zero population growth

Great Debates
21

Yep, that’s part of the best answer I’ve read. Check out Partha Dasgupta’s book An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution. Basically what he argues, convincingly IMO, is a two-fold problem. The first, which you hit upon, is that there aren’t the capital markets needed for consumption smoothing. Instead of being able to invest in the bonds and stocks, etc., they are forced to invest in children. “You kids are my retirment plan.”

The second problem involves the lack of markets for risk. Individuals can’t insure against the bad times, so they have to figure out how to save in the good times to get through the bad. One way to do that is to have lots of kids and fatten them up. Basically, instead of trading the uncertaintity of possible bad times with the certainty of an insurance payment, they’re forced to bet that the kids can survive the bad times. Often, they end up having to make a Sophie’s choice.

A third thing I should mention is that children help to provide income. In some places a male child has payed himself off by the time he is fifteen, everything he earns beyond that, while still a minor, is “profit” for the parents. Again, we have a capital market issue.

Because of that I suspect that the women’s rights<=>population correlation might not be a causal relationship. I haven’t done the math myself, and I don’t know how statistically & methodologically qualified the extant research is; however, I wouldn’t be a bit suprised if places with thick, efficient markets for capital and risk are also places that recognize greater women’s rights. If that guess is true, then there would be a relationship between women’s rights and population, though a third variable is the causal variable. (Kind of like children’s shoe size and verbal ability: both positively correlate with age.)

With all that in mind, I have to say that the goal of zero population growth is a Bad Thing. The poor who have no access to good markets for capital and risk are doing the best they can. They are optimizing given the constraints placed on them. To arbitrarily restrict their ability to pursue an optimal course is to necessarily and unambigiously do them harm. It’s like someone saying that a stripper is being exploited, therefore it should be illegal. Fair enough, but if stripping is the best option available, consider how bad the other avenues must be. To outlaw stripping without providing a better alternative is only to do harm, not good. In the same way, people where overpopulation is rampant need options that can make them better off.

First world people don’t seem to want alot of kids. ZPG is obtainable, at least to an approximation, through the development of the third world. That, IMO, would be the most ethical way to pursue ZPG.

p.s. What does “WAG” mean??

22

Wild Assed Guess

23

Excellent post. js_africanus…
the only real way to control population growth is by wealth creation - then it regulates itself.
We should not get too hung up on the overcrowded earth image either - satellite surveys show that half the land surface of the earth is
empty…

I tend not to accept the statistic about species extinction either -this particular statistic seems to be a ‘WAG’ as they say…

24

ataraxy22 makes a valid point that has been thus far ignored …

The question of ‘overpopulation’ cannot be understood without also thinking about ‘overconsumption.’ There aren’t as many North Americans as there are Africans, but the Africans are collectively responsible for far less resource consumption/destruction/despoilage than North Americans. Even if the population growth in so-called developing countries declined dramatically, the consumption rates of the West would not noticably decrease, so what would be solved?

And ethically: who are we, who consume far more than we really need, to ask those who don’t even have enough to eat, to change their habits? If we lived the way they did, wouldn’t the planet would be better off?

25

It is true that overconsumption should not be ignored as factor in the debate. But I think it shouldn’t be mentioned without remembering that a lot of the consumption is not discretionary, but systemic. Probably no person wants to commute 50 miles each way to work, but a lot of people have to do so because they can’t afford to buy a house closer to the job. They bought the house because they were afraid to raise their kids in the city because they were concerned about crime, school quality, and so on. There’s only poor mass transit because our grandparents’ generation decided to replace the fast suburban rail systems with slow buses. So this person does the drive every day.

In short you have a lot of factors that force the hand of many people to make environmentally bad choices, though that certainly doesn’t mean that we can’t encourage choices that involve less consumption.

I realize this is a bit of a hijack, but I just can’t see the the issue of consumption mentioned without saying, “Wait a minute.
We’re not in Europe. We don’t have the kind of transit infrastructure that they have there; oftentimes the ONLY way to get from point A to point B is by driving alone.”

