There are some universal taboos and cannibalism is right there at the top of the pile, jostling for first place with paedophilia. It would be surprising if there were not a strong taboo against eating people. Historically, there have been several very good reasons for its existence. Eating people can be bad for your health. There can be lethal sanctions and prion diseases like Kuru and nvCJD¹ to consider. However, times have changed. Medical science can find ways round some of those disincentives to consuming our kin.

A few problems are looming on the horizon that could make us rethink our old aversions. Population pressures are increasing. Renewable resources cannot keep up. Non-renewable resources are running out. The environment is getting hot and polluted. Humanity is driving a mass extinction event. It appears that we don't have the capacity to co-ordinate an effective response. And by the time governments are prepared to act², rather than just talk about acting, we may have run out of time and options.

What we're hoping, of course, is that somehow things will just sort themselves out, or some clever boffin will invent an inexhaustible source of food and fuel, or another 10 Earth-like planets will be discovered to accommodate us all. That won't happen. What will happen then? Things will turn ugly. The people of Easter Island could give us a clue, if they were still around to tell their tale.

Our species has been very successful. We're clever, adaptable and fecund. We can live in almost every type of environment on the surface of this planet. The problem is, the surface of our planet and the resources we require to sustain our growing numbers, are finite, whereas our population growth and appetite for 'stuff', seems potentially infinite.

Global warming, whether caused by us or not, really is happening, and the consequences for us will be dire.

Desertification and

rising sea levels

are reducing the area of land that can accommodate us, our crops and our domesticated animals. So an ever-growing human population will have to fit into a shrinking space, and survive on increasingly limited rations. Once deforestation is complete, and the trees have been replaced with cattle and crops - for a few years, until the process of soil erosion and desertification sets in - there's nowhere else for us to go. Well, there is Antarctica - but with the Arctic ice gone and islands disappearing beneath the waves, we are going to find ourselves overcrowded and under-nourished.

Perhaps we could take relatively modest measures to avert catastrophe, before we reach the point of no return. But some believe that point has already been reached in any case.

James Lovelock

for one. He might be wrong. In the meantime, it would be sensible to give desperate measures some careful thought, while we are still able to discuss them as civilised people. Do we still really need that cannibalism taboo? Could we possibly see it as a valid solution to some of the problems that we are growing for ourselves? Or would we need to descend into barbarism before we could even start to think about it?

We don't like cannibalism

Human beings have never cared for the idea of being eaten³ - not by anything, and least of all by other humans. The reasons for this, range from sentiment and superstition to hygiene and revulsion. Some are obvious and easy to explain.

The simplest reason of all to understand, is our desire to remain alive and healthy. We need look no further than our natural survival instincts for explanation. Other reasons are more esoteric.

Embalming, lead-lined coffins, elaborate tombs and mausolea like palaces, have been used to keep dead flesh 'fresh' and ready for re-use by its original owner. The notion of allowing scavengers, worms, bacteria or other environmental recyclers to have access to it, would have seemed outrageous to those who imagined they were going to need this material in an afterlife.

As for the possibility of being taken by predators - that was completely out of the question. Wolves and bears were first demonised and then wiped out completely in Britain. They and other large predators fared only slightly better elsewhere. Such is our fear of other predators that, after the film

'Jaws'

was released, the great white shark soon became an endangered species. And they, an aquatic species that rarely comes into contact with humans, had the whole, vast ocean in which to hide from us.

The idea of being murdered for our flesh, by another human being though, is particularly abhorrent to us. Our horror of that prospect has spawned myths like

The Wendigo and countless zombie, vampire and werewolf books and films. That something so rare - and almost non-existent now, in the 21st Century - can stimulate such a reaction, is an indication of how deep-rooted our fear of cannibalism is.

The good, the bad and the hungry

For some people there can be no justification for cannibalism. To them, it's indefensible - no matter how rational it may seem to others. Good people do not eat each other - not under any circumstances. It's an uncomplicated view if it's seen as a simple choice between good and evil. Starve and go to heaven or eat and go to hell. They would sooner die than even consider cannibalism.

There is another way of looking at it though. To those who are not anticipating any sort of afterlife, this life is precious. They want to hang on to it as long as possible. Their survival instinct is strong. They may wish to leave descendants. Perhaps they already have children and are determined to ensure their survival too. What would loving parents not be willing to do in order to save the lives of their children?

Charles Darwin's idea of natural selection and Richard Dawkins' selfish gene perhaps offer a more positive view of cannibalism. History is peppered with tales of famine. How many alive today, have not a single ancestor who experienced famine, throughout all the millennia of human existence? Any one of us might be descended from a person who resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. It's possible that any one of us might not be here today if that ancestor had not succumbed to their hunger, and tucked in to a neighbour. It could be you. Your whole family tree dissolved, your children never born, if that ancestor had chosen death before cannibalism.

Before we condemn anyone for eating the flesh of another human being, we should try to imagine how real gnawing hunger - the hunger of starvation - feels:

The will to live is strong and there's absolutely nothing that you would normally regard as food, available anywhere. There may be a few cockroaches. All the dogs and cats have already been eaten. Your neighbours are starving, growing weak and dying all around you. You might eat the cockroaches if you're still quick enough to catch them. If you're a 'good' person, you will just stand by and watch your children die, then curl up in a corner somewhere and die yourself. If you're a 'bad' person, your mind may wander into dangerous territory. The flesh of your expiring neighbours could sustain you and your family until proper food is available once more.

