GLOBAL POPULATON as represented by spikes. Data from the Geographically Based Economic Data project at Yale University.
Image: flickr/Arenamontanus
More In This Article
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
Editor's note: This story is part of a series of online exclusives about natural phenomena and human endeavors we'd like to see come to an end. They are connected with the September 2010 special issue of Scientific American called "The End".
Every day, about 350,000 people are born and 150,000 die. Run this loop for a few decades, and the United Nations projects that we're on track to increase global population by about one-third by 2050.
Most of that growth will happen in the poorest countries on Earth. Despite their poverty, those two billion people will add to the atmosphere at least three times the current greenhouse gas emissions of the U.S. This fact alone has given the efforts to slow population growth new urgency: the U.K.'s Optimum Population Trust has calculated that paying for contraception in the developing world is approximately four times more cost-effective per ton of greenhouse gases saved than to fund, for example, renewable energy projects.
Yet access to contraception will not solve the problem on its own. According to Werner Haug, director of the Technical Division of the United Nations Population Fund, the drivers of high fertility are economic and social inequality between the sexes, along with the lack of family planning coupled with high infant mortality, which drives people to have many children to ensure that enough will survive.
Solving these problems requires improvements in a host of circumstances, such as the availability of vaccinations, improved women's health, better access to education for women, and the pursuit of overall economic development. Prosperity, history has shown, is the key to shifting from the high birth and death rates common to the developing world to the low rates that accompany industrialization.
See what we're tweeting about
64 Comments
Add CommentEach person in the developed world uses 20 - 25 times as much resources and produces carbon dioxide in the same ratio as one in the third world. That makes the equivalent of 6 billion third-world people in the United States and 6 billion elsewhere. 13 billion is too much for thed earth to bear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere has to be duty somewhere.
@sisko - I don't see where they said that US taxpayers were paying for anything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry I mistyped the quote.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiss/b: "the drivers of high fertility are economic and social inequality between the sexes..."
@Sisko
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmen!!!! While no one said it would be our problem who does the UN think is going to do it? Everytime I hear one of these things it makes me cringe. These governments and their people are so corrupt nothing can help them.
Some of the world press is already calling for the United States to pay.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/08/201081612554999771.html
Maybe a few floods and population reduction might not be bad in the long run. Personally, I would rather have the rest of the world look within for their own support and not to those of us in the States. Let's take care of ourselves and let them do the same.
The developed world has created the scientific, engineering and managerial expertise necessary to create a high wealth society. It has made this knowledge available to the rest of the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is the reason a country like China can grow its economy at a rate of 10% per year. No need to work its way up from primitive steam engines, to primitive steam trains, up through diesel electrict trains - a process that took well over 100 years. It can take western developed technologies and go right to high speed trains.
The West having made such immense contributions to the world as a whole, low income countries and West hating progressives now have the audacity to claim a right to even more.
Don't give them a penny.
Fair enough, don't pay for their population reduction. Pay for the one in America, where both poverty among certain social strata and religious fanaticism do indeed cause a rapid population increase. This, along with the really high consumption of resources within the States, makes them part of the problem. The US is the only developed country with such a high percentage of population increase, and it is consuming things much faster than even other industrial countries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDimitris - As I understand, the birth/death rates of U.S. citizens produce a diminishing population. It is only the continued net immigration that produces a net population increase. Not that we can eliminate immigration, so so many of the citizen base will not perform much of the necessary labor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think this is the case around much of the western world, including Brittan, Germany and France.
The more fundamental problem is the increasing birth rate in regions that cannot support additional population. Essentially, western immigration provides relief for the increasing birth rate of the rest of the world.
Make vasectomies profitable to those who are the poorest and most fertile.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article references a report posted at Telegraph.co.uk about research by the London School of Economics, “Fewer Emitter, Lower Emissions, Less Cost”. The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended. The research concludes that if those unintended pregnancies could be avoided through the use of contraceptives, 34 billion tons of CO2 would be eliminated – equivalent to nearly 6 times the current annual emissions of the US.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn increasing population will not only require additional consumption of nutrients, but by occupying increasing amounts of the world’s most productive farmland will decrease nutrient production. It will also of course require additional nonrenewable sources of potable water and further deplete the ocean fishes. Not to mention the unpredictable effects of global warming.
Regardless of which nation houses the net increase in world population, they will strive to improve their lot by increasing their per capita energy usage. The fundamental problem facing the world is that the human population already exceeds the amount that can be reliably sustained by the planet Earth. If effective, humane methods of reducing the current population are not soon found inhumane methods will be naturally applied.
