Category Archives: Population

May 13, 2013 · 5:45 am

Book review: Life On The Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation

In Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation by Professor Philip Cafaro of Colorado State University and Professor Eileen Crist of Virginia Tech, we find top authors and scientists attempting to alert humanity to its impending future viability on this planet.

If you look around the United States, even in the overcrowded, overpacked and gridlocked cities of America—you won’t hear conversations about overpopulation. Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago and more cities feature enormous brown clouds blanketing their cities with an airborne toxic soup that every citizen breathes with every breath. Brian Williams reports on the horrific traffic jams on the East Coast, but he won’t mention the overpopulation factor causing them. Same with Diane Sawyer, Scott Pelley, Wolf Blitzer, Megyn Kelley, Robert Siegel and all the top anchors on all the media reports!

They convey that none of us should question unending growth. It’s like a 450 pound fat man on “Biggest Losers” TV show who can barely walk, knows he’s going to die of a heart attack—but he decides to follow the American mantra of “Sustainable Growth” and keeps shoving Big Macs with double cheese, French fries and a Big Gulp down his gullet until he reaches 550 pounds and beyond.

Both his path and the United States’ path can only end up in the same condition: human misery, suffering and ultimately collapse. But in the case of human overpopulation around the planet, we humans destroy millions of other creatures along the way to our own destruction.

In Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation by Professor Philip Cafaro of Colorado State University and Professor Eileen Crist of Virginia Tech, we find top authors and scientists attempting to alert humanity to its impending future viability on this planet.

In Chapter 4, Martha Campbell asks, “Why the silence on overpopulation?”

“By 2050, human population is projected to reach as high as 10.5 billion,” said Campbell. “Uganda is projected to grow from 33.8 million to 91.3 million. Niger from 16 million to 58 million, and Afghanistan from 29 million to 73 million.”

That’s not all the growth! India adds 11 million net gain annually to its 1.2 billion (in 2012), while China adds another 8 million net gain annually. Both countries expect to explode to about 1.6 billion. If you have watched NBC lately, Brian Williams reported on the air pollution cover Shanghai and Beijing. He hasn’t covered the water pollution, but the Ganges and the Yangzi Rivers feature open sewer pipes that turn into 20,000 square mile dead zones at their mouths. How do I know? I sailed on both rivers and the water-plastic-debris-trash-human waste made me sick to my stomach.

“OverLoaded Train” in India, more and more people are crammed into the same space, trying to live, breathe, grow food, find jobs and enjoy ‘quality of life’. In a country of 1.26 billion people (and still growing rapidly!) is there any room for tigers or elephants or other creatures? Photo from churchandstate.org.uk

At 82 million, Egypt, a country that cannot feed itself in 2013 and relies on grain imports, expects to hit 150 million by mid century. Do we need to guess their fate?

“In 1900, Ethiopia had 5 million, in 1950 it had 18.4 million, in 2010 it had 85 million and is projected to reach 173 million by 2050,” said Campbell. “Their rapid population growth figures in the decimation of nearly all of Ethiopia’s forests and consequently climate change.”

On a personal note, I researched to find that Africa houses nearly 1 billion people in 2013, but expects to reach 3.1 billion within 90 years. Can you imagine every human scavenging every last creature on this beautiful continent for food? Nothing will be left of all those wonderful creatures. In 1900, Africa sported 12 million elephants. Today, 475,000 remain and their numbers are dwindling fast due to poachers.

Campbell calls the subject of population “delicate” because it involves sex, cultures, religions and serves inequities around the world. Such religions as Islam, the Catholic Church, and many others don’t take kindly to birth control.

Campbell discusses the six reasons for the population “Perfect Storm” facing all life on this planet, especially humans causing it.

While birth rates fall, the sheer number of humans causes growth, due to ‘population momentum’. Right now that momentum adds about 1 billion people every 12-13 years.
Overconsumption of water, resources, animal life, arable land and resource exhaustion accelerate with the population momentum.
Anti-abortion activists, religious leaders and conservative think tanks have intentionally reduced attention to population growth.
Many folks think that disease like AIDS have stopped population growth. Not so!
Even after the Cairo population conference and the Rio debates, there is still not enough financing of family planning programs on a global level. Cultural and religious practices still dominate women in too many places.
The dominant “endless growth” paradigms of countries like Canada, America, Australia and even Europe—maintain a death grip on any discussion of overpopulation.

“Garbage Family” Despite China’s rapid economic growth and strict no-migration laws, there remains a marked disparity between the country’s wealthy and the poor. This family, originally from Guizhou Province (far-western China) moved to the rich Delta Yangtze River coast in search of a better life. They currently work in a Jiangsu landfill, sifting through garbage in search of any re-sellable items. In a country of 1.35 billion people (and still growing!) — is there any room for Pandas or any other wildlife? Photo and commentary by Sheilaz314/Flickr/cc

Campbell said, “Use of family planning prevents death from unintended pregnancies and from induced abortions. Children from smaller families are more likely to enter and stay in school.”

This chapter brings home the enormity of the power of cultures and churches and corporations to squash the population discussion. It shows that cultures and beliefs trump and override reason, empirical evidence, common sense and logical action.

Thus, 10 million children and 8 million adults die of starvation and starvation related conditions every year around the globe. Another 18 million stand in the doorway of death in 2013. All life on the brink? If we do nothing about overpopulation, iit’s only a matter of time.

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents—from the Arctic to the South Pole—as well as eight times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis facing America: what to do about it” at <www.frostywooldridge.com>. His latest book is: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World, copies at 1-888-280-7715.

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Filed under Consumption, Environment, Family Planning, Growth, Human Rights, Population, Sustainability, Wildlife, Women's Rights

May 6, 2013 · 5:35 am

If Norway Can Prosper with a Stable Population, Why Can’t Australia? by Charles Berger

Melbourne city sprawl.

The projection that Australia’s population will grow to 36 million by 2050, contained in the 2010 Intergenerational Report, was received very differently by Australian governments and the community.

