rigorousintuition.ca

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/featu ... 715156.ece

This planet ain't big enough for the 6,500,000,000 of us

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Behind the climate crisis lies a global issue that no one wants to
tackle: do we need radical plans to reduce the world's population?
Chris Rapley sparks the debate

What do the following have in common: the carbon dioxide content of
the atmosphere, Earth's average temperature and the size of the human
population? Answer: each was, for a long period of Earth's history,
held in a state of equilibrium. Whether it's the burning of fossil
fuels versus the rate at which plants absorb carbon, or the heat
absorbed from sunshine versus the heat reflected back into space, or
global birth rates versus death rates - each is governed by the
difference between an inflow and an outflow, and even small imbalances
can have large effects. At present, all of these three are out of
balance as a result of human actions. And each of these imbalances is
creating a major problem.

Second question: how do these three differ? Answer: human carbon
emissions and climate change are big issues at the top of the news
agenda. And rightly so, since they pose a substantial threat. But
population growth is almost entirely ignored. Which is odd, since it
is at the root of the environmental crisis, and it represents a danger
to health and socioeconomic development.

The statistics are quite remarkable. For most of the two million years
of human history, the population was less than a quarter of a million.
The advent of agriculture led to a sustained increase, but it took
thousands of years, until 1800, before the planet was host to a
billion humans. Since then growth has accelerated - we hit 2 billion
in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1975, 5 billion in 1987 and 6
billion in 1999. Today's grand total is estimated to be 6.5 billion,
with a growth rate of 80 million each year.

To what can we attribute such a dramatic rise? Impressive increases in
the food supply have played a part, but the underlying driver has been
the shift from an "organic" society, in which energy was drawn from
the wind, water, beasts of burden (including humans) and wood, to a
fossil fuel-based world in which most of our energy is obtained by
burning coal, oil and gas. This transition has fuelled the changes in
quality of life associated with modern technology, especially the
major advances in hygiene and medicine. Although unevenly distributed,
these bounties have seen life expectancy double and a corresponding
reduction in mortality rates.

But success in reducing mortality has not been matched by a lowering
of the birth rate - and this has resulted in the dramatic increase in
the human stock. As noted by Malthus, who at the end of the 18th
century was the first to foresee the problems of population growth,
such growth can accelerate rapidly since every individual has the
capacity to produce many offspring, each of whom can in turn produce
many more, and the process will only cease when something happens to
bring birth rate and death rate once more into balance.

In fact, the overall growth rate of the world's population hit a peak
of about 2 per cent per year in the late Sixties and has since fallen
to 1.3 per cent. Although the timing and magnitude of the changes have
been different in different parts of the world, the pattern has
followed the so-called "demographic transition". Initially both
mortality and birth rates are high, with the population stable. As
living standards rise and health conditions improve, the mortality
rate decreases. The resulting difference between the numbers of births
and deaths causes the population to increase. Eventually, the birth
rate decreases until a new balance is achieved and the population
again stabilises, but at a new and higher level.

Demographers offer two possible explanations for the decline in birth
rate, suggesting that it is an inherent tendency of societies to find
an equilibrium between births and deaths, with the lag simply being
the time taken for the change in mortality rate to be recognised.
Alternatively, it is attributed to the same general driving forces
that caused the decline in mortality, such as improvements in medical
practice and technology, in this case birth control.

So where do we stand today? Worldwide, the birth rate is about six per
second, and the death rate stands at three per second. UN figures
foresee numbers levelling out at a point when we have between 8 and 10
billion humans by 2050 - that's roughly a 50 per cent increase on
today's figure.

This is not comforting news. Even at current levels, the World Health
Organisation reports that more than three billion people are
malnourished. And although food availability continues to grow, per
capita grain availability has been declining since the Eighties.
Technology may continue to push back the limits, but 50 per cent of
plants and animals are already harvested for our use, creating a huge
impact on our partner species and the world's ecosystems. And it is
the airborne waste from our energy production that is driving climate
change.

Yet, even at a geo-political level, population control is rarely
discussed. Today, however, marks the publication of a new report on
population by the United Nations Environment Programme. Perhaps this
could be the spur we need.

