Do We Want More Humans or Less?

The number of humans on earth just passed the 7 billion mark. To mark the occasion, there was a Planet Money podcast about countries whose populations are declining.   Some of the countries experiencing declines in population are affluent, places like Japan and Germany, where every new baby is, in terms of resource consumption, equivalent to dozens of babies in poor countries. But the podcast was not about how great it is to see this decline in population. Oddly, in rich countries the lack of population growth is seen as a problem, and governments are actually giving many incentives to people to have more babies. It's a strange paradox that though the world cannot survive overrun with humans as it is, some countries feel they cannot survive without a continually growing population. The notion that rich countries need a continuously growing population is linked to the belief that we need a continuously growing economy. The problem with both of these concepts is that the earth can sustain neither.

I've often thought there was an integral connection between population growth and economic growth. Though I don't have a background in economics, my knowledge about environmental issues and my interest in the way they relate to other disciplines such as economics, have helped me understand this connection better. In this Planet Money podcast, they explain this connection that is obvious to many economists. Each new baby is not just another mouth to feed, it is another consumer, another worker. In an unsustainable capitalist economy like ours in the US, each new kid is an excuse to tap more resources from the planet. The extraction of more resources is required to grow the economy at such a rapid rate. So when populations slow, as is explained in this podcast, economies stagnate. There aren't as many people buying stuff, there aren't as many people to work the jobs that contribute to the wealth of the economy. As well, there are fewer taxpayers and less revenue to sustain government programs.

Why traditional concepts of overpopulation are misguided

The connection between population and economic growth is rarely made in discussions of the “problem” of overpopulation though. Dominant perceptions of overpopulation fall far from the mark. In rich countries population growth in poor countries, instead of being considered good for the economy, is seen as a serious threat to the world. When we see that 7 billion number, we in rich countries like the US are alarmed. Our understanding (or rather misunderstanding) of overpopulation conjures images of poor children in Africa, victims of food poverty and disease, wallowing in the misery a lack of basic necessities causes. We are told they live like this because they are having too many children. It is true that some poor countries have alarming rates of population growth. But in terms of resource consumption and the impact of humans on the planet, they are not the problem.

This fact can be illustrated by a simple look at population densities. Some wealthy countries like the Netherlands have some of the highest population densities of humans in the world outside of island nations, yet they are not considered overpopulated. In fact, the Netherland's has a population density of 397 people per km² while Haiti, a country considered to be overpopulated, has a density of 362.5. Haiti is an island nation (sharing Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic), but it is of significant size, with 67% of the land area of the Netherlands. Haiti shows many signs of what conventionally would be considered overpopulation--deforestation, food poverty, disease--while the Netherlands does not. You might point out that Haiti has a much higher population growth rate than the Netherlands, 1.58 compared to .21 for the Netherlands. This is true, but it doesn't explain why the Dutch are better off than the Haitians. People are people, and they all consume resources, so the number of people in a given space should be some means of comparison. The number of people in a given space has more impact on resources than how many are being born at any given time. In fact, people in Holland consume far more resources than people in Haiti on average (82,381 thousand tonnes of oil equivalent compared to 2502), so given population density, they should be having a greater impact on their environment. They should be considered overpopulated, but they aren't.

Growth Rate

Haiti 1.58

China .58

India 1.46

US .97

Netherlands .21

Population Density people per km2

China 140

Haiti 362.5

India 371

Netherlands 397

US 32.7

So why aren't the Dutch living in squalor if they are more overpopulated than people in Haiti? Because the real difference between the two countries is not one of population growth rates, it is one of access to resources. Because the Dutch have more access to resources, they can get the food, fuel, and products they need to thrive. They can build sanitation systems that treat their polluted water before they drink it. It could be argued that the environment in the Netherlands is much more degraded than that of Haiti, but the Dutch can afford to protect themselves from it. Their government will invest in infrastructure to ensure a significant degree of health for its people. Most Haitians cannot afford infrastructure like sewage treatment and their government, controlled by the few rich and powerful (and aided by US foreign policy and corporations), is not going to invest in improving the lot of the poor masses. As well, the Dutch do not have to deforest their landscape to fuel their lives (they actually did this centuries ago), they can simply burn fossil fuel (largely natural gas and oil), some of which is domestically produced. The Haitians on the other hand, cannot afford fossil fuel, and instead are required to cut down their forests if they want fuel for cooking. For all these reasons the Haitians appear to have problems associated with overpopulation and the Dutch don't.

This is not to say that rates of population growth in poor countries aren't alarming. The problems those in poor countries experience are in part the result of their high population growth rates. Carrying capacity of land is very relevant in considering overpopulation. The more people there are in a given area, the more pressure they put on the environment, particularly if they are forced to get all of their needs met from their local land. This is what leads to deforestation.