Many Australians are deeply uncomfortable with rapid population growth. A recent poll found that 48% of Australians thought such growth would be bad for Australia, while only 24% thought it would be good. They intuit, perhaps, that governments might not be up to the task of providing sustainable water, energy and transport infrastructure for rapidly growing cities.

The Government’s stance has vacillated between claiming that such rapid population growth is inevitable on the one hand, and assuring us that it is good for Australia on the other.

The claim of inevitability is disingenuous and easily dismissed. While some degree of growth is inevitable over the next few decades, both the pace of growth and the ultimate trajectory are well within the government’s power to influence. Migration is the largest determinant of long-term population growth for Australia, and different migration levels mean the difference between population stabilization and ongoing rapid growth.

More interesting, and more forthright, is the claim that rapid population growth is in Australia’s best interest. Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has been the government’s most vocal proponent of the “Big Australia” preference. In a recent piece, Tanner asked “Do we want lower productivity and less economic growth?”, implying that lower population growth could only damage our economy.

Is there good evidence for or against a link between population growth and economic prosperity? Tanner unfortunately offered none in support of his argument for rapid growth. One’s view on the question depends largely on an assessment of so-called “economies of scale” and “dis-economies of scale”. Economies of scale are things that get better the more of us there are—greater diversity of restaurants is an example that rings true for me. Diseconomies of scale are things that get harder the more of us there are. For example, water supply tends to get more expensive per unit as population increases, as increasing supply requires resorting to progressively more distant and difficult to access sources. A desalination plant is more expensive than extraction from local wells, for example. Congestion is another diseconomy of scale, and greenhouse pollution is rapidly emerging as another.

Economic modeling conducted for the Intergenerational Report concluded that lower population growth would mean lower per-capita GDP for Australia, among other ills. But a closer look reveals some flaws. For one, the modeling excluded any environmental parameters, such as the potential impact of a larger population on greenhouse pollution, water use, and congestion. The omission seems all the more glaring when you consider that climate change was identified as one of the two most important intergenerational challenges facing Australia today. In effect, the Intergenerational Report included many potential economies of scale, while excluding the most important dis-economies of scale. The result tells us more about the modeler than about what is likely to happen in the real world.

The most considered and balanced treatment of this issue in recent times is the final report of the National Population Council, an official Commonwealth body, released in 1991. Although nearly two decades old now, its analysis remains compelling and relevant. It is not, I should stress, an “anti-growth” document.

On the link between population and economy, the Council found that the jury was still out: “because of our limited present direct knowledge of economies and dis-economies of scale, it is not possible to state … that population growth per se enhances or reduces the productivity basis for economic progress.”

Unfortunately, our knowledge of economies and diseconomies of scale is no better today than it was back then. This leaves Tanner’s claim that we’d be less prosperous if we don’t grow our population on a pretty shaky theoretical base.

But enough of economic models, what about the real world? The Intergenerational Report discusses just two examples: Italy and Japan. Both nations have experienced very low fertility levels, rapidly ageing populations, and slow economic growth in recent decades. On the basis of these two countries, the Intergenerational Report concludes, “A key lesson from the international experience is that countries with low population growth or declining populations such as Japan and Italy face lower potential rates of economic growth than countries with relatively healthier population growth.”

But why focus on those two countries? A broader look across the OECD shows that rapid population growth is neither necessary nor sufficient to achieve solid per capita GDP growth. (I leave aside here the question of whether per capita GDP growth is a useful goal to strive for, except to say that Joseph Stiglitz and many other mainstream economists have cast doubt on the wisdom of an excessive focus on GDP.) In fact, no fewer than 11 OECD nations achieved faster per-capita economic growth than Australia from 1997-2007, despite slower population growth or even in some cases no population growth or a slight decline.

Clearly enough, experience shows us that rapid population growth is no guarantee of economic prosperity, and conversely a stable population does not doom a country to economic failure.

The real puzzle here is why the Intergenerational Report discusses only the two worst performing countries among OECD nations on this issue, rather than looking at some of the success stories. Norway looks like an interesting case—thriving economy, despite an ageing population and much lower population growth than Australia. Or how about Slovakia, with a stable and ageing population and a booming economy? The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Finland … with so many intriguing examples of countries with stable or low-growth populations that somehow continue to enjoy vibrant economies, it’s a pity the report didn’t take a more lateral approach.

As for the significant environmental, planning and social challenges of population growth, the report acknowledges them but plays them down in a single line of optimism: “The risks in these areas are manageable provided governments take early action to plan for future needs.” Sure, but that’s a pretty big proviso. It’s a bit like saying I can win a marathon, provided I run really fast: technically true, but it really begs the question of how.

Lindsay Tanner similarly suggests that we focus on better planning and less profligacy, rather than worrying about population. One can hardly argue against better planning and lower ecological footprints; they are desperately needed. What is beyond me is how he can be so sanguine about our ability to achieve those ambitious goals, in the face of all evidence that we’re nowhere close to the trajectories required even to reduce the ecological footprint of the present population.

Population growth and wildlife come into conflict.

The truth is we are struggling just to catch up with the huge backlog of infrastructure, social and environmental investments for our 22 million people, let alone the 36 million we will have if current migration trends continue.

A better approach, again, is that provided by the National Population Council in 1991. It stated: “Solutions should not be assumed for population-related problems through other policies, unless the institutional and other mechanisms required to effectively implement those solutions are in place”.

The assumption that the impacts of population growth will be defrayed by technological and planning improvements is the opposite of a precautionary approach. It is fine to hope for the best possible outcome, but reckless to pursue policies that will increase our population on the expectation that the best possible outcome will occur. And even more reckless in the face of the facts are that Australia’s per-capita greenhouse pollution continues to increase year on year, our cities continue to push beyond urban growth boundaries, and few of the policies or practices that would signal a transition to a genuinely sustainable lifestyle are in place.

In the end we as a nation have options about our future population. The Intergenerational Report and the government treat us as if we have none, confronting us with a false choice between rapid population growth or economic calamity. The truth is that we can care for an ageing population, enjoy economic prosperity and work towards ecological sustainability without rapid population growth. How? Just ask the Norwegians. Or the Slovaks. Or the Dutch. Or …

Charles Berger is director of strategic ideas at the Australian Conservation Foundation. This commentary was first posted February 22, 2010.

