The Overpopulation Myth
October 29, 2007A young college freshman recently came home with some fun items from a campus “health organization.” Included in the freebies, among other things, was a package of condoms and a t-shirt with some jokes about global overpopulation. The issue of global overpopulation is not a joke at the UN according to its latest “Geo-4 Report,” but the subject is spurious at best.
I am fully aware that the notion that overpopulation isn’t a problem is hard to swallow, but that’s because we have been force fed this notion without reference or information since as far back as I can remember. The reasons are numerous, and mostly it is all due to political agenda (which differs depending on the group you talk to and can range from benign to insidious).
One of the key statistics that is used is birth rate, where current birth rates are used to project constantly upward trends in population growth. However, that’s an incredibly poor use of the statistics in front of us. The real keys are fertility rates and population density. Fertility rate is the best indicator of future population dynamics, and population density is key to seeing just how much space we are using on this planet in terms of available area. Why these statistics, particularly fertility rates, are not discussed is beyond me.
Fertility rate is a simple statistic that tells you how may children each woman has during her fertile life. If the fertility rate is at 2.0, then that means that the woman is only producing enough children to replace herself and the father. Which, of course, means eventual and complete population stagnation. Above 2.0 means there will be population growth, and below 2.0 means the population is actually going to shrink.
To use a simple example for this to explain it better, let’s say in our experimental population that each woman has 2 kids by age 20 and lives until she is 60 with a 2.0 fertility rate. Also, we’re going to consider “incest” ok to avoid cross-population movement (although such movement would all equal out in the end).
1.) M1 and F1 have 2 kids, M2 and F2. 1’s are 20. Population has doubled.
2.) M2 and F2 have 2 kids, M3 and F3. 1’s are 40. 2’s are 20. Population has risen by 50%.
3.) M3 and F3 have 2 kids, M4 and F4. 2’s are 40. 3’s are 20. But, 1’s have now passed away. Population stagnates and there is no growth.
At this point, the population will remain constant until the fertility rate increases or decreases. However, in the first two generations, if you only took birth rate into account, you could easily predict continuing future growth. That’s why simply using birth rates is deceptive.
Now, look at global fertility rates. You should see that nearly 40% of the world’s countries have fertility rates from 0 to 2.4. That’s anywhere from near stagnation to actual population loss, especially when mortality is taken into account. Because of mortality, a birth rate of 2.33 is generally seen as the replacement level (whereas 2.0 is theoretical), but it could be anywhere from 2.1 to around 3.3 depending on mortality and other circumstances. And the global average? 2.9. And, since the higher fertility rates are from third world and agrarian societies, it’s easy to see that currently we aren’t exactly going overboard.
The funny thing is that the UN has consistently for over a decade or more downgraded their estimates and predictions in terms of population growth. And that is because there is a lag between birth rates and fertility rates. As a fertility rate continues to reach the replacement level, the birth rate is still going to show increase consistently until, like my example showed, you reach the plateau. And, in our case, the world’s fertility rate has been on a very steady decline. I’m still baffled that the “experts” at the UN haven’t figured this out yet.
Now, look at population density. You should see large swaths of land with 10 people per square km or less. Even excluding the rain forests in South America and the Sahara, there is still a ton of land. As we advance as a society, more and more land has (and will) become usable for human growth, and there is plenty of it. If you also include the comfortable levels of 11-40 people per square km, then you should further see how much space there truly is on the face of this planet. We are far, far away from ever causing a shortage of land for human existence, especially with fertility rates the way they are currently.
Take all of that into account when reading this article from Investor’s Business Daily. The data is facinating:
“In “The Improving State of the World,” for instance, scientist Indur Goklany notes that worldwide life expectancies have more than doubled — from 31 years to 67 — in just the past century. In poor countries, the share suffering from chronic hunger plunged from 37% in 1970 to 17% in 2001, even as population soared 83%.
Even the definition of “poor” has changed, because average annual incomes in poor countries have more than tripled in real terms since 1950. Just since 1981, the share of the world’s population living in poverty has been halved, from 40% to 20%.”
So, the population has grown, nearly doubled, since 1970, yet life expectancy has doubled (which also contributes to population growth in the short term) and the population of hungry and poor in the world has dwindled significantly. How can this be? If overpopulation and over-consumption are problems, how can we feed more and live healthier, longer lives while the population is growing out of control? You’d think it would be the opposite. More mouths to feed and less resource availability, right?
The key to this is wealth and innovation, which are both fostered by greater individual freedoms. This is why a place like Vegas, in the middle of a desert, Miami, in the middle of a hurricane zone, and San Diego, in the middle of a dry forest fire hazard, can house substantial human populations. The more we move towards greater freedoms, the more this planet will be able to sustain us while we simultaneously stay good stewards. But, with the current trend in fertility rates, it won’t even be necessary to take it to its furthest extreme because we’ll never arrive there.
And the UN’s answer? The same socialist clap-trap. Population control. Extreme environmentalism. Limitations on human freedoms. It’s just so sad that so many fall for this ideology when it couldn’t be any further from the truth and any more wrong.
Interesting. Have you noticed that the major three grain crops that provide the bulk of the world’s calories are all down? We’re producing less grain year over year than we used to produce. Have you noticed that ocean fisheries output is declining year over year since 1983, despite improved fishing technology? A billion people in the world rely on ocean fish for the bulk of their protein.
With widespread desertification on the rise, with huge hypoxic dead zones in the worlds oceans, with food already in decline and population still increasing, you seem to think that we can continue to increase population??!!?
News flash. The current population is not sustainable. The only reason the world is currently supporting such numbers of humans is because we’re stealing food out of the mouths of our children and grandchildren to feed ourselves.