There seems to be an imbalance in the weight we in rich countries give to habitat destruction happening in poor countries with high population growth rates as opposed to the attention we give to the condition of our own natural areas. We are alarmed because they are reproducing rapidly and destroying habitat that has never been exploited my humans, whereas we in rich countries have by and large already destroyed our natural areas. This assault on nature was a big part of what made us rich in the first place. We grew our economies by exploiting our resources.

If those in poor countries had better access to resources they need for survival, they would not display these symptoms we in rich countries attribute to overpopulation. California is a land of limited water resources, and though these days Californians have to limit their lawn sprinkling sometimes, they never experience hardship because they use their wealth to ensure that water will be available to meet their demand. The poor can only use the water immediately available—what falls from the sky, what runs in streams, or what can be tapped from wells (if they can afford to drill a well). In some cases, foreign corporations may even prevent their access to water that falls from the sky. We in rich countries can simply buy our way out of the problems caused by overpopulation.

If women in poor countries had more rights and everyone had more access to and education about birth control, it's likely that population growth rates in populous countries would decline. Because so many in poor countries like Haiti live in food poverty and spend most of their annual income feeding themselves, changes in food prices or supply can be devastating. It's not that there isn't enough food in the world to feed them, it's that the food is going to feed livestock to feed the world's meat eaters. If they had the infrastructure described above, they would not be living in squalor. None of these problems is really the result of overpopulation, because if they had smaller rates of growth the poor would still show all the symptoms of what we consider to be overpopulation—food scarcity, disease, environmental destruction.

What is alarming is that some countries like China and India that experienced high population growth rates in the past or are still experiencing them (like India), are now not only getting access to more resources, they are adopting wasteful lifestyles similar to those of people in the US. It is at this point that the number of people really starts to come into play, when resource consumption becomes extreme and impact on the planet becomes critical. But still over 50% of Indians do not even have access to electricity, so it's hard to point the finger at them. As well, much of China and India's resource consumption is used to make products sold to those in rich countries. This essentially means much of their consumption could be attributed to rich countries.

In my mind, there are two population problems, and neither of them requires more babies being born to solve them. In poor countries, there is a population problem caused by population density coupled with a lack of infrastructure, access to resources, education, and women's rights.  In the world as a whole there is a problem of overpopulation of humanity, with those in rich countries being responsible for the lion's share of the resulting destruction of the planet. It is by controlling the population (and the resource consumption) of those in rich countries that we can make the biggest positive impact on the planet. Yet apparently rich countries want just the opposite.

Does the World Need More Rich People?

So why do some countries fear a declining population? Once an economy becomes accustomed to continuous growth, it cannot just be stopped or slowed without people having to give something up. As people age and leave the workforce, they still have more or less the same requirements for survival. They need to eat, they need shelter, and in rich countries, they need all the same trappings of affluence they needed in their youth, and usually more. Particularly if life spans continue to increase, it means a greater number of older people who cannot do the work needed to provide for the population. Not only do they need abundant young workers to provide things for them, they need younger people making money to pay taxes. Pension and social security programs rely on the current working generation to provide the funds to pay for the benefits of the previous generation. If there are less people in the current workforce than there are in the non-working older generation there can be a shortfall in funds, particularly if the current working generation decides they want to cut taxes. This is why countries are giving incentives to people to have more children.

For the economy to continue this unsustainable path of growth, it needs more people, it needs the excuse to tap more resources from the planet. It's not just that consumption by individuals is always increasing (which it is), it's that the number of people is always increasing, so more resources must be made available to meet their needs.

Negative or slow population growth creates stagnation because we've created an economic system that has a status quo of constant growth, so it cannot work if the economy is not continually growing. Our economy evolved in an era of abundant fossil fuel that made it seem like we lived in a world of limitless resources. Though humans have developed science for understanding the physics of the universe, we've developed an economy and a culture that doesn't seem to recognize the laws of physics. In a world of finite resources, you cannot have infinite growth. This is the myth we've created--that human population as well as the economy can continue to grow indefinitely.

Maybe instead of giving incentives to people in rich countries to have more children, we should be trying to create a system with a different status quo. Maybe a system that emulates the balance of nature would work better in a world of finite resources. It will take some sacrifices to establish this kind of system, and no doubt in any such system we will have to do away with the myth of constant growth. But if we had less people, we would have less impact on the planet and everyone would have more. If we don't create this system on our own, nature will create it for us. Population booms and crashes on a smaller scale than that humans are headed for are a normal part of natural systems. But we are living high on the hog now and selling out future generations. Those with children in rich countries are dooming their children's future if they don't try to do something about the problems now. As the world population grows and consumption increases, we are raising the stakes in the impending crash. Do we want to wait for nature to take its course, or do we want to use our understanding of nature to change our systems, so we can be more in balance with it?