Also tubal ligations for that same group. Make it worth it to them!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is not a duty, it is obvious self-interest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't believe there are people here are suggesting that a country like the US shouldn't share in the responsibility of assisting in population control, one of the things necessary to ensure the continued wellbeing of the entire planet. How long will it be until some (right wing, I expect) Americans figure out that we're all in this together, and that we all will suffer from being selfish and hostile towards any crisis affecting the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUganda had a population of 6 million when the Brits left 50 years ago. Today there are 30 million, and forecasts are for 60 million. Each woman bears 7 children, and rural women have ambitions to bear 11 children. Half the population is under 15, three quarters under 25. The government cannot afford to stock anti-malarial drugs in clinics, let alone contraceptives. Wood for cooking is becomeing scarce, and charcoal burners are cutting in the national forests. At some stage population control will be achieved by starvation, warfare, and disease. It will not be pretty, but to me it seems inevitable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEducated people around the world consumes more resources than the uneducated, however they do not exacerbate the population problem by controlling their reproductive rates.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe present rate of migration is a result of overpopulation. Overpopulation stress reduces compassion and creates minorities in otherwise homogeneous populations. Those who find themselves on the "gas chamber" list become refugees. This group of individuals seeking refuge will keep increasing geometrically as food and resources become increasingly scarce.
The developed world will have to act to maintain an educated modern society that values freedom and scientific progress, if not China will be the only refuge for the educated.
The reverend Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was always right, science and technology delayed his predictions, but now we face the double whammy of technology destroying our environment and an uneducated population bringing his predictions to fruition.
All that we, of the developed countries, want is a nice, safe, clean way of reducing the populations of those who don't contribute to our getting wealthier at their expense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know why those awful 3rd-worlders can't have the good manners t0 just go off somewhere and cease to exist until we need a few more maids and gardeners who will work for little or less.
All these non-white, non-English speaking, non-North American or European folks, with their socialist ideas of being equally human, just will not shut up and die the way they are supposed to. I don't know why they can't understand that we, and we alone, have any rights to live comfortably and enjoy the wealth of the world
It's ALL ours, ours, ours!!!!
don't forget the germans with the airplane in WWI and the Japanese with the machinegun after that...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt last some sane comments on overpopulation are coming from the USA. It is clear that the United Kingdom and the USA are unusual among developed countries in that both have high levels of immigration and a birth rate that exceeds the replacement rate. Population increase must be reversed particularly in the developed countries if the earth's finite resources are not to be exhausted within the lifetime of our grandchildren. If petroleum were to run out with 9 million human beings on the planet, not only would vast numbers starve in poor countries but in the USA the poor would die too. The projected increase in poor countries is unlikely to occur because billions will have starved to death or died of water shortage before then, through the rich countries tiring of feeding more and more impoverishe people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy comment stating that religious leaders must be taken into account for uncontrolled population growth was censored out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI accused journalists of having neither the honesty, nor the courage, to face this driving force for population expansion.
However, I didn't expect them to validate that accusation so swiftly. :-/
The two main drivers of ecomonic growth are increased productivity per capita and increased population. Technology increases per capita productivity, but carries environmental risks. A birthrate of >2.1 per household is required to increase population unless immigration supplements the shortfall. Most of the developed countries are suffering from decreasing indigenous birthrates and their growth is only supported by increased immigration.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe paradox is that to maintain economic growth it is necessary to risk the environment that sustains the growth. The only evident solution is an idealized and probabally impossible zero-growth ecomomic model. The additional issue is that even if such an ecomomic model was workable, we are still at population levels which are enviromentally unsustainable unless technology comes to the rescue. Or mother earth shakes us off this rock like a bad case of fleas.
You have my sympathy, I had a post of religious nature removed from the discussion of Krauss's blog about religious resposibility. My post for that was a fairly brief and benign story stating that some religious leaders actually embrace science. Other posts still on the discussion are long winded rambling ranting diatribes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faith-and-foolishness#comments
I don't know who pulls these posts off the discussion board, but I wish they could do the same for the commercial spam pushing namebrand jeans, handbags, and watches at loww, lowwww, prices... I click on the 'report abuse' link when I see this, and the link changes to 'abuse reported' but the spam remains and keeps returning. Such is life in the digital age.
Stew, your complicated philosophy is making my head spin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's have some facts. Population is growing at nearly a quarter of a million a day (UN Population Fund). We will all be exposed to the consequences of that. Those who think we can seal ourselves off from the rest of the world, are living in a fool's paradise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome more figures: UNPF estimates that there are over 200 million women who would use contraception but have no access to it. One result of this is that 20 million a year undergo an unsafe abortion (WHO). Of those 20 million 800,000 die, and over a million suffer a permanent disability. UNPF also reckons that 40% of all pregnancies are unintentional. Address that and we would have gone a long way to limiting population growth, entirely without coercion.
