How much of a problem is overpopulation for the planet?

Great Debates
101

DSeid, you wrote (in #91)

First, let me say that in general that I agree with you. Planning for the future is preferable to no planning.

My objection was to the idea that, as Paul Ehrlich titled his book, there is a “Population Bomb” out there just waiting to explode, so we must immediately begin to plan how to avert it. That is a misconception.

We know it is a misconception because although planning certainly can help, we did not dodge the Malthusian population bullet in the 1800s and 1900s because of our brilliant planning. It was not clever plans that got around the limits proposed by the Club of Rome. Ehrlich’s predictions of food riots in the streets and millions of people dying from starvation in the 1980s was not undone because someone came up with a really great plan …

Instead, we did it because humans don’t act like fish. The only way to get more fish in an aquarium is through careful planning. To get more humans on the planet without massive starvation, on the other hand, to date has not required that kind of planning. It has happened without a central authority or a worldwide project or a coherent cohesive plan, or even a plan of any kind.

It may be true that the next move will require “proactive management” … but why would that suddenly be a requirement for success when it was not a requirement before?

102

Would you agree that what we do is a more significant portion of the world’s ecological systems than ever before and that conversely there is less buffer to our actions as our impacts become larger?

Our population, as you have noted, has increased dramatically. The potential impact per average person is on track to increase dramatically. Climate change is in progress (even if you do not accept the anthropogenic bit) and the water stresses that many parts of the world are experiencing now are reasonably expected to getting harsher.

We have less physical resource to pull the technological rabbit out of our hat with and a biggering crowd that is likely to need a very impressive rabbit indeed. Magic tricks like that may look like they just happen but in reality every magician prepares well in advance for that presto moment. The less props he has to work with, the tougher the crowd, the more he needs to prepare in advance. Unless he wants to die out there.

103

No, we don’t need proactive management, in the sense of some large central authority ‘managing’ populations into the future.

What most of the people on this board believe is that mankind MUST be managed. That strong government is needed to keep society from collapsing or to keep people from living in their own filth. Thus they are always spotting ‘problems’, and raising an alarm and demanding that the authorities in charge do something.

They never recognize that societies are self-organizing constructs of immense complexity. Not only should it not be ‘managed’, it CAN’T be managed.

Take the financial meltdown. Blamed on ‘capitalism’, and used as an example of why governments must take more control. But in fact, the most powerfully regulated agencies - the GSE’s, were at the heart of the problem, and the least regulated, the hedge funds, are doing just fine. And in fact, when the crash happened, society largely responded rationally - it stopped spending as much, and businesses started shedding unprofitable ventures and raising productivity by laying off workers and getting leaner. It’s government that has flailed around, announcing bad plan after bad plan, borrowing huge sums of money, engaging in trade protectionism and riling their populations with populist demagoguery, all while propping up failing businesses, inserting uncertainty into economic decision-making, and blocking the adaptations that need to be made.

And so it goes with overpopulation. Because as you say, humans are not fish, they tend to solve their own problems. As it turns out, when people gain enough wealth that higher education becomes important for both sexes, birthrates plummet. When people are forced to live in little crowded apartments, they tend to not want to have as many babies. And as the aggregate profit rises with new problems and greater population, more resources are spent solving those problems.

Europe’s future problem is UNDER population. One of the reasons Germany won’t go along with the stimulus is because they can’t afford to. Their population is declining, and that means the per-capita debt load is going up all on its own. There’s a certain point at which a smaller Germany will not be able to pay off the debt a larger Germany racked up, and a financial collapse will happen. Japan is facing the same problem. Canada and the U.S.'s populations are increasing, but mostly through immigration.

Problems of human misery on this problem are not problems of overpopulation. They are problems of wealth, political instability, and poor economic choices by governments. Tribalism and warfare take constant tolls. Colonialism, abandonment, exploitation, and trade interference by powerful northern countries has contributed greatly to the problem.

