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Page added on October 7, 2014

Human overpopulation: When no news is bad news

Last week, a high-profile study using the latest United Nations data revisited predictions of global population size. The news wasn’t good: Updated estimates using new statistical analyses suggest the world’s population will hit nearly 11 billion by 2100. There’s some uncertainty in this measure because birth and death rates may be changed by political and social dynamics. Still, the study’s authors wrote that there’s a four in five chance the world’s population will be between 9.6 and 12.3 billion by the end of the century.

I was glad to see several media outlets pick up the story. But while most of the reports alluded to the challenges of feeding and employing additional billions of humans, almost none acknowledged the fundamental issue with human population size.

There are already too many people on the planet, and this overpopulation drives the ongoing environmental crisis.

It’s no wonder we shy away from open discussion of this issue. First, “overpopulation” is hard to quantify. It’s obvious that the present-day human population is too large to sustainably support on the planet. For example, modern agriculture relies on the chemical fixation of nitrogen for fertilizers, which experts believe allowed Earth’s population to grow beyond 4 billion. Yet this fertilizer production requires energy from fossil fuels, a non-renewable resource. In other words, more than 3 billion people on the planet survive because of an unsustainable energy subsidy.

But how many is too many? Experts struggle to quantify the maximum sustainable human population size (called the “carrying capacity”) of the planet. Their calculations are limited both by uncertainty about Earth’s capacity to maintain its human life support systems (e.g., freshwater, breathable air and so on) and by the lifestyle each person chooses to maintain. For example, Americans have relatively high-impact habits that consume more natural resources than sub-Saharan Africans living below the poverty line. Ethically, we can agree that every human deserves a certain standard of living. But the higher that that standard rises in terms of energy and other resource consumption, the fewer people Earth can support indefinitely.

Meanwhile, our global population continues to swell, as do our environmental impacts. Each individual requires sustaining resources including food, housing and energy. No matter how small the average person’s resource demands are, each additional person adds to the human burden on the Earth. In the past 40 years, the human population has increased by 40 percent, while, as a consequence, the world’s wildlife population has been cut in half.

Indeed, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes that population growth and economic development are the two most important drivers of increasing carbon dioxide emissions. In the United States, every child born increases a mother’s carbon legacy more than sixfold. Worse, present day population growth is occurring in impoverished areas where large families, though themselves contributing relatively little per person to global emissions and climate change, are more likely to be vulnerable to its impacts as well as the usual suite of natural disasters.

Why, then, do we fixate on technological fixes like solar power and carbon capture, rather than addressing global population growth?

According to former United Nations Population Division officials, the reasons stem primarily from political fear. Talking about population control necessarily brings up contentious moral issues like birth control and reproductive rights. Policymakers and government officials shy away from these thorny topics: Even the UN has spent the last 20 years focusing on women’s reproductive health and rights while ducking larger questions about population size.

Still, sociology tells us this is not a bad strategy. Educating women, and providing them with access to reliable birth control methods, is perhaps the most reliable way to reduce population growth. Educated women add value to families as breadwinners: the cost of having children now includes not only the infant’s direct expenses, but also the mother’s lost wages. As a result, these women are choosing to have fewer children.

The UN, which is about to miss its 2015 Millennium Development Goal of universal access to reproductive health, notes that 25 percent of sub-Saharan African women of reproductive age want to delay or avoid pregnancy but still have no access to reliable birth control.

This statistic should tell us something: Here is a need that we can fill, with a big impact on human population growth. The greatest uncertainties in population projection estimates center around sub-Saharan Africa, where investments in female education and family planning can make the biggest difference both in the lives of the individual women and in the sustainability of the global human population. Additionally, economic analyses show that these investments are more cost-effective at reducing carbon emissions than technological fixes like cleaner, greener power plants. So many birds can be killed with the same stone.

Rather than fearing discussion of human overpopulation, we should embrace it. That’s a lot less scary than rocketing blindly towards 10 billion with no plan for the environmental consequences when we get there.

Contact Holly Moeller at hollyvm ‘at’ stanford.edu.

stanford daily

24 Comments on "Human overpopulation: When no news is bad news"

Makati1 on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 9:05 am

Neither discussing it nor ignoring it is going to change anything. Nature will prune our numbers when they get too high.

antiwarforever on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 9:24 am

the new trend not only us not discussing of overpopopulation, but favoring artificial breeding (for gay couples for instance) as if natural breeding was not enough. Our “covilization” goes helter skelter, but this state of things cannot last for ever, there will be a population implosion somewhere down the line when Peak Oil and Peak Energy will happen.