Here’s an excellent book that I’d highly recommend reading that will detail this and many other issues much better than I can.
http://tinyurl.com/yvgvk6
I’m sorry. That tinyurl I posted is to my own books page. This is the URL I intended to post.
http://tinyurl.com/2ymqvn
Mike responds:
Thanks for the comments! I always like seeing that someone out there is reading my thoughts.
So, about your comment: grains are down since when? A few years ago?
Here is a chart from the same web source as the book you provided:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Grain/2006_data.htm#fig3
I see a pretty constant, linear growth in grain production and consumption with oscillations based upon supply and demand. It seems that, over the last 50 years or so, every single time consumption exceeded supply, the supply eventually compensated past consumption needs. I actually can’t think of any better supply and demand chart than that one I just provided. What makes you think, based upon that data, that the supply is going to continue on an ever advancing downward trend?
Another take-home point about that data is that grain production has more than doubled over the last 50 years. Over that same period, the population has nearly doubled. Everything seems to be on track, and I don’t see any signs of that changing towards a horrible downward trend, especially when included with the scientific advances that have allowed us to grow more crops in shorter time spans and fortify the crops we currently have. And let’s not forget that this is all in spite of the current push for ethanol and a rise in crop usage for corn to produce fuel instead of food.
And dead zones are not irreversible. Several “dead zones” have been reversed over the years with fishing becoming more and more productive in the process, such as the Black Sea and the Rhine River. Still, I see no indication that it is a growing problem and I also don’t see any indication that it is a completely man-made (i.e., population based) problem. In fact, a lot of it is a natural phenomenon. Like I said earlier, advances in technology have allowed us to reverse this and use previously unusable natural regions.
Also, it simply isn’t true that fishing production is decreasing. Here, the UN shows significant growth in Africa, for instance, from 81,000 tons in 1990 to 531,000 tons in 2003:
http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol20no1/fishing-chart.gif
And here is a worldwide graph from 1950 to 2000 for total fishing output, showing a nearly 110 million ton increase over the period from 20 million tons to about 130 million tons:
http://earthtrends.wri.org/images/aquaculture.JPG
And how are we “stealing food from our children and grandchildren?” The portion of the population suffering from chronic hunger has dropped from 37% to 17% over the past 40 or so years.
The fact is that there is no risk of overpopulation and overconsumption. The more technologically advanced we become, the greater ability we have of being good stewards while simultaneously using this planet for our needs. And so far, there really aren’t any indications that we are reaching critical mass or that this is actually a problem in the first place.
Hi Mike,
Re: Grain production.
I’m having a little trouble finding the exact statistics I was looking for. It is possible that I am confusing statistics from this book with statistics from Collapse, by Jared Diamond.
One section of this book that discusses the issue starts from the issue of water use.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/PB2ch3_ss2.htm
However, the section I was specifically looking for, but can’t find at the moment, was the one dealing with the number of days of surplus grain, as a more meaningful indicator as it also includes population in it’s numbers. A reduction in our surplus grain also indicates a lessened ability to deal with any drought that comes along, such as the enormous one we’re currently experiencing.
If I find the statistics again, I will post them.
Re: Fish.
As pointed out in this section, the peak fisheries output was in 1997.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/PB2ch5_ss6.htm
Many studies since are showing that the ocean fisheries on which we depend are about 90% depleted.
Your essay, detailing the math of global population, has been nominated for Hot Stuff Of The Week by one of our readers over at GNMParents. Congrats and good luck in the voting!
Mike responds:
@Stu Mark:
Thanks! I look forward to seeing the results!
@Misanthropic Scott:
Re: Grain
The information you are looking for is in the link I provided as well if you scroll down a bit. Again, there is no indication of anything other than oscillation in regards to the market, with the notable difference being that there is a baseline for reference where you want the number to be at or above.
As for water usage, I can’t claim to be an expert, but I question the website’s usage of the data, most notably how it discusses at length the problems with fossil aquifiers and their usage. However, in the opening paragraphs, it explicitly states “Most of the aquifers in India and the shallow aquifer under the North China Plain are replenishable. When these are depleted, the maximum rate of pumping is automatically reduced to the rate of recharge.” The site gives no indication as to what percentage of the aquifiers used are fossil, what is the current rate of usage of replenishable aquifiers, what is the rate of replenishment, etc.
Also, let’s not forget that it is still propagating the myth of this horrible grain decline over the last few years, which I dispelled earlier when showing grain production over the past 50 or so years.
Again, this isn’t even considering the vast amounts of crops being grown for ethanol production. Scroll down a bit more on the link I provided and you’ll see that US corn exports were equivalent to the amount of corn used for ethanol. We could double our corn exports simply by using our corn for food rather than fuel. But, the problem lies in the fact that it is more profitable to grow it for fuel rather than food, and that trend will only grow if the government continues to put an emphasis on it. But, that’s a different subject entirely.
Re: Fish
I looked into it, and that 90% number is completely questionable. The Myers article, which is relied upon, has been widely criticized and called fundamentally flawed, even called completely irrelevant in regards to large pelagics. There is an entire website from the Pelagic Fisheries Research Program at the University of Hawaii tracking all of the articles refuting or deeply calling into question the Myers article:
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/PFRP/large_pelagics/large_pelagic_predators.html
You’re link is, unfortunately, another example of coming up with a conclusion and then trying to find science (i.e., the Myers article) that supports it. You’d get a different result if you asked a question and then came up with an answer based upon your research. In this case, if you asked about the statuts of fisheries, you’d get the Myers article, but you’d also get all of the numerous articles that the University of Hawaii website provides. Which, of course, gives you an entirely different picture. That’s the inherent problem when politics and science collide, and more often than not “sustainable growth” and “population control” are political in nature.
