In a feature called Ask a Scientist, a girl in Mrs. Walker’s 5th grade class asks “How many people are alive?” and Michael A. Little, professor of anthropology, Binghamton University, New York, gives a thoughtful reply not just answering her question but talking about the consequences of continued growth in terms an 11-year-old can understand. His main points:
- population growth. We are adding about 4 times as many new people per year on the earth as already live in New York City.
- biodiversity. Humans, animals, and plants all compete for space. Lots and lots of plants and animals are becoming extinct (dying out) because humans are taking their spaces. These losses of other organisms contribute to imbalances on the earth, such as loss of forests, which can be very harmful to the health of the planet.
- food security. We are running out of good farming land to grow crops to feed all of the people on the planet. Also, fish and other animals from oceans are decreasing in numbers as we harvest them for food in greater and greater amounts.
- international conflict. … where there is limited food and other resources such as oil and other energy, lead to conflicts that often end in warfare between nations.
- pollution. … with so many people, we are accumulating a lot of waste and are polluting vast areas of the world.
- global warming. … our burning of fuels, such as coal, oil, and wood, contribute to carbon dioxide levels (greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere which increase conditions of global warming. As the climate warms up, ice in the Antarctic and Greenland melts, sea level rises, and some of the coastal lands are flooded around the world. This leaves less land for more people and contributes to the crowding of people that we see in many parts of the world.
Professor Little ends his reply with this:
Humans are really not owners of the earth; we are stewards of the planet. That means we have a responsibility to take care of it so that it remains a good place to live. Too many people will prevent us from being good stewards of our planet.
If an 11-year-old can understand this, why can’t more adults?
(See also the University of Binghamton’s Ask a Scientist page and its archives.)
I guess because it is inconvenient?
Once I was reading a comment thread on the Globe and Mail, and a few readers were noting how people from Alberta (rich in oil sands) were less likely to believe that global warming is a real danger, and more likely to believe that it was a smoke screen, a way to increase taxation. I wonder if there is any real survey out there, to show if these probabilities are real, not personal, and if they could correlate among oil-rich areas.
I’ll bet kids may even understand it better than adults, on average. Though there’s really nothing difficult about the notion of limits to growth, it seems most disagreement over the fundamentals of it is the result of vested-interest-based rationalization, which adults do better than kids.
I’d disagree. As a example, lets say we have ten units of electricity available in our finite universe.
Year 1: Our light bulbs each consume one unit of electricity – 10 light bulbs.
Year 2: Technology improves, the light bulbs now only consume a half of a unit each – 20 light bulbs.
Year 3: Technology improves, the light bulbs now only consume a third of a unit each – 30 light bulbs.
etc..
Finite resources but unlimited growth.
Tiddly Pomp.
You can disagree if you like, but I’ll use physics to prove you wrong. For whatever “unit of electricity” you choose, there is a physical limit to the number of photons that amount of energy can generate. LED’s, for example, are already 90% efficient, so a doubling of their efficiency is impossible.
We’ll be fine. Just give it a couple million years and new species will evolve.
So we need less people on the planet, eh? OK, you guys volunteer to disappear from the planet first.
See the problem? Who is going to enforce whether or not someone gets to have kids? Are you naive enough to think the United Nations or some other world body will be able to drive it? What we need are more wars! You see, humanity has been working this issue since the dawn of time.
“Too many people will prevent us from being good stewards of our planet.”
Thank you, I’ve been saying this for YEARS as a way to justify my plans for global cleansing of the dead wood of humanity. Fortunately famine and pestilence has done a good job for the past several thousand years to wipe out useless humans, but I think we need to institute a strict campaign to curtail the further growth of humans who drain society.
When one species displaces another, it is simply a case of survival of the fittest. What is wrong with that?
Who are you to argue that survival of the fittest is wrong?
Evolution is amoral — right and wrong have no meaning with regards to it.
If you, personally, do not think that the human species should dominate, you can choose not to breed. It’s simple. If everyone who feels similarly does so, the results will be a great boon for the species. Instead of snivelers who whine about too many people, those remaining will WANT their species to dominate and be glad of the fact that it does.
See Scott, its not immoral to make other species go exist because its “just wrong”. There is nothing inherently wrong with a species going extinct. Its immoral because it hurts us. We rely on species of plants and animals. Without knowing explicitly how one species going extinct will affect others – and possibly other factors we are unaware of at the moment – its irresponsible to ourselves to wipe them out.
We are only gambling with our own fate hoping that we are not going to wipe out something we need to keep the earth in a state of balance that we can survive in.
