Part 3 - The Belief We Cannot Do Anything About Population Growth

7. Myth: What we have is not a population problem but a consumption and waste problem.

Argued extensively at the Earth Summit at Rio in 1992, the exchange over whether the problem was with population growth or resource consumption masked the fact that we have both kinds of problems.

Those with only an environmental perspective can argue persuasively that consumption and waste in the developed world is the driving factor behind many global environmental problems, such as ozone depletion, acid rain and climate change. For example, industrialized countries, with less than one-fourth of the world's population, currently account for about two-thirds of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. The higher per capita consumption and waste production in the industrialized world has led some to conclude that all that is necessary is to reduce the per capita consumption in the West. This is, of course, part of the solution. But with populations of many Western countries continuing to grow (especially in the United States), reduction of total emissions of greenhouse gases is made more difficult. On top of this, the burgeoning populations of developing and industrializing countries want access to the automobiles, furnaces, manufactured goods and other items that are major contributors of greenhouse gases. And often these poorer countries reject the technologies to reduce emissions as too expensive. In order to improve the standard of living, some poor countries are trying to increase the ability of their people to consume resources.

As a result of very rapid growth rates of population and of energy use by developing countries, the U.N. panel on climate change projects that, by 2025, developing countries could be emitting four times as much carbon dioxide as the industrialized countries do today. Reducing population growth rates in the developing world would make a major difference in this problem.

A maximum sustainable population at any given level of standard of living would be one that would have no effect on the earth's long-term carrying capacity. As per capita rates of consumption and waste production reach critical levels, the carrying capacity of the earth, in terms of numbers, diminishes. Combining rapid population growth with growth in per capita consumption is a sure formula for disaster.

There are no environmental threats that would not be alleviated by rapid stabilization and perhaps ultimate reduction in human numbers. Continued and accelerating population growth is making all the environmental problems more severe, if not insolvable.

In 1990, Prince Philip of the United Kingdom stated in a speech at the U.N.:

"The population explosion, sustained by human science and technology, is causing almost insolvable problems for future generations. It is responsible for the degradation of the environment through the pollution of the air and the water; it is consuming essential as well as non-essential resources at a rate that cannot be sustained. Above all, it is condemning thousands of our fellow living organisms to extinction."

In February 1992, the presidents of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the British Royal Society issued a joint statement on population growth and resource consumption that included the following sentence:

"If current predictions of population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity on the planet remain unchanged, science and technology may not be able to prevent irreversible degradation of the environment or continued poverty for much of the world."

8. Myth: The population issue is used as a ploy for controlling women.

Proponents of this view point out that many family planning provider agencies and contraceptive research institutions are male dominated and that most methods of contraception (each with its own side effects) are intended for female use.

There is resentment over target-setting and coercive policies in some countries that emphasize birth control rather than comprehensive reproductive health care.

There is growing fear that women will be blamed for the world's environmental crises.

It is certainly true that women are less the cause of the population problem than they are its victims. This does not negate the existence of a population growth problem nor the need to curb population growth rates. It does, however, point out the importance of adopting strategies that respect human nature and recognize the humanity and dignity of each individual, female and male.

There are growing numbers of population organizations, such as the United Nations Population Fund and the Population Council, that are headed by women. Generally, these organizations promote family planning as vigorously as male-headed population groups. Furthermore, surveys of women in many developing countries indicate that many want to limit their childbearing and want access to contraception. In fact, women who live in societies where they have power over their own lives tend to use family planning much more frequently than in countries where they are relatively powerless.

9. Myth: The AIDS virus will solve the population problem.

People are justifiably concerned about the spread of HIV infection and the growing number of deaths from AIDS. The alarm over this disease has caused some people to reach the conclusion that it has or will reduce population growth to zero worldwide or in some regions.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that, as of 1993, about 14 million individuals in the world were infected with the HIV virus. The spread of this disease is already causing severe personal and economic hardship and may well have significant demographic impact in some countries.

