensification to improve yield, while utilizing some alternative methods to maintain sustainability.  

            In the quest of increasing crop yields, the agricultural practices of farmers  have direct, significant social implications. Through widespread conventional agriculture, there is now a control of land, resources, and capital by a small group of farmers. A large amount of capital is required to maintain a farm; as a result, many potential farmers are left out, resulting in enormous power in the hands of few. In addition to threatening the democracy, fewer farmers results in immense plots with owners focusing on quantity and profit, rather than quality and beauty. Inevitably, the land suffers from lack of proper attention and care, which contribute to more environmental impacts. Also, conventional agriculture is often highly processed, resulting in a less nutritious product (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). With an alarming obesity epidemic, agriculturalists must focus on the quality of their product just as much as their quantity. Last, with the limitations of extensification and the dangerous effects of intensification, societies across the world must decide the balance between conventional and alternative agriculture. While countries can return back to organic agriculture, the decreased output will result in hunger and starvation for  millions of people (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). Before the effects of global climate change and population strain become irreversible, agriculturalists must begin unite to solve these issues because of the large social impacts of their food production.

            With social implications for the entire world, agriculturalists must address the fundamental issues of global climate change, global population growth, and food production. The world faces humongous challenges of global food security that cannot be addressed without the cooperation and unity of all agriculturalists. Agriculturalists will need to educate the masses of these alarming issues and bring discussion into the political arena for serious reforms at state, national, or global levels. Further, agriculturalist must continue utilizing science and technology to not only improve yields, but also develop more ecologically friendly techniques of efficient cultivation. In addition, there must be an equal emphasis to quality and quantity for maintaining healthy human survival. But without any major changes, the global food security is highly threatened. 

Literature Cited

Battisti, David S and Rosamond L. Naylor. "Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat." Science 323 (2009): 240-244.

Berry, Wendell. "Six Agricultural Fallacies." Small Farmer's Journal 11.1 (1987): 12-13.

Beus, Curtis E and Riley E Dunlap. "Conventional versus Alternative Agriculture: The Paradigmatic Roots of the Debate." Rural Sociology 55.4 (1990): 591-615.

Matson, P. A., et al. "Agricultural Intensification and Ecosystem Properties." Science 277 (1997): 504-509.

Santucci, Fabio Maria. "Organic agriculture in Syria: policy options." New Medit (2010): 47-53.

"Voting with your trolley." The Economist (2006): 1-5.

Agricultural Interlude

As I discussed in the previous post, agriculture is a huge part in the human population discussion. The global food security is highly threatened without any major changes. Agriculturists must utilize advances in science and technology to improve yields, but also develop ecologically friendly techniques of cultivation.

As a Biological Systems Engineering major, I am also interested in GM crops. From other classes, I have learned the benefits of GM crops, from increasing nutritional components to improving crop yields (central for population growth) . However, GM crops remain a sticky topic for most humans across the world. As a result, I have decided to have a second agricultural post, focusing more on GM technology.

Agriculture: Part 2 - GM Crops

As the world population balloons over seven billion people, the food and energy demands across the world pose fundamental questions regarding the use of the world’s finite resources. Today, more than one in seven people still do not have access to sufficient protein and even more suffer from some form of micronutrient malnourishment (Charles, 2010). Recent studies predict a global population of nine billion by mid century, resulting in even greater demands for food, land, water, and energy. Furthermore, global climate change is expected to continue through the century, causing negative effects to food production, as the yields of many important crops decline at higher temperatures (Fedoroff, 2010). In addition, some agricultural land has been lost to urbanization, desertification, salinization, and soil erosion; thus more food must be produced with equal or less amount of land. To meet the recent Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security target of 70% more food by 2050, an average annual increase in production by 38% must be sustained for forty years. This unprecedented scale of sustained increase in global food production requires substantial changes in methods for agronomic processes and crop improvement (Tester, 2010). Fortunately, scientific advancements in the last fifty years have allowed scientists to genetically manipulate plants to genetically modify (GM) crops. This GM technology has increased both the speed and types of genetic changes that can be made to crops because the donor gene pool for crop improvement now includes nearly all organisms. Farmers across the world have employed GM technology and experienced great success, reporting greater yields, decreased usage in insecticide application, while maintaining sustainable practices (Carpenter, 2010). However, GM technology has faced heavy resistance in many countries, as well as strict regulations that have prevented an efficient delivery of the technology (Tester, 2010). But with the reality of global climate change and energy strains, GM technology remains central to global food security for the 21^st century. The world must unite to reduce regulations in GM technology to increase agricultural output and improve nutritional value of foods while maintaining sustainable practices for the long term.

