Source: al Jazeera
Credits: Chris Arsenault
Dated: 2011-10-30

Are we facing a crisis of overpopulation?

With the world's population hitting seven billion, demographers are worried about how to provide for everyone.

If measures are not taken, a booming population could increase global poverty, analysts say  Photocredits: GALLO/GETTY

Back in 1798, clergyman and author Thomas Malthus fretted that the "power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in earth to produce subsistence for man".

When Malthus was writing in 1810, the world's population was about one billion. It will hit seven billion on October 31, according to the UN, and debates about how many people the planet can sustain only seem to be intensifying. The global population is expected to hit nine billion by 2050.

"We don't really know how to adequately feed seven billion people - we still have one billion who are not getting enough to eat - so how are we going to feed nine or ten billion?" asks John Weeks, director of the International Population Centre at San Diego State University.

"My own belief is that we don't have enough resources to sustain seven billion - much less nine or more at the standard of living that we have in the West," he told Al Jazeera.

"Malthus was obviously wrong about a lot of things." He certainly overestimated prospective population growth rates and underestimated the ability of technology to revolutionise agriculture. "But the question about how many resources we can generate sustainably remains unanswered," Weeks said.  

Other early scholars came to different conclusions from Malthus, who used his dire predictions to preach chastity and religious moralism.

In the 1670s, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, the Dutchman who invented microscopes, estimated that the world could sustain 13.385 billion people. 

Population is not necessarily the problem, rather over consumption and inequality drive the worst environmental degradation, some of Malthus' critics argue.

"The consumption of the rich causes far more environmental problems per person than the modes of consumption from the vast majority of people - who have fewer claims to resources and incomes," Richard E Bilsborrow, faculty fellow at the Carolina Population Centre, told Al Jazeera. "High consumption [in the rich world] is linked to degradation in the poorer countries. Still, the latter people are degrading the environment."

More people, more geniuses?

Mao Zedong, the architect of communist China, didn't worry about over population because "every stomach is born with a pair of hands". In his view, the need to consume was balanced by the ability to produce.

Chairman Mao was not the only powerful cornucopian - someone who believes that population growth is a blessing, not a curse.

Standing on the other side of the political spectrum and sharing a similar world view, was Julian Simon, a business professor and fellow at the free-market CATO institute, who passed away in 1998.

To oversimplify his arguments, Simon contended that resources are not becoming any more scarce and population growth should be celebrated; more people means more geniuses who can solve the world's problems through technology and innovative policies.

View our special coverage of the population milestone

Today, it looks like Mao and Simon are out of style. China's population grew from fewer than 600 million in the 1950s to nearly one billion in 1978, when reform-minded leaders imposed the one child policy, worrying there were too many idle hands and empty stomachs.

Part of Simon's fame stems from a bet he made with the ecologist Paul Ehrlich. Simon thought that prices for basic metals - a measure of scarcity - would fall through the 1980s, while Ehrlich wagered they would rise. Simon won, but prices for food, fuels and commodities have increased dramatically since then - and many hedge funds and speculators see a rising arch over the long-term for prices of basic goods - indicating that supplies are becoming scarcer.

"We don't have any more land on which to grow food," Weeks said. "All the resources we are exploiting need to be exploited more efficiently." [ Meshed Gears : To say nothing of the 140 gallons of diesel equivalent energy in every acre of cereal crops. ]

Inequality vs population

In early 2011, the International Monetary Fund released a paper entitled Inequality, Leverage and Crisis, warning that spiraling inequality could have "disastrous consequences" if not addressed.

And they are not alone in sounding the alarm. "The global wealth pyramid has a very wide base and a sharp point," The Economist reported in January 2011. "The richest one per cent of adults control 43 per cent of the world's assets; the wealthiest ten per cent have 83 per cent. The bottom 50 per cent have only two per cent."

This massive amount of money is often spent on private jets, multiple estates and market speculation. If the gap between the haves, have-nots and have-yachts is reduced drastically, critics say, the world has enough wealth and natural resources to provide a decent standard of living to a large population.

"There is a rough tradeoff between population and consumption ... a country's environmental resources can be stressed by either of them," said Geoffrey McNicoll, a senior associate at the Population Council, an international non-profit organisation. "More consumption is usually a better route in generating human well-being - though with diminishing returns at high levels," he told Al Jazeera.   

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of adults worldwide rose from 3.6 billion to 4.4 billion, while average wealth (total wealth divided by population) rose from $30,700 to $43,800, The Economist reported. There could be plenty to go around.

"Simply redistributing wealth would greatly improve the current situation but it is not politically feasible," Bilsborrow said.

Environmental debts 

But these calculations on redistribution do not take environmental costs into account. Some critics say that humans are already taking too much from nature and increased population - especially a globe full of people who want to live like citizens of the developed world - will only make the planet more unsustainable.

