is population growth really the problem?

[why not]

interesting article about the myth of population growth being a major factor in the environmental crisis.

not sure what i think about it, but at first glance the logic seems sound.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009...pulation-myth/


The Population Myth
Posted September 29, 2009

People who claim that population growth is the big environmental issue are shifting the blame from the rich to the poor

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian, 29th September 2009

It’s no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it’s about the only environmental issue for which they can’t be blamed. The brilliant earth systems scientist James Lovelock, for example, claimed last month that “those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.”(1) But it’s Lovelock who is being ignorant and irrational.

A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly, and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005, for example, Sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the world’s population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out 4% of the extra people, but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three per cent of the world’s population growth happened in places with very low emissions(2).

Even this does not capture it. The paper points out that around one sixth of the world’s population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning Rs30,000 or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.

Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to us. Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for example, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together(3). Even deforestation in poor countries is driven mostly by commercial operations delivering timber, meat and animal feed to rich consumers. The rural poor do far less harm(4).

The paper’s author, David Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and Development, points out that the old formula taught to all students of development - that total impact equals population times affluence times technology (I=PAT) - is wrong. Total impact should be measured as I=CAT: consumers times affluence times technology. Many of the world’s people use so little that they wouldn’t figure in this equation. They are the ones who have most children.

While there’s a weak correlation between global warming and population growth, there’s a strong correlation between global warming and wealth. I’ve been taking a look at a few superyachts, as I’ll need somewhere to entertain Labour ministers in the style to which they’re accustomed. First I went through the plans for Royal Falcon Fleet’s RFF135, but when I discovered that it burns only 750 litres of fuel per hour(5) I realised that it wasn’t going to impress Lord Mandelson. I might raise half an eyebrow in Brighton with the Overmarine Mangusta 105, which sucks up 850 l/hr(6). But the raft that’s really caught my eye is made by Wally Yachts in Monaco. The WallyPower 118 (which gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3400 l/hr when travelling at 60 knots(7). That’s nearly one litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometre(8).

Of course to make a real splash I’ll have to shell out on teak and mahogany fittings, carry a few jet skis and a mini-submarine, ferry my guests to the marina by private plane and helicopter, offer them bluefin tuna sushi and beluga caviar and drive the beast so fast that I mash up half the marine life of the Mediterranean. As the owner of one of these yachts I’ll do more damage to the biosphere in ten minutes than most Africans inflict in a lifetime. Now we’re burning, baby.

Someone I know who hangs out with the very rich tells me that in the banker belt of the lower Thames valley there are people who heat their outdoor swimming pools to bath temperature, all round the year. They like to lie in the pool on winter nights, looking up at the stars. The fuel costs them £3000 a month. One hundred thousand people living like these bankers would knacker our life support systems faster than 10 billion people living like the African peasantry. But at least the super wealthy have the good manners not to breed very much, so the rich old men who bang on about human reproduction leave them alone.

In May the Sunday Times carried an article headlined “Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation”. It revealed that “some of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly” to decide which good cause they should support. “A consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.”(9) The ultra-rich, in other words, have decided that it’s the very poor who are trashing the planet. You grope for a metaphor, but it’s impossible to satirise.

James Lovelock, like Sir David Attenborough and Jonathan Porritt, is a patron of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT). It is one of dozens of campaigns and charities whose sole purpose is to discourage people from breeding in the name of saving the biosphere. But I haven’t been able to find any campaign whose sole purpose is to address the impacts of the very rich.

The obsessives could argue that the people breeding rapidly today might one day become richer. But as the super wealthy grab an ever greater share and resources begin to run dry, this, for most of the very poor, is a diminishing prospect. There are strong social reasons for helping people to manage their reproduction, but weak environmental reasons, except among wealthier populations.

The Optimum Population Trust glosses over the fact that the world is going through demographic transition: population growth rates are slowing down almost everywhere and the number of people is likely, according to a paper in Nature, to peak this century(10), probably at around 10 billion(11). Most of the growth will take place among those who consume almost nothing.

But no one anticipates a consumption transition. People breed less as they become richer, but they don’t consume less; they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, in Lovelock’s words, “hiding from the truth”. It is the worst kind of paternalism, blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich.

So where are the movements protesting about the stinking rich destroying our living systems? Where is the direct action against superyachts and private jets? Where’s Class War when you need it?