If debate is started, some will say that we need to stop the world's
population booming, and to do so most urgently where the birth rates
are highest - the developing world. Others may argue that it is in the
developed world, where the impact of individuals is highest, that we
should concentrate efforts. A third view is to ignore population and
to focus on human consumption.

Programmes that seek actively to reduce birth rates find that three
conditions must be met. First, birth control must be within the scope
of conscious choice. Second, there must be real advantages to having a
smaller family - if no provision is made for peoples' old age, the
incentive is to have more children. Third, the means of control must
be available - but also to be socially acceptable, and combined with
education and emancipation of girls and women.

The human multitude has become a force at the planetary scale.
Collectively, our exploitation of the world's resources has already
reached a level that, according to the World Wildlife Fund, could only
be sustained on a planet 25 per cent larger than our own.

Confronted with this state of affairs, there is much discussion about
how to respond to human impacts on the planet and especially on how to
reduce human carbon emissions. Various technical fixes and changes in
behaviour are proposed, the former generally having price tags of
order trillions of dollars. Spread over several decades, these are
arguably affordable, and to be preferred to the environmental damage
and economic collapse which may otherwise occur.

But 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 programmes, 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.

Although I'm now the director of the British Antarctic Survey, I was
previously executive director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere
programme, looking at the chemistry and biology of how Earth works as
a system. About 18 months ago, I wrote an article for the BBC Green
Room website in which I raised the issues: "So if we believe that the
size of the human footprint is a serious problem (and there is much
evidence for this) then a rational view would be that along with a
raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of
population management must be addressed.

"In practice, of course, it is a bombshell of a topic, with profound
and emotive issues of ethics, morality, equity and practicability. So
controversial is the subject, that it has become the Cinderella of the
great sustainability debate - rarely visible in public, or even in
private. In interdisciplinary meetings addressing how the planet
functions as an integrated whole, demographers and population
specialists are usually notable by their absence. Rare, indeed, are
the opportunities for religious leaders, philosophers, moralists,
policy-makers, politicians and the global public to debate the
trajectory of the world's human population in the context of its
stress on the Earth system, and to decide what might be done."

The response from around the world was strong and positive - along the
lines of "at last, this issue has been raised". But after that initial
burst of enthusiasm, I find that little has changed. This is a pity,
since as time passes, so our ability to leave the world in a better
state is reduced. Today's report from the UN provides an opportunity
to raise the debate once again. For the sake of future generations, I
hope that others will this time take up the challenge.

how do we know how many are on the planet?

Who's counted them?

Yes, we do need population control.

Most Americans have a huge environmental footprint. If everyone lived as we generally do, it would take eight or nine Earths to sustain us all.

I recently rented Morgan Spurlock's series "30 Days." One of the episodes featured an eco-community called Dancing Rabbit. Members composted their own...human manure, grew most of their own food, built their own homes with cast-off wood, ate vegetarian, took cold showers, used solar power for everything, trashpicked most of their belongings from Dumpsters, and in general just endeavored to live in a manner as ecologically-friendly as possible. Their lifestyle strongly resembled camping.

EVEN THEIR LIFESTYLE WOULD TAKE MORE THAN ONE EARTH IF EVERYONE LIVED THAT WAY.

The program did not bring up population control. It's a very touchy issue. No one wants people killed off, or forced sterilizations, or any of it. Most people want to have and raise their own children; it's natural. Some people even believe it's their Biblical duty to have as large a litter as possible. Sigh.

But population control of some ethical sort IS the answer. There are too damn many of us. You can see us from space, for gods' sake. Either we institute some sort of population control, or Mother Nature will do it for us, unfortunately.

Okay. How much do we reduce the population? What percentage? And how quickly must we do this? You give me some target numbers and some basic calculations will likely show you that you are asking for a holocaust. People bandy these ideas around without looking at the numbers.

But before calculating, I just want someone to give us some target numbers to work with as this article conveniently does not do.

For those who've seen me do this before, don't give away the punch line.

I'm surprised this hasn't gotten a response from DE yet. Actually, I'd love to see birth control available to any woman on the planet who wants it. Of course, population reduction isn't the only answer. We could all start to live greener lives.