In terms of international budgets, the costs would be trivial.
Why should we bother? Well, why did the Good Samaritan bother?
jtdwyer says, "As I understand, the birth/death rates of U.S. citizens produce a diminishing population. It is only the continued net immigration that produces a net population increase. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this******************
Sorry bud, but glenn beck's conspiracy theories are a lousy source of information, and you really need to start FactChecking some of this propaganda you try to pass on.
While the U.S. population is aging, especially as 78 million baby boomers retire over the next 2 decades, we have hardly reached zero population growth. Predictions over the next half century indicate a decrease of about 50% in population growth, from about 1.10% growth 15-20 years ago, to about 0.54% growth from 2040 to 2050. The decrease in the rate of growth is predominantly due to the aging of the population and, consequently, a dramatic increase in the number of deaths. From 2030 to 2050, the United States would grow more slowly than ever before in its history. As this population ages, the median age will rise, and will give us a population estimate of almost 400 million by 2050.
At the current time, our population growth is slightly less than 1 percent per year, and the nation with the third largest population behind China and India. The United States continues to be gaining people while many other industrialized nations are not; Japan's population is actually decreasing. Immigration today adds less than one-third of that population growth, or a net average of 880,000 per year. The two major components driving the population growth are fertility and net immigration, with births still accounting for over two-thirds the growth currently.
The U.S. population is becoming more diverse by race and Hispanic origin, with non-Hispanic Whites, the slowest growing group, which are likely to contribute less and less to the total population growth in this country. The non-Hispanic Whites would contribute 14 percent growth from 2010 to 2030, and would contribute nothing to population growth after 2030 because it would be declining in size, while all other minorities would be increasing due to fertility.
envirobill says, "IF petroleum were to run out with 9 million human beings on the planet, not only would vast numbers starve in poor countries but in the USA the poor would die too."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this********************
Since fossil fuels are definitely finite quantities, with the U.S. having reached Peak OIL in 1979, and the entire world having reached Peak OIL probably around 2005, we're definitely on the downhill slide towards the end of OIL around mid-century, about the time the Earth has 9 BILLION people, since there is no "IF" about it!
IF we don't start changing our ways and being much more respectful of our natural resources, and not using and abusing them as quickly as possible, as well as being more kind to our environment, a lot more than just the poor will surely die.
lakota2012 - Sorry, fact-boy, but I stated:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"As I understand, the birth/death rates of U.S. citizens produce a diminishing population. It is only the continued net immigration that produces a net population increase."
You may notice that I stipulated that my statement applied to U.S. citizens only.
You offered no 'facts' to dispute my assertion, just some unreferenced prediction of non-Hispanic whites population increasing by 14% from now until 2030, which is not comparable to a category of U.S. citizens.
Thanks for supporting my principal point, that most of the U.S. population growth is derived from immigration (and the birth rate among immigrants). Perhaps you'll disagree...
That's a pretty sanctimonious view. Remember, whilst you were working through the steam engines, etc. and "giving" the world modern technology, the west was using roughly 12 million slaves from Africa and Asia, segregating it's own populations, and sastarting world wars. You also "gave" Japan the atomic bomb. Didn't you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the matter of slavery, from "Encyclopaedia Britannica":
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother notable Islamic slave society was that of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in sub-Saharan Africa (northern Nigeria and Cameroon) in the 19th century. At least half the population was enslaved. That was only the most notable of the Fulani jihad states of the western and central Sudan, where between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population consisted of slaves. In Islamic Ghana, between 1076 and 1600, about a third of the population were slaves. The same was true among other early states of the western Sudan, including Mali (12001500), Segou (17201861), and Songhai (14641720). It should be noted that slavery was prominent in Ghana and Mali, and presumably elsewhere in Africa in areas for which information is not available, long before the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade. The population of the notorious slave-trading state of the central Sudan, Ouidah (Whydah), was half-slave in the 19th century. It was about a third in Kanem (16001800) and perhaps 40 percent in Bornu (15801890). Most slaves probably were acquired by raiding neighbouring peoples, but others entered slavery because of criminal convictions or defaulting on debts (often not their own); subsequently, many of those people were sold into the international slave trade. After the limiting and then abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, a number of these African societies put slaves to work in activities such as mining gold and raising peanuts, coconuts (palm oil), sesame, and millet for the market.
Among some of the various Islamic Berber Tuareg peoples of the Sahara and Sahel, slavery persisted at least until 1975. The proportions of slaves ranged from around 15 percent among the Adrar to perhaps 75 percent among the Gurma. In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, about a third of the population consisted of slaves. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century close to half the population was enslaved. In the Vai Paramount chiefdoms in the 19th century as much as three-quarters of the population consisted of slaves. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third were enslaved. In the 19th century over half the population consisted of slaves among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Ibo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola.