It’s time we had the guts to name the problem. It’s not sex; it’s money. It’s not the poor; it’s the rich.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. Optimum Population Trust, 26th August 2009 Gaia Scientist to be OPT Patron.
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/rel...ase26Aug09.htm

2. David Satterthwaite, September 2009. The implications of population growth and urbanization for climate change. Environment & Urbanization, Vol 21(2): 545–567. DOI: 10.1177/0956247809344361.

3. http://www.foei.org/en/publications/...gasnigeria.pdf

4. For example, Satterthwaite cites the study by Gerald Leach and Robin Mearns, 1989. Beyond the Woodfuel Crisis – People, Land and Trees in Africa, Earthscan Publications, London.

5. http://www.ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20090802125307syb.html

6. http://www.jameslist.com/advert/5480

7. http://machinedesign.com/article/118...ower-boat-0616

8. 15 US gallons/nm = 56.775l/nm = 31 l/km.

9. John Harlow, 24th May 2009. Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation. The Sunday Times.

10. Wolfgang Lutz, Warren Sanderson and Sergei Scherbov, 20th January 2008. The coming acceleration of global population ageing. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature06516

11. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2005. World Population Prospects. The 2004
Revision. http://www.un.org/esa/population/pub...ixbilpart1.pdf

[Boss Hog]

how you gonna feed all those people?

[ChrisD]

Solvent green!

[JayIsBored]

soylent chris, soylent


solvent green is for doomsday cults

[guysmiley]

Aside from the mounds of land required to support feeding those areas, we're still faced with the issue that developing nations will soon turn in to developed ones; this will end up causing a similar environmental footprint as developed nations, per capita. Look at India and China. Blaming population growth alone is not right, but neither is discounting it entirely.

[ChrisD]

Originally Posted by JayIsBored

soylent chris, soylent


solvent green is for doomsday cults

ooooops, can you tell Im hungry? Thanks Jay

[Boss Hog]

I love how the article blames lovelock

[acheron]

if there's a population growth problem it's clearly blowhard academics that need to be euthanized first.

[diablo]

We need WWIII to return the world's population to a workable level.

[Hybrid]

Originally Posted by diablo

We need WWIII to return the world's population to a workable level.

I'm sure plague, pestilence, and some new disease will take care of that.

I wonder if the super rich think the poor masses are heating our planet with flatulent.

[el presidente Highsteppa]

I'm putting down $5 for a zombie apocalypse.

[praktik]

Originally Posted by diablo

We need WWIII to return the world's population to a workable level.

Dont you mean World War V?

We're already in World War IV.

[praktik]

The Overpopulation Hubbub

Published by Steven Novella under General Science
Comments: 23

The question of human overpopulation of the earth is one of those empirical scientific questions that garners a strange amount of emotional opinion. It is as if the sense of overcrowding and depleting resources triggers something primal in our monkey brains. On the other side, we resent being told to curb what is perhaps our strongest natural instinct – to make more versions of our genome.

Another feature of this debate that encourages or at least allows emotion to reign over data is that the core questions involve predicting the future. We are very bad at predicting the future. Predicting the future is really just an exercise in projecting our biases onto the future. The best we can do is extrapolate current trends forward, but there are often multiple overlapping trends that we can choose from, some trends are really cyclical, and the appropriate curve (linear, geometric, exponential) may not be obvious.

It is also important to identify in a controversy where there are value judgments that cannot be resolved objectively with facts. The abortion debate continues to rage because at its core is a personal choice of value – the mother’s biological freedom vs the life of a fetus. In the population debate there are value judgments regarding humanity’s rights and responsibilities toward the earth and all other life on it.

A recent issue of New Scientist explores various points of view regarding the population debate. For anyone interested in this topic this makes for good fodder. The basic facts are this – human population is now reaching 7 billion people. It is estimated that by 2050 we will exceed 9 billion. However it is also true that as our technology progresses we are able to sustain more people with fewer resources.

It often seems, therefore, that where one stands with regard to the population issue depends upon whether one is a pessimist or optimist. Although, even for the maximal optimist it must be acknowledged that there must be some upper limit to what population the earth can comfortably support, and that at some point (despite technological advances) increasing population becomes an increasing drag on the environment and other species – for reasons of physical space if nothing else (setting aside expanding the human population off planet and focusing just on the population of the earth).

Taking the pessimistic point of view is Paul and Anne Ehrlich, who write:

Somehow, cultural attitudes toward large families everywhere need to be changed. It should be considered immoral to have excessive numbers of children – an attitude that already exists in most industrialised nations with low birth rates. Nothing is more clearly a governmental responsibility than keeping a nation’s population size sustainable by benevolent measures.

As well as curbing population growth, we shouldn’t forget the pressing issue of excessive consumption by the rich.

