Draft 1
In the last four decades, the average life span has increased and the percent of undernourished people has decreased, as millions of people have lifted themselves out of poverty. This surge of well-being has also contributed to a significant rise in population, and it is uncertain how long the planet can sustain such an increase. Supporting an ever growing population has already proven challenging as the amount of available resources is diminishing and the demand for more resources is increasing. As Charles Mann discusses in his article Can Planet Earth Feed 10 Billion People, the world is divided when it comes to solving the population crisis.
Mann explains that solutions to providing for everyone without destroying the planet fall into two categories: the Prophets and the Wizards. The Prophets, inspired by Willaim Vogt, believe that humankind must reduce consumption and limit the population to avoid devastation. The Wizards, inspired by Norman Borlaug, believe that science and technology will allow us to engineer new ways to provide for everyone. Without a middle ground, disputes between the Wizards and the Prophets prevent a solution from being made to address the immediate concern of population rise. However, a solution may be simpler than we think.
Lizzie Widdecombe, a reporter for the New Yorker, closely followed Rob Rhinehart and his creation of Soylent, a liquid meal replacement. In her article The End of Food, she wrote about Rhinehart’s background and his conservative yet unconventional ideals. As an ambitious engineer, Rhinehart developed a liquid meal replacement composed of only the most necessary chemical component to survival to limit the amount of time and money he spend indulging in more conventional meals. While Soylent was not initially created to help feed a growing population, this nutrient mixture may be the perfect middle ground for the Prophets and the Wizards in addressing the population crisis.
One of the most pressing issues regarding the population rise is providing enough food for everyone with limited space for farming. For the Wizards, the most obvious solution to this problem is to create genetically modified crops that can produce the highest yields and the most usable energy per grain. However, modifying grains has proven to be extremely difficult and other chemicals to increase yield have further damaged ecosystems and contributed to global warming. For example, Mann explains “About 40 percent of the fertilizer applied in the past 60 years was not absorbed by plants. Instead, it washed away into rivers or seeped into the air in the form of nitrous oxides” (Mann 8). When absorbed into a water source, fertilizer allows algae and weeds to grow, depleting the available oxygen in the water and killing off other life. Fertilizer that has become nitrous oxide is a major pollutant that destroys the planet’s ozone, allowing harmful UV rays into the atmosphere. Thus many of the new technologies the Wizards intended to increase the amount of nutrients available to the population have actually been detrimental to the environment.
With Rhinehart’s Soylent, we can provide food to a growing population without the use of harmful chemicals. Rhinehart notes that “technological advances have created a new wave of anxiety about our edible present, and a growing nostalgia for a time before corporate lobbies, genetically modified vegetables, industrial farming, and the weed killer Roundup” (Widdecombe 5). As we experiment with new technologies to provide more food, we have created a cascade of detrimental effects to the planet and even our own health. Rhinehart’s scientific approach to his eating habits is much more reserved and even healthier for the planet. In this sense, Rhinehart adheres to the Wizards’ idea of utilizing science to create nourishment, without contributing to fertilizer pollution and global warming.
Rhinehart’s Soylent also follows the Prophet’s idea of reducing the amount of materials and chemicals used. For example, Widdecombe reports that “In the formula that he and his teammates have settled on, the major food groups are all accounted for: the lipids come from canola oil; the carbohydrates from maltodextrin and oat flower; and the protein from rice” (Widdecombe 6). Essentially, Rhinehart and his team reduced the unnecessary ingredients in food, essentially limiting the amount of food used per serving. If Soylent were used to feed a growing population, limiting our indulgence in unnecessary ingredients would free up more materials, and keep us from depleting all of the world’s resources too quickly.
Draft 2
In the last four decades, the average life span has increased and the percent of undernourished people has decreased, as millions of people have lifted themselves out of poverty. This surge of well-being has also contributed to a significant rise in population, and it is uncertain how long the planet can sustain such an increase. Supporting an ever growing population has already proven challenging as the amount of available resources is diminishing and the demand for more resources is increasing. As Charles Mann discusses in his article Can Planet Earth Feed 10 Billion People, the world is divided when it comes to solving the population crisis. Mann explains that solutions to providing for everyone without destroying the planet fall into two categories: the Prophets and the Wizards. The Prophets, inspired by Willaim Vogt, believe that humankind must reduce consumption and limit the population to avoid devastation. The Wizards, inspired by Norman Borlaug, believe that science and technology will allow us to engineer new ways to provide for everyone. Without a middle ground, disputes between the Wizards and the Prophets prevent a solution from being made to address the immediate concern of population rise. Mann points out that a solution must be made quickly in order to feed future populations. However, a solution may be simpler than we think.
Lizzie Widdecombe, a reporter for the New Yorker, closely followed Rob Rhinehart and his creation of Soylent, a liquid meal replacement. In her article The End of Food, she wrote about Rhinehart’s background and his conservative yet unconventional ideals. As an ambitious engineer, Rhinehart developed a liquid meal replacement composed of only the most necessary chemical component to survival to limit the amount of time and money he spends indulging in more conventional meals. While Soylent was not initially created to help feed a growing population, I believe that this nutrient mixture may be the perfect middle ground for the Prophets and the Wizards in addressing the population crisis.