104

Ahh, there it is. I knew this was political somehow. I didn’t get it, I guess because I don’t feel that way. I’m not a big or powerful government proponent, and I don’t believe government is any kind of answer to this. You don’t seem to have understood any of my posts in this thread the first time, but maybe if you go back and read them again after reading that you’ll feel differently.

105

Overpopulation IS without any doubt THE major problem on this Earth Global Warming,deforestation,famine,pollution,loss of habitat,depletion of resources and armed conflict are the symptons not the cause.

Much is made that the RATE of population growth is going down in some regions of the world,which said quickly sounds like the population itself is going down.
No all it means is that even though we have more people alive on this planet at this moment in time then we have had throughout the whole of human history the population is still inexorably going upwards.

One of the major problems in the future is going to be water shortage amongst other things which will almost certainly be the cause of more wars.

Apologists say that where the populations are perceived to be going down(In first world countrys) the excess population from the Third World will migrate to make up the labour shortage.
But with the developments in technology generally and computer science/robotics; industries and agriculture in these regions are no longer anywhere near as labour intensive as they once were and this trend will almost certainly continue to mean that in real terms smaller and smaller numbers of people will be able to continue to raise productivity in all fields.

Even skilled proffessionals from the Third World wont be needed let alone the much larger number of unskilled and/or illiterate would be emigrants.

Apologists for the rising global population appear to use the “Lawnmower” defence for the problem…

I’ve already given you your lawnmower back and anyway you never leant me your lawnmower in the first place …plus it was broken anyway…
You can hide your head in the sand and pretend that the world hasn’t got an overpopulation problem …because its not really rising too fast and anyway its a problem we can cope with by
growing more crops etc.

And anyway its not a problem its a solution to future labour shortages in parts of the world and anyway why are you picking on the Third World because thats where the rising birthrate is so you’re being racist and selfish and anyway the Pope is against birth control and anyway…
Yes we can do that and watch the Planet slowly die of hunger,war and pollution until it reaches the point of no return …

Or we can face the facts admit to the crisis and start doing something about this now when we have a reasonable chance of eventually overcoming it(Though it’ll be a long hard slog even if we start immediatly)
With the technology that we have NOW this planet could be a virtual paradise if we had a population a third of todays .

We can’t turn the clock back but we can at least TRY to ensure a future for the Human race and the Eco sphere something which we wont be able to do if we keep on being dishonest with ourselves.

Slapping a plaster on it isn’t going to work for much longer.

106

Sam, most of your post is a bit of a different subject than this thread, and others non sequitors to the discussion having been pointed out in the very first post, some things bear correction.

For example:

Actually no. As we have cited previously quite the opposite is true.

As to your belief that humankind has no need or even capacity to work together by using laws and agreements, well, yeah, we’ve established many times before that such is one perspective and that you are among those who share it. I cannot speak for anyone else on these boards but for myself I will indeed plead guilty to having a different perspective: I believe that humankind has the capacity to collectively look a bit down the road, to see a sharp curve coming up and to ease off of the gas a bit before we start to skid. Yes, (to beat the analogy mercilessly) we may be tempted to keep pressing the pedal to the metal because we managed to get through sharp turns before when we were (driving our sports car and not this big rig we are driving now). Yes some will keep arguing about whether or not that is a curve coming up ahead or if we really know how sharp it is - if you can’t give these folks an exact angle of curvature or an exact prediction of what speed will cause a skid exactly when then they’ll argue that the road has no curve at all or that changing speed is useless - but I still believe that we can agree, as a community of communities, to act. Not by slamming on the brakes, but by easing up on the gas and being prepared.

107

Lust4Life, we are currently in the section of the SDMB called “Great Debates”. The issue here is not your personal view of a given situation. That goes in the section called “In My Humble Opinion”, or one of the other sections. “Great Debates” is about facts and data and observations and the like. It’s not about stating your position, anyone can do that. It’s about supporting that position.

Yes, I see that you think that things are horrible and getting worse … but your unsupported assertion that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, despite CAPITAL LETTERS, brings nothing to the table. There’s lots of people out there that hold your belief … but that’s just a belief.