Their argument amounts to a peak resources position – it will get more and more difficult to sustain an increasing population with fewer and fewer resources. Again, this is likely to be true at some point, but saying that we are essentially there now seems to ignore the role of technological advance.

Staking out the other end of the spectrum is Jesse Ausubel who points out that while the population has been increasing at a rate of about 1% per year, crop yields have been increasing at a rate of 2% per year, allowing us to grow more food on less land. In this interview he says:

Technology has liberated humans from the environment. Today we live about equally well in polar and tropical, arid and wet environments. The new question is whether humanity can use technology to liberate the environment itself. E-books, landless agriculture – farming that uses very little land because of high yields – and subterranean maglevs show the way.

It is important to note, however, that even a techno-optimist like Ausubel points out that we need to prioritize those technologies that do “free nature” by allowing us to do more with less. He is not saying that we should ignore the issues of population and resources – but that we can rely upon technological advances to give us solutions, if we choose to use them.

Conclusion

I admit I am more toward the Ausubel end of the spectrum than the Ehrlich end. Doom and gloom predictions over the last century about population increase and dwindling resources have not come true. Reading the Ehrlich’s warning about rising death rates sound a lot like the predictions of massive die offs that have been made and failed to manifest on a regular basis over the previous decades.

At this point I think we can conclude that it is not terribly useful to make predictions based upon current sustainability, because technology is constantly changing the equation. And technological advance has continued to surprise us. It seems likely that in 100 years the problems humanity will be facing are likely to be different than most of those causing current worry.

This does not mean, however, that we should just shrug and not worry. Thoughtfully contemplating the implications of our industry and population, and how to prioritize technological development and research is likely to have a huge impact on our future. I am optimistic that technology will give us potential solutions to the problems caused by a rising population within finite resources.

But we still need to develop and implement those solutions. Some of them will happen as a matter of course – people will use light bulbs that use less electricity and last longer simply because they will save money. But others may require more deliberate application, and we may need to bridge to “better” technologies through a cost-ineffective transition. For example, we may need to subsidize solar energy against the very cost effective fossil fuels before fossil fuel prices surge because of scarcity.

I say “may” because I personally don’t know – this is a specific technical question best left to appropriate experts. An approach I generally recommend over ideology.

[praktik]

And then of course, there's the moonbat angle. Popularized by Alex Jones in his execrable film Endgame, there's the elite plan to combat over-population by reducing the world's population by 80%

Watch out plebes, Big Brutha's got yo numba!!

[Syntax Error]

i'm more worried that the people having the most kids are the dumb ones.

[why not]

hmnn, according to the tags, i'm a nutjob for posting this article.

considering i came across it through David Suzuki's twitter account, does that mean he's also a nutjob?

[Flashy_McFlash]

I think we can all agree that David Suzuki is the Grand Wizard of nutjob.

[basilisk]

Originally Posted by praktik

And then of course, there's the moonbat angle. Popularized by Alex Jones in his execrable film Endgame, there's the elite plan to combat over-population by reducing the world's population by 80%

Watch out plebes, Big Brutha's got yo numba!!

Still waiting for someone to answer how the world's elites can remain at their socioeconomic station if they can't profit off the labour of the poor, disenfranchised, and oppressed people of the world. Don't the fat cats benefit from a large population of gullible suckers? Hey, it works for Alex Jones.

[praktik]

I see what u did there!

gold..

[The Watcher]

Why do we need so many people on this earth anyhow?

I don't like people.

[el presidente Highsteppa]

Originally Posted by The Watcher

Why do we need so many people on this earth anyhow?

So they can read all our twitter postings.

[Boss Hog]

more multi-players.

[Bass-Invader]

Originally Posted by The Watcher

Why do we need so many people on this earth anyhow?

I don't like people.

those people's kids made the clothes you are wearing. you should be grateful.

[Hybrid]

Maybe instead of ramming whaling ships, green peace should unleash there icebreaker on Wallypower yachts.

[mariazmess]

Originally Posted by guysmiley

developing nations will soon turn in to developed ones; this will end up causing a similar environmental footprint as developed nations, per capita.

"developed" nations have fewer kids.
peeps in Africa who are getting better jobs and getting better access to medical care are also having fewer children cuz they're edumecated and have access to birth control.

so it's not the "having children" part that's the problem. it's the "development" part.

we need to redefine "developed nation" so that it doesn't mean, "nation that shits where it eats and then eats what it shits" or "consumes to fuckin much".

that article made me happy cuz i'm procreating and read an article in Now that kinda made me feel bad about that.