One of the most pressing issues regarding the population rise is providing enough food for everyone with limited space for farming. For the Wizards, the most obvious solution to this problem is to create genetically modified crops that can produce the highest yields and the most usable energy per grain. However, modifying grains has proven to be extremely difficult, and other chemicals utilized to increase yield have further damaged ecosystems and contributed to global warming. For example, Mann explains “About 40 percent of the fertilizer applied in the past 60 years was not absorbed by plants. Instead, it washed away into rivers or seeped into the air in the form of nitrous oxides” (Mann 8). When absorbed into a water source, fertilizer allows algae and weeds to grow, depleting the available oxygen in the water and killing off other life. Fertilizer that has become nitrous oxide is a major pollutant that destroys the planet’s ozone, allowing harmful UV rays into the atmosphere. While I think it is an excellent idea, many of the new technologies the Wizards intended to increase the amount of nutrients available to the population have actually been detrimental to the environment, and we need to consider another approach.
With Rhinehart’s Soylent, we can provide food to a growing population without the use of harmful chemicals. Rhinehart notes that “technological advances have created a new wave of anxiety about our edible present, and a growing nostalgia for a time before corporate lobbies, genetically modified vegetables, industrial farming, and the weed killer Roundup” (Widdecombe 5). As we experiment with new technologies to provide more food, we have created a cascade of detrimental effects to the planet and even our own health. Rhinehart’s scientific approach to his eating habits is much more reserved and even healthier for the planet. In this sense, Rhinehart adheres to the Wizards’ idea of utilizing science to create nourishment, without contributing to fertilizer pollution and global warming. I would argue that this is a much better alternative to fertilizers and chemicals, and a much more effective scientific approach to addressing the food shortage problem.
Rhinehart’s Soylent also follows the Prophet’s idea of reducing the amount of materials and chemicals used. For example, Widdecombe reports that “In the formula that he and his teammates have settled on, the major food groups are all accounted for: the lipids come from canola oil; the carbohydrates from maltodextrin and oat flower; and the protein from rice” (Widdecombe 6). Essentially, Rhinehart and his team reduced the unnecessary ingredients in food, essentially limiting the amount of food used per serving. If Soylent were used to feed a growing population, limiting our indulgence in unnecessary ingredients would free up more materials, and keep us from depleting all of the world’s resources too quickly. I think, this reflects the Prophets approach to population rise, inspired by Vogt. Vogt founded “the belief that unless humankind drastically reduces consumption and limits population, it will ravage global ecosystems… If we continue taking more than the Earth can give, he said, the unavoidable result will be devastation on a global scale” (Mann 2). Essentially, the Prophets believe that we must reduce our consumption in order to refrain from depleting all of Earth’s resources. If we were to decrease our indulgences like Rhinehart and his team, we will use much less and have more nutrients to feed a growing population. Although many people are increasing their wealth, it would be necessary to not increase our indulgences, and cut back to save more food for more people.
Wizards argue that Prophet-style farming would not produce enough crops to feed a growing population. This is true, since they do not employ many technologies to increase the yield per area. As Mann describes, “even though the global population in 2050 will be just 25 percent higher than it is now, typical projections claim that farmers will have to boost food output by 50 to 100 percent” (6). Such an increase in population will require a much higher yield in produced food, which is a monsterous task considering we will not have much land availability to grow more food. As a solution, the Wizards propose that we create new technologies to genetically modify pre-existing crops to use more of the plant. In the meantime, this has proven very difficult and unsuccessful. However, Soylent could be used as a temporary solution to feed more people without having to increase farming lands and genetically modify plants. We could use current technologies to create meal supplements such as Soylent. Rhinehart states, “‘we won’t need farms’ to make Soylent, he said. Better yet, he added, would be to design a Soylent-producing ‘superorganism’: a single strain of algae that pumps out Soylent all day. Then we won’t need factories” (Widdecombe 17). In my opinion, producing Soylent is the perfect solution to the conflicts between modifying plants and increasing farming lands. We could utilize technology that we already have to feed an ever-growing population while we experiment with modifying crops.
Solving the population crisis between the Wizards and the Prophets is synonymous with picking the lesser of the two evils. Should we reduce our consumptions in an attempt to conserve our resources and not produce more food, or should we use technology to try to increase crop yield and risk polluting our planet and depleting all of Earth’s natural resources? With a mindset like Rhinehart’s, we have a middle ground between the Prophets and the Wizards to feed a growing population. Rhinehart’s Soylent is designed to reduce consumption and money, like the Prophets propose. Soylent also follows the Wizards’ ingenuity value, as Rhinehart was able to engineer a mixture of the necessary chemical components to survive. I do not propose that Soylent replace the population’s entire food source, but could be an excellent supplement to one’s diet to conserve more food and reduce unnecessary indulgences, and would thus preserve more food for an ever-growing world. Just as Mann calls for, we can use Rhinehart’s conservative yet ingenious values to create an immediate solution to the growing population crisis.
Final Draft