            With rising food requirements to meet the global population increases and little change in the available agricultural area, GM technology successfully answers the call for improvement in crop yields across the world to maximize land usage efficiently. GM traits, such as insect or herbicide tolerance, help increase yields by protecting the crops that would otherwise be lost to insects or weeds. But since the first implementation of GM technology, there have been a number of claims from opponents that GM crops do not increase crop yield. In India, GM cotton yields in Andhra Pradesh were no better than non-GM cotton in 2002, the first year of commercial GM cotton planting. However, the flat yield can be explained by a severe drought in the region and the parental cotton plant used in the genetic engineered variant was not well suited to extreme drought. Unlike in Andhra Pradesh, in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, the GM crops had an average 42% increase in yield with GM cotton in the same year (Qaim, 2006). The differences in yield shows that GM crops can be extremely efficient if well suited for the environment it will grow in. If not, the efficiency of the GM crops is simply equal to non-GM crops. In 2010, an article supported by CropLife International summarized the results of 49 peer reviewed studies on GM crops worldwide. On average, farmers in developed countries experienced an increase in yield of 6% and an increase of 29% in underdeveloped countries (Carpenter, 2010). Since these yield increases are documented as percentages, the increases also depends on how effective a farmer’s weed and insect control programs were before planting a GM crop. If weeds and insects were controlled well before, then the insect and herbicide tolerance traits wouldn’t be the primary factor in increasing yield. In developing nations, resources to control weeds and insects are often limited, so GM crops increase yields substantially more than in developed nations. Hence, the implementation of GM crops in developing countries would greatly improve their quality of life. With increases in crop yield experienced by farmers across the world, GM technology is crucial piece in solving not only the food demands of the 21^st century, but also improving the food quality of the crop.

            In addition to increasing yields across the world, genetic modifications of crop plants using GM technology can also improve the nutritional value of the product. In 2000, scientists modified rice to biosynthesize beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A in the edible part of rice. The golden rice was developed as fortified food to be grown in regions of the world where population faces a shortage of dietary vitamin A. Critics of genetically engineered crops raised various concerns with the golden rice, but most importantly that it did not have sufficient vitamin A ((Ye, 2000). Scientists resolved this problem by developing newer strains of rice, including a new variety called Golden Rice 2, that produced 23 times more beta-carotene than the original variety of golden rice (Paine, 2005). In the last decade, scientists have genetically modified fruits and vegetables to offer higher levels of anti-oxidant vitamins to ward off cancer or heart disease. GM technology allows scientists to improve food quality and develop foods to target deficient populations (Reddy, 2007). This is especially important in regions where access to food is limited and balanced diets are difficult to achieve. Further, there are no documented adverse health effects caused by products approved for sale to date.  Hence, these genetic modifications are only improving the nutritional value of the product. In addition, GM crops reduced insecticide application of Bt crops by 14-76% across the world, according to a 2010 article supported by CropLife International (Carpenter, 2010). These toxic inputs result in less nutritious product, which ultimately harms the consumer (Beus and Dunlap, 1990). As a result, the reduced use of pesticides and insecticides improve the quality of the product as well as minimizing the effects of soil erosion and pollution to water bodies (Berry, 1987). Hence, since the increased use of GM crops will result in more nutritious product while reducing the input of toxic chemicals, GM technology should be utilized as a tool to improve the food quality of the millions of people suffering from an imbalanced diet.

            Despite improvements in yield and quality, strict regulations and high costs have prevented the widespread delivery of GM technology to address the problems of global food security problems. In the United States, there are three major agencies regulating the production and safety of genetically modified food:  the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  As a result, these agencies impose strict regulations on new GM technologies, thereby increasing the production time. Furthermore, these regulations result in high costs during the release of GM crops (Tester, 2010). However, regulations remain important in maintaining the safety of GM crops. In 1996, a GM plant did not reach the market due to it producing an allergic reaction. The allergen was unintentionally transferred from the Brazil nut to genetically engineered soybeans in an attempt to improve the nutritional quality of the soybean. As a result of the allergen, production of the  soybean strain was halted to ensure that none of the soybeans enter the human food chain (Nordlee, 1996). Due to these possible unintended effects, government regulations are still necessary to protect the consumer. However, the strict regulations can perhaps be streamlined with the introduction of a new government agency solely responsible for GM food regulation. This would speed the widespread delivery of GM technologies while maintaining the safety of the products.

