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JANUARY 2008
POPULATION CRISIS IN AFRICA
DAILY GREEN - Sub-Saharan
Africa is headed for a "population emergency" according
to a new French analysis of demographic trends. The population
of the continent south of the Sahara, decimated by the slave
trade and colonization, stood at 100 million in 1900, according
to the study by Centre Population et Developpement. It had grown
more than seven-fold to 770 million by 2005. By 2050, it will
grow by as much as 2.6 times above that level, to 2 billion.
The population of the entire world today is 6.6 billion.
In 1960, one African city
had 1 million residents. Now, 40 do, and the rural exodus is
continuing at such a pace that already strained cities are struggling
to provide services, like health care, and infrastructure, like
sewage treatment, enough to support the population growth.
Only six nations had economic
growth above 7% - the rate believed needed to support population
growth of this magnitude.
DECEMBER 2007
POPULATION GROWTH: THE
CRISIS THAT DARES NOT SAY ITS NAME
ELECTRIC POLITICS recently
featured a low keyed discussion of an extremely hot button subject:
population growth. The guest was Al Bartlett, professor of physics
emeritus at the University of Colorado, who has been working
on sustainability issues for decades. It is an issue that we
raise from time to time, get a few letters accusing us of being
racists or eugenicists and then move on to easier topics. But
if what people like Bartlett are saying is true? Then much of
we believe about economics and the environment may eventually
seem extraordinarily short-sighted or just plain wrong. Nothing
we do about the environment, for example, will matter if the
world population continues to grow because that presumes an ever
larger depletion of the natural resources of the earth. Interestingly,
we avoid the issue even more than we did 35 years ago when a
national commission issued some important suggestions on dealing
with the matter. Some insights follow.
AL BARTLETT PODCAST INTERVIEW
http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2007/12/who_knew.html
1972 ROCKEFELLER COMMISSION
REPORT ON U. S. POPULATION - In March of 1970, President Nixon
signed a bill establishing the Commission on Population Growth
and the American Future, known as the Rockefeller Commission,
for it chairman, John D. Rockefeller 3rd. In 1972, the Commission
released, its recommendations, including:
- In view of the important
role that education can play in developing an understanding of
the causes and consequences of population growth and distribution,
the Commission recommends enactment of a Population Education
Act to assist school systems in establishing well-planned population
education programs so that present and future generations will
be better prepared to meet the challenges arising from population
change.
- Recognizing the importance
of human sexuality, the Commission recommends that sex education
be available to all, and that it be presented in a responsible
manner through community organizations, the media, and especially
the schools.
- The Commission recommends
that the Congress and the states approve the proposed Equal Rights
Amendment and that federal, state, and local governments undertake
positive programs to ensure freedom from discrimination based
on sex.
- The Commission recommends
that (1) states eliminate existing legal inhibitions and restrictions
on access to contraceptive information, procedures, and supplies;
and (2) states develop statutes affirming the desirability that
all persons have ready and practicable access to contraceptive
information, procedures, and supplies.
- The Commission recommends
that states adopt affirmative legislation which will permit minors
to receive contraceptive and prophylactic information and services
in appropriate settings sensitive to their needs and concerns.
- In order to permit freedom
of choice, the Commission recommends that all administration
restrictions on access to voluntary contraceptive sterilization
be eliminated so that the decision be made solely by physician
and patient.
- With the admonition that
abortion not be considered a primary means of fertility control,
the Commission recommends that present state laws restricting
abortion be liberalized along the lines of the New York statute,
such abortion to be performed on request by duly licensed physicians
under conditions of medical safety.
- The Commission recommends
that this nation give the highest priority to research on reproductive
biology and to the search for improved methods by which individuals
can control their own fertility.
- Recognizing that our
population cannot grow indefinitely, and appreciating the advantages
of moving now toward the stabilization of population, the Commission
recommends that the nation welcome and plan for a stabilized
population.