Again, look at the numebrs I provided. If the “fisheries we depend on” are 90% depleted, the huge growth in fishing output, particularly in Africa, would be absolutely impossible.
Finally, take a closer look at the fishing output graph I provided. You’ll notice a large growth in aquaculture production. This is exactly what I’m referring to in regards to science being able to provide for a growing population. The more we can rely upon aquaculture fisheries (which require smaller spaces), the less we’ll need to rely upon wild fisheries. For instance, over the last 20 years wild captures only increased by about 10 million MT, while aquaculture grew by about 35 or 40 million metric tons from 5 metric tons in the same time period.
I simply fail to see where the crisis is. All I see is a planet keeping up with us and science that allows us to be even more sustainable while becoming greater stewards.
Sorry, you are dead-wrong-head-in-the-sand.
The map you point to is highly misleading, and the range you use of 0-2.4 is totally wrong. As is your 2.33 replacement level; in a developed country, that figure is 2.1.
A quick Google provides this table: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_tot_fer_rat-people-total-fertility-rate
The only country on earth with a TFR less than 1 is Hong Kong, at 0.98. Not exactly fair, since Hong Kong is a city-state which is part of China now, and should be excluded, as should Macau which clocks in at 1.03. They, as well as Taiwan, which has a TFR of 1.12, are highly overpopulated, highly developed, and have heavy immigration pressure from the region and from China.
On the other end, we have Mali with a TFR of 7.38 children born per women. There are still 52 nationa with a TFR over 4.0, doubling their population in one generation, including such lovely, populous areas as the West Bank, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and much of Africa (some but not all of these countries are ravaged by AIDS, but does that make these figures a good thing?) A total of 81 nations countries with outsize TFRs over 3, growing at a rate of 50% in a generation, including much of Latin America, as well as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea.
The demographics of the world may be changing drasticly, and worldwide TFR may be gradually decreasing, but this population bomb is still blowing up out of control. There needs to be drastic intervention to reduce global fertility rates, or the scenario where population does hit peak will not be pretty indeed.
Scott has pointed out many of the flaws in your rose-colored analysis, and you “fail to see” a crisis so I think you are just blind to it, but your numbers are all wonky.
1. There is NOT plenty of space in the world. NO NO NO. You can’t just look at all land mass and space out all the humans evenly. People clump, and they need resources to support them. First of all, most of the land is so hostile to human habitation that it may as well be considered ocean. The high mountains, bleak deserts and arctic regions of the world will never support more than the occasional band of nomads. And of the rest, only a fraction is arable, and there are big limitations in terms of fresh water, not to mention energy and everything else people need.
There are only about 31 million square kilometers of arable land on earth, lost at a rate of 100,000 per year due to desertification and other effects. Already there is only a little over 1 acre of arable land per person on earth! While the population continues to grow exponentially, the amount of arable land decreases. Without most people living in misery and everyone depending on energy-intensive modern farming practices, present population could not be sustained at this ratio, much less another 3 or 5 billion.
Finally, when you say there is “plenty of space” (which there isn’t) you ignore the fundamental property of exponential growth, which is that half othe growth occurs in the very last doubling interval. So everything looks “fine and dandy” if you’re just average Myopia Joe looking over your shoulder with no global perspective until the crisis is upon you.
But you seem immune to reasoning from an ideological dogma that “Growth is Good” and that “Nothing is Too Big.”
Mike Responds:
Thank you for the comment, but there is no need for the hostility.
First and foremost, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my usage of that map or my assessment. What is wrong is your spinning of the information, which is typical from the other side of the argument.
Take another quick look at your own list you provided. You’ll notice, in particular, three key data points: the EU, the US, and China, all with fertility rates under or well under the replacement level. The total population of those three alone equals about 2.1 billion people, or roughly a third of the world’s population. You go down your list, add up the populations of all of the countries with fertility rates below the replacement level, and you’ll get exactly what I noted. Nearly 40% of the world’s countries, which includes nearly 40% of the population, have fertility rates at or below the replacement level.
What you did was grasping at straws. Sure, Singapore is included among those countries. But so is China. And the US. And about every nation in the EU. All of these you left out, when anyone who looked at that map would’ve (or should’ve, in your case) realized that the 40% of the world’s countries I noted included them. Your selective nitpicking at the inclusion of places like Singapore is simply spin.
Secondly, in regards to fertility rate, my assessment about the replacement rate is also entirely factual, and yours is mere spin. In an article in Population Research and Policy Review in 2003, it was noted that replacement levels averaged at around 2.33. Which is EXACTLY what I said, because I’m speaking of global population. You, however, again selectively nitpicked by pointing out that it’s 2.1…for developed nations. However, I’m discussing the entire world, not just one section of it. In developing nations, the replacement level can be anywhere from 2.5 to as high as 3.3 because of mortality rates. But again, I CLEARLY stated that already when I said it ranges from 2.1 to 3.3 depending, and that globally it averages at around 2.33. So, again, you’re simply spinning numbers to try and make your invalid point seem valid.
Your point about high fertility rate areas are those same areas that have much higher replacement levels because of mortality. But, what you are doing is a common mistake on your side of the argument. You are taking regional overpopulation issues (which I don’t doubt in the slightest occur) and transposing them on the ENTIRE planet. There are indeed places with high fertility rates and high rates of population growth. HOWEVER, we are talking about global population, which has an average fertility rate of 2.9. That includes places like Mali, not selectively taking them out to use as global examples. And, taken into account with the average replacement rate of 2.33, that is not even close to the dire situation some people (like yourself) are trying to make it out to seem. That is hardly a population bomb.
