Reflections

I'll take this opportunity of the final blog post (unless I decide to continue it, of course!) to go over what I've discussed on here, and to see whether the original question of whether population growth contributes to environmental degradation has been answered.

 I used evidence from the past to show how humans have had effects on their environment even thousands of years ago and significant effects at that. I would definitely call altering greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and contributing to mass megafaunal extinction significant, especially for such a small number. Logically it's clear that if that long ago we managed to alter the Earth system, then now – with so many more of us and so much more energy-intense and polluting activity – we must still be affecting our environment, if not a lot more. Still, I looked at some more recent empirical evidence about water use and biodiversity loss and there's no doubt that the data back up the logic.

source: http://kkt004.wordpress.com/tag/overpopulation/

A lot of people still challenge the idea that population growth is bad for the environment so I wanted to investigate the arguments against it and look at some of the more interesting ones (i.e. not just the ones plainly refuting the idea, not that I think you'd find that many serious ones from the environmental science community).

Firstly the argument that we can't blame population growth when really it is consumers who are the problem: too many consumers, not too many people. While this may be true, I argued that many of the population growth over the next decades is set to take place in the 'developing' world and so is most of the economic growth. Putting two and two together means a lot more consumers. However, then I found literature on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) which says that actually as societies get wealthier it is actually better for the environment! BUT, there is a catch: only past a certain level of income. Up to that 'threshold' getting wealthier is actually worse for the environment (as you pollute more than before but haven't started developing clean energy). Sadly, most of the world lives in 'poverty' and so would be going through the stage of polluting a lot until one day (maybe, far into the future) we would reach that stage where the entire world is past that income threshold. (Climate change is a global phenomenon remember so it doesn't help if only half of the population is wealthy enough to pollute less.) Who knows what damage might have taken place by then?

That same question could also be asked about the fact that population growth is slowing and population should peak before 2100, although I do think this is a fair argument against panicking and is the one I most agree with. It makes the situation less worse knowing that we're not still on the exponential trajectory, but like I said who knows what could happen before then. The world was a very different place 100 years ago and could be in 100 years time. (I realise 100 years isn't massive in terms of the Earth's existence but never before has there been such pollution and alteration of the wilderness.)

Finally there was the interesting point that when population growth slows, there is an ageing of the population which could in fact be worse for energy consumption due to the sorts of lives that elderly people live. I hadn't thought about it like that before so I was glad to have found that literature. However, the alternative really isn't an option is it? Telling people to keep having more children to avoid the population ageing while in the meantime the population is growing and growing.

source: http://www.123rf.com/photo_4424545_city-vs-nature-vector-art.html

I also introduced some examples of policies aimed at population management. This was just to show how dealing with population growth's effect is not straightforward. Even if you've established that it's bad for the environment (which is hard enough), how do you go about dealing with it?  Lots of people refuse to talk about it precisely because of some sinister past attempts at controlling population. I think not having a dialogue is even more dangerous though.

Many say the solution isn't population growth management but that our lifestyles need to change. I completely agree, but I just can't see how we are going to change our capitalist, consumerist society. It is engrained in generations. It is a lot harder to ask people to give up driving cars, or buy less 'stuff' than to improve women's education, make contraception available for those who do not wish to have children. Things like this improve people's lives, even regardless as to whether or not it is better for the environment.

The purpose of this blog was to investigate whether excess population growth is an issue. I think it is clear that it is; that is does cause environmental degradation. However, I have discovered it is definitely not a clear-cut relationship, and there are many factors affecting the Earth system. I want to stress that I am not predicting that famines, and world wars, and the end of the human race will come of it. I am sure that we could survive with many more people without destroying the Earth or ourselves (although maybe if I continue the blog this is something I could look into more closely), it just depends on what one thinks qualifies as 'destroying the Earth'. It depends on whether we should have the right as human beings to alter the planet beyond recognition just to satisfy our own needs and desires. I suppose really it goes back to the question of whether nature is there for our use and our control, or whether we are simply part of it.

Policy Series – IV

For the last policy series post, I want to do India, because it's so notorious I feel I couldn't not mention it.

I also want to post this link to an article on the BBC which talks about the dangers when man tries to control population. 

The following about India is an excerpt from the article (as is the photo):

Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay (above) presided over a mass sterilisation campaign. From the mid-1970s, Indian officials were set sterilisation quotas, and sought to ingratiate themselves with superiors by exceeding them. Stories abounded of men being accosted in the street and taken away for the operation. The head of the World Bank, Robert McNamara, congratulated the Indian government on "moving effectively" to deal with high birth rates. Funding was increased, and the sterilising went on.

In Delhi, some 700,000 slum dwellers were forcibly evicted, and given replacement housing plots far from the city centre, frequently on condition that they were either sterilised or produced someone else for the operation. In poorer agricultural areas, whole villages were rounded up for sterilisation. When residents of one village protested, an official is said to have threatened air strikes in retaliation.

"There was a certain madness," recalls Nina Puri of the Family Planning Association of India. "All rationality was lost."

