the problem with population

Population Matters 135-137 Station Road, London E4 6AG +44(0)20 8123 9116 www.populationmatters.org [email protected]: Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE ● Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta ● Professor Paul Ehrlich ● Baroness Shreela Flather ● Dr Jane Goodall DBE ● Professor John Guillebaud ● Susan Hampshire OBE ● Dr James Lovelock CBE ● Professor Aubrey Manning OBE ● Professor Norman Myers CMG ● Chris Packham ● Sara Parkin OBE ● Jonathon Pomitt CBE ● Lionel Shriver ● Sir Crispin Tickell GCMG KCVO Population Matters is the working name of the Optimum Population Trust. Regd. company no. 3019081. Regd. charity no. 1114109. Regd. office as above.

The problem with population

Berkhamsted

Geographical Association20 September 2012

Introducing Population Matters

• Population Matters is the leading population charity in the UK. Our vision is of a global population size providing a good standard of living for all, a healthy environment and environmental sustainability.

• Our activities are based on our charitable aims of advancing:– the education of the public in issues relating to human population

worldwide and its impact on environmental sustainability;

– research to determine optimum and ecologically sustainable human population levels and to publicise the results of such research; and

– environmental protection by promoting policies in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world that will lead or contribute to the achievement of stable human population levels which allow environmental sustainability.

• We have over 3000 members from some 30 countries

Introducing the speaker

• Simon Ross, Chief executive• Simon has been managing for and advising on improved

performance for leading public, private and third sector organisations for almost thirty years. His experience in management consulting, marketing and marketing research has been on both the client and agency side and he has post graduate qualifications in marketing and market research.

• He became involved in Population Matters through a conviction that population growth underlies many of the problems of today’s world.

Do you have?

• No other siblings (brothers and sisters)

• One other sibling (there are two of you)

• Two other siblings (there are three of you)

• Three or more other siblings (there are four or more of you)

Slide 4

Key points

• Is population a problem?

• If so, should we do something about it?

• If we should, what should we do about it?

• What do you think?

What do British people think?

• Proposition: Are the world and UK populations too high?

• Result: 80% said yes.

• YouGov poll for OPT in 2011

Is this a new concern (BC)?

• Stasinos – poet 776 – 580 BC“There was a time when the countless tribes of men, though wide-dispersed, oppressed the surface of the deep-bosomed Earth, and Zeus saw it and had pity and in his wise heart resolved to relieve the all-nurturing Earth of men by causing the great struggle of the Ilian war, that the load of death might empty the world. And so the heroes were slain in Troy, and the plan of Zeus came to pass.”

• Confucius – philosopher 551 – 479 BC“Excessive (population) growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife.”

• Aristotle – philosopher 384 – 322 BC“One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property…The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of revolution and crime”

Is this a new concern (CE)?

• Tertullian – writer and theologian 160 – 220“The strongest witness is the vast population of the earth to which we are a burden and she scarcely can provide for our needs.”

• Nicolas Machiavelli – writer 1469 – 1527“When every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that they can neither subsist where they are nor remove themselves elsewhere… the world will purge itself in one or another of these three ways (floods, plague and famine).”

• Thomas Malthus – clergyman and scholar 1766 – 1832“Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.”

What affects animal population size?

• Food availability

• Disease prevalence

• Predation

• Procreation level

In other words,

• The population of a species grows until: – The food runs out; e.g. seasonal die off– Disease spreads in overcrowded conditions– Predators increase– Breeding reduces.

• Usually, things tend to balance out.

Which country is this?

Slide 11

Imbalance - lack of predators

• Rabbits introduced to Australia – Plenty of food– No natural predators– High birth rate

• Result – enormous and sometimes permanent ecological destruction

• Human response - Introduction of disease - myxamotosis

On the other side of the world

Slide 13

What’s the problem?

Slide 14

Overshoot – lack of food

• Reindeer in St. Matthew Island, Alaska– 29 individual animals introduced– No predators– Population rose to a peak of 6,000– Lichen eliminated through overgrazing– Population fell back to 50 over 20 years

Are humans different?

• Are we subject to the same constraints– Food availability– Disease prevalence– Predation– Procreation level?

• Or can we rise above these limits through human ingenuity?

• It is a bit of both

Human population historically

Slide 17

Fairly flat

Famine victims in India

Slide 18

Food - deaths from starvation

• Between 108 BC and 1911 AD there were no fewer than 1,828 major famines in China or one nearly every year in one or another province.

• There were 95 famines in Britain during the Middle Ages.

Which disease is this?

Slide 20

Disease - deaths from disease

• Antonine plague 5m

• Plague of Justinian 25m

• Black Death 100m

• The American conquest 1.5m

• Russian cholera pandemic 1m

• Russian flu 1m

• 1981 flu pandemic 75m

• HIV/AIDS 25m

Which war is this?

