June 27, 1997
Population Explosions and Economic Growth
Population explosions and economic growth
Without a doubt, humanity's top priority should be the creation of a sustainable economy.
It is an indication of how backwards our priorities are that we consider our economy a success only when it grows -- and the faster, the better. Unfortunately, economic growth is the driving force behind our current population explosion, which is causing massive long-term damage to the environment that threatens our very survival.
Alarmist? Not when you consider the hard statistics. It took from the dawn of humanity until the year 1800 for the earth's population to reach one billion. But the second billion came right on top of the first -- by 1930. We reached three billion by 1960, four billion by 1975, five billion by 1987, and six billion by 1998. We are currently adding the population of China to this planet every decade. This burgeoning population is making demands on the earth's resources and environment which are clearly unsustainable. In fact, we are already seeing the first signs that things are getting out of control: global warming, the destruction of the ozone layer, the accelerating extinction rate, etc.
What's causing the population explosion? Some think it's primarily because human breeding is exponential (2 breeds 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.). But if humans actually bred at that pace, it would take only 33 generations (about a thousand years) to reach a generation of 8.6 billion babies. Although populations would explode like this if they could, they are prevented by the land's limited resources (food, water, space, textiles, etc.). Scientists call the limited ability of the land to sustain a population the carrying capacity of the land. All populations press against their land's carrying capacity, but are kept in check by starvation, war, predators, competition for survival, etc. To reduce these miseries, humans have historically sought to limit their populations by practicing birth control, abortion, even infanticide.
The real reason for our current population explosion is that science and technology have dramatically increased the land's carrying capacity. We have resolved a great many problems of scarcity, and have the exploding population to prove it. Each year that our economy grows and worker productivity improves, our surging population continues to devastate the environment. The solution? Keep our population at zero-growth through birth-control, and then use our science and technology to create a good and environmentally sustainable standard of living for everyone.
But here's where politics rears its ugly head. Many religions oppose birth control and abortion. Conservatives and libertarians oppose the centralized economic policies that a sustainable economy would require. They also oppose the violation of individual rights implied by such policies, such as the right to have as many children as one desires. But these oppositions are simply wrong-headed when considering the alternatives. If we don't limit our economic and population growth, then nature will do it for us -- and we can be certain that we will be kinder to ourselves than nature will be.
For a more detailed essay on this subject, see http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/L-growth.htm.
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