Eventually the rain clouds roll in and drop their load, the crops grow again and Darwinian natural selection has worked for the cannibal - the one with the strong survival instinct. And the man or woman who allowed his/her family to die, leaves no descendants.

People come in all sorts - good, bad, mad - or a mixture of positives and negatives that serve to make them more complicated. It's the same with people who are or have been cannibals. There will be perfectly nice, ordinary folks, who would only resort to cannibalism in the extremity of despair. Then there are criminals like

Sawney Bean,

who made murder and cannibalism a lifestyle choice. He and his whole family were executed without trial, as soon as they were discovered. So, from the selfish gene's point of view, he was a pathetic failure. Perhaps he and his whole family were mad. Insanity can be used as a defence for anything, including cannibalism. Of course, cannibalism can also lead to madness if you're not careful about who you eat.

It's hard to imagine just how hellish conditions could become, if the climate change scientists are right. It won't be a short-term, localised event - but the whole world for the foreseeable future. If you think a handful of famished sailors or a ravenous party of prospectors can turn ugly, imagine how disagreeable six to twelve billion hungry people will be. And whilst they're desperately casting about for something - anything - to eat, they're also trying to squeeze themselves into the more temperate areas of the world, that are still above sea level. Anyone already living in such areas, can look forward to a lot of new neighbours.

Overcoming our natural aversion

When we've painted ourselves into a corner, where desperate solutions are all that we have left, we might be forced to re-examine our attitude to cannibalism with a cold, rational eye and find a humane way to proceed with it. But maybe we shouldn't wait. It might be wise to prepare ourselves for all contingencies - and think the 'unthinkable' right now. In the bleak future that possibly awaits us, it'll be difficult to keep a firm hold on our humanity and avoid the pitfalls that swallowed other civilisations that 'went cannibal'. The state of barbarism is not conducive to rational thought and discussion.

If we examine all the aspects of cannibalism unemotionally, we may find that it's a less terrible act than we at first supposed. It needn't involve murder or compulsion

⁴.

Conditions are changing and we have to be flexible. Our behaviour and attitudes can change in response to the new situations that confront us. We can make a virtue out of necessity. Once upon a time, people would have thrown up their hands in horror at the notion of blood transfusion and organ donation. Now those practices are common and we are all encouraged to play our part: to donate and thereby extend the lives of strangers who need our flesh.

So, some⁵ are already comfortable with one form of cannibalism. Those in need are welcome to our blood, that we can replace when living, and our flesh, that we no longer require when dead. Some generous souls even donate kidneys while they're still alive. Neither donor nor recipient is frowned upon by our society. The donor is praised and admired whilst the recipient has our pity and our best wishes for a speedy recovery.

It seems a small step, in this age of medical science - when people are so much less concerned about the fate of their mortal remains than used to be the case in earlier, more superstitious times - to persuade them to donate their flesh to those who would otherwise go hungry. As an added bonus, precious space and fuel would be conserved without the need for burials or cremations.

It needn't be a

'Soylent Green'

kind of world, if there's wide-spread consensus about what happens to our bodies after we've finished with them. A mainly vegetarian diet⁶, supplemented by the cunningly processed and disguised flesh of deceased human beings could sustain a large population. Cannibalism could be seen as a sane and humane solution to a difficult problem.

Getting started

We know what we're like, don't we? A few look forward gleefully to 'The Apocalypse'. Some have developed a taste for destruction. But most of us have just donned our peril-chromatic goggles⁷ and plugged our iPods into our ears. When the levee breaks, all the peril-sensitive shades and other clever little gizmos - our awareness avoidance techniques - will be washed away, together with the flimsy veneer of civilisation that we thought was so robust and permanent.

Most of our politicians seem to be concentrating on keeping order, or growing the economy and pretending that higher levels of trade, manufacturing and consumption are compatible with preserving a people-friendly environment. They can see what's coming just as well, if not better than, any of us. Are they preparing to crush the coming revolution? Are they quietly squirreling away supplies in secret bunkers for themselves and their families, whilst giving anodyne assurances to the rest of us? We, who live in a democracy, can sweep this useless bunch of wasters away and vote for a New Reality Party. Anyone could put themselves up for election.

Perhaps the mere threat of being unseated, might galvanise our elected representatives into action. In the meantime, we can draw up our own plans without their help, if we must. A 'Thin End of the Wedge' co-ordinating committee could be set up to ensure a safe and orderly adoption of cannibalism when the time is right. Initially, their role could be to construct an internet web site where people would be able to read the message, sign up, make donations, start petitions etc. As the movement grew, they could reach out to the wider population, persuading people of the need to modify their dietary prejudices.

When the migrations and food shortages have finally caught everyone's attention, members would work to suppress the rise of tribalism and the use of cannibalism as a tool of terror. This would be vital, though it might prove difficult.

As soon as sufficient funds are available, and the legislation is in place, testing laboratories could be set up, attached to processing plants. There might be a system whereby all corpses arrived at the receiving end of the factory to be tested for such diseases as kuru. Any corpse testing positive for the brain diseases would then be side-tracked to a brain and nervous tissue stripping unit, before rejoining the main conveyor, through to food processing. There, they could be rendered down and reconstituted into something that was not recognisably human.

The time for procrastination has passed. The wheels are in motion. It's time to act, before this juggernaut runs right over us.