Old News

While cleaning out some files recently I came across a newspaper article dated 1994. "Earth has too many people" shouted the headline. A study at Cornell University led by Professor David Pimentel had concluded that the human population must fall substantially to an optimum of — get this! — between one and two billion. With this population the Earth can provide the water and fertile land necessary for a diverse, nutritious diet of plant and animal products. Otherwise enormous numbers of people will live in misery, poverty, disease and starvation. The study stated that the population could be brought to below two billion by 2100 if each couple had only 1.5 children.

Similar studies by the United Nations, the World Wildlife Foundation and Professor William Rees and his colleagues at the University of British Columbia also conclude that human population exceeds the carrying capacity of the Earth. They feel that a sustainable human population is in the four to six billion range. These are trusted and respected organizations with learned, reputable researchers. The validity of their studies is not in doubt.

Yet their results are buried on the back pages, ignored and treated as mere curiosity. No one is taking action. Instead, we march in the opposite direction. The world's population has increased by just over one billion since the 1994 study, and the count keeps ticking upward.
Signs of a teetering world are everywhere: war in Iraq, genocide in Darfur, food riots, peak oil, fisheries wiped out and now the biggest recession since the 1930s. This can't possibly end well.

How long can the pressure keep building? What will it take to get us talking seriously about population?

Erasing Poverty?

A solution commonly proposed to solve the world's overpopulation and related pollution and resource shortages is to eradicate poverty in the so-called non-developed nations. Once these people achieve good lifestyles, goes the thinking, they will not want large families and their economies will be able to afford pollution controls. We'll all live happily afterwards.

Noble as this goal might be, it is completely and totally unachievable. There are two reasons. Throughout history a gap has existed between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the lords and the peasants, the wealthy and the working class. There is not a shred of evidence that this unfortunate but basic part of the human drive will change. Humans will always fight hard to climb the ladder of success and if some have to be trampled en route, tough luck. Sorry, but poverty in the form of poor nations—and a poor stratum even in wealthy nations—will be with us for the foreseeable future.

Even more important is that the Earth simply does not contain enough resources to lift two billion people out of poverty. As the United Nations and other organizations point out, we are already living far beyond the carrying capacity of the globe. Additional refrigerators, cars, televisions, roads, houses and the energy to power these goods cannot be supplied to the poor without ruining the world. In short, the rich and comfortable are already living beyond the world's capacity; there simply is no room at the party for more. The poor nations, which also have the greatest population growths, are condemned to lives of poverty. There is no escape.

Do you agree? Do you think that technology can overcome the impending crises of oil, food and water? How can we save the poor? I don't think we can, but I want to hear from you.

Surviving Converging Catastrophes

The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005) makes a spell-binding — and frightening — read.

He convincingly postulates that the enormous surge in human population to almost seven billion people has only been possible because of oil, which allowed humans to far exceed the Earth's carrying capacity.

Now that peak oil has been reached he bleakly predicts a breakdown of civilization. Because nothing, not solar, wind nor any other energy source, can replace the convenience, the versatility, the energy content of oil.

Less and less oil will be produced each year, as the population continues to grow robustly. Agricultural output will decrease, for the Green Revolution is based primarily on oil-based fertilizers and pesticides and oil-powered irrigation.

Society will retreat from globalization and become more localized. Diseases will spread rampantly to reduce the population to what Kunstler calls the "solar capacity" level.

The Long Emergency is fascinating, and very compellingly urges us to take action. Will we?

Signs that the Human Population is Too Large

Several organizations, including the United Nations, have scientifically calculated that human beings have exceeded the carrying capacity of this good planet—that we are now using (considerably) more resources than the Earth is creating. In other words, since about 1980, we have not been living off the interest, we have been drawing down the bank balance. This is definitely not sustainable.

I also look at this issue from an emotional (qualitative) view. Here are some images and experiences that are not proof, but vivid signs or symbols to me that the population is simply too large.

• A crowded swimming pool in China (click on photo to enlarge it). Is this really a fun way to spend a sunny day?
• Gridlock across all 16 lanes of Highway 401 across the top of Toronto every rush hour.
• The ozone hole over the poles. This was the first major environmental problem on a global scale. It was caused by too many people using spray cans and air-conditioning.
• Professional "pushers" shoving people into a crowded Tokyo subway car (photo thanks to Scott-5x5)

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• Haze ruining the view at the Grand Canyon. This shouldn't happen in a remote area far from factories and cities.
• That almost all commercial fisheries will be wiped out by 2050. We are ransacking a huge larder of self-replenishing protein.
• Oil is $100 per barrel or more.
• Global warming and our inability (or unwillingness) to deal with it.