Slide 22

Predator equivalent - deaths from wars

• World War II 60-72m• An Shi rebellion 36m• Mongol conquests 30-60m• Qing conquest 25m• World War I 20m• Taiping rebellion 20m• Second Sino-Japanese war 20m• Dungan revolt 8-12m• Tamurlane conquests 10-20m• Russian civil war 5-9m

Limiting childbirth

Slide 24

Limiting procreation historically

• Celibacy (religious orders)

• Later marriages

• Abstinence e.g. extended breastfeeding

• Birth control methods

• High child mortality

• Infanticide

• Geriatricide

Examples of overshoot

• A society's adaptive capacity may be reduced by either a sharp increase in population or societal complexity, destabilizing its institutions and causing massive shifts in population and other social dynamics.

• In cases of collapse civilizations tend to revert to less complex, less centralized socio-political forms using simpler technology. These are characteristics of a Dark Age.

• Examples of such societal collapse are: the Hittite Empire, the Mycenaean civilization, the Western Roman Empire, the Mauryan and Gupta Empires in India, the Mayas, the Angkor in Cambodia and the Han and Tang dynasties in China.

What is this pile made of?

Slide 27

Imbalance – lack of predators

• European migration to North America– Plenty of food– No natural predators– High birth rate

• Result – Enormous ecological destruction– Bison almost wiped out– Carrier pigeons wiped out– Newfoundland cod wiped out– Many whale species almost wiped out

Where is this and what is missing?

Slide 29

Overshoot – lack of timber

• Easter Island– The first-recorded European contact with the island

was on 5 April 722 when Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen visited and estimated there were 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants on the island.

– Archaeologists estimate the population may have been as high as 10,000 to 15,000 a few decades earlier.

– Fossil pollen analysis shows that the main trees on the island had gone 72 years earlier in 1650.

What changed in the last 200 years?

Slide 31

What changed in the last 200 years?

• Food availability rose – Agricultural revolution; Green Revolution

• Disease prevalence fell – Modern medicine and public health

• Predation fell – Deaths from war falling

• Survival rate rose – Falling infant mortality

• Made possible by exploiting fossil fuels

Did anyone notice?

Slide 33

• Albert Einstein• Helen Keller• John Maynard Keynes• Jawaharlal Nehru• Kenneth Boulding• Jacques Cousteau• Richard M. Nixon• Norman Borlaug • Robert McNamara• Spike Milligan• James Lovelock

• Digby McLaren • Isaac Asimov • Prince Philip• James P. Grant • Professor Albert Bartlett• George H.W. Bush • Gore Vidal • Queen Elizabeth II • Sir David Attenborough• Maurice Strong • Martin Luther King

Promoting responsible parenting

Slide 34

A couple considers their options

Slide 35

But many FP programmes lapsed

• Opposition– Fundamentalist religions - fertility is God’s will– US religious right – opposition to abortion– Political right - the market will solve our problems– Political left – socialism will solve our problems– Some feminists/ civil rights advocates – top down target

led population programmes led to undue pressure (China, Indian state of emergency)

• HIV/AIDS need for funding

Slide 36

Birth rates fell but not by enough

Slide 37

Children per woman

2.1 per woman = long term stability

Human impact is more than population

Slide 38

Log scale

What are the consequences - I?

• Falling: – water supplies in aquifers and glaciers– agricultural land area and fertility– freshwater fish and sea fish stocks– biodiversity and habitats worldwide– Oil, coal and gas reserves– mineral and plant resources– arctic and ocean health

• Changing climate and weather

What are the consequences - II?

• Growing– Demand for housing and overcrowding– Pressure on green belt and countryside– Infrastructure costs and disruption– Traffic congestion and transport crowding– Pollution: air, noise, light– Reliance on wind farms, nuclear, fracking,

coal fired power stations, biofuels– Reliance on intensive farming and GM food

Berkhamsted size triples in 100 years

Slide 41

What does the future hold?

Drivers of change

•Population growth

•Industrialization of global south

•Meat based diet becomes more common

Consequences of change

•Urbanization,ageing, migration

•Progressive elimination of wildlife

•Will there be enough food for all?

Poverty currently extensive

• 3 billion people have an income of less than U.S. $2.5/day

• 1.5 billion people have an income of less than US$1.25/day

• Almost a billion people lack access to sufficient food or clean drinking water

Slide 43

Where is the population going?

Slide 44

16 billion

10 billion

6 billion

What decides future growth?

