Human Population Size Is Limiting Population Growth a Key Factor ...

Issue Summary:
Human Population Size
Is Limiting Population
Growth a Key Factor in
Protecting the
Environment?

Malthus' Essay on the
Principle of Population
• points out that population size grows
geometrically while agricultural production only
grows arithmetically
• Based on this, he says that population will
eventually outstrip food supply
• Eventually, the "demographic transition" of
developed nations slowed population growth
rates

Population Growth Policies were
developed to slow population
growth by:
• economic aid
• family planning aid
• but neither has worked very well
• UN Cairo Conference decided that better
results would follow from improving women's
access to education and health care

Should we be trying to slow
population growth?
• Ehrlich argues that unrestricted growth will lead
to both human and environmental disaster
• Some religious leaders oppose population control
because they say family planning is against "God's
will."
• One might argue that there are various
interpretations of "God's will". Which is
"correct"?

By 2025, world
population will
probably be around
8,000,000,000
by 2050
9,000,000,000

Global agricultural production
has increased, but it has not
kept up with rising demand
• Other concerns are:
• Loss of topsoil due to erosion
• Depletion of aquifers
• High cost of energy for making fertilizers
•
Modern Farming methods utilize a monoculture
approach, this diminishes biodiversity and genes in
our crops

Additionally, there are
the problems of
• Climate Change
• air pollution
• resource depletion
• loss of species
• collapse of fisheries

Yes --- Lester Brown
• Argues that stabilizing world population is central to
preventing overconsumption of environmental
resources
• Harvest trees, overgraze, etc. at rates that are faster
than natural mechanisms can cope with

• Wackernagel et al. -- U.S National Academy of Sciences
• Human's demands exceeded earth's regenerative
capacity by 20% in 1999
• a "bubble econonmy" is going on with food
production
• UN Demographers -- in 2003, life expectancy in sub-
Saharan Africa has gone from 62 to 47 years
• HIV may claim more lives than all the wars of the
20th Century

Environmental issues have mostly been
local, but their effects won't be
• Examples include
• death of Aral Sea
• burining rainforest in Indonesia
• collapse of Cod fishery in Canada
• melting glaciers that supply water to Andean
cities
• dust bowl forming in NW China
• Depletion of Great Plains aquifer in US

No -- Stephen Moore
• Argues that human numbers pose no
threats to human survival or the
environment but that efforts to control
population do threaten human freedom and
worth
• Coercive Policies in China are the antithesis
of Human Rights
• Technology can provide us with what we
need

• Population size is still increasing, but at
lower rates . . .
• People today are healthier than they’ve ever
been before
• We’ve enough land for everyone, we just
need to be more efficient in using it
• Malthus was wrong about population
growth

Some Food for Thought
Malthus may have been wrong about
the date, but it is true that eventually
carrying capacity of the planet will be
exceeded by too many people.

Age Distribution of the World’s Population
Population Structures by Age and Sex, 2005
Millions
Less Developed
Regions
Age
More Developed
Regions
Male Female
80+
75-79
70-74
65-69
60-64
55-59
50-54
45-49
40-44
35-39
30-34
25-29
20-24
17-19
10-16
5-9
0-4
Male Female
-300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300
-300 200 700
Source: United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2002 Revision (medium scenario), 2003.
© 2005 Population Reference Bureau

Currently, we fail to provide the basic
necessities for one out of every six people
on the planet. If we cannot (or will not) do
it today, why do we think we will be able to
do so in the future when there will be 3.1
billion more people by 2050?

Availability of Doctors, Selected Countries
1995-2002*
Physicians per 1,000 people
Cuba
5.3
Greece
4.4
U.S.
2.7
Jordan
Mexico
China
Bolivia
1.7
1.5
1.4
1.3
Cambodia
Bangladesh
0.3
0.2
* Most recent year available for each country.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators 2004.
© 2005 Population Reference Bureau

Notes on Availability of Doctors, Selected Countries
• Population growth can affect a country’s capacity to address the health needs
of its people through trained personnel and accessible health facilities.
• Access to health services varies greatly from country to country. In Greece,
for example, there are 4.4 doctors for every 1,000 people.
• This is over 17 times higher than in Bangladesh, which has only 0.2 doctors
for every 1,000 people.
© 2005 Population Reference Bureau

If we do not slow population growth, some
argue, we are deciding by default to raise
death rates for humans (already occurring
in some parts of Africa) and greatly
increasing environmental harm.

The US National Academy of Sciences and the
Royal Society of London issued the following
joint statement:
``If current predictions of population growth and
patterns of human activity on the planet remain
unchanged, science and technology may not be
able to prevent either irreversible degradation of
the environment or continued poverty for much
of the world.''

So, what do we do?
• Most of the growth in human population
size can be controlled via education of
women and their partners (family planning)
• As well as an examination of our goals,
values, and long-term desires for humans on
the planet

Family Planning
• Family planning provides health and educational
services that help couples choose how many
children to have and when to have them. These
programs vary, but most provide information on
• 1) birth spacing,
• 2) birth control, and
• 3) health care for pregnant women and their
infants.

• Advantages of family planning include:
• Helping increase the proportion of
married women in developing countries
who use modern forms of contraception
from 10% of married women in the 1960s
to 54% in 2002.
• Being responsible for at least 55% of the
drop in TFR in developing countries. From
6 in 1960 to 3.1 in 2002

• Reducing the number of legal and illegal
abortions per year
• Decreasing the risk of death during
pregnancy.
• Despite all this, 42% of all pregnancies in the
developing world are unplanned and 26%
end up in abortion

• An estimated 250--350 million women in
developing countries want to limit the
number and control the spacing of their
children but they lack access to information
and services.
• According to the United Nations, providing
this access and information could prevent
and estimated 5.8 million births a year and
more than 5 million abortions a year.

• There is a disconnect between the size of
families women desire, and what they have.
• Often, this is due to a lack of knowledge and
resources about how to control family size

Desire for Smaller Families
Women With Two Children Who Say They Want No More Children
Percent
60 59
50
52
29
38
33
29
22
13
Bangladesh Egypt Guatemala Kenya Zimbabwe
© 2005 Population Reference Bureau
Late 1980s
Late 1990s/Early 2000s
Source: ORC Macro, Demographic and Health Surveys, 1988-2000.

How do we pay for family planning?
• The United Nations posits that we could provide family
planning to all the couples in developing countries that
want it for about $17 Billion per year.
• This does sound like a lot of money, however,
• this equals about 8 days worth of worldwide military
spending
• Put another way: folks living in developed countries
could easily pay about $4.80/year/person to reduce the
world's population by about 3.1 Billion people.