- The Commission recommends
the creation of an Office of Population Growth and Distribution
within the Executive Office of the President.
- The Commission recommends
the immediate addition of personnel with demographic expertise
to the staffs of the Council of Economic Advisers, the Domestic
Council, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the Office
of Science and Technology.
- In order to provide legislative
oversight of population issues, the Commission recommends that
Congress assign to a joint committee responsibility for specific
review of this area.
http://dieoff.org/page73.htm
CHRIS RAPLEY - By avoiding
a fraction of the projected population increase, the emissions
savings could be significant and would be at a cost, based on
UN experience of reproductive health programs, that would be
as little as one-thousandth of the technological fixes. The reality
is that while the footprint of each individual cannot be reduced
to zero, the absence of an individual does do so.
ROGER MILLER, SUNY POTSDAM
- Loss of biodiversity and natural habitats, depletion of the
aquifers, air and water pollution, our eventual inability to
grow sufficient food or to generate sufficient energy are all
problems cause by a large and rapidly growing human population.
Not only is it the primary cause of these problems, but no solution
exists to solving these problems as long as the population continues
to grow.
Populations cannot grow
indefinitely in a finite environment. The United States population
is currently growing at a 1% annual rate, and the worldwide population
is growing at a 1.3% rate per year; rates that are fairly low
compared to historic levels. If the world's population continued
to grow at 1.3% for approximately 800 years, there would be 1
person for every 1 square meter of the earth's surface, and if
it could continue growing at this rate for approximately 2200
years, the mass of humanity would equal the mass of the earth.
Clearly before this happens we will reach a zero population growth
level if we are lucky, and if we are not lucky we will have a
period of enormous decrease in the population, whether by famine,
disease or some other natural or man-made catastrophe.
http://www2.potsdam.edu/millerrs/Population.html
JIM LYDECKER, GROWTH IS
MADNESS - The biggest crisis is overpopulation. Every problem,
be it environmental, economic, social or political, is directly
or indirectly connected to the 6.8-billion-pound gorilla in the
room. We have known this for years but it is one of the issues
no one, conservative or liberal, will touch. Instead, the official
policy is one of ignorance allowing the human species to breed
itself toward a massive die-off. . .
In just a little more than
130 years, humans have run through more than half the world's
reserves of oil and natural gas. Since population growth is contingent
on a readily available supply of cheap oil, collapse is inevitable.
The slippery slide down the slope of peak oil will be quicker
than the trip up.
Without cheap oil and natural
gas, the green revolution and the ability to feed all us billions
will be history. Few industries will be affected as great as
agriculture. Two that will be are those medical and pharmaceutical.
Thus, a future die-off
of biblical proportions will be primarily due to starvation and
disease. Throw in mass migrations and social strife and, boy,
do we have problems.
http://growthmadness.org/2007/11/25/grim-worldview-from-the-deck-of-the-titanic/
BRIAN CZECH AND HERMAN
E. DALY, WILDLIFE SOCIETY BULLETIN 2004 - A steady state economy
with long human life spans entails low birth and death rates.
In our opinion this is preferable, within reason, to a steady
state economy with short life spans, high birth rates, and high
death rates. The same concept applies to capital and durable
goods such as automobiles. We opine that a relatively slow flow
of high-quality, long-lasting goods is preferable to a fast flow
of low-quality, short-lived goods.
Nothing about a steady
state economy precludes economic development, where development
is defined as a qualitative process. Various sectors may come
and go in a steady state economy. For example, organic farms
may supplant factory farms, the proportion of bicycles to Humvees
may increase, and professional soccer may attract more fans while
NASCAR attracts fewer. As long as the physical size of the economy
remains constant in the long run, a developing economy is a steady
state economy.
Nor would any type of cultural
stagnation result from a steady state economy.