• Increasing longevity – living longer

• Population momentum – youth cohort size

• Falling birth rate – children per woman

Increasing longevity

• Improved nutrition, public health and medicine– Infant and child survival still rising– People living longer worldwide

• Trend slightly moderated by– Increasing obesity and lack of exercise– Virus developing resistance to drugs

Increasing longevity - world

Slide 47

Period

Both sexes combined Male Female

2010-2015 69.3 67.1 71.6

2015-2020 70.4 68.2 72.8

2020-2025 71.4 69.2 73.8

2025-2030 72.4 70.1 74.8

2030-2035 73.3 71.0 75.7

2035-2040 74.1 71.8 76.5

2040-2045 74.9 72.5 77.3

2045-2050 75.6 73.2 78.0

2050-2055 76.3 73.9 78.7

2055-2060 76.9 74.6 79.3

Will rise by seven years in next 55 years

Population momentum

• There are more young people than ever before due to better infant survival and past high birth rates

• Even if they each have no more children than their parents had, the result will be a higher population

Population momentum

Slide 49

Falling birth rate

• The birth rate is falling in most countries

• 40% of people live in countries with sub-replacement birth rates

However,

• Some countries still have high birth rates

• Forecasts depend on access to family planning and a desire for smaller families

Asia is slowing down; Africa is not

Slide 51

AsiaAfrica

Rising urbanization by continent

Slide 52

Which country is this?

Slide 53

Rising urbanization – major cities

Slide 54

RankMetropolitan area

Country Population Area (km2)

Population Density (People/km2)

1 Tokyo Japan 32,450,000 8,014 4,049

2 Seoul South Korea

20,550,000 5,076 4,048

3Mexico City[3] Mexico 20,450,000 7,346 2,784

4New York City[4]

United States

19,750,000 17,884 1,104

5 Mumbai-Bombay

India 19,200,000 2,350 8,170

6 Jakarta Indonesia 18,900,000 5,100 3,706

7 São Paulo Brazil 18,850,000 8,479 2,223

8 Delhi India 18,600,000 3,182 5,845

9Los Angeles[5]

United States

17,877,097 10,780 1,415

10 Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto

Japan 17,375,000 6,930 2,507

11 Shanghai China 16,650,000 5,177 3,216

12 Manila Philippines 16,300,000 2,521 6,466

13Hong Kong-Shenzhen

Hong Kong 15,800,000 3,051 5,179

14 Kolkata India 15,100,000 1,785 8,459

15 Moscow Russia 15,000,000 14,925 1,005

16 Cairo Egypt 14,450,000 1,600 9,031

17Buenos Aires

Argentina 13,170,000 10,888 1,210

18 London United Kingdom

12,875,000 11,391 1,130

19 Beijing China 12,500,000 6,562 1,905

20 Karachi Pakistan 11,800,000 1,100 10,727

Maximum city density is nine times that of London

Rising migration

• Total number of migrants rising

• Reasons– Greater ease of travel– Greater information

about destinations– Globalising culture– Economic and

ecological pressures

Slide 55

Main migratory routes

Slide 56 Over half a million people settle in the UK every year

So what should we do?

• We can:

– Make greater use of existing technologies

– Develop new technologies

– Reduce waste

– Move to greater equality of consumption

• But these are: – Often difficult to implement

– May have a limited or temporary impact

– Have uncertain and negative side-effects

– Complementary, not alternatives

Here is one approach

Slide 58

Population policies - China

• Before the policy, there was a sharp reduction from more than five births per woman in the early 1970s to 2.5 in 1980.

• One third of population is subject to the one-child policy.• Violators are fined and may lose their work bonus. • The fertility rate fell from 2.63 births in 1980 to 1.61 in 2009• However, the policy itself is probably only partially responsible for

the reduction in the total fertility rate.• Criticisms: Was such a draconian approach required? Is it fairly

applied? Were there human rights abuses? Is son preference worsened? Do single children lose out?

• Was China right or wrong?

Population policies - Iran

• Declared Islam favoured families with only two children".

• Introduced free contraceptives - pills, condoms, IUDs, implants, tubal ligations, and vasectomies, including mobile teams.

• Birth control classes required before a couple could get married.• After the third child, withdrew food coupons, paid maternity

leave, and social welfare subsidies.

• Population growth fell from 3% a year between 1956 and 1986 to 0.7% a year by 2007.

• Was Iran right or wrong?

Population policies – Population Matters

• Universal user-led access to a range of family planning services

• Quality sex education/ support to reduce unplanned pregnancies

• Encouragement for individuals to make responsible decisions on family size (one or two, not three or more)

• An end to subsidies of larger families, except in proven need

• An end to discrimination against women and equal access for women to education, decision-making and resources

• Are we right or wrong?

Political sensitivities still exist

Developing countries•End child marriage•End female circumcision•Give women social and economic rights•Legalize abortion•Legalize same sex relationships

Developed countries•Give official call for smaller families•Cut child benefits and child tax credits•Advertise contraception on TV•Reduce net migration to a rough balance

Slide 62

Key points

• Is population a problem?– Yes, it is

• If so, should we do something about it?– Yes, we must

• If we should, what should we do about it?– Provide family planning and promote smaller

families

End with good news: Will and Kate

Prince William reveals wish for two children

The Duke of Cambridge has reportedly revealed he would like to have two children with his wife. Prince William made the comment when asked how many children he would like, during the second day of the couple's Diamond Jubilee tour to Singapore. A teenager at one walkabout said the prince had responded by saying "he was thinking about having two".

Source: BBC 12 September 2012

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