For example, you claim that overpopulation is causing armed conflict … what, like there was no armed conflict in the 1940s, when the population was less than half what it is today? There has been armed conflict since the cavemen fashioned spear points …

So if you want to make that claim about population and war, you need to back it up. You’d need to show that for example Singapore, one of the most densely populated parts of the planet, is involved in more armed conflict than say Canada … can’t do that?

Well, you see, that’s the problem with Great Debates … a random claim from someone on the Intartubes doesn’t get much traction. I’m not saying your claim is not true. I’m saying you have not shown that it is true.

I do not say this to discourage you from contributing to the discussion. I say it to encourage you to back up your claims with citations, observations, and facts. If you can show that the more densely populated countries wage more wars than countries with scarce populations, more power to you.

All the best to you.

108

Well, but this point was made in the first sentence of that post:

“Overpopulation IS without any doubt THE major problem on this Earth Global Warming,deforestation,famine,pollution,loss of habitat,depletion of resources and armed conflict are the symptons not the cause”

And if the debate is whether or not overpopulation is the primary problem, it’s sort of hard to argue with the notion that if the population were some fraction of current numbers, any other given problem would be reduced approximately commensurate with that fractional reduction.

AGW a problem? Half the population reduces CO2 production by 50%. Which is a lot considering that all other projections are for CO2 production to continue to increase for the forseeable future as developing nations come on line.

Environmental impact a concern? Halving the population halves the impact.

A 50% increase in population worsens any problem by 50%.

And so on.

The only way overpopulation is not the primary problems is for any issues that don’t vary in reasonably direct proportion to the number of peeps crawling around the planet. And I haven’t seen any evidence presented to that effect here. Which was my original point in the post that apparently precipitated this thread.

The only argument presented to counter overpopulation being the primary problem is one that essentially says we are going to do better in the future. We’re not going to pollute as much per person, consume as much energy per person, produce as much CO2 per person, and so on.

Which is a nice sentiment, but utterly without precedent in the history of the human race. The dwarfs are for the dwarfs.

109

As you are such an authority on SDMB you will be aware that junior MODding is against the rules and yes I am quite familiar with the status of GD.

Typing an entire post in capitals is shouting, but expressing selected words or phrases in upper case is an accepted and acceptable form of emphasis in a post even if not used by all.

I do not,and am not required to give cites for things that are not actually obscure within the sphere of knowledge within the generally accepted scientific/historical cosensus.

So I am no more prepared to go to the trouble of giving cites as to the rise of Co2 levels in the environment for example; then I am to give a cite that there was a world war in the forties or that the internal combustion engine runs on petrol/gasoline.

110

Well, I guess there are some advantages to age after all, it gives perspective. When I was in high school (1960), the world population was three billion. I have watched it grow from three billion to six billion in my short lifetime. At the end of that huge jump in population, the world’s people both rich and poor are healthier, and have more food, and live longer, and are better educated, and have more income (in constant dollar terms) than they did when I was in high school.

So no, doubling the population doesn’t double the problems. When I was in high school rivers were catching fire in the US and no salmon had gone up the Thames in living memory. “Silent Spring” wasn’t published. When I was a kid, famines whacked hundreds of thousands in India, and millions in China.

So no, I see no evidence for your “double the population, double the misery” claim. I’ve watched the global population double. Not only did the misery not double … things got better.

Go figure …

111

You’re missing the fact that our collective resources and wealth have more than doubled, which is nice, but isn’t sustainable for the long term. Regardless, imagine if we had our current level of wealth and resources spread out over half the population, we’d all be twice as wealthy! Or, more realistically, considering that people are resources too, we’d be quite a bit less than twice as wealthy, but still much more wealthy than we are now. And we could use more, pollute more, etc, per capita, and still have a lower environmental impact than we have now.