John Stuart Mill, one of
the greatest economists and political philosophers in history,
emphasized that an economy in which physical growth was no longer
the goal would be more conducive to political, ethical, and spiritual
improvements
A steady state economy
means a constant rate of employment. . . Economic development
continues in a steady state economy so that in the extractive
sector, oilfield roughnecks may decrease in number while wind-power
facility attendants may increase. In the arts, guitar playing
may wax while flute playing wanes. In the sciences, industrial
chemists may be replaced by wildlife ecologists. . .
In a steady state economy,
the average amount of money in real dollars earned by workers
from the current generation to the next remains constant.
"Real dollars"
means that inflation has been accounted for. Because income reflects
the use of natural resources, stabilized income reflects a stabilized
"ecological footprint," which is the area of land required
to support a human being . . .
If the steady state economy
is established at a relatively low population level, the potential
exists for each worker, and his replacement in the next generation,
to earn a high income. This scenario is similar to that of a
low-density deer population with plenty of forage per deer. If,
on the other hand, the steady state economy is established at
a high population level, less income is available for the average
worker, as in a high-density deer population with little forage
per deer.
We think it important that
a steady state economy be established at a relatively low population
level. This scenario is conducive to incomes high enough to allow
retirement savings and social secu rity (in the generic sense),
making the economy more politically acceptable and therefore
more stable. If the steady state economy is established with-in
ecological carrying capacity, each new generation may expect
its workers to accumulate retire- ment savings of the same magnitude
as the previous generation. So we think it important to establish
a steady state economy as soon as possible. As the population
grows, it becomes less likely the steady state economy may be
established whereby incomes are high enough to support reasonable
periods of retirement.
Won't the stock market
crash if a steady state economy is established? . . . Many people
view the stock market as predicated on economic growth, so they
wonder if a stock market could even exist in a steady state economy.
It certainly could and probably would. In a steady state economy,
firms still need to invest in capital--namely, at the same rate
at which capital depreciates.
Publicly traded stocks
provide the social benefit of liquidity to investors and offer
an efficient mechanism for the acquisition of investment capital.
Stock markets tend to expand
and contract in concert (though often with lags) with gross domestic
product, the dollar value of newly produced, final goods and
services. There are winners and losers in bullish and bearish
markets, though the winners tend to be more prominent in the
for- mer. The stock market in a steady state economy of stable
GDP would be neither bullish nor bearish for extended periods.
It, too, would have winners and losers, with perennial losers
becoming insolvent and being replaced by more competent firms.
But in a steady state economy the stock market would be less
of a casino than in the growth economy.
Economic growth, on the
other hand, is bound to cause an extensive and extended stock
market crash because demands for capital eventually will exceed
the productive capacity of the earth.
Therefore, advocating a
steady state economy is appropriate not only for purposes of
wildlife conservation but also because it would reduce the volatility
of the stock market.
There are, of course, alternatives
to the stock market for purposes of financing capital investment.
For example, capital may be financed by private banks, cooperatives,
and governments. In fact, all of these institutions are active
financiers throughout the world. The relative prominence of each
in a given nation helps to describe that nation's history, ideology,
and "political economy," which brings us to our next
question--a very big one.
Doesn't a steady state
economy require a socialist government? More generally put, what
kind of government is most conducive to a steady state economy?
Might it be, for example, a capitalist democracy, a communist
state or a dictatorship? In theory, each is capable of producing
or coexisting with a steady state economy, but we do not think
any of these is particularly conducive. Each has exhibited far
more concern with GDP growth than with other important endeavors,
such as poverty alleviation and, of course, wildlife conservation.
We think the form of government
most conducive to a steady state economy, in the context of twenty-first-century
nation states, is a constitutional democracy somewhat more socialized
than the current American version. "Socialist democracies,"
as the term is used in political science, already exist in many
nations, most notably such European nations as Sweden, Switzerland
and England.