What needs to be done is local solutions rather than claiming the sky is falling. With current developing nations, one can clearly see what is happening. Sure, fertility rates are high in these nations, but so are emigration rates. Europe is a prime example, where people from overpopulated regions are heading to (and where there is actual population loss from native people). This is a natural phenomenon when regions get that way, but eventually these regions stabilize as they industrialize (which comes with greater freedoms as a solution, as I also already stated).
But again, I seem to be the only one in this back and forth looking at the big picture here (which is the whole point) rather than painting the world with a West Bank or Mali colored brush. And, I just spent a lot of time saying the same things I already said originally because of the expected spin.
Next, Scott (which I appreciate his comments) did no such thing. In fact, I contradicted nearly everything he said, usually with his own sources (which I spent considerable time looking at to familiarize myself with the points he was trying to make). For instance, he claimed grain production has been falling year after year, and I showed him a graph from his own source showing simple supply and demand that has ALWAYS kept up with the linear growth of grain needs. I don’t have to go through all of those arguments a second time because they are in plain view for everyone to read.
And yes, there is plenty of space in the world, but you are again spinning fundamental issues. First, you are over-exaggerating how “hostile” this planet is for living on, and secondly you are confusing “living on” with “living off of.” There is plenty of room for human living expansion, but the land required to sustain that population doesn’t need to be in their backyards. If that were the case, every urban area in the world would starve to death. Human beings can and have continuously adapted to new environments as we have grown, and again, we will continue to do so as is necessary.
But, the land we need to “live off of” is different, and you again are spinning data for your own use. First and foremost, I have no idea where you came up with your numbers. I assume you got them from wikipedia, and the wikipedia article about arable land doesn’t provide any sources for those numbers at all. So I really can’t comment on their truthfulness in regards to desertification.
However, I can show you this from your same nationmaster website:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/geo_lan_use_ara_lan-geography-land-use-arable
That is the percentage usage of arable land for each country. As you can see by looking at the weighted average at the bottom, only 12.5% of the world’s arable land is being used currently. Not exactly at critical mass. The fact is, there is plenty of room to expand that, and expansion may not even be necessary as we advance scientifically. We are now able to gain more harvests in one year from the same plot of land than before, for instance. So, that hardly seems to be an issue.
Even if your desertification numbers are true, we are currently only using 3,875,000 square kilometers of the 31 million that is arable to sustain our current population. If the desertification is being caused by human practices that can be rectified, then it is hardly an issue seeing as how we are using only 12.5% of the land to start with and scientific advances will make the land we use even more efficient. If desertification is happening regardless of what we do, and your numbers are right (which I have no way of telling), then we will have no arable land in 300 years and we will all die regardless of how many people are living on this planet.
But, as it stands, there is plenty of land to “live on” and there is still plenty of land to “live off of.”
I’m also not ignoring any “properties” of anything. You apparently didn’t read what I wrote at all, because I take issue with the use of “exponential growth” in regards to population to begin with. My entire point was that there is no exponential growth at all and that fertility rates are dropping fast, which leads to a plateau of population. You are making a trend line simply by taking population numbers and guessing what they will be later at the current rate of growth. That COMPLETELY disregards the important factors such as, again, fertility rates and the lag between them and actual population growth numbers. This is the exact reason why the UN has, on an almost annual basis, decreased its population predictions, because their predictions are wrong year after year. So, everything looks like it is going to hell in a hand basket because you are failing to take into account the totality of population dynamics and instead are taking the often times politically motivated route of cherry-picking a single statistic, taking it out of context, and then making wild future predictions based upon it.
Immune to reasoning? Hardly. I’m the only one so far that has done anything to present hard facts about the issue instead of throwing out wild generalizations coupled with spin and absolutely no backing. The difference is this: I took the facts and came to my conclusion. I didn’t take the conclusion I wanted and try to find things to support it while ignoring anything else.
I encourage you to read that Investor’s Business Daily article I provided in the original post. These few bits in particular:
“In 1798, a country parson named Thomas Malthus published a book in which he calculated that human populations were growing faster than the world’s ability to feed them. It wouldn’t be long, he reasoned, before the world would be afflicted with ” sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague.” In short: mass death.
He was, of course, spectacularly wrong…
In “The Improving State of the World,” for instance, scientist Indur Goklany notes that worldwide life expectancies have more than doubled — from 31 years to 67 — in just the past century. In poor countries, the share suffering from chronic hunger plunged from 37% in 1970 to 17% in 2001, even as population soared 83%.
Even the definition of “poor” has changed, because average annual incomes in poor countries have more than tripled in real terms since 1950. Just since 1981, the share of the world’s population living in poverty has been halved, from 40% to 20%.”
I’m sorry, but your arguments just don’t hold any water. It’s been said before (and was horribly wrong) and is just being regurgitated again. In light of all of the facts, when population has grown the way it has, it is sustainable, and the world is LESS hungry and LESS impoverished IN SPITE of the population increase, all that is left is politically motivated spin for the other side to make its point.
Anyway, I already wasted a lot of time clarifying things that were clearly stated in the first place. But, I do appreciate your comment, even though we disagree vehemently. I don’t usually get to “write back” too often, so this will probably be one I leave up to the peanut gallery (all two of you that read my blog). I think I made my point clear enough, but thank you for writing!
[...] low and demand is high, which causes higher prices. But, as I’ve pointed out in my previous overpopulation blog with its associated comments, there has NEVER been a time where the market supply (specifically grains) has not been able to [...]
I am afraid that you have made a basic logical error in your analysis.