From the Media

An interesting article from the NY times archive:

Breaking a long silence on Population Control

Monica Drake volunteered to hand out condoms last month in Portland, Ore., as part of a campaign by the Center for Biological Diversity.

Policy Series – III

Today we're going to look at UZBEKISTAN.

This is a tricky one because a lot information is from rumours and 'reports' so I'm not publishing it here as hard facts. Anyhow, Uzbekistan is supposedly carrying out programs of forced sterilisation as a way of controlling population. A 2007 report by the UN Committee Against Torture reported of such practices being done to those women would had had more than two or three pregnancies already.

Here is a BBC news article with a bit more information.

Surely this is a shining example of how not to manage population growth. It brings out all sorts of human rights issues and questions of freedom and choice. We have seen in the past that there are simple schemes that have proved successful, like family planning, women empowerment and education that improve people's lives even regardless of any connection with population growth.

Population Structure, not Growth

I stumbled upon an interesting body of literature that discusses the role of population structure and dynamics in affecting climate change. Rather than simply looking at the size and growth of populations, Jiang and Hardee (2011) (along with various others) study how population composition affects carbon emissions and climate systems. The idea is whether different energy consumption levels exist among population groups with different characteristics and whether (and how) these groups' behaviour will change in the future. They find that population size; ageing; urbanisation and household size are all important factors.

Urbanisation

If we look at the case of urbanisation, on the one hand cities provide economies of scale, technical innovation, efficient land use and lower fertility rates. On the other, as people go from living in rural areas to urban ones, their behaviour changes: their consumption patterns, and their lifestyle. Conclusions are mixed and it depends on the regions studied and whether it's the long-run or the short-run impacts being considered.

Ageing

For ageing, there is also a shift in consumption behaviour and income structure. Like urbanisation it is difficult to determine whether there is a rise in energy use or a decline. An ageing population may reduce public transport demand but use cars more and increase energy demand for heating/cooling; it may also reduce overall labour productivity and so energy consumption. However, as York (2007) points out, the elderly tend to have smaller household sizes which means energy consumption per capita increases. (Imagine heating a house that 3 people live in vs 1 person living in it.)

York makes an historical analysis of demographic trends and energy consumption in 14 EU countries. He runs a regression and finds a positive relationship between an 'elderly' population and energy use. The interaction between population growth, size and ageing is complex. Low fertility leads to a decrease in population growth and eventually size which decreases energy consumption but then this leads to an ageing of said population which increases energy consumption! 

This certainly challenges the idea of less population growth being a good thing for the environment. However, the solution definitely isn't to keep growing and growing for fear of having too large a portion of the population over the age of 65. Surely that would eventually be even worse for the environment? It sort of goes back to the social and economic problems that arise when a population stops growing and starts ageing. The solution can't be to just tell everyone to have more children, because all that will do is delay the issue for a couple of generations until those children are pensioners and living on their own in heated houses. 

It seems to me like there might be some sort of 'Environmental Kuznets Curve' for ageing, whereby there will be environmental pressure for years to come as the population ages, but once it stabilises again (i.e. once the bulge of pensioners are 'no longer there' – sorry!) environmental pressures will subside and so will those on social services. Once again though, a substantial portion of the world's populations have yet to begin this ageing process and are only in the stage where death rates are falling but birth rates remain the same, so it will be a long time before that happens. The only thing I will say is that better education and family planning will perhaps mean people in countries where death rates are falling will be able to choose the number of children they'd like to have, which may result in less of a bulge in population growth.

In any case I've rambled on. The topic is such a complex one it's hard not to explore all the different avenues. The main point from this post is that the relationship between population growth and environmental degradation is not as simple as it seems. The type of population is important: whether it is urban, for example. It is not simply that smaller populations are better for the environment as this can be coupled by ageing which may (there is debate in the literature) lead to increased energy use.  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year!

Now is a time for relaxation, so here are a couple of films that take their inspiration from 'overpopulation':

Soylent Green (1973)

Blade Runner (1982)

Elysium (2013)

Policy Series – II

Continuing our little series looking at some examples of 'population management' policies, today's one is SOUTH KOREA.

Like in Europe and the West previously, South Korea and a lot of developing countries experienced a rapid fall in death rates but no fall in births, resulting in massive population growth after WWII. So in 1962 they began a family planning campaign which focussed on education, maternal and child health services, and the provision of family planning supplies (e.g. contraception) and services. This was all in order to achieve 'modernisation' and of course economic growth.

top image: from 1974: "sons or daughter, let's have two children and raise them well";
bottom image: from 1981: "even two children per family are too crowded for our tiny country"

In fact, it worked so well that by the 1980s the total fertility rate had fallen below replacement level (below 2.1). So, the population began to age significantly and this put pressure on social services like the pension scheme. By 2005, the government had turned pro-natalist, with incentives like tax incentives, child care and assistance to infertile couples.

Once again, this makes you think of the different and sometimes conflicting consequences of population size and structure. What might be better for the environment – to have smaller populations – often causes stress to social and economic systems put in place for the human population. The question is really do we have the right to manipulate human activity and populations for our own, medium-term gain when this might be causing long-term damage to the global ecosystem?