And there are too many people. I’m with Adi Amin on this one. The only “snivelers” are the ones who would have died by their own weakness long ago if the capable weren’t enslaved by laws to care for them.
Ernie, if I had to choose between either fighting endless wars or restricting myself to only having one child, I’d take the procreation restriction any time. China has been able to limit its population growth quite successfully with the one-child policy (although they’ve sometimes been quite rough-handed in its application, and it’s brought its own share of problems).
Idi Amin, while I support the idea of procreation restrictions, I wonder just what your definition of “useless human” is.
Scott, who are you to argue that survival of the fittest is right? You seem to be making an Appeal to Nature. Though I certainly agree that evolution in and by itself has nothing to do with morals. But we have a choice. We can either try to peacefully coexist with other species, or we can exploit the biosphere as much as we can. That’s where the morals come in.
These simple points need to be spread across America. Sharing Is Caring!
Using world poulation as the barometer the western world has then been very responsible. the populations of the western countries are only increasing because of imigration. It is in the developing countries were the human poulations are exploding. This being the case why do the developing countries get a free pass on all the initiatives to fix the problems? i.e. Kyoto
Kevin, check out Wikipedia’s List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita. But yes, while the brunt of the emission reductions will be in developed countries, we must at the same time ensure that China doesn’t increase its emissions too much.
To give some perspective on these figures, according to research compiled by George Monbiot, the biosphere will be able to absorb approximately 2.7 billion tonnes of carbon per year in 2030. Our population will then be about 8.7 billion, which comes out as 0.33 tonnes per person per year. Anything more than that will mean more climate changes.
A couple of points:
Tidly Pomp offers the “cornucopian” argument from Julian Simon, an economist with whom those in the natural sciences tend strongly to disagree. EntropyFails refutes it pretty well. Even more simply, as Al Bartlett has pointed out, the cornucopian argument holds water only if the earth is flat. Only a flat earth can be infinite in resources. Our round earth is finite.
Moreover, we’ve already seriously damaged large portions of the ecosystem as a result of our numbers and excessive consumption. So the notion that technology will always bail us out has already been shown to be false. It hasn’t prevented the massive damage already done.
The comments about draconian measure or even killing people are nonsensical. What are you guys thinking?
The way to stabilize and subsequently shrink population is simply to bring down fertility rates. The experts on this see the best ways as empowering and educating women in developing countries (and even in the US where there are a surprising number of unwanted children), and improving childhood survival (think about it!).
There is even the possibility that by merely stopping increasing global food supplies we might bring a halt to population growth. And, surprisingly, that seems not to involve the added starvation that it would seem to imply at first glance. (Please don’t respond to that idea unless you read the link provided. It’s a tricky idea, but may have some merit. The logic of it is not as it first appears.)
[...] even an 11-year-old can understand In a feature called Ask a Scientist, a girl in Mrs. Walker’s 5th grade class asks “How many people are […] [...]
Doublethink.
Sohum, care to elaborate?
Shaun: “These simple points need to be spread across America. Sharing Is Caring!”
- —
Good point! And hey: that point ought also to be spread across America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Not that it matters, really. Except that some simple truths will be out there. Other than that: spreading the words will make no difference at all. Why? Because all adults think with their wallets.
On the fact that 11-year-olds can understand: well, my daughter was eleven when she said to me, over the phone, that “nobody’s in favour of making greenhouse effect.”
Today she’s 12, going on 13. And she never mentions the greenhouse effect anymore. Hmmm. Maybe she’s understood something?
Who knows.
[...] Even an 11-year-old can understand the limits to growth [...]
may I ask if it the limits to growth are so obvious why the proposers of limits such as Ehrlich and others have been continuously in their predictions about the future (at least since the famous Club of Rome report in the early 1970s)?
Thanks!
…have been continuously wrong in their predictions
(sorry about forgetting the important word ‘wrong’)
Roland,
They haven’t been continuously wrong. Ehrlich painted some specific, possible scenarios which haven’t come true. But if you look at his work you find he also said a lot of things which have come true. The general thrust has certainly come true: We’re now suffering from unprecedented levels of ecological degradation, a huge portion of it attributable to population growth.
BTW, Ehrlich is known for his losing a bet with Julian Simon. Oddly enough, much less is said about Simon losing a similar, subsequent bet with David South:
http://www.forestry.auburn.edu/sfnmc/web/bet.html
However, as a former professional gambler, I would suggest such bets are essentially meaningless unless they’re made over and over, enough to tell us who’s generally more correct. There, on this subject, I’d bet on natural scientists such as Ehrlich over economists every time.