Finite things are finite – they run out.
It doesn’t matter if we are talking about oil, minerals, topsoil, fresh water, or anything else. All finite things run out.
It is irrelevant whether or not the data indicates that we are running out of these things TODAY or not (even though we are getting close). What matters is that by the time we see ‘clear’ data which indicates this, it will be to late to fix anything.
You have simply failed to recognize that the Earth is a finite object, and are instead following an old-fashioned view of the world. The world is neither flat nor infinite – it is spheroid and finite. If you can see the logical value in understanding that it is spheroid, you must also recognize the value in declaring it finite as well.
This isn’t a political issue, it is a scientific issue. Politics only emerges when we discuss HOW we manage our population. Recognizing the scientific reality before us does not make us misanthropes, eugenicists, or nazis. It simply makes us rational, perceptive human beings who seek to preserve and protect human civilization, and human rights & dignity.
It would appear that your faith in divine mercy or future technology has clouded your reason. For it is impossible to deny the fact that finite thins run out.
Hello again.
I just explored your blog a bit further and discovered that you are Catholic. Might I suggest to you that your thoughts on global population are FAITH generated and not REASON generated, as I suspected?
It is perfectly fine for you to believe the teachings of your church, and to hold these as the truest descriptions of reality. But please understand that your thinking is not based on reason. It is based upon faith.
That can be all right, and I am not calling faith a negative thing. But it is important for us to separate the two and address each on its own terms and for their rightful purposes.
Your long and ‘reasoned’ explanation of how overpopulation is a ‘myth’ is not truly an exercise in reason, since you have started your analysis already having the unshakable answers to the questions you are supposedly exploring. This is not science or even a fair investigation. It is doctrine.
What you have done here, good sir, is a treatise of propaganda. This may be either true or false propaganda, but one thing it surely is not is fair or intelligent. It is faithful.
I would ask that you learn to separate faith and reason, and not attempt to use the one to justify the other. The results of such activities are almost always problematic, and even dangerous.
Low fertilities along of the all the womens in modern culture influence will turn down of the any over 2 children per any womans anywhere. I think there is people basic needs to have offsping and purpose of abstract thinking of issue but anotherwise there is hedonist needs to trying to enjoy life as much could and having children is very demanding time perhaps economy too. When world in some day will have a monoculture there will be no difference of fertilly rate there is no exist anymore of natural animals growth alongs of humans when population will be dictated by available resourses. Culture has killed humans reproduction model as the every other element in nature will does. Only future will show what will going to happend.
Could I mention that Malthus was never an environmentalist. Malthus was one of the major voices for worrying about overpopulation and his concern that we were going to run out of food has been proven wrong for the last several decades.
Keep in mind that listening to Malthus had very negative results for real people as the ruling British government and landlords followed his advice and ignored famines in Ireland (which they controlled at the time) in the early 19th Century. Later during the famine known for potato blight in the late 1840s the British were over-attached to free trade ideology and considered ending the wheat, corn, and other foodstuff exports out of Ireland (where people were starving but couldn’t pay as much) to elsewhere as an unwanted intervention in the market. Making Irish have even less food in the middle of a famine so that more people died.
The direct cause of resource use and pollution generation these days is often various types of machines/electronics used in the developed world where there is no set ratio of machines to human beings. Even with population stability in various parts of Europe (where some nations are below replacement level birthrates) the amount of pollution (I believe) has grown. This is because there is not any direct link between pollution and the number of people in a given area. There is a direct link between pollution and the number of machines that people use which have some sort of exhaust (these could be in a factory, at home, at an office, or used to travel between them). Computers use electricity generated at a powerplant with some sort of waste (often CO2 if coal is used).
I’m pretty sure that the number of devices per household and per business has been on an upward trend and would likely increase for businesses if there were fewer laborers (people). This is because those same businesses would be even more encouraged to use mechanization to deal with labor shortages (meaning more machines which are likely to pollute directly).
If our food production has been at a surplus for the last several years it would make sense to lower production (this would increase efficiency). But that doesn’t mean the human race has run out of capacity for food production at all. An irony of some cities in the US is that we have been building suburbs on farmland. If there was a real worldwide food shortage that land would be far too important in its (then) current use as farmland to allow that to happen. Also many of the Mexican immigrants to the US have been farmers. If these individuals could have made as much farming (or had been needed as they would be if there was a food shortage) at home they probably would have stayed there. Any decline in food production may be due to the economy telling farmers they aren’t needed there. This isn’t an indication of overpopulation at all, if anything the reverse. Is it possible that we end up undoing too much of the agricultural sector of the economy? Maybe, we the economy tends to have swings one way and then the other, but that still doesn’t say overpopulation at all.
Perhaps the biggest reason to doubt an advocate for population control is that some estimates say the Earth can support up to 40 billion people. The current projections for the human population is that it will level off at 11 billion and even start shrinking. This is less than half what the world has an ability to support (meaning there are easily enough resources and space to support everyone).
If my last point means that you think I believe there is no potential for overconsumption then you’d be wrong. People can and do use many things to excess. Go walk by a landfill and just try to wonder how much waste occurred to put it there. However, those who argue we need less people because of any resource limitations are essentially saying that we need to kill off someone else so that the first person can still drive his SUV around town (or some other waste of resources), not exactly an argument based on concern for the environment.
Malthusian though is an ideology that can be believed in without regard to reality. That the past several decades of human history (if not more) have been proving it wrong and some people still look to it for guidance indicate a belief some would equate to religion. Since some claim this isn’t based on belief but fact then I would ask why hasn’t it been challenged like people have scientific theories.
