Why Has Population Fallen Off Our Radar Screens?

It's a mystery. We hear all too little about population from environmental outfits, even though-as this magazine makes abundantly clear-population remains at the heart of environmental issues, especially the huge population growth rate in that most over-populated of all countries, the United States (see my article in the April/May 2002 issue of Pop!ulation Press). During 1990-2003 the U.S. population featured an increase of 16%, by contrast with France's 6.0%, U.K.'s 4.6%, Germany's 3.9% and Japan's 2.2%. Despite this, we hear next to nothing about population via the media, where it has become a non-issue with a vengeance. We hear never a word about it from our political leaders, albeit their main activity is to avoid leadership on most anything. True, we hear a good deal-and rightly so-about women's reproductive rights, but within a context of feminism rather than population.

Yet we are living in the biggest population explosion in human history. Many readers of this article are going to witness the global mass of humankind surge from 6.3 billion today to almost 8 billion within the next two decades. The population of the world will most likely triple-or more-in our lifetime. When I was born the global total was little over 2 billion and it took all of 33 years to add another 1 billion, whereas today, with 6.4 billion, we produce another 1 billion in approximately 12 years.

One billion. We are so accustomed to bandying around that figure that we become blasŽ about what it means. To visualize how large a number that is, consider that a typical American football field has roughly one quarter of a billion blades of grass. Thus the world's present population equals 25 football fields of grass, and the U.S. population equals over one football field. Or try another way to visualize one billion: ask yourself how much time makes up one billion seconds. When I was posed that question, I thought I would play safe and choose a high number, plumping for 18 months.

So what gives? Why the silence on population growth? Here's an assessment of what might lie behind it all.

1. Many people consider that the population problem is over. After all, the average family size (technically speaking, around the same as the number of children born to women of reproductive age) plunged from 4.5 in 1970 to 2.8 in 2003-an even bigger drop than the experts predicted. As a result, the annual growth worldwide is little larger today than in 1970. But we must bear in mind that an additional 82 million per year adds up to another 1 billion in just 12 years, yet a pile of detailed studies show that today's world total of 6.4 billion is way more than the Earth can support indefinitely. What we need, as a minimum, is an annual population growth of zero (many experts even believe we should consider shrinking the world's population). Plainly we have a long way to go, and the population explosion remains almost as explosive as ever.
2. A second reason for the silence is that many Americans are simply unaware of what's what. Even university students seem blissfully unaware of how many people they will have to share the world with. At one American university students were asked how many people there are on Earth, how many additional people are added each year, and how many people are in the United States. Answers to the first question ranged from 5 million to 9 quadrillion, with a mean of 15.2 trillion, whereas the correct answer (at that time) was 5.7 billion. Answers to the second question ranged from 2,000 to 27.5 trillion, with a mean of 47 billion, the correct answer (for the early 1990s) being about 95 million. As for the population of the United States, the mean of 622 responses was 6.8 trillion, way off the actual total (then) of 275 million.
3. Certain right-wing conservative religious organizations and persons are inclined to see population planning as a disguised way to promote abortion among other ostensibly unacceptable forms of family planning: "only abstinence will do". They feel they have the right to decry population issues of any kind. As it happens, the religious body that rejects contraception most strongly and comprehensively, the Catholic Church, finds its strictures are ignored by most of its believers. Countries with the smallest family size-Italy, Portugal and Spain, are stoutly Catholic countries. This is not-and I emphasize it-to say that I reject all Catholicism. I have been glad to support the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and when I once met the Pope I sensed that here was a man who knew something I didn't know, and something very big. All the same, when The Vatican upholds endless population growth by invoking that assertion in Genesis "Go forth and multiply," I remind myself that was an injunction issued when the human population of the world was two.
4. It is difficult for many people to figure out the impacts of population growth. Well, they might consider that even if in 2050 the average American eats one-fifth less meat than today, the nation's total meat consumption will be 6 million tons greater due to population growth alone. 5. Then there is the immigration factor, which many Americans view as a huge blockage in the way of public debate on population. Of the United States' annual population growth rate of 1.1% (the rest of the developed nations' average is 0.1%), roughly half is due directly to immigration. Most of this half is made up of Hispanics-so if you are against immigration, you are automatically reckoned to be racist. This slithery assessment says much more about the critics than the immigrants. Alas, the issue has become such a hot potato that even that prominent environmental group, the Sierra Club, has declined to take a stand on U.S. population (after several very public, very bloody internal battles).

This is one of the most regrettable reasons of all why many environmental groups have taken to ignoring population altogether. They do this for all manner of reasons-or rather, excuses. "It will upset some of our major donors." "Let's leave it to the population groups." "Yes, population is still important, and we may take another look at it next year."

So much for some ideas on what stifles any word on what remains one of the foremost issues of our time. This writer is baffled by it all. Am I missing something? I would be especially interested to hear what you readers make of it. Fire away with your views!