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Filed under Ecological Footprint, Economy, Family Planning, Growth, Immigration, Leadership, Population, Wildlife

April 30, 2013 · 5:27 am

Immigration and the Environment: It’s About The Numbers by Leah Durant

The US-Mexico border fence in Southern California.

As Americans prepare for the President’s next four years, many conservationists are feeling a bit disappointed about the direction the US is heading in meeting environmental goals. While there have been recent rumblings of the Administration’s plan to move quickly with a solution to the county’s immigration predicament early in the President’s second term, unfortunately most of this energy is being devoted to discussions of amnesty rather than more sensible immigration enforcement. Members from both sides of the aisle fail to realize how essential immigration restrictions are to ensuring the health of the planet and the preservation of the nation’s fragile ecosystems.

Many policy makers still consider it taboo to address how massive immigration to the US, both legal and illegal, is driving unsustainable population growth.

If current immigration trends continue the US is projected to reach half a billion people by midcentury. Considering the huge amount of energy the average American consumes, Americans must find ways to reduce our per capita consumption of fossil fuels in order to avoid major ecological disasters. However, conservation is only part of the solution and will never provide the total solution we need to ensure a sustainable future.

The carbon footprint of an average American is many times greater than the footprints of our counterparts in the developing world. A 2009 Oregon study found that environmental practices such as recycling, driving fuel-efficient cars or using solar energy only barely reduces the overall impact that the average American has on the environment. Ultimately, to enact a positive change the fertility rate/number of Americans must be addressed in some way.

Three million individuals are added to the US population per year. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that new immigrants and births to immigrants contribute to an increase of 2.3 million people in the US every year. Statistics have found that immigrants ultimately drive up the US fertility rate and thus are heavily responsible for the burgeoning US population. Obviously, the most sensible corrective to this high growth rate is reduced immigration levels, but political leaders have been extremely reluctant to even raise this possibility. We should not expect the rest of the world to pick up our slack and help balance this environmental tragedy.

Despite having what is arguably a mixed record on the environment, the President’s success in setting strict vehicle mileage standards and funding renewable energy projects have done volumes to educate Americans about their day-to-day impact on the environment. Though these accomplishments are worthy of recognition and our individual consciousness may be greater, we are still light years away from any major breakthroughs. The President and congressional leaders need to move away from timid, partial answers and embrace a radically altered framework to address environmental concerns. Let’s hope whatever solutions they propose, that those solutions do address the impact of immigration and overpopulation on the environment.

Leah Durant is the Executive Director of Progressives for Immigration Reform, a 501(c)(3) organization which seeks to examine the unintended consequences of U.S. immigration policies and strives to enhance the working conditions of people worldwide. Prior to her tenure at Progressives, Ms. Durant served as an Attorney with the Civil Division of United States Department of Justice. Ms. Durant holds a B.A. Degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law. Source: Progressives for Immigration Reform <http://www.progressivesforimmigrationreform.org> November 15, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

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Filed under Immigration, Population, Sustainability

April 9, 2013 · 5:42 am

Have You Had Enough? by Suzanne York

The book contains an actual blueprint of policies that could create a sustainable economy.

A Plan for a Sustainable Economy

“Here’s the deal: forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.” ~ Paul Hawken

This quote by Paul Hawken epitomizes the ideas and initiatives reflected in the new book Enough is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources, which lays out a path for overcoming so-called impossibilities in our world. The book constructs a realistic and actionable plan that should guide all of us as we confront increasingly dire and critical issues facing the planet. There will always be naysayers yelling out “impossible!”, but clearly we are way past listening to them.

The basic question that Enough is Enough asks is how we can transition from a global economic system dependent upon unsustainable and endless growth to a steady-state economy. According to authors Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill, the purpose of the book is to show “how to establish a prosperous yet non-growing economy.”

A steady-state economy is defined as an economy which “aims for stable or mildly fluctuating levels in population and consumption of energy and material.” Even Adam Smith realized there were limits to economic growth. He predicted that eventually natural resources would become more scarce, population growth would depress wages, and division of labor would approach the limits of its effectiveness.

For some people, a steady-state economy is a radical idea. For others, it makes perfect sense in a world of finite resources with gross inequalities and a lot people stuck in the daily grind and not so happy, despite the latest got-to-have-it technology.

Enough is Enough actually builds the groundwork for moving towards a society that lives within its means and focuses on the things people want—happiness, well-being, economic security, food security, good health, clean environment, strong communities, and so on. Perhaps most importantly, it does so in a straightforward and reader-friendly manner.

The book contains an actual blueprint of policies that could create a sustainable economy. Proposed solutions include: establishing more worker-owned companies, prohibiting banks from issuing money as debt (essentially preventing banks from creating money “out of thin air”), local currencies, and work-time reduction (to help reduce unemployment and improve citizen well-being).

Dietz and O’Neill believe the following policy directions would serve as pillars of a steady-state economy:

Limit the use of materials and energy to sustainable levels;
Stabilize population through compassionate and non-coercive means;
Achieve a fair distribution of income and wealth;
Reform monetary and financial systems for stability;
Change the way we measure progress;
Secure meaningful jobs and full employment;
Reconfigure the way businesses create value.

Enough is Enough also positively and pro-actively deals with the often taboo subject of population growth. Just as with the economy, a steady population is needed in a world of finite resources. Most importantly, Dietz and O’Neill recognize that “hidden in population numbers are real people”, something that often gets lost in the discussion of a world of 7 billion people, and likely to grow to between 8 to 10 billion by 2050. Unless compassionate, non-coercive policies are devised, any population policy will ultimately not work. Successful policies include actions such as educating girls, empowering women, and providing family planning services.