Economists more frequently
call them "mixed economies." These are democratically
operated governments in which the state plays a more prominent
role in the economy than the American government plays in its
economy
http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEFAQs.html#anchor_151
THE ECOLOGICAL
CRISIS WE DON'T TALK ABOUT ENOUGH
DAVID HOULE, SCIENTIFIC
BLOGGING - The impact that humanity is having on climate change
is directly related to the fact that there are so many of us.
Add on top of our shear numbers the fact that we treat the planet
harshly and it is clear why we are moving toward a global crisis.
Consider some facts about
the growth of human population. Humans have been on the planet
for hundreds of thousands of years. It took until 1804 for our
numbers to reach 1 billion. It took another 123 years to reach
2 billion in 1927. It only took another 33 years for us to reach
3 billion in 1960 and 14 years to reach 4 billion in 1974. That
means that if you are older that 40 the world's population has
doubled in your lifetime. There are now 6.6 times more of us
now than 200 hundred years ago. It is also during these 200 hundred
years that the Industrial Revolution occurred, bringing with
it the use of fossil fuels for powering our societies and economies.
WILLIAM JOHNSON, POPULATION
INSTITUTE - While a great deal of attention has been paid to
reducing emissions responsible for global warming, there has
been far less focus on the role of population growth in climate
change. The world's population is projected to increase 40% by
2050. Thus, a 40% decrease in per capita carbon emissions in
the industrialized world would be canceled out by global population
growth and higher per capita emissions in the developing world.
As population increases,
the challenge of slowing climate change and the risk of catastrophic
consequences rise inexorably. The world is already experiencing
increased sea levels, floods, violent storms, droughts, heat
waves, disease transmission, and environmental refugees as a
result of climate change. The World Health Organization estimates
the percentage of the world's population affected by weather
disasters has doubled in the past 25 years, and the coming years
may be worse. . .
Demurral and denial may
be more convenient and politically acceptable than the truth,
but we need to face reality. While nations struggle to find the
appropriate technical, economic and political framework for sharing
the burden of reducing carbon emissions, there is an urgent need
to open a second front in the battle against climate change by
reducing population growth.
Although the first challenge
is quite difficult, the second is relatively easy. We know that
family planning works, and when women have free access to information
and services to practice family planning they have smaller families.
A Baltimore Sun editorial by John Seager put it best: "If
we had zero population growth, part of the global warming problem
would, well, melt away." . . .
http://www.populationinstitute.org/newsroom/pi-in-the-news/?id=60
ANDREW WOODCOCK, INDEPENDENT,
2006 - Environmental problems such as global warming can be tackled
only if the international community addresses the problem of
population growth, a leading scientist warned. Professor Chris
Rapley, the director of the British Antarctic Survey, said the
76 million annual increase in the world's population threatens
"the welfare and quality of life of future generations".
But he said population
growth was the "Cinderella" issue of the environmental
debate, because its implications are so controversial that nobody
dares to raise it.
Scientific analysis suggests
that the Earth can sustain around 2-3 billion people at a good
standard of living over the long term, wrote Prof. Rapley in
an article for the BBC News website. But the current global population
of 6.5 billion - expected to rise to 8 billion by the middle
of the century - means mankind is imposing an ever greater "footprint"
on the planet. . .
"Imagine organizing
the accommodation, feeding arrangements, schooling, employment,
medical care, cultural activities and general infrastructure
- transport, power, water, communications, waste disposal - for
a number of people slightly larger than the population of the
UK, and doing it each year, year on year for the foreseeable
future," wrote Prof. Rapley. "Combined with ongoing
economic growth, what will be the effect on our collective human
'footprint'? Will the planet cope?. . .