Finally, do you think it’s not obvious that the earth is finite?
[I left this comment earlier, but I think it got snagged by the spam filter which, on wordpress.com, is acting a little overzealous right now. I believe Trinifar is busy right now, so I'll try leaving it again without the link I'd included, as links sometimes trigger the spam filter. I'd like to ask Trinifar to delete the previous one and post this one since it contains minor edits.]
Roland,
They haven’t been continuously wrong. Ehrlich painted some specific, hypothetical scenarios which haven’t come true, at least not in degree. But if you look at his work you find he also said a lot of things which have come true. The general thrust has certainly come true: We’re now suffering from unprecedented levels of ecological degradation, a huge portion of it directly attributable to population growth.
BTW, Ehrlich is known for his losing a bet with Julian Simon. That this is supposed to prove something has become a kind of pop-libertarian-culture notion. A lot of young males on the Web seem enthralled with libertarianism. Is it surprising much less is mentioned online of Simon’s losing a similar bet with David South and turning down a subsequent bet with Ehrlich and friends?
In any event, as a former professional gambler, I would suggest such bets are essentially meaningless. When you bet on something like the price of copper in the near future, there are many variables at work. You may actually have the best side of the bet, but will frequently lose anyway. Such bets would only prove something if they were made many times so as to indicate who, generally, was more accurate in his predictions.
Roland, you are repeating what amounts to an urban legend. Every person takes up space and uses resources. The planet is finite. More people means less on average for everyone. No one has ever produced an argument to counter that very commonsense proposition.
-> John Feeney
Although I am familiar with works of Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon, I did not intend to refer to their bets in my original post. I was rather thinking of the predictions which were not even remotely coming true. I guess the most famous thing is the ’starvation of hundreds of millions’. And, on a personal level, I remember that I read the Club of Rome report in the late 1980s (being 15 years old) and if I recall correctly, it made the prediction that no more aluminium will be available 30 years later (the report is from the early 1970s). I really panicked when I read it. But more than 30 years have passed and aluminium is still around without any signs of shortage (I don’t have the ‘Limits to Growth’, so I hope my 17 year old memories of 30 years for aluminium are not completely wrong.)
-> Trinifar
You write, that “More people means less on average for everyone.”
How is it possible then that average calorie intake per person has increased since the 1960s? Not only in the world as a whole but also in Sub-Saharan Africa? The largest increases in calories per capita happened in Asia, where population growth was quite considerable during the last 50 years. Wouldn’t you call this an argument to counter the commonsense proposition?
I don’t want to claim that there are no problems in some countries – especially in Africa. I just believe that the real problem is not ‘people’ and population growth but typically the political situation in these countries.
For further discussion, see the reddit submission
Yeah, I’m working on an article right now responding to the Reddit discussion. I’ll post a link to that on Reddit, creating possibly endless endless levels of Redditness. 8-0
There are some very strange ideas being put forward within the above comments.
A recent Save the Children report had a more measured answer, which you can find here;
http://environmentdebate.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/population-and-consumption/
Matt, thanks for the link to your post on the subject and the heads up about the Save the Children report. Both are good reading.
[...] 17th, 2007 · No Comments Recently I submitted a link to an article on Trinifar to Reddit, one of the most active in a category loosely known as “social [...]
[...] and population (and climate change) denier. I pointed out there, and in more detail in the ensuing thread on Trinifar, that such bets mean little unless there are enough of them to have some statistical [...]
Hmmm, I actually forgot to include a trackback, but two of them (?) beat me over here anyway. Seems the WP.com software is now sending them automatically.
Anyway, yeah, the post is up. But it’s getting almost no votes on Reddit. I fear I probably violated some bit of “Redditquette” in linking to an article which references a prior Reddit discussion. Or maybe the cornucopians are just voting it down. Who knows.
Oh, here’s the Reddit link:
http://science.reddit.com/info/1rk92/comments
Trinifar, you’re welcome.
What I find most interesting in the Save the Children report is the case of Egypt. Muslim, Arabic, Middle-east, problems with democracy and yet someone there has driven through a massive change in thinking with Family planning. Against the odds women have been empowered. Now there, there is hope.
A secular approach is no doubt key. Something many Iranian women are also fighting for but, are struggling.
Matt,
It’s hard to know what’s going on in some countries, but perhaps there’s real hope in Iran too. See Trinifar’s post on that:
http://trinifar.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/learning-from-iran-about-family-planning/
I resubmitted the link to Reddit, btw, to give it another chance, and it’s doing much better today:
http://reddit.com/info/1rs70/comments
BTW the article at http://science.reddit.com/info/1rk92/comments has been deleted. Don’t know why.