Have any of you noticed that the more of us there are, the fewer large wild animals there are? I expect that not too far into the future, the only large "wild" animals remaining will be the ones in zoos.

Heh, cross-posted with you, DE.

Somewhat related:

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowMan ... Earth.aspx

How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?

by Carl Haub

"How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?" is the most requested Population Today article. It first appeared in February 1995.

(Population Today, November/December 2002) The question of how many people have ever lived on Earth is a perennial one among information calls to PRB. One reason the question keeps coming up is that somewhere, at some time back in the 1970s, a now-forgotten writer made the statement that 75 percent of the people who had ever been born were alive at that moment.

This factoid has had a long shelf life, even though a bit of reflection would show how unlikely it is. For this "estimate" to be true would mean either that births in the 20th century far, far outnumbered those in the past or that there were an extraordinary number of extremely old people living in the 1970s.

If this estimate were true, it would indeed make an impressive case for the rapid pace of population growth in this century. But if we judge the idea that three-fourths of people who ever lived are alive today to be a ridiculous statement, have demographers come up with a better estimate? What might be a reasonable estimate of the actual percentage?

Any such exercise can be only a highly speculative enterprise, to be undertaken with far less seriousness than most demographic inquiries. Nonetheless, it is a somewhat intriguing idea that can be approached on at least a semi-scientific basis.

And semi-scientific it must be, because there are, of course, absolutely no demographic data available for 99 percent of the span of the human stay on Earth. Still, with some speculation concerning prehistoric populations, we can at least approach a guesstimate of this elusive number.
Prehistory and History

Any estimate of the total number of people who have ever been born will depend basically on two factors: (1) the length of time humans are thought to have been on Earth and (2) the average size of the human population at different periods.

Fixing a time when the human race actually came into existence is not a straightforward matter. Various ancestors of Homo sapiens seem to have appeared at least as early as 700,000 B.C. Hominids walked the Earth as early as several million years ago. According to the United Nations' Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends, modern Homo sapiens may have appeared about 50,000 B.C. This long period of 50,000 years holds the key to the question of how many people have ever been born.

At the dawn of agriculture, about 8000 B.C., the population of the world was somewhere on the order of 5 million. (Very rough figures are given in the table; these are averages of an estimate of ranges given by the United Nations and other sources.) The slow growth of population over the 8,000-year period, from an estimated 5 million to 300 million in 1 A.D., results in a very low growth rate — only 0.0512 percent per year. It is difficult to come up with an average world population size over this period. In all likelihood, human populations in different regions grew or declined in response to famines, the vagaries of animal herds, hostilities, and changing weather and climatic conditions.

In any case, life was short. Life expectancy at birth probably averaged only about 10 years for most of human history. Estimates of average life expectancy in Iron Age France have been put at only 10 or 12 years. Under these conditions, the birth rate would have to be about 80 per 1,000 people just for the species to survive. Today, a high birth rate would be about 45 to 50 per 1,000 population, observed in only a few countries of Africa and in several Middle Eastern states that have young populations.

Our birth rate assumption will greatly affect the estimate of the number of people ever born. Infant mortality in the human race's earliest days is thought to have been very high — perhaps 500 infant deaths per 1,000 births, or even higher. Children were probably an economic liability among hunter-gatherer societies, a fact that is likely to have led to the practice of infanticide. Under these circumstances, a disproportionately large number of births would be required to maintain population growth, and that would raise our estimated number of the "ever born."

By 1 A.D., the world may have held about 300 million people. One estimate of the population of the Roman Empire, from Spain to Asia Minor, in 14 A.D., is 45 million. However, other historians set the figure twice as high, suggesting how imprecise population estimates of early historical periods can be.

By 1650, world population rose to about 500 million, not a large increase over the 1 A.D. estimate. The average annual rate of growth was actually lower from 1 A.D. to 1650 than the rate suggested above for the 8000 B.C. to 1 A.D. period. One reason for this abnormally slow growth was the Black Death. This dreaded scourge was not limited to 14th-century Europe. The epidemic may have begun about 542 A.D. in western Asia, spreading from there. It is believed that half the Byzantine Empire was destroyed in the sixth century, a total of 100 million deaths. Such large fluctuations in population size over long periods greatly compound the difficulty of estimating the number of people who have ever lived.