I bowed out of this thread earlier because I’m finding it hard to express myself well on this topic, which is a sign that I haven’t got it entirely figured out. But it is a complicated topic, and I’m a little tired of the simplistic “Things are better now that we have more people, therefore, overpopulation is not and will never be a problem. QED.” I guess we should all have a million babies then…

112

I agree. The problem here is that we walked naked out onto a battlefield against a bunch of guys with shields and full plate armor. They think we’re making some kind of political argument and are responding in kind. Basically, we brought knives to a gun fight. I knew better, actually, but thought it’d be different this time. My fault.

113

And that right there is the problem. Southern California will always be overpopulated (unless we fall off into the ocean), Alaska will not. Areas that have the climate and geography to easily grow crops also tend to be the places where people go to build cities or suburbs. As long as we keep paving over our best farm land, we are eventually going to get to point where we won’t be able to grow enough food - you can’t grow corn in Siberia without sucking up a lot of energy.

As someone said up thread, overpopulation is “cured” by wars, famine, disease outbreak. Mother Nature is a bitch. For those of you that think that is disproved by pointing out we had wars, famine, disease outbreak decades ago, we also had areas of overpopulation decades ago too.

(I apologize if this has been already pointed out - I didn’t feel like wading thru a bunch of posts where it was just folks sniping at each other.)

114

The planet will do just fine until the sun goes nova. In a few million years, after we are gone from whatever finally kills us, it will take an hour’s work for some aliens to find a trace of us.

115

I can see why the Catholic Church could be in favour of unlimited population growth,apart from anything else if Catholics dont control their famly size while others do then eventually Catholicism will become the largest religious entity on the planet,a religious entity thet often spills over into a political one IRL.

Up thread SamStonesays that UNDER population will be a problem for Europe in the future !
Apart from the fact as someone who lives in heavily overpopulated Britain I can see no signs of that ever happening what exactly ARE the problems of under population ?

Will larger houses with a garden let alone a larger garden seriously harm us ?

Will emptier roads,less strain on public transport,less pollution and more wild life habitat be a problem for us?

Will using less fossil fuels,fertilisers and emitting less Co2 somehow damage the quality of life for our children ?

Further up thread someone says that the more people there are the more brains there are at work to solve any problems caused by overpopulation.
So how exactly does having another billion third world,unskilled semi literate or totally illiterate subsistance farmers and outright beggars help us then?

While not slowly starving to death do these billion extra mouths,sorry brains,get to work on ways to solve the complex scientific,environmental and social problems that face us today and even more so in the future ?

The main themes of the overpopulation apologists seem to be that …

Life is pretty good for a part of the planets population at the moment so obviously no matter how much the global population grows its always going to stay that way.

And

We’ve always coped with major problems in the past and we’re still here so obviously what ever happens in the future we’ll cope,we’ll think of something,something will turn up.

Are we REALLY expected to bet our lives on other peoples wishfull thinking while they happily go on having unsustainable families?

They haven’t even come up with any solutions,let alone sensible ones.

Dont worry everythings going to be alright.
Whys that then ?
Because I said so.

No doubt thats what the second to last Dodo said to his friend.

116

My writing must not be clear, as my position is being widely misrepresented.

DrCube thinks I’m saying “Things are better now that we have more people, therefore, overpopulation is not and will never be a problem. QED.”

Lust4Life thinks I’m saying “Dont worry everythings going to be alright. Whys that then ? Because I said so.” and “We’ve always coped with major problems in the past and we’re still here so obviously what ever happens in the future we’ll cope,we’ll think of something,something will turn up.”

I am not saying that everything will be alright. We don’t know what the future may bring. Something may arise that we can’t cope with. However, you waving your hands and saying that the sky is falling does not mean that the population bomb is about to explode. You are the one saying that although we were able to deal with the population doubling in forty years, we can’t cope with a further 50% increase by 2050. Which is entirely possible, but since history is on my side of the question, you need to show exactly what will change and why we won’t be able to deal with it.