Davy on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 9:29 am

How many of these studies will there be to get a grip on the obvious. It really does not matter we are ineffectual as a global people with global issues. There are too many national conflicts of interest. I question these reports to begin with. They are using flawed data so they are getting flawed data out. We need reports that discuss current overshoot leading to a die off and where that will leave the population in 10 year. We here know the reality of the energy and food situation. We understand the systematic dangers to the system as a whole. I see little hope from top down until a crisi hits. If we are lucky we can make changes in a crisis. We may not be able to. Either way nature will cull the herd with or without us.

penury on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 10:03 am

Predictions are difficult, especially about the future, (thanks Yogi)but I will offer mine, which probably is as valid as this one. Everyone reading this, and the people writing it will all be dead. Things will be different. If anyone thinks I am wrong they can let me know in 2100.

MSN Fanboy on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 10:57 am

Would’nt educating women lead to more economic development ? LOL

That leads to more carbon emissions either way.

Hmm, were dammed if we do, dammed if we don’t.

Nature will have its reaping, the pity is that it could have been avoided.

Kenz300 on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 11:24 am

Endless population growth is not sustainable.

Around the world we can find a food crisis, a water crisis, a declining fish stocks crisis, a Climate Change crisis, an unemployment crisis and an OVER POPULATION crisis.

Overpopulation facts – the problem no one will discuss: Alexandra Paul at TEDxTopanga – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNxctzyNxC0

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Do your part………..support population stabilization efforts.

Wrap it up……. get it snipped……

Birth Control Permanent Methods: Learn About Effectiveness

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/birth_control_permanent_methods/article_em.htm

noobtube on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 11:53 am

Another homicidal article that has no problem with Americans and Europeans but blames Africans.

Americans are blowing through the world’s resources like no tomorrow, but of course, it’s not the Americans fault. It’s always somebody else’s fault, preferably black or brown.

Since the article is written by Americans, for Americans, it can’t possibly be the Americans fault for American destruction of the world’s ecosystem and life-sustaining environments.

Americans will get their reward. And, it won’t be a reward they will want or expect.

Bob Owens on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 1:12 pm

It is obvious Humans will never get their numbers under control. Every woman wants babies to hold and raise. At most they use birth control to space their babies. True population control is never going to happen. Never. Nature will have to take care of us.

Northwest Resident on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 1:38 pm

noobtube — If you were to say “some Americans”, then your post would be more accurate — still a lunatic rant mostly detached from reality and leaving out many vital facts — but more accurate.

noobtube on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 1:55 pm

Whenever any American uses the term “OVER”-population, and they are not talking about themselves as the source of that “PROBLEM”, then the problem is entirely with that American.

Africa is supporting its own populations AND Americans AND Europeans.

I never hear Americans blaming themselves for their excessive numbers.

It’s mind boggling to me that you have 300 MILLION Americans ready to point fingers at someone else, when it is the Americans who are eating through the Earth’s abundance like a fat man at a free buffet.

Then this fat man, looks at the skinny, hungry people and says, you skinny people eat too much.

The skinny people say to the fat man, if you didn’t eat all the food, there would be more than enough to go around.

The fat man says, you can’t blame me. But, I can certainly blame you skinny people for being hungry.

It is these kinds of situations that get the fat man (Americans) wiped from the face of the Earth.

Apneaman on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 3:04 pm

noob your a cull!

There will be Americans for as long as the land can support human life. The lower 48 and Canada will mostly likely consist of multiple countries in the near future. I have lived among them and I can tell you that they are not all fucked. Maybe half;) Their foreign policy is another matter entirely, but that is mostly decided by great men, not the plebs. You also have to realize that no population in the history of civilization has had to endure a multi- generational mass propaganda project like the American people. There is a reason why corporations and governments spend billions of dollars a year on it – it works.

Here is a humorous take on the bullshit story of America (from an American)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ayWTFLk4Vo

Also the “dumbing down” of the people was an intentional project too. See this 1912 Eighth Grade Examination from small town Kentucky and ask yourself how many adults do you know who could pass it.

http://www.bullittcountyhistory.com/bchistory/schoolexam1912.html

MSN Fanboy on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 4:01 pm

Noob, are we on about native American peoples or the immigrants from Europe?

Please direct youre anger at Europe, its the seed from which America sprouted.

GregT on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 4:10 pm

Noob,

Over 115 million Americans are not white. Your ignorance is showing again. Try a different approach.

noobtube on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 4:31 pm

Anyone calling themselves an “American” is a worthless piece of garbage. Their sense of entitlement, their arrogance, their love of violence, their self-indulge, and especially their “EXCEPTIONAL”-ism.

I don’t care what color they are.