And yes I think it is possible to overfish. But I think this has to do with both allowing pollution into our water (river, sea, and so on) and setting no real limit on the amount of fish people can pull out of given bodies of water. Neither of these are directly related to population levels, but are related to the policies we govern ourselves with and the the various items we use in our lives. If you are serious about protecting the environment I would strongly suggest you pay attention to those and if Malthusian thoughts pop up ask why he was never an environmentalist and also why some of the people he praised (for having fewer children) were also the most wealthy and resource using/wasting. Put another way, if population control is used as the method to protect the environment then the planet is doomed as population control wasn’t intended to protect the environment and likely will not.
you cant deny overpopulation, the amount of damage humans are doing to the planet is at un-comprehensible levels, and thousands of species have gone extinct because of our narccisistic glutteny. There is no doubt in my mind that our planet is screwed because there are millions of people who think like you…
MIKE RESPONDS:
Hello, Adam. Thanks for stopping in.
I can deny overpopulation, and I have. However, I think you are reading more into my view than I have actually written.
I’m completely and utterly against human waste, and everyone should be. I believe in being a good steward, and we need to do our best to move in that direction. HOWEVER, there is a huge distortion as to the facts regarding human population.
That’s fine if you think that the planet is screwed because of people like me. I assume you think I like dumping toxic waste into rivers and shooting polar bears for fun. That’s your prerogative. However, the destruction of the dignity of the human person scares me a heck of a lot more. Things like this are far scarier, and this should look familiar since you wrote it. I copied it verbatim (spelling errors and all):
“Why must we be so ignorant that we want to use bear birth control? we have the technology for temporary contraceptives, all humans should be fixed, and if they want to have children must go through a series of tests to determin if they are indeed capable of properly raising a child. A global one child policy and forcing brith controll on BOTH sexes will quickly reverse our devestatingly deep impact, but it will still take THOUSANDS of years for the biodiversity to return. These ignorant people who dont want to know and dont want to care should be shown what their lifestyle is doing to the planet and we must reach out and talk to these people and make these issues KNOWN.”
THAT is scary, and even more narcissistic to think that people like you, who are smarter than the rest of us, need to be the ones controlling that policy.
Go read 1984 sometime. Other than that, thanks for posting. I hope that, if you’d like to come back, we can continue to keep the dialog civil.
Funny how quickly humans recognize overpopulation in other species.
We are in Earth’s 6th mass extinction, literally the worst ecological catastrophe in 65,000,000 years: http://www.rewilding.org/thesixthgreatextinction.htm
This outrage has been happening at the very same time human numbers have grown by orders of magnitude. No, correlation is not necessarily causation. But common sense should make it obvious a far smaller human population would result in a far smaller impact.
That is not to deny the need for reducing per-capita ecological impact (which I’ve practiced all my life). But it’s absurd to pretend the total number of “per-capitas” is irrelevant.
BTW, your Catholic Church demands that US borders remain open to all. So tell us, why are not the Vatican borders open to all?
[...] “So, the population has grown, nearly doubled, since 1970, yet life expectancy has doubled (which also contributes to population growth in the short term) and the population of hungry and poor in the world has dwindled significantly. “//agentsmith2 [...]
Pat, Common Sense would ask what is happening to cause the extinction. It is quite possible for a smaller population to do more damage.
Just look at China. They have a falling birthrate, less new Chinese each year. This means the population of China is growing at smaller and smaller amounts each year-and could even hit a point where it starts to shrink.
If there is both a correlation and causation between population size and environmental damage (something that causes species to go extinct as well as many other problems) then the amount of environmental damage done in and by China should increase by smaller and smaller amounts and stop at one point.
But this is not what has been happening in China in recent years. Instead you have falling birthrates and rising amounts of environmental damage. Thus there is a real world situation where adding less people appears to result in causing greater environmental damage.
Also India, with more people than the USA, does less environmental damage than the USA. Common sense would look at this fact and the situation with China and question if avoiding environmental damage really depends on decreasing population size.
Hmmm…
To my surprise I’ve read through most of this page.
I will say that I find it refreshing to see a fairly well reasoned challenge to the popular prejudice of world overpopulation – but that doesn’t mean that I necessarily buy it.
I think what some of your interlocutors were trying to articulate was that although there may be space, it isn’t all “useful” space: there are all sorts of reasons why it might not be usable:
1. biodiversity… if we just pursue a policy of species “manifest destiny” we risk the possibility of inadvertently triggering the collapse of the ecosystem that supports us – who knows what agricultural activity might affect bees and wipe out a lot of our favourite, cheap, and most beneficial foodstuffs.
2. terrain… there are lots of spaces on the world map, but they are usually for a reason: mountains, tundra, deserts, volcanic regions, and vast wetlands. Leaving the biodiversity argument aside for a moment, consider the cost in converting these areas into habitable zones?! The infrastructure; the land engineering… the law of diminishing returns springs to mind – even in fairly habitable inland regions. Settlements tend to thrive near certain species of resource – usually water features!
3. human behaviour… we are (like all living organisms) intensely “tribal” beings: we put our own first… be it species, ethnic group, or kith and kin. It seems rather optimistic to assume that total global co-operation would occur. Birs of a feather flock together, and whatever group people define themselves by: be it political state; ethnic group; or religious caste, they are more likely to struggle for control of any resource. I just don’t see the Americans taking a voluntary cost of living cut for the benefit of the developing world.