By 1800, however, world population had passed the 1 billion mark, and it has continued to grow since then to the current 6 billion.
Guesstimates

Guesstimating the number of people ever born, then, requires selecting population sizes for different points from antiquity to the present and applying assumed birth rates to each period (see table). We start at the very, very beginning — with just two people (a minimalist approach!).

Code: Select all

How Many People Have Ever Lived On Earth?
Year    Population    Births per 1,000    Births Between Benchmarks
50,000 B.C.    2    -    -
8000 B.C.    5,000,000    80    1,137,789,769
1 A.D.    300,000,000    80    46,025,332,354
1200    450,000,000    60    26,591,343,000
1650    500,000,000    60    12,782,002,453
1750    795,000,000    50    3,171,931,513
1850    1,265,000,000    40    4,046,240,009
1900    1,656,000,000    40    2,900,237,856
1950    2,516,000,000    31-38    3,390,198,215
1995    5,760,000,000    31    5,427,305,000
2002    6,215,000,000    23    983,987,500

Number who have ever been born    106,456,367,669
World population in mid-2002    6,215,000,000
Percent of those ever born who are living in 2002    5.8

Source: Population Reference Bureau estimates.

One complicating factor is the pattern of population growth. Did it rise to some level and then fluctuate wildly in response to famines and changes in climate? Or did it grow at a constant rate from one point to another? We cannot know the answers to these questions, although paleontologists have produced a variety of theories. For the purposes of this exercise, it was assumed that a constant growth rate applied to each period up to modern times. Birth rates were set at 80 per 1,000 per year through 1 A.D. and at 60 per 1,000 from 2 A.D. to 1750. Rates then declined to the low 30s by the modern period. (For a brief bibliography of sources consulted in the course of this alchemy, see "For More Information.")

This semi-scientific approach yields an estimate of about 106 billion births since the dawn of the human race. Clearly, the period 8000 B.C. to 1 A.D. is key to the magnitude of our number, but, unfortunately, little is known about that era. Some readers may disagree with some aspects — or perhaps nearly all aspects — of the table, but at least it offers one approach to this elusive issue. If we were to make any guess at all, it might be that our method underestimates the number of births to some degree. The assumption of constant population growth in the earlier period may underestimate the average population size at the time. And, of course, pushing the date of humanity's arrival on the planet before 50,000 B.C. would also raise the number, although perhaps not by terribly much.

So, our estimate here is that about 5.8 percent of all people ever born are alive today. That's actually a fairly large percentage when you think about it.

Carl Haub holds the Conrad Taeuber Chair of Population Information at PRB.

Dreams End wrote:Okay. How much do we reduce the population? What percentage? And how quickly must we do this? You give me some target numbers and some basic calculations will likely show you that you are asking for a holocaust. People bandy these ideas around without looking at the numbers.

No doubt. I can't really give you any numbers, but at the same time it seems true that there's way too many of us on the planet, and that something has to give. Now, if we in the West were to stop breeding, the darkies would take over and that's no good, right? So for the sake of mankind, let's use war and famine to clear out Africa. That would give us some breathing space, plus we'll have a nice patch of land for the remaining large wild animals to roam on.

Okay, lame sarcasm aside, I understand the darker consequences of population reduction, but I do ask in all seriousness: what are we to do do? Because we're running out of space, like it or not.

Overpopulation takes care of itself with famine.

overshoot is something that will be a rear view mirror event, just as it has been for civilisations that have been wiped out in the past. By the time it happens there is little we will be able to do about it; nature has a habit of biting us on the ass if we get out of line.

But that doesn't answer the OP's question. However, I have no intention of even trying to answer an issue that tempts one to assume the status of a divine being. I am only one small person amongst 6.5 billion. There is no way on earth that I would assume the arrogance that is necessary to make pronouncements about how many people should share the world with me.