26

We could push India and Pakistan into nuclear exchange. That would help out a bunch!

27

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by cowgirl *

I kind of wonder about the priorities of a society that gives CT scans to dogs when people around the world are regularly made to make the choice of which child is to starve. Or for another disturbing take on mixed-up priorities, you may enjoy this article:

I have mixed feelings about that. I don’t see how lowering U.S. consumption per se will help the developing world develop. At the same time, if we were to pay a little more in taxes, we could send significantly more in foreign aid abroad. Personally, I have to say that Americans are wealthier as a result of Europe, Japan and the Asian Tigers being wealthy. In the same regard, our long term well-being would be greatly enhanced if the developing world were developed.

Regarding overconsumption, I think Denmark has actually de-linked GDP and energy consumption, which implies that it is possible. Further, since renewables are only a few cents per kilowatt hour more expensive than oil, and since the amount of energy received from the sun, minus what goes into photosynthesis, is over 7,000 times current human energy consumption, I’m skeptical that we are really near the limits of consumption.

28

The question of whether lowering US consumption will help the developing world is a matter for another thread, which I do not have the energy to start …

In this thread, though, I guess the reason I bring up the relative consumption of developed vs developing, has to do with why we are talking about population growth. Here is how I understand this thread so far:

Premise: There are either too many people on the planet, or too few resources, or some combination of both (implied by the term ‘overpopulation’).

Conclusion: The places where there are too many people should work on having fewer people.

I think there is an alternative conclusion which is just as valid: everyone should try to use resources more responsibly, so there will be more to go around.

It’s too easy to blame ‘overpopulation,’ because that’s clearly not our problem. We should also think about what we could do (individually, and as a society/culture), other than preaching to far-off strangers about birth control and educating their women, which is also very easy to do and conveniently absolves us of responsibility.

I just think it’s time for more imaginative solutions than what we’re used to. Clearly the strategies we’ve been using aren’t working. They’ve been teaching about birth control and getting girls in school for years already, can’t we try something else?

29

Well, the problems that overpopulation causes, at least in the here-and-now, aren’t felt by industrialized nations. The population of the US is stable, the population of Thirdworldonia is exploding - and that population explosion is leading to problems in Thirdworldonia, not here. If we lowered our consumption, that’s all fine and dandy, but in the short term, its not going to put food on the tables of any starving Africans. What it’s going to do is impact the nations that produce what we consume - they lose their cash flow, and that hurts their people. You feel all special about not buying that Eddie Bauer shirt you don’t need; meanwhile, the guy in the third world nation who would’ve produced that shirt is out of a job, and goes home hungry. Three cheers for you.

The answer is industrialization. Modernize their food industries. Teach them to produce food on compact, efficient, hi-tech, non-organic ag farms, instead of the sprawling farms they’ve got deforesting their nations. Introduce them to the 21st century. “Poor nation, meet the modern world. Modern world, poor nation.”

Oh, and js_africanus:

Well, let me say something about priorities. In order to survive, you need a couple outfits, a bicycle, a studio apartment split amongst half a dozen people to lower your rent, and a good supply of rice, with an occasional vegetable to ward off scurvy. Are you living better than that? Do you own a TV? A car? Do you not have five roommates? Do you eat things other than rice? Do you ever, at any time, buy anything that is not necessary for your survival? Any money that goes to those things could also go to help some starving kid somewhere. Which means that if you did pay for any nonessentials, you placed the value of that thing you didn’t need over the life of that kid. Somehow, I’m guessing that you don’t think of yourself as a an awful and selfish asshole who values frivolous expenditures over innocent lives. Care to explain how you justify your gripe with “mixed-up priorities”, if you don’t live the life of a monk?

Of course, if you are a monk, and never spend money on things not necessary for your survival, please correct me. Alternately, if you spend plenty on frivolities, yet live a life of self-loathing and admitted hypocricy, you’re similarly excused.
Jeff

30

Did you just take your dog to get a CT scan? Lighten up.