The West was, and remains, far from perfect, but let's keep some perspective.
(And now with quotes):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the matter of slavery, from "Encyclopaedia Britannica":
"Another notable Islamic slave society was that of the Sokoto caliphate formed by Hausas in sub-Saharan Africa (northern Nigeria and Cameroon) in the 19th century. At least half the population was enslaved. That was only the most notable of the Fulani jihad states of the western and central Sudan, where between 1750 and 1900 from one- to two-thirds of the entire population consisted of slaves. In Islamic Ghana, between 1076 and 1600, about a third of the population were slaves. The same was true among other early states of the western Sudan, including Mali (12001500), Segou (17201861), and Songhai (14641720). It should be noted that slavery was prominent in Ghana and Mali, and presumably elsewhere in Africa in areas for which information is not available, long before the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade. The population of the notorious slave-trading state of the central Sudan, Ouidah (Whydah), was half-slave in the 19th century. It was about a third in Kanem (16001800) and perhaps 40 percent in Bornu (15801890). Most slaves probably were acquired by raiding neighbouring peoples, but others entered slavery because of criminal convictions or defaulting on debts (often not their own); subsequently, many of those people were sold into the international slave trade. After the limiting and then abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, a number of these African societies put slaves to work in activities such as mining gold and raising peanuts, coconuts (palm oil), sesame, and millet for the market.
Among some of the various Islamic Berber Tuareg peoples of the Sahara and Sahel, slavery persisted at least until 1975. The proportions of slaves ranged from around 15 percent among the Adrar to perhaps 75 percent among the Gurma. In Senegambia, between 1300 and 1900, about a third of the population consisted of slaves. In Sierra Leone in the 19th century close to half the population was enslaved. In the Vai Paramount chiefdoms in the 19th century as much as three-quarters of the population consisted of slaves. Among the Ashanti and Yoruba a third were enslaved. In the 19th century over half the population consisted of slaves among the Duala of the Cameroon, the Ibo and other peoples of the lower Niger, the Kongo, and the Kasanje kingdom and Chokwe of Angola."
The West was, and remains, far from perfect, but let's keep some perspective.
stew6302: If by 'chimps' you mean the common chimp (Pan troglodytes), then the viciously aggressive "shall inherit the earth". If you are refering to the Bonobo (Pan paniscus), then their already dwindling and threatened numbers will probably be hunted to extinction as the perpetually warring humans of the region overpopulate and plunder the meaty animals for food.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf by "GM chimps (slaves)" you are refering to a post large scale population correction dominant minority of H. sapiens genitcally modifying a subservient majority population of H. sapiens to provide manual labor, then I would presume the genetic modification would preclude behavoir prone to revolt that could overthrow the dominating minority.
All that aside, I would prefer the earth inherit the meek. But who then would be aggressive enough to fight off the warrior aliens who want this rock for the gold and platinum reserves?
It is also worth commenting that some of the most prosperous times have been the result of a drop in the population. For example, the Black Death resulted in major pay rises for workers across Europe. Women also did very well out of World War I, gaining access to almost all professions and vocations for the first time. We need to create a culture where people with few, or no, children, are favoured and to end all government policies in Western countries that effectively pay people to breed. As for the developing world, if we can set a good example first, by lowering our own birth rates, we can then use this as leverage to cut aid to those countries with the highest birth rates and to increase funding (and trade) with those countries that have the lowest birth rates. We should expect all countries, whatever their level of prosperity, to achieve birth rates that are no higher than 75% of death rates and offer bonuses to those that bring the birth rate down to less than 50% of the death rate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt home, we can campaign for an end to any policy that effectively pays people to breed. This not only makes sense in ecological terms; it also saves the taxpayer money. Each country needs to develop its own range of incentives to discourage people from breeding, depending on what their governments already do. For example, in Western Europe, an end to the provision of obstetric care by public health services and the abolition of paid maternity leave and tax breaks for parents would be a start. Western governments should say to the public, "If you want to breed, do so in your own time at your own expense".