"Although reducing
human emissions to the atmosphere is undoubtedly of critical
importance, as are any and all measures to reduce the human environmental
'footprint', the truth is that the contribution of each individual
cannot be reduced to zero.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0106-01.htm
OPTIMUM POPULATION - Each
new UK citizen less means a lifetime carbon dioxide saving of
nearly 750 tons, a climate impact equivalent to 620 return flights
between London and New York*, the Optimum Population Trust says
in a new report. . . The climate cost of each new Briton over
their lifetime at roughly L30,000. The lifetime emission costs
of the extra 10 million people projected for the UK by 2074 would
therefore be over L300 billion. A 35-pence condom, which could
avert that L30,000 cost from a single use, thus represents a
"spectacular" potential return on investment - around
nine million per cent.
The report adds: "The
most effective personal climate change strategy is limiting the
number of children one has.". . .
A Population-Based Climate
Strategy, the OPT's latest research briefing, says human population
growth is widely acknowledged as one of the main causes of climate
change yet politicians and environmentalists rarely discuss it
for fear of causing offence. The result is that a "de facto
taboo" exists, throughout civil society and government.
One consequence is that
"couples making decisions about family size do so in the
belief that it is a matter for them and their personal preferences
alone: the public debate and awareness that might have encouraged
them to think about the implications of their choices for their
fellow citizens, the climate and the wider environment have been
missing."
Valerie Stevens, co-chair
of the OPT, said: "We appreciate that asking people to have
fewer children is not going to make us popular in some quarters.
Equally, expressing concern about the environmental impacts of
mass migration, which currently accounts for the bulk of population
growth in the UK and will have a major effect on Britain's carbon
emissions, is a quick route to being labeled racist. But these
are hugely important issues and the unfortunate fact is that
both politicians and the environmental movement are in denial
about them. It's high time we started discussing them like adults
and confronting the real challenges of climate change."
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.release07May07.htm
EARTH DAY NET - International
cooperation on population has gone a long way to slow the growth
of world population. But fertility rates in many countries remain
high. A quarter century of research shows that those rates decline
when voluntary family planning is universally available and educational
opportunities for girls and economic opportunities for women
increase. Indeed, long-range strategies to address the threat
of climate change are unlikely to succeed without paying careful
attention to demographic trends.
Scientists across the globe
agree that the influence of humans and their activities on the
earth's atmosphere and climate is an established fact. If population
growth and climate change are closely linked, then they should
be integrated into policy and challenged together. Long-term
strategies to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in an equitable
manner will need to account for the current broad differences
among nations in per capita emissions. Effective, voluntary family
planning plus improved educational and economic opportunities
for girls and women are a central part of good population policy
as well as a key to greenhouse gas reduction.
http://www.earthday.net/resources/2006materials/population.aspx
LESTER BROWN, EARTH POLICY
- We know from earlier civilizations that the lead indicators
of economic decline were environmental, not economic. The trees
went first, then the soil, and finally the civilization itself.
To archeologists, the sequence is all too familiar.
Our situation today is
far more challenging because in addition to shrinking forests
and eroding soils, we must deal with falling water tables, more
frequent crop-withering heat waves, collapsing fisheries, expanding
deserts, deteriorating rangelands, dying coral reefs, melting
glaciers, rising seas, more-powerful storms, disappearing species,
and, soon, shrinking oil supplies. Although these ecologically
destructive trends have been evident for some time, and some
have been reversed at the national level, not one has been reversed
at the global level.
The bottom line is that
the world is in what ecologists call an "overshoot-and-collapse"
mode. Demand has exceeded the sustainable yield of natural systems
at the local level countless times in the past. Now, for the
first time, it is doing so at the global level. Forests are shrinking
for the world as a whole. Fishery collapses are widespread. Grasslands
are deteriorating on every continent. Water tables are falling
in many countries. . .
In 2002, a team of scientists
led by Mathis Wackernagel, who now heads the Global Footprint
Network, concluded that humanity's collective demands first surpassed
the earth's regenerative capacity around 1980. Their study, published
by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, estimated that global
demands in 1999 exceeded that capacity by 20 percent. The gap,
growing by 1 percent or so a year, is now much wider. We are
meeting current demands by consuming the earth's natural assets,
setting the stage for decline and collapse.