The two authors bravely wade into the immigration debate, also a tumultuous issue. They are in favor of honoring current U.S. immigration policy of accepting refugees and reuniting families. As for admitting workers with specific skills to fill jobs (also U.S policy), they suggest that the U.S and other wealthy countries are tapping the best educated and skilled foreign workers, which results in a “brain drain” for the developing countries from which these workers mainly come. Developed countries want top talent to spur more economic growth. Yet in doing so, the wealthy (and high-consuming) countries increase population growth to the detriment of less wealthy nations.

It’s a sensitive subject, yet if you look past the emotional arguments around immigration, as the authors do, you’ll see that their position is one where, in their words, “Instead of recruiting educated and entrepreneurial people from abroad, wealthy nations should cultivate talent at home and encourage nations abroad to retain their most capable workers.” In a sense, it’s localizing the workforce, for the good of societies in both developed and developing countries.

The world is facing many critical issues, yet for the most part stubbornly continues with business as usual, to the detriment of society and the planet. Enough is Enough effectively tackles issues too many people want to ignore. Moreover, it not only provides fodder for lively discussions, but practical ideas for achieving a sustainable economy and healthy communities.

Suzanne York is a senior writer with the Institute for Population Studies.

Source: PopulationGrowth.org < http://populationgrowth.org/have-you-had-enough-a-plan-for-a-sustainable-economy/> January 18, 2013. Reprinted with permission.

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Filed under Economy, Growth, Population, Sustainability

April 2, 2013 · 6:00 am

What is the Limiting Factor by Herman Daly

“Somehow, we have come to think the whole purpose of the economy is to grow, yet growth is not a goal or purpose. The pursuit of endless growth is suicidal.” ~ David Suzuki

Problems can be solved, but first they have to be recognized and then recognized as urgent. Then comes the more difficult process of changing our mindset and our expectations.

In yesteryear’s empty world, capital was the limiting factor in economic growth. But we now live in a full world.

Consider: What limits the annual fish catch—fishing boats (capital) or remaining fish in the sea (natural resources)? Clearly the latter. What limits barrels of crude oil extracted—drilling rigs and pumps (capital), or remaining accessible deposits of petroleum—or capacity of the atmosphere to absorb the CO2 from burning petroleum (both natural resources)? What limits production of cut timber—number of chain saws and lumber mills, or standing forests and their rate of growth? What limits irrigated agriculture—pumps and sprinklers, or aquifer recharge rates and river flow volumes? That should be enough to at least suggest that we live in a natural resource-constrained world, not a capital-constrained world.

Economic logic says to invest in and economize on the limiting factor. Economic logic has not changed; what has changed is the limiting factor. It is now natural resources, not capital, that we must economize on and invest in. Economists have not recognized this fundamental shift in the pattern of scarcity. Nobel Laureate in chemistry and underground economist, Frederick Soddy, predicted the shift eighty years ago. He argued that mankind ultimately lives on current sunshine, captured with the aid of plants, soil, and water. This fundamental permanent basis for life is temporarily supplemented by the release of trapped sunshine of Paleozoic summers that is being rapidly depleted to fuel what he called “the flamboyant age.” So addicted are we to this short-run subsidy that our technocrats advocate shutting out some of the incoming solar energy to make more thermal room for burning fossil fuels! These educated cretins are also busy chemically degrading the topsoil and polluting the water, while tinkering with the genetic basis of plants, all toward the purpose of maximizing short-run growth. As Wes Jackson says, agricultural plants now have genes selected by the Chicago Board of Trade, not by fitness to the ecosystem of surrounding organisms and geography.

What has kept economists from recognizing Soddy’s insight? An animus against dependence on nature, and a devotion to dominance. This basic attitude has been served by a theoretical commitment to substitutability and a neglect of complementarity by today’s neoclassical economists. In the absence of complementarity there can be no limiting factor—if capital and natural resources are substitutes in production then neither can be limiting—if one is in short supply you just substitute the other and continue producing. If they are complements both are necessary and the one in short supply is limiting.

Economists used to believe that capital was the limiting factor. Therefore they implicitly must have believed in complementarity between capital and natural resources back in the empty-world economy. But when resources became limiting in the new full-world economy, rather than recognizing the shift in the pattern of scarcity and the new limiting factor, they abandoned the whole idea of limiting factor by emphasizing substitutability to the exclusion of complementarity. The new reason for emphasizing capital over natural resources is the claim that capital is a near perfect substitute for resources.

William Nordhaus and James Tobin were quite explicit (“Is Growth Obsolete?,” 1972, NBER, Economic Growth, New York: Columbia University Press): “The prevailing standard model of growth assumes that there are no limits on the feasibility of expanding the supplies of nonhuman agents of production. It is basically a two-factor model in which production depends only on labor and reproducible capital. Land and resources, the third member of the classical triad, have generally been dropped… the tacit justification has been that reproducible capital is a near perfect substitute for land and other exhaustible resources.”

The claim that capital is a near perfect substitute for natural resources is absurd. For one thing substitution is reversible. If capital is a near perfect substitute for resources, then resources are a near perfect substitute for capital—so why then did we ever bother to accumulate capital in the first place if nature already endowed us with a near perfect substitute?

It is not for nothing that our system is called “capitalism” rather than “natural resource-ism.” It is ideologically inconvenient for capitalism if capital is no longer the limiting factor. But that inconvenience has been met by claiming that capital is a good substitute for natural resources. Ever true to its basic animus of denying any fundamental dependence on nature, neoclassical economics saw only two alternatives—either nature is not scarce and capital is limiting, or nature’s scarcity doesn’t matter because manmade capital is a near perfect substitute for natural resources. In either case man is in control of nature, thanks to capital, and that is the main thing. Never mind that manmade capital is itself made from natural resources.

The absurdity of the claim that capital and natural resources are good substitutes has been further demonstrated by Georgescu-Roegen in his fund-flow theory of production. It recognizes that factors of production are of two qualitatively different kinds: (1) resource flows that are physically transformed into flows of product and waste; and (2) capital and labor funds, the agents or instruments of transformation that are not themselves physically embodied in the product. If one finds a machine screw or a piece of a worker’s finger in one’s can of soup, that is reason for a lawsuit, not confirmation of the metaphysical notion that capital and labor are somehow “embodied” in the product!

