World population numbers in rapidly developing countries must stabilize if efforts to curb emissions aren't to be erased by sheer numbers of more people. Many experts believe the answer to curbing population growth lies in: reducing poverty and infant mortality; increasing women's and girls' access to health care, education and economic opportunity; and educating women about birth control and ensuring access to voluntary family planning services.
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Dear EarthTalk: To what extent does human population growth impact global warming, and what can be done about it?
-- Larry LeDoux, Honolulu, HI
No doubt human population growth is a major contributor to global warming, given that humans use fossil fuels to power their increasingly mechanized lifestyles. More people means more demand for oil, gas, coal and other fuels mined or drilled from below the Earth’s surface that, when burned, spew enough carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere to trap warm air inside like a greenhouse.
According to the United Nations Population Fund, human population grew from 1.6 billion to 6.1 billion people during the course of the 20th century. (Think about it: It took all of time for population to reach 1.6 billion; then it shot to 6.1 billion over just 100 years.) During that time emissions of CO2, the leading greenhouse gas, grew 12-fold. And with worldwide population expected to surpass nine billion over the next 50 years, environmentalists and others are worried about the ability of the planet to withstand the added load of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere and wreaking havoc on ecosystems down below.
Developed countries consume the lion’s share of fossil fuels. The United States, for example, contains just five percent of world population, yet contributes a quarter of total CO2 output. But while population growth is stagnant or dropping in most developed countries (except for the U.S., due to immigration), it is rising rapidly in quickly industrializing developing nations. According to the United Nations Population Fund, fast-growing developing countries (like China and India) will contribute more than half of global CO2 emissions by 2050, leading some to wonder if all of the efforts being made to curb U.S. emissions will be erased by other countries’ adoption of our long held over-consumptive ways.
“Population, global warming and consumption patterns are inextricably linked in their collective global environmental impact,” reports the Global Population and Environment Program at the non-profit Sierra Club. “As developing countries’ contribution to global emissions grows, population size and growth rates will become significant factors in magnifying the impacts of global warming.”
According to the Worldwatch Institute, a nonprofit environmental think tank, the overriding challenges facing our global civilization are to curtail climate change and slow population growth. “Success on these two fronts would make other challenges, such as reversing the deforestation of Earth, stabilizing water tables, and protecting plant and animal diversity, much more manageable,” reports the group. “If we cannot stabilize climate and we cannot stabilize population, there is not an ecosystem on Earth that we can save.”
Many population experts believe the answer lies in improving the health of women and children in developing nations. By reducing poverty and infant mortality, increasing women’s and girls’ access to basic human rights (health care, education, economic opportunity), educating women about birth control options and ensuring access to voluntary family planning services, women will choose to limit family size.
CONTACTS: United Nations Population Fund, www.unfpa.org; Sierra Club’s Global Population and Environment Program, www.sierraclub.org/population; Worldwatch Institute, www.worldwatch.org.
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15 Comments
Add CommentThe biggest problems in the world weren't really problems at all, until they were multiplied by seven billion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNicely put.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd traffic is not really a problem except for all those other damn drivers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe focus on population is false at this point in time - we could sterilize those pesky third world breeders and still be completely screwed. The consumption and destruction that we see today are a function of the developed world with its relatively small population.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe should stop looking for easy scapegoats.
During my life time so far when I was in school the world population was 2 billion people. Since Humans are causing the global warming less people will slow this warming. There is the solution. As usual China is the great innovator: One child per family. No one likes it just like no one likes a bitter medicine. Geologists, climatologist can argue forever. One child will do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Easy scapegoats"?! So just because there are seven billion people on the planet, there's no excuse for that sort of lazy reasoning?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkey-dokey!
It's real easy to speak in hypotheticals. Whom shall we start killing off first? Do we build a monument to Hitler, for exterminating so many? Do we thank Ho Chi Min, Mao, and Stalin for having the foresight to start reducing the number of people. Those of you advocating this...go to Africa, grab a young child, dash her brains out on a rock and go drink a beer with her mother to thank her for the opportunity to help prevent her from destroying the planet. I'm certain the mother will thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFolks, get real. People have just as much "right" to live on the earth as polar bears killing seals, whales consuming krill, and zebra eating grasslands. I don't see any of those animals volunteering to save the planet by destroying themselves. When I was six, the year Kennedy died, the pundits were predicting the end of the earth. When I graduated from high school the pundits were predicting the end of the earth. Ten years ago the pundits were predicting the end of the earth. I don't think I believe the pundits any longer. Please tell me again why you do?