The ecological footprint of humankind - the amount of natural wealth we currently take out of the world in the form of food, energy, materials and water - is 35 per cent greater than what the planet can sustain, according to the calculations of environmentalist Mathis Wackernagell, co-developer of the ecological footprint concept.

Some people consume far more than their fair share, others far less. The current model is unsustainable, Wackernagell argues, as we are taking resources out of the planet faster than they can be regenerated. You can probably guess the worst offenders.

Residents of Canada, the US and a few northern European countries are only surpassed by the consumers in Arab Gulf States - the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain - where petroleum extraction, constant air conditioning and fleets of massive SUVs contribute to the world's highest environmental impact per person, according to the Global Footprint Network, a research organisation.

"Obviously, we could sustain a larger number of people at a lower standard of living," said Weeks. "But that would mean higher death rates and more misery."

Growth slowing

While the population continues expanding, demographers are encouraged because its growth rate has slowed down in most regions. "The world's population growth reached its peak at 1.9 per cent in the 1960s and has dropped to about 1.2 per cent," said Bilsborrow. "The fall is really extraordinary." [ Meshed Gears : A growth rate of 1.2% leads to a 70 year doubling time, and even if the planet could afford this, at current production and usage levels, we don't have even 20 years before energy and potable water crises result in global catastrophes. ]

A rise in living standards, access to family planning and more rights for women have all played a role in slowing the rise, analysts said. 

There is, however, one significant exception. "The single major world region still experiencing rapid population growth is sub-Saharan Africa," McNicoll said. "There is some population-related conflict (for instance, between farmers and herders), but most of the region's conflicts seem to have other causes - religion, ethnicity, minerals, etc."

Improving agriculture in the region is certainly possible, experts agree, as many rural farmers still lack access to basic technologies. This will help feed a growing population in the short-term, but reducing long-term population growth is trickier in a region disproportionately afflicted by conflict. "The most productive aid we [in the West] can give is education," Weeks said. "But selling weapons is what the rich countries do most easily."

Source: al Jazeera
Credits: Chris Arsenault
Dated: 2011-10-30

'Baby bust' spells trouble for rich nations

More than 30 countries, mostly in Europe and East Asia, face rapidly ageing populations.

[ Meshed Gears : I'm at a loss how any journalist could write this story and "Are we facing a crisis of overpopulation?" ( left column ) on the same day, without facing at least some doubts about one or both of them. In my opinion, this is the more problematic of the two, as this particular article has inverted the facts looming over our future, discussed at some length in the other.
As we have known since at least the 1970s (vide NSSM 200 e.g. http://www.smarterearth.org/content/introduction), the tragic reality is that we have 7 billion people, currently doubling every 60 years, living on a finite planet that can sustain some 600 million to 2.4 billion in the absence of oil (vide http://www.smarterearth.org/content/most-important-video-youll-ever-see). Having attained peak oil, which currently has a doubling time in demand of 12 years, we know that even if there is still as much recoverable oil available in the Earth as we have already extracted, we will shortly not be able to afford it - even if we ignore the effects that it has on the planet. We are also faced with crises in the availability of potable water, the collapse of fish stocks, devastating reduction of biodiversity, and global climatic change all of which threaten to bring on the long planned wars of depopulation even before they are triggered by limitations in energy availability.
This isn't absolutely necessary, even if avoiding the consequences of our greed and stupidity is unlikely at this late stage. By recognizing that a war of depopulation is the greatest danger facing us, we can assign this a realistic cost, which, given that it may well wipe out all humans (and possibly all existing life on our planet), should be almost infinite. If we do that, then we can also recognise that almost any expense we might engage in, in order to minimize the probability of a war of depopulation occurring, is economically justified, no matter how much it costs us in the short term. This allows us to create (i.e. without interest) a non-inflationary source of wealth which will be self liquidating as mankind (and our planet) will fully recoup the investment made, in the form of future savings.
Areas in which investment are required include sponsoring wealth and population redistribution and engaging in heroic activity to ensure that everyone has access to, at least, potable water, food, shelter, medicine, education, a pension and the hope that their children can lead a happier, more fulfilling life than they have had - in exchange for managing populations to reduce them to sustainable levels. If we miss the limited window we still have to spread equality and hope, the consequences will be dire. Articles such as this one, advocating increasing population in order to care for the aged, misidentify the urgent challenges facing us, and in consequence have it completely the wrong way around. ]

The world’s richest nations are approaching a baby bust. It’s a bear market for newborns and the effects could spell economic and social dislocation in the next 20 years, according to some analysts.

As demographers debate the dangers and benefits of the earth’s population reaching seven billion on October 31, advanced economies in Europe, East Asia and even the US are facing declining birth rates.

With senior citizens making up a larger proportion of the population, countries are worried that there will be too many retirees receiving healthcare and social security payments and too few workers to support them.