Further, capital is current surplus production exchanged for a lien against future production—physically it is made from natural resources. It is not easy to substitute away from natural resources when the presumed substitute is itself made from natural resources.

Curing Poverty?

It is now generally recognized, even by economists, that there is far too much debt worldwide, both public and private. The reason so much debt was incurred is that we have had absurdly unrealistic expectations about the efficacy of capital to produce the real growth needed to redeem the debt that is “capital” by another name. In other words the debt that piled up in failed attempts to make wealth grow as fast as debt is evidence of the reality of limits to growth. But instead of being seen as such, it is taken as the main reason to attempt still more growth by issuing more debt, and by shifting bad debts from the balance sheet of private banks to that of the public treasury, in effect monetizing them.

The wishful thought leading to such unfounded growth expectations was the belief that by growth we would cure poverty without the need to share. As the poor got richer, the rich could get still richer! Few expected that aggregate growth itself would become uneconomic, would begin to cost us more than it was worth at the margin, making us collectively poorer, not richer. But it did. In spite of that, our economists, bankers, and politicians still have unrealistic expectations about growth. Like the losing gambler they try to get even by betting double or nothing on more growth.

The Steady-State Economy

Could we not take a short time-out from growth roulette to reconsider the steady-state economy? After all, the idea is deeply rooted in classical economics, as well as in physics and biology. Perpetual motion and infinite growth are not reasonable premises on which to base economic policy.

At some level many people surely know this. Why then do we keep growth as the top national priority?

First, we are misled because our measure of growth, GDP, counts all “economic activity” thereby conflating costs and benefits, rather than comparing them at the margin.

Second, the cumulative net benefit of past growth is a maximum at precisely the point where further growth becomes uneconomic (where declining marginal benefit equals increasing marginal cost), and past experience ceases to be a good guide to the future in this respect.

Third, because even though the benefits of further growth are now less than the costs, our decision-making elites have figured out how to keep the dwindling extra benefits for themselves, while “sharing” the exploding extra costs with the poor, the future, and other species. The elite-owned media, the corporate-funded think tanks, the kept economists of high academia, and the World Bank—not to mention Goldman Sacks and Wall Street—all sing hymns to growth in perfect unison, and bamboozle average citizens.

What is going to happen?

Herman E. Daly is one of the world’s foremost ecological economists. He is Emeritus Professor at the University of Maryland, School of Public Policy. From 1988 to 1994 he was Senior Economist in the Environment Department of the World Bank. His interest in economic development, population, resources, and environment has resulted in over a hundred articles in professional journals and anthologies, as well as numerous books, including Toward a Steady-State Economy. He is co-author with theologian John B. Cobb, Jr. of For the Common Good which received the 1991 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas for Improving World Order. Over his career, Herman has taken a courageous stance, swimming upstream against the currents of conventional economic thought. Source: Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) < http://steadystate.org/what-is-the-limiting-factor/>

“Somehow, we have come to think the whole purpose of the economy is to grow, yet growth is not a goal or purpose. The pursuit of endless growth is suicidal.”

~ David Suzuki

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Filed under Economy, Energy, Growth, Natural Resources, Population

March 18, 2013 · 10:22 am

A Biological Holocaust in the Making by Leon Kolankiewicz

Is the elephant doomed by insatiable need and greed?

As a kid, my second favorite animal was the African elephant. My favorite was the woolly mammoth, which once roamed across our own North America, as well as the steppes of Eurasia.

Unfortunately, all that remains of mammoths are cave paintings, that and their forlorn bones and tusks – lonely relics of a bygone era. Mammoths and their cousins the mastodons are extinct, gone forever, felled by the Ice Age, or so said the encyclopedias and textbooks of my youth. Apparently their shaggy coats didn’t offer enough protection from the piercing cold, or overheated them in the warm whispering winds of an interglacial.

It took a trip some years later to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles to suggest otherwise. Exhibits at the George C. Page Museum there depicted the human role in the demise of the woolly mammoth. These exhibits pointed out that the mammoths and scores of other large beasts (megafauna) in North America had survived multiple advances and retreats of the massive ice sheets that occurred during the Pleistocene. Until the final advance, when suddenly everything changed.

What changed was that the Earth’s supreme predator arrived from Asia equipped with technology no more advanced than spears and projectile points but a cunning that brute size could not match. During that final southward surge of the ice – and the corresponding drop in sea level – humans are believed to have marched across the land bridge over the Bering Strait from the Asian continent into a North American primeval paradise teeming with large, wondrous, and dangerous creatures.

There were giant (4-ton) ground sloths, dire wolves, tapirs, peccaries, short-faced bears, American lions, giant condors, giant beavers, and not just fearsome saber-toothed cats but even a 9-ft long “sabertooth salmon” that would have dwarfed even the king salmon. All of these marvels vanished suddenly in one of the greatest mass extinction events in the recent history of life on Earth.

Upon learning that scientists now implicate human beings in the demise of the woolly mammoth, I used to find solace that at least its relative the elephant survives in the wild to this day – if not on our own continent. Recent news out of Africa has shaken that solace.

The Wildlife Conservation Society has announced the results of a 9-year study of population trends among forest elephants in Central Africa. The study found that the numbers of these elephants had dropped by 62% from 2002 to 2011. The cause of this sharp decline? Not habitat destruction, but poaching, for the ivory in their tusks of course. This “blood ivory” is destined for Asia, principally China. Some 25,000 elephants are being slaughtered annually for the illicit ivory trade.

To a wildlife conservationist and population activist, the welcome attention this ongoing outrage is receiving still falls woefully short of the mark. The population angle is conspicuously absent. (So what else is new?) Yet population figures into this story in at least two ways.

First, the countries of Central Africa where the elephant slaughter is underway all have ultra-high fertility rates, skyrocketing human populations, and widespread poverty. For instance, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has a total fertility rate (TFR) of 6.3 – that is, on average, each woman gives birth to more than six babies. Congo’s 2012 population of 69 million is projected to grow 2.8 times to 194 million by 2050! Its per capita GDP is $216, less than one half of one percent of America’s $49,601 per capita GDP. It’s no wonder that elephant poaching is an attractive career option for an ambitious young man who needs to put food on the plate for his growing family or wants a little cash to purchase consumer goods like cell phones.