Cowgirl, I guess I mistook your point. Sorry about that.

31

Did you not see the census estimates I posted earlier in this thread? The US is a big part of the ongoing population explosion. Every person moving here from a third world country is the equivalent of 5 or 10 people being born in the third worod country they are coming from. Adding a quarter billion Americans (middle series) in a hundred years is like adding a billion or two Indians or Ethiopians, according to current per capita resource usage. You better hope we become alot more thrifty!

And their CERTAINLY are associated problems and more problems on the horizon, if you simply look for them and can adapt something more than a short-term outlook on things, such as:

Water shortages in the West. Most of the west is expected to have a net water deficit within decades. Expect increasing conflicts between farmers and environmentalists with mandates to protect certain riverine systems. There is also a steady lowering of water tables, such as the Ogallala Aquifer over much of the Great Plains, as use exceeds replenishment. Better hope desalinization becomes inexpensive. Maybe tow in a few icebergs from the arctic. They’ll all be melted soon anyways. Of course, it requires ENERGY to do things like desalinate water, and most water is used for agriculture and industry.

Energy shortages. The more people there are, the sooner we are going to need to convert our industrial infrastructure from a petroleum based one to another type. Under current consumption rates, this will be necessary within decades, certainly within the lifetime of your grandchildren. More people = more consumption = sooner conversion = less time to prepare = more likely for major socioeconomic disruptions in the switchover process. Of course, there still aren’t any really satisfying alternatives to petroleum, so you better hope a viable alternative exists soon.

Land prices go up as demand goes up. Much of the land in the ever expanding metropoli of the east coast is becoming so expensive, that everyone is forced into smaller and smaller lots, closer and closer to their neighbors. This causes friction. I experience it daily and it is a major force in the degradation of the quality of my life. Even so, sprawl continues rampantly, as people move to ever expanding concentric circles outside of cities to find inexpensive land. “Smart-growth” (an oxymoron) is considered radical in most places.

Loss of natural habitats. Most of the east, outside of a few protected areas that were generally set aside when the population was a fraction of what it is now, are now not pristine. Farms where there were once forests and meadows, cookie-cutter subdivisions where there were once fields, dense apartment and condominium complexes where there were once single-family housing neighborhoods, highrise buildings where there were once apartment/condo complexes. I see this going on all around me. I see it all over whenever I fly anywhere, especially in the east. Increasingly, i see it in the west, where there are still large tracts of relatively undisturbed land. Why do we as a species have to occupy every last inch of land that we find habitable? This is no better than the mold I’ve watch grow in Petri dishes. Aren’t we, as a species better than that? Can’t we leave some land for other species? Unfortunately, the most likely scenario I see happening is that all land in this country not specifically set aside for preservation will be developed. Once that occurs, there will be increased pressure to develop the remaining islands of wilderness.

32

ElJeffe: if it’s only a problem in Thirdworldonia and not here, why are we worrying about it? Can’t we let them work it out for themselves?

I like ataraxy22’s points, because they are issues of consumption as well as population. I don’t see how getting Indian women to have fewer babies is going to help us find more water once we drain our aquifers.

And besides, if we do get the third world to stop reproducing, who’s going to clean our houses and office buildings, drive our taxis, pick our fruit, run our 7-11s, work in our abbatoirs? (Not to mention the sweatshops overseas.) I don’t think many North Americans would agree to do a lot of the insecure and poorly-paid labour that immigrants and refugees do, and that is vital to the domestic economy.

33

cg: if [overpopulation’s] only a problem in Thirdworldonia and not here, why are we worrying about it?

Right. I don’t see how we can say that is is only a problem in “Thirdworldonia”, given how much impact on us “Thirdworldonia’s” problems have. For example, the social and economic problems aggravated by overpopulation in developing countries are motivating a lot of emigration, which means more immigration into the developed countries. Many infectious diseases that become epidemic in overcrowded poor countries eventually make their way into rich countries as well (e.g., West Nile virus). Impoverishment and political chaos in poor countries means fewer potential markets for our goods. And, of course, poverty-driven environmental degradation like massive deforestation can have planet-wide consequences.