Over the next decade, an average of approximately one million people may die from AIDS each year. This is a relatively small number contrasted with the current annual growth of the world's population of approximately 90 million per year.

It is hard to predict what will happen with the spread of the HIV virus in the long run. In some places, information and motivation campaigns have helped to change people's behavior and greatly slow the spread of the disease. Such programs may be successful in many more places around the world.

In addition, there are almost weekly reports of progress being made in medical technology, both to prolong the lives of those already infected and in research to develop a vaccine to prevent infection. How fast this work will progress is speculative, but already in the last few years, the survival period of those infected with the HIV virus has doubled.

Further, the virus itself is evolving. The history of many diseases indicates that it is possible that the evolution of the virus will be in the direction of being less virulent. An example of this is the bubonic plague of the 14th century, which killed about a third of the population of Europe before it subsided. The bubonic plague still exists, but is not the killer it once was. Some evolutionary biologists believe that natural selection favors viruses that take longer to kill their host, because it gives them a greater period of time in which to reproduce and spread to other host organisms. Already, we are seeing new strains of HIV evolve. Whether HIV will evolve in the direction of being less virulent remains to be seen.

10. Myth: Religious objections will prevent the use of family planning.

I constantly encounter people who believe that it is impossible to reduce fertility rates in many countries of Latin America or the Middle East because of religious opposition to family planning. What is not understood is that the Catholic Church and Islam do not oppose family planning in their teachings. The Catholic Church supports and provides broad-based sexuality education and encourages couples to limit the number of their offspring to those they can afford and nurture. However, the Church opposes the use of certain means (which it considers artificial) to achieve those ends.

The Koran teaches that women should breast-feed their infants for at least two years. According to some Islamic scholars, this inherently favors child spacing at a minimum.

Clearly, family size limitation and curbing population growth rates are possible in Catholic and Islamic countries. Italy has achieved zero population growth and has, along with Spain, among the lowest fertility rates in the world. Indonesia, an Islamic nation, has achieved remarkable progress in promoting family planning. The average woman there has three children compared to a four-child average in Asia outside of China.

Worldwide, in fact, there is no country where people are reproducing anywhere near the biological limit, and this was also true in pre-modern days. Clearly, people have some level of motivation to limit fertility rates and are acting on those motivations.

11. Myth: Farmers want many children to work in the field.

It may be true that cheap child labor is an incentive for some farm families to have many children. Whether this is a predominant view among rural families in the developing world is not known. To what extent this factor serves as an incentive for large families compared to other factors is also not known.

The logic of having children merely to provide cheap labor is open to question. Children require several years of sustenance and care before they are capable of productive work that is of greater value than what they consume.

It's also clear that the "cheap child labor" factor can be overcome. The farm families of Sri Lanka and Indonesia have, on average, far fewer children than the farm families of sub-Saharan Africa. Mandatory education and child labor laws may add to the relative "cost" of having children. The world needs a better understanding of what it is that motivates some farm families to have large numbers of children and what factors have convinced others to limit their reproduction.

12. Myth: As long as there is no social security system, people will have many children to support them in their old age.

Old age security may be a motivator for childbearing and, in some countries like India, is clearly related to the preference for male children.

Nevertheless, how much do we really know about the extent to which economic security in old age is a motivating factor in childbearing?

Progress has been achieved in reducing fertility rates in many countries that have not instituted old-age security programs. That is not to say that such programs should not be put in place. Where they are established, however, it would be useful to carry out studies that attempt to measure the effect of such programs on family size preferences. It would also be valuable to conduct studies of the motivations that have reduced family size in countries where there are no old age security programs.

For many couples, the strategy of having a large family to provide old age security can be questioned effectively. If large family size leads to a division of land into very small plots, poverty and resulting rural-urban migration may make adult children unable to care for their parents and their own children. Many couples can find better security by having fewer children and educating those children so they can become gainfully employed. One child with education and a job can provide more old age security than 10 children who are, themselves, starving.

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