The original scientific paper in the online journal PLoS One concluded: “High human population density, hunting intensity, absence of law enforcement, poor governance, and proximity to expanding infrastructure are the strongest predictors of decline.” It’s frightening to say so, but the population projections just cited ensure that all of these factors will go from bad to worse in the coming years.

The second population angle is less obvious, but concerns gigantic China. While China has taken extraordinary and controversial steps to slow its population growth, there are still 1.3 billion Chinese consumers with rising incomes, each having a greater per capita impact on the environment as they grow more affluent. And now more and more can afford to buy ivory. Unless China’s rising affluence is accompanied by a more enlightened environmental ethic, the elephant is doomed, pure and simple. Anti-poaching campaigns will be overwhelmed by powerful demographic and economic forces.

Famed biologist E.O. Wilson once estimated that the total biomass (living weight) of all 7 billion humans on Earth probably outweighs by 100 times that of any large animal species (including the dinosaurs) that ever existed on land. With this alarming news out of Africa, that ratio just got even more lopsided. And the African elephant, like the woolly mammoth before it, may yet be pushed over the edge of the precipice into the abyss of extinction – a void from which there is no return.

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March 1, 2013 · 6:00 am

Experts Fear Collapse of Global Civilization by Stephen Leahy

“Television after the Collapse” photo by Robbt/Flickr/cc

“Environmental problems have contributed to numerous collapses of civilizations in the past. Now, for the first time, a global collapse appears likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity.” ~ Paul & Anne Ehrlich

Experts on the health of our planet are terrified of the future. They can clearly see the coming collapse of global civilization from an array of interconnected environmental problems. “We’re all scared,” said Paul Ehrlich, president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. “But we must tell the truth about what’s happening and challenge people to do something to prevent it,” Ehrlich told IPS.

Global collapse of human civilization seems likely, write Ehrlich and his partner Anne Ehrlich in the prestigious science journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society. This collapse will take the form of a “…gradual breakdown because famines, epidemics and resource shortages cause a disintegration of central control within nations, in concert with disruptions of trade and conflicts over increasingly scarce necessities”, they write.

Already two billion people are near starvation today. Food production is humanity’s biggest industry and is already being affected by climate and other environmental problems. “No civilization can avoid collapse if it fails to feed its population,” the authors say.

Escalating climate disruption, ocean acidification, oceanic dead zones, depletion of groundwater and extinctions of plants and animals are the main drivers of the coming collapse, they write in their peer-reviewed article “Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?” published this week.

Dozens of earth systems experts were consulted in writing the 10-page paper that contains over 160 references. “We talked to many of the world’s leading experts to reflect what is really happening,” said Ehrlich, who is an eminent biologist and winner of many scientific awards.

Our reality is that current overconsumption of natural resources and the resulting damage to life-sustaining services nature provides means we need another half of a planet to keeping going. And that’s if all seven billion remain at their current living standards, the Ehrlichs write.

“The Earth is One ~ The World Not Yet” photo from NASA

If everyone lived like a U.S. citizen, another four or five planets would be needed.

Global population is projected to increase by 2.5 billion by 2050. It doesn’t take an expert to conclude that collapse of civilization will be unavoidable without major changes. “We’re facing a future where billions will likely die, and yet little is being done to avoid certain disaster,” he said. “Policy makers and the public aren’t terrified about this because they don’t have the information or the knowledge about how our planet functions,” he said.

Last March, the world’s scientific community provided the first-ever “state of the planet” assessment at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London. More than 3,000 experts concluded humanity is facing a “planetary emergency” and there was no time to lose in making large-scale changes.

In 2010, a coalition of the national scientific bodies and international scientific unions from 141 countries warned that “the continued functioning of the Earth system as we know it is at risk”. “The situation is absolutely desperate and yet there’s nothing on the front pages or on the agenda of world leaders,” said Pat Mooney, head of the international environmental organization ETC Group. “The lack of attention is a tragedy,” Mooney told IPS.

Solutions exist and are briefly outlined in the Ehrlich paper. However, these require sweeping changes. All nations need to do everything they can to reduce their emissions due to fossil fuels regardless of actions or lack of them by any other country, Ehrlich said.

Protection of the Earth’s biodiversity must take center stage in all policy and economic decisions. Water and energy systems must be re-engineered. Agriculture must shift from fossil-fuel intensive industrial monocultures to ecologically-based systems of food production. Resilience and flexibility will be essential for civilization to survive.

A key element in meeting this unprecedented challenge is “…to see ourselves as utterly embedded in Nature and not somehow separate from those precious systems that sustain all life”, writes England’s Prince Charles commenting on the Ehrlich’s paper.

“To continue with ‘business as usual’ is an act of suicide on a gargantuan scale,” Prince Charles concluded.

Stephen Leahy is the senior science and environment correspondent for Inter Press Service News, the world’s largest not-for-profit news agency. Source: IPS News agency, January 11, 2013. <http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/01/experts-fear-collapse-of-global-civilisation/>

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February 17, 2013 · 6:01 am

Albemarle County, Virginia: New Report Quantifies the Fiscal Costs of Population Growth

“Smart growth” strategies… are “doomed to fail.”

A new report produced for Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population says that continued population growth in Charlottesville and Albemarle County would only increase the fiscal challenges faced by local government.

It also argues that “smart growth” strategies and economic development efforts to recruit even targeted industries are “doomed to fail” in a fiscal analysis that examines the full cost-benefits.

“I think we have long used a drug that we thought would cure our ills, and the drug is growth,” said Jack Marshall, ASAP’s president. “This drug has side effects and its probably not a drug that is appropriate for most communities in America. It’s time to reconsider that drug’s claims for what it can do.”