            With great social implications for the entire world, humans must address the fundamental issues of global climate change, global population growth, and food production. The world faces humongous challenges of global food security that cannot be addressed without the cooperation and unity of all. Backed by countless scientific studies, GM technology has shown tremendous results in improving yields, raising nutritious content, and decreasing the use of toxic chemicals. While unintended consequences are possible, genetic modifications to food requires some relaxation in its regulation while a streamlined regulation process to allow for smooth, efficient implementations of GM technologies. Since the technology is limited by political and bioethical issues, scientists must continue educating the public about GM technology. But without the public overcoming previous biases about GM crops, the global food security remains highly threatened. 

Literature Cited

Beus, Curtis E and Riley E Dunlap. "Conventional versus Alternative Agriculture: The Paradigmatic Roots of the Debate." Rural Sociology (1990): 591-615.

Carpenter, Janet. "Peer-reviewed surveys indicate positive impact of commercialized GM crops." Nature Biotechnology (2010): 319-321. Journal.

Charles, H and J Godfray. "Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People." Science Magazine 327 (2010): 812-817.

Fedoroff, N V and D S Battisti. "Radically Rethinking Agriculture for the 21st Century." Science 327 (2010): 833-834. Magazine.

Nordless, Julie A and Steve L Taylor. "Identification of a Brazil-Nut Allergen in Transgenic Soybeans." The New England Journal of Medicine (1996): 688-692. Journal.

Paine, Jacqueline, Catherine Shipton and Sunandha Chaggar. "Improving the nutritional value of Golden Rice through increased pro-vitamin A content." Nature Biotechnology 23 (2005): 482-487. Journal.

Qaim, Matin. "Adoption of Bt Cotton and Impact Variability: Insights from India." Oxford Journals (2006): 48-58. Online.

Reddy, Ambavaram. "Flavonoid-Rich GM Rice To Boost Antioxidant Levels." Metabolic Engineering (2007): 95-111. Journal.

Tester, Mark and Peter Langridge. "Breeding Technologies to Increase Crop Production in a Changing World." Science 327 (2010): 818-822. Magazine.

Wendell, Berry. "Six Agricultural Fallacies." Small Farmer's Journal (1987): 12-14. Journal.

Ye, Xudong and Salim Al-Babili. "Engineering the Provitamin A (β-Carotene) Biosynthetic Pathway into (Carotenoid-Free) Rice Endosperm." Science 287 (2000): 303-305. Magazine.

Human Energy Sources

As discussed heavily in class, better energy sources allowed societies to develop and sustain larger populations. In this section, I hope to investigate the energy sources of human societies.

Throughout history, humans have sought to produce the highest efficiency, generating the largest amount of energy with the least amount of human effort. As humans progressed, their sources of energy evolved, from wood to whales to fossil fuels to renewable fuels. This is interesting because human population growth has gone from steady growth for thousands of years to exponential growth after the industrial revolution. 

Pre-industrial societies depended primarily on muscle power and biomass for their energy needs. Biomass consisted primarily of wood. In most areas, wood is the most easily accessible form of fuel, as little industrial or specialized tools are required. Since the Holocene Epoch, humans used wood as fuel source for heating. Furthermore, the humans’ mastery of fire equipped humans with powerful tool unavailable to other species. As a result, humans used fire to ward off dangerous animals while hunting protein-rich food. In the human history, deforestation has a long history. From 3000 BCE, the forests of ancient Near East were cut for the construction of temples and palaces in the kingdoms and empires in the Fertile Crescent. By 2000 BCE, the forests of the Middle East were largely depleted, thus shifting trade and power in the Mediterranean region to Crete and the Greek world because of their timber abundance. At this time, the wood was used for fuel in copper furnaces for producing bronze, the primary export of Crete. After 600 years, the Greeks exhausted the timber on Crete, so trading power shifting to Greece, Macedonia, and Asia.  By the 13^th century, Europe exploited wood for construction of large ships, as trade and commerce expanded mostly by sea. As a result, it was important for European powers to make seaworthy vessels to continue their growth. Towards the end of the 15^th century, there were signs of timber shortage, as Venice began important complete ship hulls from Northern Europe. The exploitation of wood continued for hundreds of years, until the discovery of better fuels.  