This is a good point. The International Association for Religious Freedom (which represents liberal denominations of all the world's major religions) is actively involved in promoting the education of women and supporting measures that raise the status of women. The result is that most liberal religions have a notably low birth rate (compare Quakers with Mennonites, for example).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFertility is irrelevant. There is no correlation between ethnic group (or race) and fertility. The factor that matters is fecundity. All humans, like apes and rhesus monkeys, breed best in their natural latitude (the Tropics) but some people, especially those in the Temperate zones in countries with good health services, have taken steps to reduce their fecundity levels and others see their natural tendency to idiopathic infertility when living outside the Tropics as a problem rather than a blessing, hence the amount of money spent on fertility treatment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjtdwyer says, "You offered no 'facts' to dispute my assertion, just some unreferenced......Thanks for supporting my principal point, that most of the U.S. population growth is derived from immigration..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this************************
Quite the contrary to say the least, since my FACTS that clearly less than one-third of the U.S.'s population growth currently of almost 1%, comes from births of mainly minorities -- Black, Hispanic and the largest growth from Asian/Pacific Islanders.
I'll repeat it slowly for you to understand it better, but LESS than one-third of our population growth in the U.S. is currently from IMMIGRATION, with an average of 880,000 per year. We just increased from 300 million people in Oct. 2006 to 310+ million currently, or over a 10 million increase in less than 4 years -- or an average increase of 2.5+ million per year of which only about 880,000 were immigrants each year! That's easy 5th grade math, that even you "should" be able to do, if you try really hard!
BTW, those FACTS came from here:
Population Profile of the United States
http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/natproj.html
jtdwyer says, "Sorry, fact-boy..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this**************
Hmmmm.......hey boy, it's YOU that are minus the FACTS and produce absolutely no reference from your glenn beck rant.
"Canada's natural growth rate is 0.3% while its overall growth rate is 0.9%, due to Canada's open immigration policies. In the U.S., the natural growth rate is 0.6% and overall growth is 0.9%. "
http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/populationgrow.htm
Again, I'll repeat this slowly for the 5th grade student so it might sink in for once, the U.S. population growth rate is almost 1%, and only 0.3% comes from immigrants -- only one-third -- whereas 0.6% comes from births. We certainly do not have zero population growth, nor does any more than 1/3 come from immigration -- just the opposite of Canada!
zoe says, "Fertility is irrelevant."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this*******************
Hmmmm.....actually, fertility is also the birth rate when discussing population growth.
U.S. fertility
The United States, at a population of over 291 million, is the world's third most populous country, after China and India, and has the highest population growth rate of all industrialized countries. Fertility, or births per woman, contributes to our population growth and must be addressed in order to achieve population stabilization.
http://www.susps.org/overview/birthrates.html
zoe also says, "The factor that matters is fecundity."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this*********************
Hmmmmm......from Biology Online:
Fecundity
(Science: biology, gynaecology) a measure of fertility
I refuse to play your silly semantics game any further.......
lakota2012 - OK, I'll break it down for you:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- You did not address the population increase due to births to non-citizen immigrants, did you?
- I had stipulated population growth due to U.S. citizen birth/death rates.
I'm not going to explain this any more, so I hope you get it this time.
tichead - Yeah, but it's not the minerals they'll come for, it's the water!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The International Association for Religious Freedom is actively involved in promoting the education of women..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this*******************
Great, promoting the education of women with a little religion thrown in, but forgetting that it's the lack of birth control because of the cost, that's pushing population growth. Sounds just like the failed bush policy of abstinence through God, that also gave us a teenage mother of bristol palin.
As Laurie Mazur puts it in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
"The developed countries' share of the cost to provide reproductive health services for every woman on earth is $20 billion -- about what the bankers on Wall Street gave themselves in bonuses [in 2008]."
http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/neglected-climate-strategy-empower-women-slow-population-growth
jtdwyer says, "I'm not going to explain this any more..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this********************
Good, because after "trying" to belittle me for not providing a source of my FACTS, you prove to be an utter hypocrite, and give us the usual glenn beck propaganda without citation, and expect your political rhetoric to stand!
Illegal immigrants estimated to account for 1 in 12 U.S. births
http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9025474
Study: 8 Percent of U.S. Births to Illegal Immigrants
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/birthright-citizenship-study-sheds-light-illegal-immigrants-children/story?id=11376791
So please tell us mr.expert on glenn beck conspiracy theories, exactly why you are in such a tizzy about 8% of the 0.6% of U.S. births, or 0.048%, and why it allows you to make such a fool of yourself with such off-the-wall statements!
Clearly, the vast majority of births in the U.S. are to citizens, and the population growth rate of almost 1% per year in the U.S. can be attributed mainly to just that -- U.S. citizens, and not your contrived numbers pulled out of thin air.
While you are entitled to your own OPINION, you are definitely not entitled to your own FACTS!
It's often been said that the key to reduced procreation is "economic and social inequality between the sexes."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, correlation is not causation, and I submit that this inequality has an underlying driver -- one that bodes ill for attempts to reduce fecundity. In fact, the opposite may soon occur.