I am not saying that there are no challenges out there. There have always have been huge challenges. I have spent a good chunk of my life working in villages and hamlets of the developing world, on exactly those challenges. I know very well how much work is involved in making progress on these issues.

What I am saying is we’re winning the war. Not by blind luck. Nor by central planning. But because humans are ingenious and imaginative, both individually and in groups. We need to continue the work, it’s not happening by itself.

But it is happening, as evidenced by history.

Lust4Life, you also say:

One problem results from the falling population. What happens when population rises is you get lots of young people. When population falls, on the other hand, you get lots of old people. As the societal compact in general is that the young take care of the old, this can lead to a crushing burden on the workers or the neglect of the elderly.

Another problem, of course, is that our wealth is made by humans. Less humans mean less workers means less wealth.

It also means less gains due to mass production if the market is smaller, because you lose economies of scale.

Finally, do I think it would be better if there were three billion people on the planet rather than six?

Well … that depends.

Y’all seem to be assuming a world of three billion would automatically be better … but as a person who lived in and remembers that world of three billion, I assure you it was much worse. More grinding poverty. More famine. More disease. More war. A larger percentage of the global population living on less than a dollar a day. Less education. Shorter lifespans.

Which is my point, that population and misery are not necessarily related.

117

See, and here I thought that AGW was supposed to be a problem–at a panic level and nearly insolvable–b/c of the volume of CO2 we are spitting out. I thought we were threatening the ecology of the oceans by sucking them dry of their various species we like to eat. I thought we were clearing forests in Canada to get at oil sands. I thought we were suburbanly sprawling . I thought we were polluting China’s rivers and kissing the river dolphin farewell. I thought we were pumping out the Ogallala aquifer. I thought we were melting the Artic ice at the expense of the Polar Bear. I thought we were burning rainforest to plant grain and alcohol crops.

All of those issues and hundreds more are directly proportional to the volume of people on this planet.

But now I recognize that if my fat–and old–ass is comfortable on my sofa, things must be better, over-population must not be a problem, and–post hoc ergo propter hoc–the evidence is clear that more population solves, and does not create problems. :dubious:

You have free markets and the brilliance of the developed world’s minds (and the expiration of communism) to thank for the world being a better place for so many of us. God bless 'em. We even have enough left over to help the beggar nations. Our comfort has not come without cost, though, and the Piper will be calling. At least the developed world has figured out that if you want a higher standard of living, you should stop making so many babies. The stupidity of assuming that we are living in a time of plenty because our population has exploded (and we should therefore let it continue to explode) is about on an intellectual par with rats reproducing when the bamboo blossoms. http://www.earthweek.com/2009/ew090306/ew090306a.html

Go figure.

While you are figuring that out, I’ll go father some more children and help save the world.

118

A couple of points,firstly the world of the three billion population that you point out wasn’t as pleasant as the world we live in now(I assume that you mean those of us in the West )didn’t have the technology that we have now.

The world of the Victorians was a much less pleasant place to live in then the world we live in now and had an even smaller popuation then the three billion world you mentioned.
Are you trying to postulate that the smaller the population the worse life is?
Or have you merely thrown a red herring into the ring by somehow making the connection between high population and quality of life and leaving out the technology equation.

I would say that technological progress has made the quality of life for us in the West better INSPITE of population growth,not because of it.

You also fail to mention that the Earth is finite whereas future population growth is theoretically infinite.
No doubt we could absorb some future population increase by destroying more wildlife habitat and converting it to agriculture,by reducing the variety of food crops grown and cease raising livestock for food,cease keeping pets,convert manufacturing to necessary products as opposed to frivolous items like toys,greetings cards,makeup ,fashion items whatever,by reducing the size of personal living space and rationing food,fuel,power,water and other essentials.

Apart from a quite noticeable reduction in the quality of life generally from all of the above we’d have to accustom ourselves to higher levels of pollution in our everyday lives.