Using publicly available government data for the fiscal years between 2006 and 2009, the study examines the fiscal costs and benefits of population growth in the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Various land use categories – like residential, commercial, industrial and agriculture – were examined to determine if they pay their own way for the public services required. The report concludes, “few land uses pay their way … because new area residents require services that increase local government costs at a level greater than the additional local revenue they contribute.”

“Growth will not pay for itself, but to remain prosperous and have opportunities for your citizens, and to sustain a healthy community you already have, you actually don’t need it,” said ASAP board member David Shreve. “This does not mean that all growth must end, nor does it mean, as we have been criticized, that we need to build a moat.” Shreve, who holds a doctorate in economic history, served as the report’s editor and adviser.

Neil Williamson, president of the business advocacy group the Free Enterprise Forum, said the report misses the mark. “While seemingly accurate in its limited financial analysis, [the report] fails to recognize the indirect, but calculable, economic benefits of population expansion,” Williamson said in an email to Charlottesville Tomorrow. “The Free Enterprise Forum is concerned the report is flawed in design and unfairly prejudiced in its analysis and conclusions.”

“The report fails to calculate the considerable value of population to economic vitality,” Williamson counters. “It is established that ‘Retail follows Rooftops’ and revenue (and jobs) follows retail. One need only look to Greene County [where] the retail sales tax local option has increased exponentially since the establishment of the retail centers.”

Craig Evans was the project manager and principal author for the study. Evans is a former member of ASAP’s board of directors and he serves as a member of Albemarle County’s Fiscal Impact Advisory Committee. “If you look at a land use in isolation, like commercial and industrial, they pay their way [so you think] let’s attract more,” Evans said. “What happens is that as you attract more commercial and industrial uses, you inevitably attract more people.”

The report says that for every dollar in revenue generated, residential housing for those additional people has costs of $1.41 in Albemarle and $1.37 in Charlottesville. The costs of public education are a large factor.

Last April, the Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development published a Target Industry Study to help local governments focus their economic development strategies. Albemarle decided to focus on attracting and growing the following industries: bioscience and medical devices, business and financial services, information technology/defense and security, and agribusiness.

“The targets were identified for the region and individual localities based on many factors, including the skill sets and experience of our existing workforce,” said TJPED’s president Helen Cauthen in an email. “Our strategies around the target industries will be very focused on strengthening and retaining existing businesses in those sectors, which will provide job stability and security as well as career ladder employment opportunities for current citizens.”

ASAP’s leaders say this economic development initiative is one of their greatest concerns. They prefer a focus on supporting existing small businesses and question whether the current population can or will fill the new jobs being targeted for creation.

“The Target Industry Study suggests we forge ahead and hire outside folks, not the underemployed,” Marshall said. “We say wait a minute, it won’t work. … Continued growth exerts fiscal demands on local government and we have to deal with that some way.”

Shreve was asked how a community might close the fiscal gap identified in the report. “There are two legitimate ways, first improve the tax structure to get more money out of the community’s income to fund services,” said Shreve. “The second way is to increase state and federal aid.” The report recommends more “progressive and responsive” tax structures. “We could move to a local income tax piggybacked on a state income tax,” Shreve gave as one example, a suggestion that would require action by the General Assembly.

Evans moved to the community in 2007 from South Florida and he acknowledges he fits the profile of a newcomer who wants to close the gates on others. Evans said that in an ideal cost-accounting system, the existing population would pay to get community infrastructure caught up, then newcomers would have to pay for the new services they demand.

The study says recruiting more wealthy residents to help pay down the fiscal gap is unrealistic since it would require an average home price of $2.7 million for the next 2,000 homes in Albemarle to raise enough tax revenue to address even existing deficits.

“Development is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, development has a cost,” Evans said. “The question has to be how much do we want to grow and as we grow how are we going to pay for it?”

Both Marshall and Evans hope the study will spark a deeper conversation among local officials as they update the city and county Comprehensive Plans. “A smart community doesn’t ignore these issues,” Marshall said. “We should talk openly about them and make reasonable decisions. We should talk about a vision that makes sense, then figure out what steps to take.”A 5-page Executive Summary of the study is available at

A 5-page Executive Summary of the study is available at <http://www.asapnow.org/2013%20Executive%20Summary%20Fiscal%20Costs%20of%20Growth.pdf> , and the full report is at <http://www.asapnow.org/2013%20ReportASAP%20version.pdf>

Source: http://www.cvilletomorrow.org/news/article/13784-costs_of_growth/

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January 25, 2013 · 7:40 am

Filmmaker Sir David Attenborough Calls Humans a Plague – From LiveScience

David Attenborough and friend. “We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.”

Sir David Attenborough, the famed British naturalist and television presenter, has some harsh words for humanity. “We are a plague on the Earth,” Attenborough told the Radio Times, as reported by the Telegraph. “It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so.”

Attenborough went on to say that both climate change and “sheer space” were looming problems for humanity. “Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,” he said.

Sir David is not the only naturalist who has warned of population growth outstripping resources. Paul Ehrlich, the president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University and author of “The Population Bomb” (Sierra Club-Ballantine, 1968) has long used language similar to Attenborough’s. And in 2011, an analysis of species loss suggested that humans are beginning to cause a mass extinction on the order of the one that killed the dinosaurs.

When asked about Attenborough’s comments on humanity as its own scourge, Ehrlich told LiveScience he “completely agree[d], as does every other scientist who understands the situation.”

Even so, that doesn’t mean forceful measures must be taken. “Government propaganda, taxes, giving every sexually active human being access to modern contraception and backup abortion, and, especially, giving women absolutely equal rights and opportunities with men might very well get the global population shrinkage required if a collapse is to be avoided,” Ehrlich said.

In fact, providing free, reliable birth control to women could prevent between 41 percent and 71 percent of abortions in the United States, according to a study detailed in the Oct. 4, 2012, issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Other scientists also agreed to some extent with the heart of Attenborough’s message. “It’s clear that increasing population growth makes some of our biggest environmental challenges harder to solve, not easier,” said from Jerry Karnas, population campaign director for the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz.

Karnas added, however, “What’s needed is not population control but a real emphasis on reproductive rights, women’s empowerment, universal access to birth control and education, so more freedom for folks to make better, more informed family planning choices.”

