myriad views on overpopulation

Commenting on a post over at Growth is Madness!, Magne Karlsen pointed to this op-ed piece in the Telegraph by Boris Johnson, a conservative MP running for Mayor of London. Reading this on the heels of John Feeney’s essay on BBC News site (that link links to the BBC article, see here for my post on John’s essay), I couldn’t help but be

• quite pleased to see another mainstream media piece about overpopulation,
• rather amazed at differences between the two authors, and
• a little surprised at the contrast in the comment threads on the two articles.

The comments of John’s piece on the BBC site where very positive, only a few objected to his arguments, many were amazed and delighted that their own views were seeing the light of day in the mainstream media. On the other hand, the comments following the essay by Boris on the Telegraph’s site, many of which were complimentary, seemed to represent every possible viewpoint on population issues — not too surprising given that Boris is a rather flamboyant politician and the venue was the conservative Telegraph.

I’ve always wanted to catalog the various positions people hold regarding population issues. Using the comments on Johnson’s op-ed as an initial data set, that’s what I’ve done below the fold.

My intent is not to address any these ideas in this post — although I do comment on some of them — only to create an initial baseline with some structure from which a FAQ about population issues can be built.

What follows is my first-pass analysis of the initial data set, the comments following Boris Johnson’s op-ed. I’ve put these views on population pressure into these categories:

• it’s not a problem
• it’s only a problem in developing countries
• we can’t/shouldn’t talk about it
• we can’t do anything about it anyway
• it’s a problem, here are solutions

Details follow.

it’s not a problem

The first category consists of views from people who don’t think the current global population or its continued growth is a problem. Some of them see limits in the distant future but think it foolish to be concerned about them now.

The one meaningful subgroup in this category has to do with technology and economic philosophy:

• Technology and freemarkets will solve all problems that can be solved.
• We grow plenty of food, distribution is the problem.
• Genetic engineering will enable us to grow more food.

I think it’s revealing that some people think overpopulation is only about food — not also about water, pollution, biodiversity, climate change, resource exhaustion, etc.

The rest of the ideas motivating the this contingent are just (to be very kind) juvenile.

• The planet can easily sustain 100 billion people. Plainly stated with no supporting argument whatsoever.
• We can colonize the seas and/or move into outer space. From people who have read too much science fiction and know too little about science and real-world engineering.
• There is plenty of room on the planet. Pennsylvania, Texas, Canada, Australia, France, and Russia are frequently referred to has having room for all 6.7 billion of us — some even think the city of Jacksonville, Florida, has enough space, although it will be standing room only.

Some quotes:

If you put everybody on earth in Pennsylvania USA, Pennsylvania would have the same population density of Manhattan, New York.

… if you put all the people on earth in Texas USA, Texas would have the same population density as Paris, France.

it’s only a problem in developing countries

Seeing population pressure as a “poor nations” problem is satisfying for both those in developed countries who don’t what to change their ways (or extend any help) and those in developing countries who see large families as an economic necessity. However, the United States is an outstanding counterexample of a developed country struggling with increasing population pressure.

One important question for this group: If it’s only a problem in developing countries, why are nearly all developed countries facing intense, divisive immigration issues?

we can’t/shouldn’t talk about it

Some think overpopulation may be a problem but we can’t talk openly about it because solutions are inevitably:

• racist or involve eugenics or Nazi-like programs
• anti-human
• involved with birth control and abortion both of which are innately immoral or too highly charged to bring up in polite conversation
• anti-immigrant

we can’t do anything about it anyway

Others think overpopulation may be a problem but nothing can be done about it; current cultural, religious, political, and economic forces are too strong to be changed much. Eventually the population will shrink due to a combination of

• disease
• famine
• war
• genocide
• peak oil
• peak food
• water shortages

This viewpoint is held by some well-educated, well-meaning people as well as others — and may be the most important one to address. Acting effectively in the face of hopelessness is the province only of the truly enlightened and we don’t see many of them.

Quotes:

I am in my 30’s, and I don’t expect to die of old age.

Talking about the issue is quite interesting but nothing will change so my advice is to appreciate the fact that you’ve won the lottery of life by being born with a UK passport, make money, have a laugh, enjoy your life and be thankful you weren’t born in Mogadishu slum. (Apologies to any who might read this who were born in a Mogadishu slum).

it’s a problem, here are solutions

Many people believe population pressure is a vital and important issue and offer a variety of ways to address it. While not all of these people believe reducing the population level is necessary, they do agree population increase must halt in order to have a sustainable civilization.