We are not as you put it "Winning the war "if we were then the polar ice caps wouldn’t be melting and there wouldn’t be so many species on the endangered list,the Amazon Rain forest wouldn’t be losing sizeable parts on a daily basis and Global Warming wouldn’t be on everyones "To Do "list.
As to the old chestnut about all of these young people looking after the old when they’re in their dotage I’m afraid that this is very much a specious argument
Today one person in an office(Or even at home)with a P.C. can do the work that took a large office full of people to achieve when I was young,not just do the work but do it faster and more efficiently.

Likewise in manufacturing,construction and most any bussiness you care to name the same thing is happening,labour intensive industries are not only a thing of the past but technology will mean that in the future even less people then those who are employed now will produce more.
This will lead to a much smaller but highly paid and taxed work force.

Not only will the vast majority of these young people NOT be supporting old retired people they will actually be in competition with them for increasingly scarce welfare resources for the simple reason that most of them will be unemployed or maybe doing taxpayer funded “Make Work” to massage the unemployment statistics.

119

A couple of points,firstly the world of the three billion population that you point out wasn’t as pleasant as the world we live in now(I assume that you mean those of us in the West )didn’t have the technology that we have now.

The world of the Victorians was a much less pleasant place to live in then the world we live in now and had an even smaller popuation then the three billion world you mentioned.
Are you trying to postulate that the smaller the population the worse life is?
Or have you merely thrown a red herring into the ring by somehow making the connection between high population and quality of life and leaving out the technology equation.

I would say that technological progress has made the quality of life for us in the West better INSPITE of population growth,not because of it.

You also fail to mention that the Earth is finite whereas future population growth is theoretically infinite.
No doubt we could absorb some future population increase by destroying more wildlife habitat and converting it to agriculture,by reducing the variety of food crops grown and cease raising livestock for food,cease keeping pets,convert manufacturing to necessary products as opposed to frivolous items like toys,greetings cards,makeup ,fashion items whatever,by reducing the size of personal living space and rationing food,fuel,power,water and other essentials.

Apart from a quite noticeable reduction in the quality of life generally from all of the above we’d have to accustom ourselves to higher levels of pollution in our everyday lives.

We are not as you put it "Winning the war "if we were then the polar ice caps wouldn’t be melting and there wouldn’t be so many species on the endangered list,the Amazon Rain forest wouldn’t be losing sizeable parts on a daily basis and Global Warming wouldn’t be on everyones "To Do "list.
As to the old chestnut about all of these young people looking after the old when they’re in their dotage I’m afraid that this is very much a specious argument
Today one person in an office(Or even at home)with a P.C. can do the work that took a large office full of people to achieve when I was young,not just do the work but do it faster and more efficiently.

Likewise in manufacturing,construction and most any bussiness you care to name the same thing is happening,labour intensive industries are not only a thing of the past but technology will mean that in the future even less people then those who are employed now will produce more.
This will lead to a much smaller but highly paid and taxed work force.

Not only will the vast majority of these young people NOT be supporting old retired people they will actually be in competition with them for increasingly scarce welfare resources :for the simple reason that most of them will be unemployed or maybe doing taxpayer funded “Make Work” to massage the unemployment statistics.

Whereas their counterparts in the Third World will be starving to death.

120

Global warming is caused (primarily) by the release of CO2 that was locked up in fossil fuels. It is not caused by a baby being born.

“Yeah but if that baby goes on to use CO2 at the same rate as we currently do…” Of course. Although, firstly, that’s not realistic as a disproportianate number of those babies will be in the less-emitting developing world. And in any case: if we can’t greatly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels we’re screwed anyway, even if world population remained stable.

I strongly doubt it.
As you yourself are saying: increased mechanisation / computerisation is already doing the work that used to take massive amounts of labour. For decades people have claimed this would lead to huge unemployment (or reduced working hours).
All that’s happened in reality is that we’ve found other work for those freed up people to do: more niches, more goods and services.
In short, we’ve become wealthier.

All fantasy. I know of no economist that seriously believes unemployment will increase because of technology, because, aside temporarily blips, that’s never happened.