Oh, that was just the first submission of the link to the article on GIM. It dropped fast and had no comments so, as per a suggestion in their FAQ, I deleted it before resubmitting. The resubmission (the link two comments above) is still there and will end up wherever old Reddit links end up.
Roland,
I had missed your reply above, or maybe Tinifar just despammed it. Anyway…
As I mentioned above, Ehrlich described some hypothetical scenarios in his book, The Population Bomb. He did, as well, make a prediction about starvation, which, perhaps because it was the first sentence of the book, people wishing to deny the problem of population often focus on. Well, starvation did not grow the way he predicted, but progress in fighting hunger has been much less than expected, with some areas regressing in recent years. In fact, the numbers of malnourished people is in the hundreds of millions or even the billions, depending on definition. There are, moreover, legitimate concerns about the future of food, despite the fact that currently we grow more than we need and the problem lies in distribution. The concerns include water issues (Lester Brown has written on this), with fast dropping water tables in the US, China, and India, an the reliance of industrialized farming on oil and natural gas at a time when each may be headed toward supply problems.
But, again, Ehrlich’s basic point has shown itself to be extremely accurate: Since he wrote the book, we’ve seen damage to the global ecosytem at levels which have prompted experts and major scientific organizations to warn of an impending ecological collapse. The further that progresses the closer we’ll get to catastrophe. We depend on a viable ecosystem, after all.
Focusing on very specific, failed predictions does not invalidate a general message. Scientists often avoid precise predictions because it’s so hard to account for future variables and therefore so easy to be wrong. Ehrlich took a risk in offering a specific prediction, but his basic point was valid.
No. Food production has grown as a result of industrialized farming techniques and the main problem has been distribution. Per capita grain production, however, peaked in the ’80s and has dropped a little since, and there are the concerns I mentioned above. It’s hard to predict what will happen regarding food in the coming decades. But, again, it’s well known the main problem for now is distribution. Much easier to predict, because it’s already happening, is the degradation of the ecosystem. It’s a long list but includes climate change and species extinction rates at 100 to 1000 times the normal background rate.
Are you suggesting the earth is not finite? What are your sources?
Roland,
A couple of additional points:
1) Are you being sincere here? I don’t think many people would panic if they heard we had actually run out of aluminum last week. Most would assume, reasonably I think, that this would not be a major crisis as we could manage to work around it. It would be different for water or oil… but aluminum?
2) They didn’t predict that! Their whole approach was/is based on scenarios, given various sets of conditions. In Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update they say:
Now, the figure mention comes from the results of calculations as shown in this table. The notion that they made some bad “prediction” is rather well debunked here. As the author points out, the 31 year figure is based on exponential growth in consumption with no new reserves found. They knew new reserves would likely be found so they offered a figure based on five times known reserves. That figure was 55 years. Beyond that, they recognized the limitations of such simple indexes:
Okay, I think I left out a bit I should have said about the food issue. That is that Ehrlich’s specific prediction didn’t come true because it was based on the best available data of the time, which didn’t include an understanding of how the so called “green revolution” with it’s hybrid crops and industrial pesticides and fertilizers would increase food production. So we got lucky there with technological innovation. It hasn’t aways happened; we haven’t experienced lucky innovations that would prevent climate change, massive species loss, etc. And to rely on future innovation to bail us out of problems caused by a growing population and excessive per capita consumption is to put a kind of blind faith in something which is really only a hope. Better that we can deal with these problems with methods we already have which involve reducing population growth and consumption levels.
Basically what steppen wolf said, right at the start. It is inconvenient for adults, so they find a way to “forget [that] any fact … has become inconvenient”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink
Well, that’s good thinking about doublethink, I’d say. I last read 1984 prior to 1984.
But we seem to be in an era when a reread could be in order. Was just looking at your blog, Sohum, and I just hope you enjoy End of the Middle Ages Day. 
Forgive me for being cynical, but any era involving humans will require rereads of 1984.
And thanks about EotMA wishes. Let me be the first to wish you a very happy National Hug Holiday and King Kamehameha day
.
[...] In a feature called Ask a Scientist, a girl in Mrs. Walker’s 5th grade class asks “How many people are alive?” and Michael A. Little, professor of anthropology, Binghamton University, New York, gives a thoughtful reply not just answering her question but talking about the consequences of continued growth in terms an 11-year-old can understand. His main points: [...]