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How can the human population explosion be curbed?
Posted on July 23rd, 2009Categorized as Biodiversity, Human Health, Social Science, Social-Ecological Systems Tagged as population
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Obviously this is an extremely sensitive and political issue but the facts are simple – there are too many people in the world for the finite number of resources it holds. This issue must be raised fearlessly if the world is to survive as we know it. More people will only impact the earth further.
13 comments
Most current demographic predictions suppose that the human population will not rise much above 9 billion, which is some 2.5 billion, or close to 30%, more than today’s population. Humans currently sequester between ¼ and ½ of all net terrestrial primary productivity and ½ of accessible fresh water. Human activities already fix as much nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems as all other sources combined. It is hard to see how these proportions could be increased to keep step with the projected increase in human populations.
Therefore I think the answer to georgii’s question is that given the steady growth in our demands on the planet, and the nature of exponential functions, zero population growth will happen soon, certainly within this century, and – in historical timescales – suddenly.
Zero human population growth is going to happen. Birth rates will one day this century be no greater than death rates. The question is whether that will be a brief moment, after which death rates will greatly exceed birth rates.
But I think the question is moot for other reasons that georgii’s “unacceptable.” Who, exactly, is responsible for reducing the human population and its impact on the world?
As a climate scientist of sorts it is easy to focus on the technical aspects, but I completely agree with the very first reply above (Rocky). Education and awareness of the population issue are key, and recognition that all attempts to mitigate global changes now underway will be of limited effect if population is not controlled in some manner. Formal scientific publications are read by very few. Perhaps the question could be refocused to “What is the optimal population of the Earth – and how do we obtain it.”
This is an ill-posed problem. The trivial solution of this problem is known, and it is also known that this solution is unacceptable.
Some researches show that world population may stabilize in this century. If ICSU would like to include this question into the agenda of ESS research, it would be better to formulate it as follows. May world population stabilize in this century?
There are two main issues in conservation. One is the high (over K) population problem, and the other is the high rate of consumption of resources. If we reduce our population numbers in the future, but otherwise maintain our rate of resource consumption, we are not going very far anyways. We need to target both conservation issues. This means, we need to reduce our rate of consumption of resources. Furthermore, this is probably more important now.
I am glad that some people are beginning to think about this. As a climate scientist I often hear how climate change (and effects on water resources, food etc) is the biggest threat to humanity, however I believe climate change is just a small part of the debate on Earth’s resources. The population must be reduced to a suistainable level. This will drastically aid both mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
JEffrey MCKneely (2000) for IUCN clearly identified two problems: overpopulation, and overconsumption. The first is mostly observed in poor country, and replaced by the second in developped ones. Both lead to biodiversity decline, climate change, resource exhaustion, and lots of socio, physico and economical problems.
It seems that educating women is a soft and clever way to decrease natality… probably because they become more responsible for themselves and less subordinated by traditions and cultures…
Overpopulation is only a problem because we are not ready to colonize other planets. We are living a difficult period because we are reaching thresholds… but because problems pile up, solutions raise… At least we are aware of them, even the general public feels (in developed countries at least) problems are increasing… and expects solutions and guidelines.
Family planning is a basic human right (UN declared it in 1968 in Tehran), but still family planning is privilege of the rich.
The human rights approach and the global education (including eradication of global family planning illiteracy), plus redirection of international development assistance to this area give solution.
http://bocs.eu
The discussion so far fails to recognize the current global population situation. Fertility is declining or has declined in all but a handful of countries. This is having a major impact on population growth and the age structure of many countries. Japan’s population is actually declining.
The implications of an aging global population need to be considered in any discussion of climate change.
Also, there are conflicting values regarding population growth, and these conflicting values need to be recognized. While climate change experts and environmentalists might be thrilled to see a global population decline, many policy makers in Europe and Asia are currently devising policies aimed at increasing fertility.
Actually it is the key question. If we’ll not stop the explosion-like growth of the Earth population it will lead to the total collapse. All environmental problems grow from this main topic. The only solution is the gradual depopulation through, e.g., one family-one baby model for 100 years. After fulfillment of such program it’ll be possible to return to one family-two babies mode.
Population growth : a difficult topic, but absolutely essential
This is clearly the elephant in the room. No matter how much we conserve, what fuels we use, and how much we push for sustainability, continued exponential population growth is fundamentally unsustainable. It may be taboo, but strategies for curbing population growth must be addressed head-on.
This is a very important topic. It seems that all other “environmental problems” are exacerbated by the population issue. As you mentioned, further compounding the difficulties is the sensitivity of the issue. In addressing this issue, it is essential that we understand the ecological underpinnings of population growth. I urge you to view the narrated slide show at http://www.PanEarth.org entitled “World Food and Human Population Growth.” This was a seminar given at Cornell University’s program for the environment. There are also other items of interest on the site.
In a non-authoritarian world, the only way to begin to bring down fertility rates and a voluntary, ethical reduction of world population to sustainable levels (viewed from a biological perspective, we are already far, far above earth’s long-term carrying capacity of something less than two billion)is through a rapid and immediate universalization of one-hundred or so key biospheric, ecological, and demographic understandings.
In other words, there exists a specific and fundamental repertoire of scientific information that literally every citizen on earth should know about our planet, and this information incluces, among other things, thresholds, tipping points, and unintended consequences; carrying capacities, limiting factors, delayed feedbacks, and overshoot; exponential mathematics and J-curves, as well as demographics and world population levels past, present, and future.
(I have written and posted elsewhere on these topics.)
Most of the questions that I have seen in all of the categories are important, and many are obvious candidates for research priorities.
The trouble is, we are already in crisis mode and have already far overshot planetary carrying capacity, so that more research and peer-reviewed papers, and more data published in scholarly journals that will be read by comparatively small numbers of in-field scholars who already understand the severity of the problem are not really going to help save the planet.
What is needed is a quick (three years or less) universalization of the top one-hundred or so understandings that literally every citizen should know about our planet.
We must, for the next five to ten years, turn a huge percentage of our attention AWAY from academia – and start communicating via films, television, documentary specials, PowerPoint and similar presentations, educational and policymaker workshops, the internet, PDFs, and every possible digital venue with the world public at large -
Emergency workshops, for example, for journalists, and teachers, and top policymakers. Film and television documentaries in every language for every country. Key biospheric information loaded onto every laptop worldwide, etc.
Until the vast majority of the world public, including journalists, policymakers, educators, and students acquire the information that the scientific community already understands, action and change will not be forthcoming.
Even though this process invites us to submit comments and questions that address priority research topics for the next ten years – it may actually be, ironically, that we are in such a crisis mode already that time spent on research instead of IMMEDIATE EDUCATION simply allows explosive population growth to cascade us irretrievably toward calamity at a rate of 800,000 extra human inhabitants every four days.
We have almost certainly waited too long already when an emergency level of response should have responsbily begun two decades ago.
Grants, emergency workshops, emergency educational and university partnerships with poor and high-fertility nations, films, radio, and television programming, and science, math, and social science classroom units on what every citizen should know about our planet may be our last chance.
A rapid universalization of the key information, concepts, and understandings is possible and eminently do-able – especially with grant support from government agencies and NGOs -
but not if we allow ourselves to expend the last few moments that we have remaining on peer-reviewed-papers-as-usual instead of on emergency action / emergency communications / and a worldwide emergency dissemination of key understandings.