Paul Erlich postulated that "I = P * A * T" or, the impact (I) on the environment is the product of population (P), affluence (A) and technology (T).
I think Paul got it almost right, and that "A" should not stand for "affluence," but rather for its underlying cause, "access" to energy.
It is not inequality that drives fecundity, it is not having to walk five miles for water, or not having to walk behind an ox in a field all day, or not having to gather firewood to fix a meal.
We in the western world have approximately 500 "energy slaves" following us around, 24/7/365, doing our bidding. Want a loaf of bread? Hop in your 200 horsepower car and 1,000 energy slaves take you to the store. Need to clean up a bit? 100 energy slaves heat your water for you. Cooking a meal? Another 100 energy slaves heat up your food.
Without these energy slaves, humans will need to breed their work force. That is why the World3 model, developed by Donella Meadows (et. al.) predicts that the birth rate will rise -- not diminish -- in the next 50 years, in lock-step with declining fossil energy availability.
Note also that Erlich's equation means that population increases in the Third World are of less concern than we may think. A baby born into an industrial country will have perhaps 50 or 100 times the impact as a Third-World baby. Each time a movie star adopts a brown baby from a poor country, the population burden goes up by a factor of 50 to 100!
lakota2012 - Why do you respond with incomplete data?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have not provided any evidence that legal immigrants do not produce the majority of births in the U.S., much less the majority of non-citizen births in the U.S.
Seriously, you only cherry pick statements you feel are in error, regardless of their usage or context, and make personal attacks on the commentator. Shame on you!
IMO, when I begin a statement with the phrase 'As I understand,' I am proclaiming that the statement is loosely based on personal information and should not be considered to be definitive or authoritive.
I am not a scientist submitting a work for publication in a peer reviewed journal, but a reader expressing my opinion in a comment. I think that as long as I do not present quantified information as factual data but reasonable qualify it in accordance with its veracity, I should not be subjected to personal ridicule from some proofreading crank.
The point I was originally attempting to make to Dimitris, in response to his assertion that the U.S. is responsible for much of the growth in energy usage, was that much of the population growth of the U.S. is the result of immigration from other countries. That I did not provide a proof of my assertion is not critical as long as my assertion is essentially valid.
I include the two relevant comments below, in case you have not yet read them.
• Dimitris at 04:54 PM on 08/20/10
Fair enough, don't pay for their population reduction. Pay for the one in America, where both poverty among certain social strata and religious fanaticism do indeed cause a rapid population increase. This, along with the really high consumption of resources within the States, makes them part of the problem. The US is the only developed country with such a high percentage of population increase, and it is consuming things much faster than even other industrial countries.
• jtdwyer at 06:02 PM on 08/20/10
The following is a direct response to this comment.
Dimitris - As I understand, the birth/death rates of U.S. citizens produce a diminishing population. It is only the continued net immigration that produces a net population increase. Not that we can eliminate immigration, so so many of the citizen base will not perform much of the necessary labor.
I think this is the case around much of the western world, including Brittan, Germany and France.
The more fundamental problem is the increasing birth rate in regions that cannot support additional population. Essentially, western immigration provides relief for the increasing birth rate of the rest of the world.
The procreational imperative needs to be reconsidered.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjtdwyer: A bad day in microbe land.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisZoeRPM: All very cogent.
I propose three hypotheses.
1. Stressed populations breed more often.
2. Matriarchal societies tend to balance birthrates to the available resources.
3. The inalienable right to say "No" reduces birth rates.
As jared diamond's book has shown the populations die out not because of the number of people they have but because their system of resource use is not sustainable. The only system that is not sustainable right now is the western consumer capitalism. It is either by changing the economic model or by exhausting the people in a war as was done in WWII or reducing the earnings the western model can continue to replicate itself in a resource competitive future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs jared diamond's book has shown the populations die out not because of the number of people they have but because their system of resource use is not sustainable. The only system that is not sustainable right now is the western consumer capitalism. It is either by changing the economic model or by exhausting the people in a war as was done in WWII or reducing the earnings the western model can continue to replicate itself in a resource competitive future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgesimsek - In your terms, the only surviving economic system is Capitalism, since Communism failed due to its inability to meet production demands placed on its participants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe stress of increasing consumer demand placed on global capitalism by increasing numbers of participants is increasing demand for raw materials for production beyond the sustainable capabilities of the Earth's environment.
The additional stress of global warming will most likely reduce the availability of natural resources and production of raw materials, while demand continues to increase from new participants and population growth.
