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Global Warning - Aug 18, 2008 - Printable Version
- Where Are We Going, and What Are We Doing In This Handbasket?
by Robin Buckallew
I want you to think about a number for me. I want you to think about the number 6.6 billion. What does that number mean to you? Can you fathom a number so staggeringly large? To put it into perspective for you, here is a little thought exercise. We all know how short a second is. In fact, several seconds have already passed since you began reading this. In order to accumulate even 1 billion seconds, it requires almost 32 years; to accumulate 6.6 billion seconds, it requires 209.29 years. If you counted back 6.6 billion seconds, Thomas Jefferson would still be alive, and Napoleon Bonaparte would still be a young man. Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln would not even be born yet. A billion is an enormous number; 6.6 billion is so large, our minds can’t really even comprehend.
So, why do I bring up the number 6.6 billion? It’s not the national debt, it’s not the number of stars in the sky, and it’s not Stephen Hawkings’ IQ. It is, in fact, the number of humans that are currently occupying this pale blue dot we call the Earth. At our current growth rate of 1.3% per year, we can expect that number to double in about 50 years. Although current population growth predictions are somewhat more optimistic than that, those growth predictions have been based on the expectation that the birth rate will continue to decrease at the same rate that it has decreased over the past few decades. In view of recent data showing that the birth rate stabilized in 2002, and has now begun to increase again, from a low of 75 million new individuals per year in 2002 to 77 million new individuals in 2005, perhaps we shouldn’t be too hasty about accepting the assumption that the birth rate will continue to fall.
For the most part, environmental scientists avoid talking about population issues. Back in the 1970s, when the environmental movement was in its heyday, population issues were discussed, analyzed, and worried over. Now, most of us are taught not to talk about it. To speak about population pressures and the problem of increasing populations is perceived as not only misanthropic, it’s perceived as being anti-Third World, and damned impolite, to boot. After all, only a total Scrooge could fail to love a baby, right? Well, actually, this issue has nothing to do with hating babies, and everything to do with finding a way to live within the limits of a finite earth. I take great heart from the fact that in the past couple of years, some of the talking heads in the environmental left are starting to stick their heads cautiously up over the parapet, and make quiet, unobtrusive sounds that sort of sound like “overpopulation”, when translated from the obscurantist language often used when broaching unpopular issues. There are some people among us who are beginning to learn what we knew many years ago, but conveniently forgot – there are only so many people that can be supported on the amount of natural resources available, in spite of the rosy predictions of resources that will continue to expand as the population does. This school of thought, popularized by the late Julian Simon, is so appealing to so many people that we are now even further into the population problem without being any closer to a solution. Exponential population growth, by which a population begins to grow faster as it gets larger, even if the rate stays the same, is the single biggest threat to peace and prosperity that humankind faces today. Regardless of what people are fighting over in the endless wars around the world, whether it be land, water, power, religion, food, or oil, the real issue comes down to this: fighting over scarce resources that are growing scarcer everyday.
As I continue to study the issues facing us ecologically and environmentally every day, one fact jumps out at me, over and over, as though written in bold, italicized, and underlined in red all at the same time. There is absolutely no way we are going to solve any of the problems in the long term (and most of them not even in the short term) as long as there are 6.6 billion people in the world. In order to feed, clothe, and house that many people, we will have to continue clearing, plowing, planting, and concreting over the land that is vital for the survival of all species on Earth. Every year, there are more and more people depending on the land to sustain them; every year, there is less and less land per person, as the human population continues to swell out of control. Every year, more and more marginal lands are brought into production, using irrigation, pesticides, fertilizers, and other invasive means that pollute the air, the water, the soil, and the very food we eat. Every year, more land becomes degraded to the point that it is no longer feasible to reclaim it for any sort of crop production or wildlife purposes. Water, one of our most precious and limited resources, becomes increasingly polluted, not only with the fertilizers and pesticides that enable us to grow the crops to feed a bulging world, but also with the ever increasing amount of human waste that is being introduced into the water bodies daily. Around the world, as populations grow larger, water bodies shrink from overuse, so that more and more people, needing more and more water, actually have less water available. The crop yields around the world have grown steadily throughout the latter half of the 20th century, but the amount of grain available per person has not increased one bit, as population growth outstrips increases in production. Meanwhile, there are some studies suggesting that crop yield may have reached a plateau, where further growth per acre simply cannot be attained at anything matching the growth of the population. In addition, worldwide, good crop land is being rapidly converted to urban and suburban uses, as larger populations begin to search for places to live. Population pressures continue to challenge ecosystem managers who find themselves defending wilderness and wildlife against the needs of their human population; many of these wild areas will simply not be able to win out, and much of what we now think of as wilderness will likely no longer exist by mid-century if the trends continue. Meanwhile, species continue to go extinct at 1000X the background extinction rate, largely due to decline in available habitat.
In some countries, the problem has become so severe that governments have resorted to drastic measures. In China, when the population hit 600,000,000, it became obvious that something needed to be done. There simply wasn’t available space for all the people, so they implemented a policy of providing economic incentives to couples who agreed to have only one child. These incentives were very alluring. The promise of an apartment in a country with very little available space can be very tempting, as can the other promises of economic assistance that came along with the agreement. Unfortunately, many couples discovered after entering into these agreements and having their child that they wanted more children. Having a second child meant paying back everything they had received, which would be very prohibitive, especially when they had another child to support. When the problem the parents had was the birth of a girl child, this was resolved through infanticide, or other desperate measures that were widely reported in the western press. It has also led to the curious situation of parents of male children that have reached the age of maturity and can’t find a wife because of the shortage of females; so these parents have, by insisting on the son that gave them so much status, sacrificed their chance to be grandparents. Meanwhile, the population of China has more than doubled, now at greater than 1.2 billion people, and still growing, though much slower than before.