Human Throng: underground train station in Moscow, 1969.

And population numbers would matter less for the planet’s health if clean renewable energy were widely adopted as well as planning laws, he told LiveScience during an interview.

Attenborough is famous for his “Life on Earth” series of wildlife documentaries, among other nature programming. In 2009, he became a patron of the Optimum Population Trust, a group that advocates voluntary population limitation. At the time, he released a statement saying, “I’ve seen wildlife under mounting human pressure all over the world and it’s not just from human economy or technology – behind every threat is the frightening explosion in human numbers.”

Earth’s population reached 7 billion people on or around Oct. 31, 2011, according to United Nations estimates.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/26473-david-attenborough-humanity-plague.html

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Filed under Environment, Growth, Natural Resources, Population, Sustainability

January 17, 2013 · 7:17 am

UK Parliamentarians Call for Action to Protect 10 Million Girls from the Abuse of Child Marriage

Portrait of Mohammed Fazal, 45, with his two wives (L-R) Majabin, 13, and Zalayha, 29 in the village on the outskirts of Mazar Al Sharif. Fazal was offered Majabin as a debt settlement when a fellow farmer could not pay after a night of playing cards. They have been married for six months.

Every year, 10 million girls around the world are married while they are still children. With a rising global population, numbers of child brides are predicted by United Nations experts to increase to 14 million per year in the next decade. Following a hearing into child marriage, a cross-party group of UK parliamentarians are calling for governments here and abroad to take urgent action to protect girls from the consequences of being married and becoming mothers while they are still children themselves.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health (the Group) is calling on the government to tackle child marriage on two fronts. In the UK, this includes a recommendation to implement statutory guidance on forced marriage, training for professionals, inclusion of consent in marriage and sexual relations in the personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum, compulsory registration of all religious marriages and an increase in the minimum legal age for marriage to 18. They are also encouraging the Department for International Development (DFID) to conduct research into the prevalence and practice of child marriage, to evaluate existing interventions to ensure that UK aid is spent effectively and to scale up programmes to prevent child marriage and support survivors. In particular, they would like to see British aid being spent to meet the needs for family planning, sexual, reproductive and maternal healthcare of girls and women of all ages and whatever their marital status.

Baroness Jenny Tonge, Chair of the Group and the hearing, said,

‘Every three seconds, a girl is coerced or forced into marriage, losing her childhood, her dreams and the opportunity to make her own choices about her life and relationships. This is not just bad news for the girls themselves, it also means that too many children are born into a world that is already overpopulated and half of the productive population of a developing country cannot participate fully in their societies because they are uneducated and unable to contribute to the workforce. Countries where girls are educated, marry later and have fewer children show higher economic growth and a better standard of living for all.’

Child marriages are driven by poverty, gender inequality and harmful traditional practices. In the developing world, a lack of access to education is both a symptom and a cause of child marriage. Child brides are generally expected to bear children from an early age, leading to a prolonged period of reproduction and larger numbers of children, yet adolescent girls are twice as likely as women in their twenties to die in childbirth. Some don’t even make it that far. Gauri van Gulik of Human Rights Watch told the hearing about Elham Mahdi al Assi, a thirteen-year-old girl in Yemen who died just days after her marriage to a man in his twenties in a ‘swap marriage’ exchange in which her brother also married her groom’s sister. She died from internal bleeding as a consequence of her husband raping her. Delaying marriage saves lives as well as giving girls and women equal opportunities to boys and men.

In most cases, laws and international conventions are in place to protect children from being forced into marriage. Yet, time and again governments fail to implement these protections. Evidence shows that British girls are being taken out of the country to be married against their will and here in the UK, families are getting children married off in ‘community’ or religious ceremonies or by taking advantage of the fact that the law in Britain allows the marriage of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds with parental consent.

The British government recently announced plans to criminalise forced marriage. Nearly 30% of the calls received by the UK Forced Marriage Unit helpline this year related to minors, so implementing this change in the law should also help British girls. Jasvinder Sanghera, author of the memoir Shame and chief executive of the Karma Nirvana support network for those affected by forced marriage and child marriage in the UK, said,

‘I welcome the fact that our Prime Minister has committed to making forced marriage a criminal offence – my plea is that we work to also enforce what already exists. Statutory guidelines continue not to be implemented or monitored effectively and the lack of school engagement remains concerning. There remains the need to universally agree a minimum age of marriage, it cannot be right that children as young as 8 years old here in Britain are entering a marriage arrangement. This is abuse and not part of anyone’s culture or tradition and we as a society have a duty to recognise it as such.’

Baroness Tonge’s message for parliamentarians, DFID and those working in child protection in the UK is simple: ‘Resolve to do something about our sisters worldwide whose cries are not heard.’

Source: UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health press release 26^th November, 2012.

A Childhood Lost, the report of the parliamentary hearing on child marriage held by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, will be published on 27^th November 2012, and available to download from the Group’s website: http://www.appgpopdevrh.org.uk/parliamentary%20hearings.html.

The UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health (the Group) aims to encourage initiatives to increase access to, and improve reproductive and sexual health programmes worldwide. It has 70 members, from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, representing the UK’s main political parties. The Group provide members with a forum for discussing population, development and reproductive health. For more information please go to www.appg-popdevrh.org.uk

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Filed under Culture, Family Planning, Human Rights, Population, Women's Rights

Category Archives: Population

Book review: Life On The Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation

If Norway Can Prosper with a Stable Population, Why Can’t Australia? by Charles Berger

Immigration and the Environment: It’s About The Numbers by Leah Durant

Have You Had Enough? by Suzanne York

What is the Limiting Factor by Herman Daly

A Biological Holocaust in the Making by Leon Kolankiewicz

Experts Fear Collapse of Global Civilization by Stephen Leahy

Albemarle County, Virginia: New Report Quantifies the Fiscal Costs of Population Growth

Filmmaker Sir David Attenborough Calls Humans a Plague – From LiveScience

UK Parliamentarians Call for Action to Protect 10 Million Girls from the Abuse of Child Marriage

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