34

It’s interesting to me that while many people are mentioning industrialization, development, and bringing up living standards as a way to reduce explosive population growth in underdeveloped countries, no one has talked about the corollary of that development, which is that the residents of said countries will then consume more resources per capita, as we First-worlders do. No solutions are simple, and it seems to me that there will be serious problems either way; just different problems. (Not that I am in favor of letting Third-worlders starve, obviously–it’s just complicated either way.)

35

It’s not just wealth and industrialization. Birth rates are plummeting in the third world as well as in the developed nations. Bangladesh’s birthrate has dropped in half in the last few years, and is now barely above replacement.

36

The first thing I think of when the word “overpopulation” is mentioned, I think back to my college math modeling class and the “predator-prey models” that we learned. The examples in class were coyotes(predators) and rabbits(prey) and the cyclical rise and fall of the populations for each species…More predators would deplete the prey, and then the predators would starve and die to a certain point when the rabbit populations would increase due to the decrease of predators, and then the surviving predators would have enough to eat eventually, and so on…

The world is a finite place. We are the predators. They (animals(to PETA’s dismay) and crops collectively) are the prey. Since we are using land that was needed for crops and animals (thereby accelerating the cycle), we are going to reach a point where we can’t feed ourselves and we will begin to die off (already happening in some parts of the world) and wars over land and food will be ubiquitous, until the earth reclaims the land from the predators who died off and in turn allows animals and plants to make a comeback, and re-sustaining the surviving predators. We are still in our first “cycle” as humans and our massive “dying-off” has not been witnessed yet albeit the wars over the past 100 years has caused temporary levelings (the slightest of dents) of the population. The real question is: “What number is the critical mass for our population to begin mass starvation?”

As for industrialization, just like war, they are only a temporary leveling (dent) in the overall population.

37

This could be construed as racially motivated. If you do wish to have zero population growth then you’ld have to defeat this argument, perhaps by confining it to first world countries first.

38

Australia has similar problems with overpopulation as that of the USA. We are only 20 million, with a total fertility rate of 1.6 and an annual net immigration of about 100,000. This leads to a population increase of 0.67% p.a., which models to a population of 32.5 million in 2050 and 50.6 million in 2100.

Our population cannot physically increase at this rate for this long, so something will be done to reduce net immigration. If it were decreased to zero we would peak at 21 million around 2025 and then slowly decrease.

ataraxy22 is right on the money. Increasing population leads to increased demand for water, energy, resources and puts pressure on habitats. In Australia we have serious water distibution problems and land salinity and degredation from excessive and inefficient water use. This is just one of many population related problems.
World wide we have depletion of fish stocks, endangered species from habitat destruction, global warming and depletion of oil reserves. There are other problems that can be minimised through population management.

It is obvious that overpopulation is a problem right across the globe. The question is how do we combat this problem.

39

There’s a hidden assumption here. In the wild, a certain bunny population can sustain a given number of fanged meat-eaters. I’ll give you that. But what if the predators learn to shepherd their prey, give them antibiotics, breed them to have more calories, genetically engineer them to eat dirt and AOL install CDs… you know, improve the herd?

I don’t think it’s a given that the population of humans on Earth will necessarily ever exceed our capability to produce food/energy/iPods. Compare a modern farm to a hunter-gatherer on the same land.

I’d say we’re just at the very beginning of what’s possible on these fronts. Biotech isn’t even solidly into its infancy yet. Up until recently, if we wanted a fatter bunny, we had to breed them unto the Nth generation. Real soo now, we’ll just add a few more copies of gene-X or whatever.

40

I should note for those not real hot on geography: that Australia is an arid continent (lowest rainfall of any continent*) with very little fertile soil and fragile ecosystems.

*disclaimer for pedents - ok antarctica has less