In this geopolitical-economic sense perhaps it is the superiority of capitalism's effective production that, combined with new demand from increasing numbers of new consumers from previously communist economies and global warming that are overstressing the Earth's environment and its ability to successfully provide natural resources.
surviving system currently replicates itself through overweight adolescent-minded individuals. don't you think the time has come to lose weight and think about the future of the world?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistichead - I agree, but I think your list of hypotheses came up a few short:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2a. Patriarchal societies tend to deny females' right to refuse sex.
4. Regardless of availability, some religions and cultures impede the use of contraceptives, increasing reproductive rates.
IMO, the most critical change affecting resource usage in about the past 20 years has been the commercialization of China's and India's populations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith out making any moral judgments regarding fairness, etc., I think it may be China's construction and implementation of numerous coal fired generation facilities that has dramatically contributed to global warming during this period. While governments can negotiate international allocation of CO2 production, etc., if China (for example) has significantly increased the industrial contribution of atmospheric CO2 production, it is that change which has (according to established theory) most greatly increased the Earth's temperatures.
The effect of commercializing a large percentage of the existing population may be amplified in future years. Initially, poor westerners labored in industrial production to create a new middle class of professional consumers, moving production to nonindustrialized locales. This process was repeated in Japan following WWII, and is now being implemented in China. As workers prosper, their participation in production diminishes and their consumption of resources increases. The increased resource requirements of China's and India's populations may only be beginning.
The commercialization of existing large populations may quickly exceed the Earth's ability to both provide necessary resources and accommodate its effects. Humanity's existing population and current development plans are most likely unsustainable.
Hey jtdwyer, you obviously have a reading comprehension problem, and then show fake outrage when your glenn beck theories are disproven by facts!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisONLY 1 in 12 births or only 8% of all births in the U.S. can be attributed to illegal immigrants........got it! While I'm not crazy it's that many, it still is a whole lot less than your ranting and raving suggests!
Here once more, and for the last time:
Illegal immigrants estimated to account for 1 in 12 U.S. births
http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9025474
Study: 8 Percent of U.S. Births to Illegal Immigrants
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/birthright-citizenship-study-sheds-light-illegal-immigrants-children/story?id=11376791
So please tell us mr.expert on glenn beck conspiracy theories, exactly why you are in such a tizzy about 8% of the 0.6% of U.S. births, or 0.048%, and why it allows you to make such a fool of yourself with such off-the-wall statements!
lakota2012 - Whether you or I are crazy is irrelevant, but you are persistently irritating.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince you insist on continuing this nonsense, I repeat. what is the percentage of non-citizen legal immigrant births? I do expect that the number of births to legal U.S. immigrants is greater that births to illegal U.S. immigrants. I suspect that most immigrant couples entered the country legally, most are Hispanic and most are married, Catholic and do not use contraceptives. I'm just guessing now, so I could be wrong.
Your two referenced reports estimating illegal U.S. immigrant birth rates seem to indicate that it is 8% of the total U.S. birthrate. That is one component of the total immigrant birth rate. I have no idea what your 0.6% is supposed to represent, but I really don't care.
I have no idea who 'glenn beck' is, and care less - it has no bearing on any statements I make. Why are you continuing to make these silly inflammatory remarks? You keep repeating the same estimates of illegal immigration birth rates when my assertion was regarding total immigration birth rates - are you sure you're comprehending the question?
Why do you think I'm a fool? I'm still fine, even if you do prove to the world that I was wrong - it's not important. I'm more concerned about what you must think of yourself.
lakoto2012 and jtdwyer: I think you may be saying the same thing. The picking of the nits is losing the point. The U.S.A population is increasing and doing so because of immigration and resulting births thereof, legal or illegal. Indigenous populations of developed nations, including the U.S.A, are falling. Thanks for the links to support each opinion though.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJan Steinman: "the key to reduced procreation is "economic and social inequality between the sexes."" I hope you meant to write "equality between the sexes". Male domination of females has historically resulted in increased procreation. Whereas, matriarchal societies tend to balance birthrates to the available resources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with your description of "energy slaves". However, Paul Erlich, of whom I have not read, is not true with the "A" factor in his equation. Be it "affluence" or "available energy" the indication is that the developed nations are faced with declining, not increasing, indigenous populations. He is true in that the environmental impact per capita is increased compared to undeveloped and developing nations.
Fertility vs. Fecundity. My aging dictionary does not bear out my understanding (mainly from agriculture) of the definitions of fertility and fecundity. My understanding is that fertility is the volume of conceptions producing offspring. Fecundity is the number of offspring attaining breeding age. Plants that produce prolific seeds of which few are likely to germinate exhibit high fertility and low fecundity. Conversely, plants which produce few seeds of which most are likely to germinate exhibit low fertility yet are highly fecund.