4. The Oceans… Quite true that the oceans are an unexploited resource, and there are plans afoot for large floating fish-ranches. Of course, fishing of any sort requires the manufacture and maintenannce of vessels, and equipment; and factories to manufacture that equipment; transport to get the raw materials there; and mines to get the raw materials; and universities to train the staff; and petrol to fuel pretty much all of it (including the plastics for the computers in the universities). It isn’t magic wand affair, it’s a colossal engineering undertaking; and throw in the weather, and tons of fish faeces deposited on the ocean floor and degradation of water quality affecting marine ecosystems, and you may be looking at a whole new paradigm of problems, with untold resources needed to solve them – welcome to the world of real-world engineering!
You’ve made a good case that there isn’t an immanent or imminent crisis; but you haven’t addressed trends. You’ve highlighted the patchiness of overpopulation, but haven’t acknowledged the knock on effects of, for example, massive overpopulation along the lower Nile.
There is increasing desertification & flooding in the most populous regions; regions that are often in the warmer parts of the world; and there is growing pollution in these areas… I’m thinking northern Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, China, Central America, and the Sahel for a kick-off.
The populations may not be exploding due to high (infant) mortality rates, but these areas do face alarming problems based on current trends. I’d assume that the problems are more to do with development than direct overpopulation: static populations that have been on the large side for a while, but are now changing behaviour, and thus affecting their environment… except magnified by being simultaneous across the world due the process of globalisation, in no small part to do with containerisation of shipping.
I don’t think this is necessarily going to trigger WW3 in a hurry, but if floods, droughts, and pollution hit China, which I would certainly put money on happening over the next 50 years or so, stock prices might take a knock, and we might see some serious rioting in that country on the telly.
Can I imagine “ethiopia-style” footage of starving Chinese? It’s hard to imagine… but it’s happening right now in North Korea; there are problems in Mongolia; and it’s certainly happened before in China – more than once. The other parts of Asia too, also concern me… I really can imagine drought and famine in the Deccan; and flooding and disease in Ganges region. I’m even starting to worry about Thailand and Vietnam’s rapid demographic and climatic change… Thailand, a ricebowl economy is currently experiencing near-drought… Australia has been stricken by it.
All in all, I think these issues are more long-term, and look set to play out over the whole century; not really becoming major news items until we’re old fogies!
MIKE RESPONDS:
Don’t be so surprised that you read through the entire page! My writing can’t be THAT bad, right?
Plus, your comment has the distinction of being the first time I realized that it would be easier to respond IN the comment rather than write a whole new one. I’m a little slow on the uptake with this whole blogging thing.
To start with, the problem really ties into the premise of the argument being made. There is no doubt that all of those issues that you stated (which I will try to address generally) would be difficult or that some of those problems would be disasterous. However, we shouldn’t address the issue based upon what or how bad the worst case scenario could be. We should address the issue and probabilities themselves.
To that end, to REALLY define overpopulation (and I should’ve talked about this a lot earlier), you need to know the carrying capacity of the earth. Once you figure out how many people the earth can reasonably hold, then you can know at what point there is actual global overpopulation. The trouble is, though, that there isn’t a single person willing to define the carrying capacity of the earth, not to mention that that number will constantly change as our technology and scientific advancements change. By its very nature, no one can really claim overpopulation, whether current or in the future, without defining carrying capacity.
So, to address your last point first, trends really do need to be addressed, and those very trends are the reason why I came to the conclusion that global overpopulation isn’t an issue. If you look at global fertility rates, you will see that they have dropped dramatically over the last half century, going from around 6 to the upper 2’s that we see now. Like I mentioned before, fertility rates are key to this discussion. We are, in fact, trending quickly towards plateau and population stagnation globally.
How can that be with how fast the global population has increased in that same time? I found a great quote about that very issue talking about the lag in population increase and fertility rates as well as medical scientific advancement: it’s not because we are reproducing like rabbits, it is because we are not dying off like flies. Our life spans have increased dramatically over the last century (31 to 67). The “population” bomb that people like to discuss was a combination of advances in medical science while the fertility rates still remained higher. The trends, though, are going to make sure that we never see population increases like that again unless we can, again, double our life spans and bring our fertility rates back up. Not to mention the dramatic effects on population numbers once the “baby boomer” generations begin dying off.
A problem that doesn’t get discussed enough in my opinion is underpopulation problems. Many places, like Japan, are figuring out quickly that their population is getting dramatically older. With low fertility rates (below replacement) you end up with an eventual shortage of workers with an ever growing group of retired folk. There aren’t enough workers for simple jobs, and the workers that are there cannot support the older generation via Social Security or other means. Even China realized this recently with their one child policy. They figured out that soon the policy will give rise to a situation where each worker, in effect, has to take care of both parents and four grandparents. Which is why they adapted their one child policy (in 2007, I believe) to combat this effect by allowing those whose parents were only childs to have two children instead of one.
Anyway, that brings me to the conclusion that the discussion needs to be whether or not overpopulation is a problem in the first place before we try to fix it. Like I said before, there may be REGIONAL overpopulation issues, but globally there is a different story. And, even if there are regional issues, is there a way to really deal with them without violating the dignity of the human person or violating the reproductive rights of individuals? I know people usually only use that for arguing the right to an abortion, but that same right should apply to having children when you want to by the same logic. Not to mention that a lot of your concerns seem to be in regards to climate change affects on population more that there being too many people to begin with, which is an entirely different argument.
With that LONG rambling out of the way, I wil ltry to briefly address your other points in that light:
1.) Biodiversity is an issue, but your point presupposes that we are already engaging in this population “manifest destiny,” which I feel that there isn’t any data to support that we’re spreading like wildfire to that point. I think we have taken great strides towards protecting biodiversity over the past decades, and I will not dispute that more needs to be done. However, the reasons for destruction of biodiversity I think lies less on how many people there are and more with wasteful usage of resources, which is another argument entirely. In short, having less children isn’t going to solve that problem.