[Note: the FAQ should address both cases: (a) those that think if we just stop increasing our numbers everything would be okay, and (b) those that think the carrying capacity of the planet is much lower than today's population. Carrying capacity and all its baggage must be addressed.]

Boris Johnson puts it bluntly:

How the hell can we witter on about tackling global warming, and reducing consumption, when we are continuing to add so relentlessly to the number of consumers? The answer is politics, and political cowardice.

The most prevalent ideas for reducing population growth are:

• educate and empower women
• offer more job opportunities to women
• make contraception (condoms, the pill, IUD’s) freely available
• provide safe, easily accessible, low-cost or free abortion services to those that want them
• educate men and children
• encourage development
  • through economic growth
  • by improving living standards in developing countries

I think it’s important to distinguish between the sub-bullets under that last item. Encouraging economic growth and improving living standards are (or should be understood to be) quite different concepts. The conventional notion of economic growth is about increasing production and consumption in ways that cause GDP to rise. In itself, this doesn’t address issues like environmental degradation, vast differences in distribution of income, making medical care available to all, decreasing biodiversity.

To me, the idea of improving living standards does those things. It’s at least possible as a thought experiment to consider GDP stagnating or decreasing while living standards improve across the board. The question is how we choose to measure quality of life. McMansions, large and multiple cars — extravagant consumption of all kinds — contribute quite a bit to GDP but (in my view) nothing to quality of life. On the other hand it’s quite reasonable to measure living standard by looking at the accessibility of things like fresh water, healthy food, medical care, living space, education, information, freedom of expression and means to use it, job opportunities, etc.

While a few people morally object to contraception they are few and far between. Those that would ban abortion are also a minority but one that’s gained a lot of power in some regions (some Central American nations have banned it). That said, the above list is pretty much the “safe” list that sustainability advocates turn to when asked what to do about population growth.

Things get dicey when we look at some other ideas:

• create economic disincentives for having more than one child
  • eliminate tax breaks for families with children
  • tax people who have more than one child
  • China’s one child per family policy (OCPF). See Wikipedia’s article and this short piece from Medical News Today.

This is where the anti-people pushback begins. When you talk of population pressure, some suspect you’ve automatically signed-on to every possible solution even though few people do so. Using economic disincentives to reduce population growth is also seen by some as class warfare.

Some advocate economic incentives rather than disincentives:

• subsidize retirees in developing countries so children aren’t born just for that purpose
• provide tax credits to people who don’t reproduce or have only one child

Then there are those that propose more draconian solutions:

• stop aid to Africa, don’t help those in famine situations, give less aid to the Third World
• mandatory sterilization after having two children
• allow immigration only if immigrants agree to be sterilized

Yet other ideas didn’t fall into any particular category:

• mandatory family planning education for all
• severely limit migration between countries
• make foreign aid contingent on contraception programs

Quotes:

We, in Bangladesh, hired the services of Muslim clerics in the 80s who went to villages to educate people and tell them that God would not be happy if they have children they cannot take care of. Result is that our population growth has significantly reduced during last 20 years.

Certainly the solution will result in no more economic growth, and probably an absolute decline. However, an objective correlation of economic growth against social well being and happiness over the past century would show an increasingly inverse trend. Part of a correction in policies would be for our government to consider the population to be made up of people and not simply economic units.

Paradoxically it is the restriction of the basic freedom to reproduce that may ensure the opportunity for mankind to offer any kind of individual liberty in the future. As we push the logical population limits of a free society the more it feels the need to coerce and control its populous.

existing FAQ’s

Existing FAQ’s:

• World Population Balance — click on “Questions & Answers” in the left hand sidebar
• Optimum Population Trust
• Negative Population Growth
• The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (What’s in a name?)

Overpopulation.com has a very different, but still useful, FAQ apparently built dynamically.

Related material:

• Fact sheets from the Population Connection.
• Population Essays from Population Press.
• Population Basics from the Population Reference Bureau.
• Population Issues from The Population Institute.

See also the right sidebar at Growth is Madness!.

where to go from here?

I’d like to organize a “master FAQ” for population issues, one that addresses as many of the questions people raise as thoroughly as possible.

I see it as mostly a few editing tasks:

• create a meaningful organization of the questions/issues
• answer most of them by providing links to existing material
• fill in the rest as needed

This post is a stab at the first step. You can help with review and feedback on what I’ve done here. What viewpoints, questions, and issues have I missed? Are the main categories reasonable? Etc.

If you know of other FAQ’s specifically on population issues, please provide a link.

photo credits

All the pics are modified from ones with appropriate Creative Commons licenses: baby chick FAQ, royal college FAQ, notepaper FAQ, pineapple FAQ.