In a rather ingenious approach
to calculating the human physical presence on the planet, Paul
MacCready, the founder and Chairman of Aerovironment and designer
of the first solar-powered aircraft, has calculated the weight
of all vertebrates on the land and in the air. He notes that
when agriculture began, humans, their livestock, and pets together
accounted for less than 0.1 percent of the total. Today, he estimates,
this group accounts for 98 percent of the earth's total vertebrate
biomass, leaving only 2 percent for the wild portion, the latter
including all the deer, wildebeests, elephants, great cats, birds,
small mammals, and so forth.
Ecologists are intimately
familiar with the overshoot-and-collapse phenomenon. One of their
favorite examples began in 1944, when the Coast Guard introduced
29 reindeer on remote St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea to
serve as the backup food source for the 19 men operating a station
there. After World War II ended a year later, the base was closed
and the men left the island. When U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
biologist David Kline visited St. Matthew in 1957, he discovered
a thriving population of 1,350 reindeer feeding on the thick
mat of lichen that covered the 332-square-kilometer (128-square-mile)
island. In the absence of any predators, the population was exploding.
By 1963, it had reached 6,000. He returned to St. Matthew in
1966 and discovered an island strewn with reindeer skeletons
and not much lichen. Only 42 of the reindeer survived: 41 females
and 1 not entirely healthy male. There were no fawns. By 1980
or so, the remaining reindeer had died off.
Like the deer on St. Matthew
Island, we too are over-consuming our natural resources. Overshoot
leads sometimes to decline and sometimes to a complete collapse.
It is not always clear which it will be. In the former, a remnant
of the population or economic activity survives in a resource-depleted
environment. For example, as the environmental resource base
of Easter Island in the South Pacific deteriorated, its population
declined from a peak of 20,000 several centuries ago to today's
population of fewer than 4,000. In contrast, the 500-year-old
Norse settlement in Greenland collapsed during the 1400s, disappearing
entirely in the face of environmental adversity. . .
You do not need to be an
ecologist to see that if recent environmental trends continue,
the global economy eventually will come crashing down. It is
not knowledge that we lack. At issue is whether national governments
can stabilize population and restructure the economy before time
runs out.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch01_ss2.htm
CARL SAGAN ON POPULATION
GROWTH
There is a well-documented
correlation between poverty and high birthrates. In little countries
and big countries, capitalist countries and communist countries,
Catholic countries and Moslem countries, Western countries and
Eastern countries-in almost all these cases, exponential population
growth slows down or stops when grinding poverty disappears.
This is called demographic transition. It is in the urgent long-term
interest of the human species that every place on Earth achieves
this demographic transition. This is why helping other countries
become self-sufficient is not only elementary human decency,
but is also in the interest of those richer nations able to help.
One of the central issues in the world population crisis is poverty.
The exceptions to the demographic
transition are interesting. Some nations with high per capita
incomes still have high birthrates. But in them, contraceptives
are sparsely available, and/or women lack any effective political
power. It is not hard to understand the connection.
At present there are about
6 billion humans. In 40 years, if the doubling time stays constant,
there will be 12 billion; in 80 years, 24 billion; in 120 years,
48 billion. ... But few believe the Earth can support so many
people. Because of the power of this exponential increase, dealing
with global poverty now will be much cheaper and much more humane,
it seems, than whatever solutions will be available to us many
decades hence. Our job is to bring about a worldwide demographic
transition and flatten out that exponential curve-by eliminating
grinding poverty, making safe and effective birth control methods
widely available, and extending real political power (executive,
legislative, judicial, military, and in institutions influencing
public opinion) to women. If we fail, some other process, less
under out control, will do it for us."
-Carl Sagan, Billions &
Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
(1998, Ballantine Books)
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/09/carl_sagan.php |