“Americans” are a manufactured disease, and a plague on the natural world.

“Americans” are an artificial construct, a failed experiment, and an abomination.

Everywhere “Americans” go, they spread death, destruction, and misery.

I don’t care what someone looks like.

If you call yourself an “American” on this planet, you are an enemy of this planet and the life that depends on it.

“Americans” are THE “over”-population problem of our time.

The Earth will solve that problem.

GregT on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 5:11 pm

The Earth will solve the overpopulation problem. No doubt about that.

The Earth has no prejudices however, all people of all races, in every country, on every continent, are the problem. America will be one of the last areas to be affected, like it or not.

noobtube on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 6:03 pm

I see.

It is all because “Americans” are the exception.

Well, the coming years will show how much the planet agrees with that.

JuanP on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 6:32 pm

“In the past 40 years, the human population has increased by 40 percent”
We became 4 billions in 1974 and are 7.2 billions today, so the excerpt above is extremely inaccurate since population growth was 80% in the past 40 years.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth
If these highly educated ignorant fools can’t calculate past population growth based on publicly available data using simple percentage calculations, reading their population proyections for 2100 is a complete waste of time. It’s a matter of elementary school math! In what grade do kids learn to calculate percentages, fourth?
This crap is to brainwash the masses. Move on!

Makati1 on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 8:00 pm

Noob, you are correct on many points and it will NEVER be admitted by any of the brainwashed sheeple. There is color prejudice all over America, but they cannot see it as they are not the target. Few even have friends of another color or race or even talk to them unless they have to.

They still believe that they are not going to quickly join the rest of the 3rd world when the SHTF, even though they are already on the road down and half way there. Their leaders are leading them to slaughter and they are falling in line, jostling for the front. The same BS was successful in WW2 and the Jews. Most humans are unthinking sheep.

yellowcanoe on Tue, 7th Oct 2014 10:07 pm

Umm, isn’t the United States a net exporter of food? The idea that Africans are starving because Americans are eating too much is complete nonsense.

Makati1 on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 4:41 am

yellowcanoe…the US imports 20% of it’s food. It does export mostly grains. I suspect that too is going to end soon when the corn belt drys up and blows away. California is already enjoying that kind of ‘climate change’. Cannot happen? Google:”Dust Bowl of the 30s.

“…The most visible evidence of how dry the 1930s became was the dust storm. Tons of topsoil were blown off barren fields and carried in storm clouds for hundreds of miles. Technically, the driest region of the Plains – southeastern Colorado, southwest Kansas and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas – became known as the Dust Bowl, and many dust storms started there. But the entire region, and eventually the entire country, was affected…”

Davy on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 6:02 am

The US imports food because we are rich and have the ability to live out of season. The US can quickly return to food seasonality and greatly reduced choices. We will suffer the end of modern food production with food insecurity but there will be food. The nation is a bread basket. Climate change will have an effect but that effect is longer term and hard to quantify. Asia will have famine. They currently have out of season food, increasing consumption, and food insecurity in a region that is a significant importer. When a postmodern food world comes there will be less quantity with less quality. Asia and Africa will see the greatest misery that is assured. Overshoot is what it is. Overshoot is a physical reality it is not an abstract like system dynamics. Food security involves resilience to climate, sustainability of the resource base, carrying capacity of the land, and resilience of distribution. The post oil world will stress all the above. If the above is stressed now with oil then famine is ahead for that region when oil is withdrawn. Asia and Africa are the worst positioned in this respect.

ronpatterson on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 7:33 am

People, for God’s sake, no one is to blame for overpopulation. It happens to all animal populations whenever their fortunes leave them with an overabundance of food.
______________

If there is ever a time of plenty this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
Richard Dawkins: River Out of Eden

Davy on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 9:22 am

Ron I readily agree. The blame game is useless now. We are here and there is no way blame will change that. Blame just distorts the efforts that could be made to mitigate this issue. What I have a problem with is the denial of a problem with over population or the denial more is just not possible anymore. I have a problem with the studies that project population increases wildly into the future. I cannot fathom even another billion with the current predicaments yet the main stream experts predict several billion with significantly more energy and food production. Why little or no talk of the possibility we are at a bottleneck and a nasty shock of food insecurity and energy shortages will bring population decline in a few short years? All the science should point to a die-off but it is being massaged to appear we have hope through planning and cooperative efforts. I am wondering if there is an unwritten rule among the mainstream experts that this type of doomer discussions are not allowed

Kenz300 on Wed, 8th Oct 2014 12:18 pm

Wrap it up……… get it snipped……….

The worlds worst environmental problem is OVER POPULATION.

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