“The costs of supporting the elderly are generally met through taxes,” Madeleine Sumption, an analyst with the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, told Al Jazeera. “Without any reforms to current working and spending patterns, the costs are expected to grow to unsustainable levels in many wealthy countries, particularly in very rapidly ageing countries such as Japan and Italy.”

For a population to stay at a steady state, the fertility rate needs to be about 2.1 children per woman. Japan’s rate, one of the lowest in the world, is 1.21, according to the CIA, far below basic replacement levels. The UK is at 1.91, Belgium’s is 1.65, Canada is at 1.58, South Korea has a rate of 1.23 and Italy has a rate of 1.39.

More than 30 countries have what is considered a very low fertility of less than 1.3 births per woman.

Demographic dangers

With a lower fertility rate, the ageing of the population is inevitable,” said Roderic Beaujot, a demographer at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. “You have less people at the bottom of the [age] pyramid and with people living longer you have more people at the top of the pyramid.”

In the UK, for example, the number of people over 70 will increase by more than 50 per cent - from 6.2 million today to 9.6 million in 2030 - according to government forecasts.

“Ageing has become a huge industry,” Peggy Taillon, director of the Canadian Council on Social Development, a research organisation, told Al Jazeera. “People are looking for options because of the costs associated with care.”

Rising healthcare expenditures are just one of the challenges ageing, developed countries are beginning to face as children of the so-called baby boom - the period of high economic growth following World War II - begin to retire.

“In order to maintain their standard of living, based on the economic level they have been at for the past 50 years, [developed countries] are going to have to replace their population after the baby boom,” said Thomas Janoski, a professor of sociology at the University of Kentucky. “Demography is the one thing in the social sciences you can predict pretty strongly.”

There are two main solutions to the baby bust: increasing fertility rates or encouraging immigration. Both seem fairly simple, but can be difficult to achieve.

Facing a steep demographic decline, Russia initiated a policy known as “mother capital” where women are paid about $10,000 to have more than one child. It seems to have had a small effect, but the general trend remains dismal for the world’s largest country by territory.

The other option, immigration, is not popular in East Asia and is becoming less appetising for some Europeans. Japan has one of the lowest naturalisation rates in the world, Janoski said. “Japan and Korea will be the odd cases, but with China sitting on their border, they will have an incentive to keep their economies strong, as they don’t want to become vassal states of China,” he told Al Jazeera.

Class and religion

In Europe, a common fear among the far-right is that immigration from Muslim majority nations will create “Eurabia”. But demographics don’t seem to back up that view.

“Perhaps the biggest surprise, given received notions about the Arab/Muslim expanse, is the recent spread of sub- replacement fertility to parts of the Arab and the Muslim world,” wrote Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “Algeria, Tunisia, and Lebanon are now sub-replacement countries, as is Turkey.”

Traditionally a sender of emigrants to the US, Canada, Australia and other regions, widespread immigration into Europe began after World War II, as large numbers of mostly low-skilled labourers from Turkey, North Africa and the UK’s former colonies in South Asia were encouraged to come in search of work.

The children of those immigrants, in some cases, are accused of not assimilating to European culture. This divide, however, could be based more on class than religion.

In contrast to Europe, Muslims in the US are among the most highly educated demographics. Forty-three per cent of Muslim American women hold college degrees, compared with 29 per cent of American women overall, making them the second-best educated religious group following American Jews, according to a 2009 Gallup poll.

Debates in the US about Latino immigration share similar rhetorical overtones with European discourse about Muslim immigrants.

Successful models

From the perspective of national interest, Canada’s immigration policies - which prioritise skilled workers and investors - may offer the best model. 

“In proportion to its population, Canada naturalises the most people in the world by far,” Janoski said. “Canadian immigration policy is really focused on economic growth,” where immigrant investors or skilled workers are given preference over family reunification which drives the model in the US and other countries, he said.

“That is why they came up with the policy for Chinese entrepreneurs. When Hong Kong [formerly a British colony] went back to the Chinese, they [Canada] gave relatively quick citizenship to businessmen.”

Recently, Filipinos have become one of Canada’s largest immigrant groups, with many first arriving as domestic helpers or temporary healthcare workers before gaining citizenship.

These professions are fundamentally linked with demographics, as most wealthy countries will be hiring more healthcare professionals in the coming years.

“People are looking for options because of the costs associated with care,” said Taillon. “A lot of people are going the way of international nannies because they see it is a better option.”

The employment rate for foreign-born citizens of Canada is actually higher than for native-born Canadians, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported. By 2031, one in three workers in Canada is projected to be foreign-born, according to government statistics. This trend should cushion the country from the baby bust.

For Europe and Japan in particular, the choice seems stark. “Countries that do not wish to open their doors to immigration will be forced to rely more on other policies to shoulder the burden of population ageing,” Sumption, from the Migration Policy Institute, said. “For example, retirement ages may have to rise faster and tax burdens may have to increase.

“Like immigration, these other policies are also politically controversial and painful to implement.”