Just read Steven Earl Salmony's take on some recent population research in Environmental Health Perspectives. This research shows something that not many of us have the stomach to contemplate."According to the empirical research (Hopfenberg 2003), human population growth is a rapidly cycling positive feedback loop in which food availability drives population growth and this growth in human numbers gives rise to the mistaken impression that food production needs to be increased even more."The more we increase food production, the more the population grows, and the more hungry people there are. So we increase food production, which leads to an increase in population, and again there are those who go hungry.In other words, if the population grows, then the population of hungry people grows, too."The evidence suggests that the remarkably successful efforts of humankind to increase food production to feed a growing population results in even greater increase in population numbers."According to Salmony, the researchers call the perceived need to increase food production to feed a growing population "a misperception, a denial of the physical reality of the space-time dimension. If people are starving at a given moment in time, increasing food production cannot help them. Are these starving people supposed to be waiting for sowing, growing, and reaping to be completed? Are they supposed to wait for surpluses to reach them? Without food they would die. In such circumstances, increasing food production for people who are starving is like tossing parachutes to people who have already fallen out of the airplane — the produced food arrives too late."But this does not mean that human starvation is inevitable, says Salmony. Living within the Earth's carrying capacity is the secret."We do not find hoards of starving roaches, birds, squirrels, alligators, or chimpanzees in the absence of food as we do in many civilized human communities today, because these nonhuman species are not annually increasing their own production of food."Among tribal peoples in remote original habitats, we do not find people starving. Like nonhuman species, 'primitive' human beings live within the carrying capacity of their environment. History is replete with examples of early humans and other ancestors not increasing their food production annually, but rather living successfully off the land for thousands of years as hunters and gatherers of food."Before the agricultural revolution and the production of more food than was needed for immediate survival, human numbers supposedly could not grow beyond their environment's physical capacity to sustain them because human population growth or decline is primarily a function of food availability (Hopfenberg 2003; Hopfenberg and Pimentel 2001)."I'm not sure I've wrapped my head around the ramifications of this research, but it certainly says something about unintended consequences.
It's well recognized that environmental degradation is not just dependent on the number of human beings, but also the amount they consume. In searching for ways to lessen humanity's footprint, it's commonly argued that developed countries should decrease their relentless consumption of resources by toning down their materialistic lifestyles. At the same time, poor nations should curb their high population growth rates.
A very important factor is lost in this polemic. Unappreciated is that the United States is not only the most affluent country in the world, but it is also the third most populous with over 300 million souls and growing robustly at 1% per year. Thus, America needs to address both sides of the equation by cutting consumption and curbing its population growth.
US politicians are unaware of the population issue, and wouldn't touch it if they were. A few local groups, however, are beginning to recognize the importance of smaller family sizes. The e-zine "onlychild.typepad.com" is an excellent resource that not only encourages one-child families but also offers advice, information and links for only children and their family and friends.
Having a smaller family can be a difficult decision, but an enormously important one.
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?
According to David Reher, a population historian at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, "historically, a 'large and well-nourished population' has always been considered the sign of a successful society and a successful economy. The very idea of decline and of population shortage is largely foreign to our society, mostly because for several centuries there has been no experience of shrinking population."But, he says, there are several signs that global human population is heading into decline, after two hundred years of unstoppable growth. National fertility rates are dropping nearly everywhere in the world. Women's roles are changing. The processes of modernization have tipped the cost-benefit ratio of having large families, making them uneconomic, especially in urban settings.