The inventions and discoveries of the Industrial Revolution propelled the quest for more powerful energy sources. As more sophisticated mechanical inventions were invented, the need for inexhaustible sources of energy became necessary for industrial uses and transportation.

In the United States during the 19^th century, nearly 2 billion hectares of forest land was cut. The young nation was built on this wood, as cities, railroads, newspapers, insulation, and power were constructed. In addition, large shipping vessels were also constructed, many involved in the whaling industry. In 1851, the United States whaling industry employed over 15,000 sea men and 35,000 on shore to support the endeavor. A single sperm whale could yield 1,900 gallons of oil, equivalent to 63 barrels. Sperm whale were exploited for their oil, which was used for machinery lubrication, Ambergris for perfume, and baleen for umbrellas and bustles. Out of the 700 whaling ships worldwide, over 500 sailed from New England; specifically 429 were registered in New Bedford, one of the richest cities in the world during the time. However, after the peak of the industry in 1851, the whaling industry began declining. First, the US Civil War in 1860 resulted in the US navy commandeering and sinking 40 whaling ships in the blockade of the Confederate Savannah and Charleston harbors. By 1865, only 50% of the fleet remained. In 1871, much of the Artic whaling fleet was crushed in the ice due to hunters traveling far north due to the scarcity of whales. As a result, the year was of financial ruin. By 1875, the United States whaling industry was gone due to diminishing whale population and economics of the industry. In 1971, the United States suspended all commercial whaling.

During the same time as the decline of the whaling industry, the industrial revolution brought other energy sources to the consumer.  In 1859, petroleum was drilled, which was a plentiful energy source that began to replace coal. Oil was distilled into kerosene and used as a lamp oil. As a result, kerosene replaced the dwindling supplies of whale oil used for lamps. Oil became a more desirable fuel source than coal for various reasons. First, coal was an unreliable fuel source due to the labor issues surrounding the mining of coal. Miners lobbied for safer working environments and better wages, which affected the amount of coal available to the consumer. Second, oil emitted less particulate pollution than coal. Finally, it was easier energy source to obtain and transport. Furthermore, in 1861, oil was the liquid fuel for the internal combustion, one of the most influential inventions of the Industrial Revolution, as it allowed moving large metal vehicles over large distances. The fuel of the internal combustion engine was easier to use than shoveling coal into a furnace to power a locomotive.

In the 1920s, American companies pumped accessible oil. However, even as prices dropped, the oil industry suffered because demand could not keep up with supply, causing frequent boom-bust cycles. Oil became an important asset for World War II. With South East Asian oil in contention, the oil shortages were factor in Japan’s attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor. By 1970, the United States oil production peaked, with over 9 million barrels of oil produced every day. In 1971, the United States suspended all commercial whaling.

Today, oil is equated to money and power. There are massive investments in the history of oil production worldwide. As a result, there are wide array of political impacts from this fuel. Oil is necessary for every nation, while production is dominated only by handful of countries. In addition, there are large climate and ecological changes occurring as a consequence of exploiting these fossil fuels. Finally, the cost of oil has been steadily increasing over the last few decades, due to increased demand from countries such as India, China, and Brazil. As a result, within the last 30 years, there’s been greater demand for renewable sources of energy, through solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal power. These renewable sources of energy have potential to shift the economies of the world to a much cleaner fuel source. However, even to this day, oil remains the primary fuel source of the world. 

Literature Cited

·         Smil, Vaclav. Energies: An Illustrated Guide to the Biosphere and Civilization. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1999.

Nye, David E. Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1999.

·         The Deforestation of Mount Lebanon Author(s): Marvin W. Mikesell Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Jan., 1969), pp. 1-28

·         Foster DR, Motzkin G, Slater B. 1998. Land-use history as long-term broad-scale disturbance: Regional forest dynamics in central New England. Ecosystems 1: 96-119.

·         K.J.W. Oosthoek. Undated. The Role of Wood in World History http://www.eh-resources.org/wood.html

·         Aguilar, A. 1986. A Review of Old Basque Whaling and its Effect on the Right Whales (Eubalaena glacialis) of the North Atlantic. Rep. Int. Whal. Commn. (special issue) 10: 191-199.

·         Vickers, D. 1983. The First Whalemen of Nantucket. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 560-583.

·         Baker, S and Clapham, P. J. 2004. Modelling the past and future of whales and whaling. TREE 19: 365-371.Smith, T. D et al. 2012. Spatial and Seasonal Distribution of American

·         Whaling and Whales in the Age of Sail. PLoS1. April 2012. Issue 4.