2.) I understand what you are saying, but I think if you take another look at population density you will see that terrain cannot be a limiting factor in regards to space. I am well aware that places would be too difficult to really make habitable, like the Sahara or the heart of a rainforest. But, I was trying to point out that even with those areas aside, there are huge swaths of habitable areas that have incredibly low population densities. The American midwest is a perfect example. Although water, aquafer replenishment, etc. are issues, actual living space is not, and I think the issue again is resource usage/waste rather than the number of people. Moving further down that path you get to the carrying capacity question again, which is how many people can a replenishable aquafer sustain with limited waste. Which is also another discussion, since I don’t think we’ll ever get to that point.
3.) Human nature could prove problematic, but I take a different angle at that problem because it is an issue we struggle with today. You don’t need to look at worst case scenarios with overpopulation to discuss that problem. To me, the issue really lies in the internal workings of the individual countires out there today. People are poor, in my opinion, not because places like the US consume like we do, but because they live under (more often than not) brutal regimes. Freedom is the solution to the human condition, not government. Freedom generates wealth, and wealth destroys poverty. For our current issue, wealth also leads to the middle class which leads to lower fertility rates. But, in any event, problems with cooperation and resource sharing often have more to do with these dictatorial governments than the charity of others, and I think people, particularly Americans, are more charitable than you give them credit for. However, that’s also a different argument
4.) I think we are already steadily improving aquaculture technology, but you are right that it is a large udnertaking. However, if it is gradual, then the problems can be solved gradually as well. If we hit the carrying capacity tomorrow we’d be in trouble, I’m sure, but again my point is we’re not going to get there. Still, that aside, I think aquaculture is a bright spot in all of this (as we see in Africa) and investing more in that technology will be the first step in solving those problems gradually. A big undertaking, yes. Impossible, no. And again, freedom will bring those solutions.
I’ve droned on enitrely too much already. My main point was that overpopulation is not an issue to start with, so the need for drastic measures may not need to be discussed at all. Still, I greatly appreciate your comment and I’m glad you decided to read this post and comments the whole way through. We could use more people like you out there who are willing to at least listen and don’t resort to vitriol. I may not convince you or vice versa, but we’re both better off by trying to pursue the truth.
If you don’t really care about non-human life forms than you might believe there’s no overpopulation. Even so, at some point, the more people there are, the less there is to go around.
People can be happy without lot’s of material things yes, but how much average living space do you say should be available to persons. World population increases somewhat exponentially, yet the Earth is not expanding. Hopefully you don’t believe outer space will be our safety valve. That would be an irresponsible assumption.
MIKE RESPONDS:
Hello, David, and thanks for your comment! I’m glad to see that this post is still floating around out there and that this is still an issue of interest.
First off, I do care a great deal for the environment and “non-human” life forms. Still, I want to refer you back to generalized questions:
1.) What is the carrying capacity of the Earth, and
2.) How close are we to said carrying capacity?
You can’t claim that the world is crashing towards overpopulation or has passed that point without giving the answer to question one. You can’t say a one gallon jug is getting close to being full without knowing that it is, in fact, a one gallon jug. Knowing that it is finite can’t even help you in making any practical determinations in that regard. One is a finite number, but it is relatively much smaller than another finite number like, say, one million.
As for question two, I think I’ve shown that population is not increasing exponentially at all. In fact, UN low estimates on population dynamics are actually showing population decline in the realtively near future as plummetting fertility rates seem to continue to baffle their number crunchers.
For living space, that is a difficult question. I think sheer living space (as in physical property or land for housing) can be shown with that Texas example that has been floating around. Texas is 262,000 square miles, and six billion people could have approximately 1,217 square feet each if they all lived in Texas. So, a family of four could have 4,868 square feet of living space. That’s a population density of 22,900 per square mile. For reference, New York City has a population density of 27,147 per square mile. So, if Texas was less dense than New York City, we could house the entire population of the world with, I believe, comfortable living space while leaving the rest of the world empty. The much harder question is the amount of land it takes to sustain each person (other than just living space), and that goes back to question one in regards to carrying capacity.
While “outer space” is an irresponsible assumption, assuming advances in technology is not. I think human population responds to environmental and technological factors more than the other way around. A near doubling of life expectancy from greater medical/health advances, the ability for us to manipulate crop fertility to grow over 200 bushels of corn per acre in Illinois compared to an average of 30 bushels per acre in the rest of the world, etc. all lead to an increase in population sustainability and also lead to a difference in population response. I can’t predict how those technologies will change in the decades to come, but I think a solid look at the numbers should show that there is little to really worry about in terms of overpopulation, particularly if you can’t even set a mark for when it will occur.
Anyway, again, thanks for the comment, and I hope you come back!
let us put it just as a theory; wouldn’t it be better (for them) if the inhabitants of the world were “only” 2 or 3 millions? They could live, as John Zerzan says, just on collecting and hunting. They could burn wood or oil without bothering the environment: as their fire would be the only one over a great space. They could live without cultural overstructures like politics and religions. They could enjoy the nature without noise and pollutions..and..and..and
If one agrees that a such little inhabited world would be better then the world we are now, this person thinks that we are now “overpopulated”
Should’t it be “natural” for the person to move around in a free environment without walls and barriers which are bordering a “private propriety”. In a little populated world there would be no need of “private propriety” in the same way as there is no need of “private water” and “private air” to breath. But if we grow more and more there will be soon a Private water and later a privare air, be sure. There is simply no need of billions and billions of people. If we were a little responsible, we (mankind) would try to reduce the presence of humans on the planet in order that future generation could have a lot of more room and natural resources.