Whilst my comments might tempt some people (you know who you are) to accuse me of logical fallacy by claiming nature might wipe us out then stating we shouldn't do anything about population numbers will have missed the point. And if you need to ask what the point is there isn't any point in me trying to articulate it here.

Humans are the only species able to control our "carrying capacity." For example, if 100 people live on an island and it has resources to feed 100 people per year then they are at CC. But if one person grabs half the food, then the carrying capacity has dropped to 50. Magic!

This mirrors our current situation. While a small percentage has a vast excess, it's not just wrong to call hunger and starvation a problem of carrying capacity, it's downright evil.

The U.S. birth rate, by the way, is at an all time low. So when and if the big plan for global pop redux comes along...well look! We are already doing our bit! The U.S. population only continues to grow because of immigration. So tell ya what, in addition to maintaining our current birth rate, we'll limit immigration drastically. That'll be our contribution.

This is the exact logic used in U.S. zero population growth groups.

By the way, the number these groups seem to throw around is 2 billion. That's a reduction of 2/3.

Population calculations are actually tricky as we are not bacteria so only a subset of our population is reproducing at a given time. So what percentage of the population is within reproductive age is important. Hence the term, "baby boom" for example. Our boomers just left their reproductive years, so the generation behind them, even if they do the wild thing at the same rate as their parents will end up increasing the population less.

However, what is important is to understand that "zero population growth" is not a matter of a man and woman having only 2 kids. It means that the birth rate must equal the death rate. And that's to get us to zero. Currently, the world birthrate is around 2% per year and the death rate is around .8 %. That means we have to drop the birth rate down to .8% in order to keep the population at the current level. That's a reduction in the birth rate of 40%. And that's just to keep the population from increasing.

The good news is that just by doing nothing, population experts expect population growth to max out at 9 billion this century. So if we can figure out how to get food and water to an additional 50% then we are cool. And since the top 1% of the world's population controls probably 50% of the world's wealth and resources, I have a pretty good idea how we might make that happen.

The thing is, I recall there being public discussion about overpopulation in the late 60s and early 70s. It was an issue for a while, right alongside pollution. but then just kind of dropped from sight.

Sepka wrote:The thing is, I recall there being public discussion about overpopulation in the late 60s and early 70s. It was an issue for a while, right alongside pollution. but then just kind of dropped from sight.

Yes indeed. In high school, we (the uncool students who had the underground newspaper and started an ecology club) wore buttons that said "Stop at Two" -- meaning, of course, have no more than 2 kids. It turns out that lots of us were gay anyway, so that was a moot point, but quite a few of my high school friends went on to have 4-8 kids. I guess they made up for us queers. :-/

duplicate posting

I can't resist a population control discussion. Nomo, that second paper you posted has some mind-boggling statistics and estimates in it. Life expectancy of 10?? Talk about brutal and short!

* *

In 100 years, almost all of the 6.5 billion people alive today will be dead.

So if someone advocates the reduction of the population to 2 billion in say the next 200 years, I really don't think you can rely on maths alone to argue that they must have genocidal intentions. And it only contributes to a head in the sand attitude if you browbeat people into not contemplating the issue of population control. I don't think the total population needs to be reduced dramatically like that in order to avoid disaster, but I do think we're currently heading towards disaster.

As DE alludes to, wealthy countries have managed to control their own populations without even really trying. The developed countries have gone from high birth rates and high death rates, through a phase of rapid population growth, and now they have low birth rates, and low death rates. (The death rates decreased first, then the birth rates decreased, and that is literally a recipe for dramatic population growth).

I think we are at a crucial point right now, because in order for the rest of the world to complete the transition to a stable total population, they need all the things that are required to reduce death rates and birth rates.

They need health care, secure incomes, pension plans, school and not work for their children (or work and play but not slavery for their children, if you prefer).

But with central bankers running the show that's probably the last thing likely to happen. Slavery never ended, it just went underground, out of sight. Third world debt which, like nothing else, stops whole nations from advancing, is largely based upon the loaning out and charging of interest on fictionally created money. The morality of charging interest on money is debatable, but charging interest on fictional money...and then watching entire nations grind along in poverty, trying to pay back this fictional debt (plus interest) with hard-earned dollars...well, how perfectly parasitic is that?