"Times of flux are not times that are conducive to optimism about the future," Reher says. "Having children is ultimately an expression of confidence in the future; in the security of the life you can expect your children to be able to lead.""For our children, and especially our grandchildren, persistent population decline — and possibly lower living standards — will likely be the only reality they will ever experience and the times of runaway population growth so prevalent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries will be but a distant memory of the past.""Periods of decline," Reher explains, "have been equated to decadence and to societies that were somehow unable to function properly." He goes on to say that this is "a time of deepening concern about the sustainability of society as we know it."But global population decline isn't happening fast enough to make a difference in our negative impact on the planet.In 1989, Jean Bourgeois-Pichat, a renowned French demographer, suggested that "… l’humanité part de zéro, il y a quelque 600 000 ans, et y retourne vers l’an 2400" (humanity started from nothing 600,000 years ago, and will return to nothing around the year 2400). Perhaps Bourgeois-Pichat was factoring global warming into his population projections?It will be sooner now, however, with the latest climate change research added in. If global overheating is left unchecked (because we don't make the necessary transition to a renewable energy economy fast enough), by 2100 most species on Earth will be condemned to eventual extinction — homo sapiens being no exception.[Reher's paper, Long-term population decline, past and future, was presented at the 2005 International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Conference in Tours, France.
What does NASA's shot of the Earth at night tell us about overpopulation? Check out Europe, Japan, and especially the eastern seaboard of the United States and the Toronto to Montreal corridor in Canada.
Are we that afraid of the dark in the West, or are we just too over-electrified for the size of our populations — and using more power than we deserve to? Sometimes, population issues aren't simply about numbers of people. Chinese Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, points out that his country's per capita emissions of greenhouse gases are still much lower than those of developed countries. "It's like there is one person who eats three slices of bread for breakfast, and there are three people, each of whom eats only one slice. Who should be on a diet?" he asked.
"If per capita energy consumption is viewed in the context of the fundamental principle that people are all born equal, then I don't think some people are justified in talking about the large emissions of China, as if they have the moral high ground."
Hmm. Not sure about that moral high ground, but we sure do have the ground well lit up for us at night.
Demographers at the United Nations and the US Census Bureau project that the world's population will reach a peak of over nine billion by about 2050. That's an increase of about three billion, or 50%, over the present population.The situation looks grim. Peak oil is at hand and oil prices are over $100 per barrel. Grain production has not met grain consumption in seven of the last eight years, and now will fall even shorter as it is diverted for ethanol-fuel manufacture. If we're having trouble now, how will we possibly cope with another three billion people?The nub of the problem is that almost all of this growth will come in the developing world. Their growth rates are much higher than those of developed, industrial countries, who are near to stabilizing their populations. This is a recipe for international disaster. Poor countries, especially in Africa, are already struggling. How can they possibly survive with massive population increases?As Lester Brown says, "failing states are a sign of failing society." Tensions between rich and poor nations will escalate. Terrorism will become rampant. There is a desperate need for programs to help poor nations, not only with family planning programs but also to lift them out of the quagmire of poverty.Yet the world is a topsy-turvy place. The United States has imposed a "global gag" rule that prevents the US from providing family planning programs to poor countries, and also pressures other nations to follow suit. It encourages population growth in countries that cannot offer their young people a decent future. No better policy could be invented to promote future terrorism and societal breakdown.We need to completely rethink how foreign aid is disbursed. We need to think and act outside the box. How can we devise programs that work in partnership with and are welcomed by the receiving countries? That are effective in empowering and educating women? That effectively but humanely lower birth rates?I welcome your ideas.
If there is one thing all politicians, whether capitalists or communists, Republicans or Democrats, agree upon, it is that economic growth is necessary, vital, and the proper goal for all human activity. If the GDP doesn't grow by at least 2% annually it's bad news. Stagnation and recession are "evil" and central banks and economists do everything possible to stimulate the economy to avoid them.
Economic growth is the basic driving force of prosperity — providing jobs, security and an ever increasing standard of living. It is the dogma of policy makers: economic growth in itself is essential. It is vital to the health of society.
But a growing economy doesn't happen by itself. An essential partner is a growing population, which provides more consumers and more workers to purchase and produce the material goods we crave. Thus, a growing economy and a growing population are inextricably tied to each other. They are like two oxen yoked to the same cart, pulling, heaving together.
Economic growth just continues and continues. We have no control. Politicians do not want to slow it. The economy is the god our society worships.
Just read Steven Earl Salmony's take on some recent population research in Environmental Health Perspectives. This research shows something that not many of us have the stomach to contemplate.