The solution in India was even more drastic. In India, the decision was made that all males who had fathered three children were to undergo mandatory sterilization. This proved not only unpopular, and quite questionable as a matter of human rights, it was impossible to enforce. Much of India’s population is rural and poor, and there simply was no way for them to follow up on all individuals, ascertain who had fathered three children, and perform the surgery. The program was a glaring failure, and has long since been discarded. With a program now focusing on educational methods, India has been able to slow the rate of growth.
There have been some very successful programs around the world addressing population issues. In some of the countries with huge population growth rates, popular soap operas have run story lines dealing with population issues, family planning, and contraception. Efforts to empower women and lift them out of poverty have proven to be highly effective at dealing with population issues. In Europe, most countries have stabilized their population growth, and some have even entered a phase of negative population growth. Most of this was done with economic incentives, which left the choice totally in the hands of the individual, such as a program which allows families to have as many children as they desire, but they receive absolutely no benefits for any children over two. They receive no education benefits, no housing benefits, no tax benefits, no insurance for those children that come after the second one. This allows parents to have as many children as they feel they can and will support; many parents have opted for smaller families, and the birth rates are substantially lowered throughout Europe.
The decline in the European birthrate, however, has some heads of state sweating profusely in worry. The capitalist economy that has now gone global is predicated on a basis of constant growth, and this requires constant population growth to maintain. Instead of discussing ways we can adjust the economy to the needs of the people and the needs of the Earth, unfortunately, we are currently mostly discussing how to manipulate the needs of the people and the needs of the Earth to force them into the artificial economy we have created and maintained at such expense. Even as the jobs become fewer and fewer, as society mechanizes many tasks, economists continue to scream loudly about the need to reverse the slowing population growth so that they can continue to reap the large monetary rewards that they’ve become accustomed to. There has been no real discussion about where we are going to find food, clothing, shelter, water, and jobs for all these new people. There is an overwhelming faith in the power of the market to provide all that, and more, even in the face of declining resources. This goes beyond oblivious; this is, in fact, suicidal.
Another theme that is constant in the drumbeat against addressing population issues is the ability of the Third World countries to continue their high levels of population growth because of their lower use of resources than those of us in the more affluent nations. It is true that people around the world use much fewer resources per capita than those of us in the United States and Europe; it is also true that those around the world who are living lives of poverty and despair would like to increase the amount of resources available to them. This will not be possible unless the growth rate decreases, because we are not getting any additional resources, like manna falling from heaven. In fact, the resources that are available are being rapidly depleted. Even with reduced consumption in the wealthy countries, if the current trends continue, not only will it not be possible for the poor of the world to increase their standard of living, it may well become necessary for those who are currently living well to reduce their standard of living down to a level that is equivalent to that of the poorest people. Instead of lifting all boats, we could very well end up sinking all boats by simply putting too many people in them.
Environmental issues are a multi-pronged problem. The equation is simple: I=PAT. In other words, the total impact of a society is equal to the product of its population, its affluence, and its technology. For the most part, we try to address these issues as though they are somehow distinct entities, even though they are irrevocably intertwined. We used to go to conferences where the rich nations would scream and holler that the problem is not our consumption, but their population growth. In response, the leaders of the poor nations would complain that it is not their population, but our consumption. Eventually, the leaders of the poorer nations were heard, and all talk shifted to the problem of consumption. Consumption is a huge issue, and I spend a great deal of my time addressing it; however, consumption goes hand in hand with population. The larger a population, the less they are able to consume without problems. The US has the third largest population in the world; we also have one of the largest rates of consumption in the world. The only two countries that have larger populations, China and India, have rapidly growing economies with a concurrent increase in consumption by people who aspire to lead a better life than the harsh one they’ve been leading, which seems only fair to those of us who have by an accident of birth managed to live in a country where the lifestyles have been much better for a long time. Meanwhile, the kind-hearted progressives in our country listen to the leaders of the Third World countries who tell them that they have the right and the desire to continue increasing their population because of their lower level of consumptions. One thing nobody stops to consider when these leaders are speaking – we are mostly hearing from the wealthy men who run the country. It is very rare for anyone to actually ask the women who are having and raising the children if they agree. In fact, on those rare occasions when such questions are asked, it becomes obvious that in reality many women simply have no choice in the matter. They are ordered by their husband or mother-in-law to have another child, and they must do so. The women are the ones who face the health risks from childbearing; they are the ones who must figure out how to feed another mouth on the limited amount of food available; they are the ones who must do the work necessary to bring that child to an age where it is no longer totally dependent. Many of these women would like the ability to choose; but because we in the west tend to automatically internalize the slightest criticism that comes our way from the leaders of poorer nations, we never stop to ask ourselves what the women want. We assume that these wealthy, autocratic men are entitled to speak for the women who have no power to speak for themselves.
Time is growing short to deal with the population problem. Many of the articles I read about dealing with environmental problems are suggesting half measures, or in many cases, no measures at all, because they are more concerned with how we are going to manage to provide for the 9 billion people that will soon be living on Earth. This is the wrong question. The question we need to be asking ourselves is how we manage to keep from reaching that level of population. We must stop this speeding train, before we have a fatal collision with the limits of Earth’s resources.
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