Based on those, perhaps inaccurate, definitions, on average all H. sapiens couplings exhibit essentially the same degree of fertility. In developed nations many factors reduce the fecundity (sex education, availability of birth control, laws against rape, career priority, financial education, low infant mortality, increased acceptance of homosexuality,etc.) resulting in declining indigenous populations. Conversely, in undeveloped and developing nations such limiting factors are often unavailable and copulations (forced and consentual) result in more offspring. When high infant mortality is factored in, couples are more likely to desire birthing more children to increase the chances of more surviving to breeding age.
The "energy slave" model may have global merit, but locally and regionally, stressed (cultural, political, economic, environmental, sanitary, basic resources, etc.) populations tend to express maximum fertility and plunder the available landscape to increase fecundity.
gesimsek: no matter what, the current petroleum based western economic model can't continue. It will fail everybody. It is just a matter of time. In the absence of an alternative demand and transportation energy model, every nation will "hit the wall" when the oil stops flowing for any reason, be that conflict or consumption. Result: a series of tragically inhumane population corrections.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistichead - The most critical mechanization and optimization of agriculture has been largely achieved through the use of petroleum products. Increased agricultural production has allowed the dramatic increase in population. Dramatically reduced agricultural production, combined with the diminishing seafood harvests, will not meet sustenance requirements of the existing world population, disregarding additional affects of global warming: the 'wall' will also be hitting us, so to speak...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree. The guano extracted from pacific islands was responsible for harvest increase 10 times, which helped to feed slave labor for cotton and feed populations in big cities for textiles. Hence the start of industrial revolution. Then came petrol and artificial fertilizer, which helped to sustain big cities and industrial workforce in them. Right now we have Wall-Mart feeding us with products imported from China and the South and we export dollars and army. Soon we will be running after bird shit again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep, I guess we should make "downhill running" a requirement in school gym classes. Since the stuff always rolls that way, our kids should get used to chasing it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhile my ancestors, on both continents were hunting the Chinese discovered dynamite or something like it. Some of my relatives were descended from them but had to wait for the white relatives to bring them guns. Yea, we need to control the population but lets remember that even the Islamics had their hayday and gave us Algebra as well as being the conduit for that funny little guy, Zero. Without him we couldn't get to the stars or under the ocean to drill deep water oil wells. OOPS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the solution to overpopulation ever becomes a matter of personalized selection criteria (for example, race, creed or religion) there will be no humane survivors, perhaps only members of some surviving social order. The Nazis will have won.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMO, some humane method must be found for social groups to control their own birth rate and longevity, allowing the survival of groups within the resources that are available or can be produced without infringing on the sustainability of other groups.
Longevity is not usually mentioned in discussions of population management, but it is a critical factor. While there is a social value to experienced leaders, and personal loved ones, those whose contribution to production is limited (such as myself) are of arguable and diminishing value to humanity's survival. IMO, we all want to live forever, but there is necessary purpose in our eventual dying.
Beyond this, those who have been born into a social group that is reproducing without the means or resources necessary for the group's survival must also be managed, preferably by the group, as humanely as possible. In such cases perhaps the most humane management method is to quickly reduce those who have violated sustainable reproduction rates, and their unfortunate offspring. This would ideally be control based on survivability rather than racial or social characteristics.
Perhaps we need to solicit volunteers for 'reduction'.
These are not likely the answers: but humane methods must be publicly discussed and quickly implemented or nature and its agents will immediately implement its own inhumane methods when conditions arise. Humanity must grow up and address this requirement for its continued survival.
Oh boy, once you start to determine the value of people's lives on some criteria other than life itself you will end up in the same category with Nazis. Let's keep the sanctity of life and focus on how to live on a more sustainable system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgesimsek - I agree, but once it's determined that the current rate of population growth is unsustainable, what options are there? China has implemented the mild restriction to family births, which may be effective over a period of decades.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven without increasing the population total, improving the quality of life for existing populations significantly increases humanity's resource consumption an ecological impact.
It's so convenient to simply avoid discussing these most difficult subjects. What are the implications for the future? There is no new New World awaiting our discovery - continuation of current practices will cause unbearable suffering.
It won't matter much to me, since I'm unlikely to last so long, but I'm deeply concerned about my grandchildren now growing up. We knew of these issues a couple of generations ago, when the population was half what it is now, and have done nothing. If nothing is done now, billions of people will suffer.
Some people have short memories. It was not that long ago that the shock of the world's population peaking at 9 billion was considered the greatest news. At that time all of the UN population projections were in the 11-15 billion range. I tire of fear mongering as an attention getting device. Oh, no we will have this problem! We will have that problem! Yes, we will have problems but hyperbole won't solve them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this