It really doesn't matter. Population growth should be left alone by scientists. Most things are self-correcting and population is one of them. When our population reaches a tipping point, childbirth will decline naturally and death rate will climb exponentially. And then we will be extinct and nature will chug along fine without humans...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReingewirtz, Reingewirtz, when will you learn?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"As usual China is the great innovator"
So 13 million abortions a year (campare with deaths in WWII), 1700 executions (compare with Inquisition), sky-high pollution, poisoned baby milk, totalitarian communist rule, child sweatshops, lead-lined lolly pops and fake Olympic singers are the way forward - hmmm. I would expect you have lived there for some time then?
If the latest news (google it) is true, it would seem that they are now doing a u-turn on their population and death penalty policies, so perhaps they are innovating, but that would mean you are way behind on the learning curve.
I presume, you have no children and are busily putting your affairs in order so that you can remove yourself from the consumer-side of the ecosystem in concert with your strongly held beliefs? Bitter pill though it be.
Your very sinister "One child will do it" makes me wonder exactly what one child will do? Perhaps you are suggesting cannibalism to relieve the environmental stress?
I think such ideas are rooted in the premise that other people's lives are not as important as your own. Some call it 'progress', more decent folk call it 'evil'.
I do believe the writer has made quite a few valid comments. Exponential population growth is an obvious problem. And no, no one is suggesting we kill off the excess homo sapiens in existence or stop people from having children but as in nature and everything else, moderation and balance is a necessity. Humans, unlike animals, have the mental abilty to control most of thier actions, sex being one of them. Therefore family planning and considering the future is not an impossible feat. It may be one way of preserving what we have for maybe just a little bit longer. So instead of critising what can be done, why don't we test our hypotheses. See if the human population can be controlled with careful planning techniques and education of global issues. Wouldn't hurt anybody. Just might work!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe wouldn't need to kill anybody to stabilize and eventually reduce population growth. Stopping at two or fewer children per woman would take care of it. The only thing I disagree with is emphasizing the need for this to happen only in less developed countries. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the U.S. population was 180,000,000 in 1960, is coming up on 310,000,000 today, and is projected to be 439,000,000 by 2050.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough some of this population growth is attributed to immigration, 28.3% of U.S. women have three or more biological children. The U.S. needs a population policy that addresses both immigration and fertility.
We in India are the worst sufferers of population boom.I have seen women working as housemaid with a child firmly tied on her back.The poor child can look at the mother's sweaty back and that is her only world.In fact women has very little role in determining the size of the family ,and the huge population is a product of marital rape.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisenvironmetal problem is a serious isue is ont only in our country but also in the world, so it requere the commitment of all stake holder in all counry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess then it's a good thing that pretty much everyone who studies these things is predicting human population will PEAK at 9 billion around 2050, and then begin to FALL dramatically thereafter. You need look no further than SciAm itself: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-reproductive-revoluti
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe should all do our best to curtail greenhouse gases, but the best we can hope for is to slow global warming. (like China cares enough about the environment to curtail their GDP) However, I have faith in humanity's ability to adapt. We as a species will be fine, though sadly some in the third world will suffer.
I am surprised at the glib comments on "how to control population". Do people know what America's, and other Western countries', contribution to C02 emissions have been for much of 20th century? Hundred people in India and China put together have not emitted as much CO2 as one American family with their two or three cars. Lets get honest and humble here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis blaming, scapegoating and denial seems to be a big part of some people's "delusions-or-lies-for-reality" game. It is true that India and China might contribute to the problem if they choose Western consumption and lifestyle...which they are from. More than 70% of Indians do not own a car, more than 50% do not even own a scooter or a motorbike. There are many Indians who do not own a telephone or a television. There are many poor people in that country are ambitious and aspirational...certainly after watching Western lifestyles and being brainwashed by beautiful women advertising. But their contribution to CO2 emission as much as the West has been contribution is small.
The amount of waste America generated, the amount of light or electricity used in Las Vegas just for one night, the amount of oil America extracts, imports and stores...by themselves are enough to raise greenhouse gas emissions.
Look at what oil companies are going to build across the American Midwest just to transport tar sands oil?
It is one thing after another in this worry over climate change...a serious problem. But it is not all those thin emaciated Indian or Chinese kids....many of whom don't even have shoes.
Some of you callous commenters should travel more, read more and think more. But then that would be asking too much of our Idiocrazcy that we, America and the West, are rapidly becoming.