Population Problems

Topical Issues

Professor J Rose, J. Rose

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781317938637
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Aménagement urbain et paysager

The effects of the rapidly expanding human population on the environment and the planet's future is a matter of increasing concern and lively debate. This timely collection of essays discusses some of the most important aspects of the population growth phenomenon and offers potential solutions. Chapters analyse population dynamics, carrying capacity of the environment, water and food supply, effects on tribal societies, and the AIDS pandemic.

1. POPULATION GROWTH, AGENDA 21 AND THE SURVIVAL OF A NATURAL MORALITY

STAN FROST and KATHERINE GARDINER*

INTRODUCTION

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (1992)^[1] brought together representatives from countries world-wide to debate the global degradation of the environment, the rapid depletion of the Earth’s resources and inequitable behaviour across the nations. The outcome of this conference was the Rio Declaration. It outlines principles of equitable behaviour between individuals and across international boundaries. The importance and preservation of the environment was central to the discussions which emphasised that day to day decision making and subsequent actions should recognise its significance. It builds upon the now historic document of the early 80s produced by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, the World-wide Fund for Nature and others as a ‘The World Conservation Strategy’.^[2]

Rio declared that the environment should be high on the World’s political and ethical agenda. The interdependence of humanity and nature is such that when changes occur in one they are reflected in the other. The problems of population are closely entwined with environmental factors. The combined problems lose their significance if considered only in material terms. There is a metaphysical component closely associated with changes in morality and values.

It is difficult to escape the evidence that as people congregate more in cities or adopt the conventional mores of what we might describe as Western society then they risk losing their connection with Nature. Materialism can become an obsession. Even without being obsessed, a recognition of collective ‘dependence’ on the source of our acquisitions may become an insuperable challenge. We are often content to remain comfortable and oblivious within a cocoon of resource consumption maintaining an accepted and expected quality of life. It is beyond criticism and extolled politically.

The virtue of what has come to be known as consumerism is a model for international aspiration. It is an objective for individuals and nation states including those suffering the consequences of growing populations but without the access to the sustaining resources. It presents a moral dilemma accentuated by the influence of multimedia and the communications which promote an unrealisable ideal for so many. The purpose of this essay is to focus on inequality, lack of choice, and the continuing blur of conventional morality and ideals as they influence our relationship with Nature.

The Rio Summit produced a strategy known as Agenda 21. Agenda 21 focuses upon ‘sustainable development’, described by The World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.^[3] Irrespective of social, political or economic structures, all human beings require a continuous and undiminished supply of materials to satisfy their food, shelter, energy and medicinal needs. Achieving this goal has become an essential part of sustainable development. Nations would of necessity need to address issues of:

• the nature and the quality of growth;

• employment, food, energy, water and sanitation;

• conserving and enhancing the resource base;

• readdressing the areas to be targeted by technology;

• merging environment and economics in decision making.^[3]

This development must be managed but integrated with the natural functioning of life-support systems or natural ecological processes. To maintain acceptable and managed equilibrium and to achieve a minimum quality of life for all, for all time, social systems will need to pay close heed to population levels and to other factors that will limit available resources.^[4] If living standards in some areas of the world are lower than the basic requirements for survival, then standards everywhere may need to be redressed for the long-term gain of everyone achieving that minimum standard.^[5] In the long term, consumption will have to be kept within the ecological limits determined by a management consensus conscious of the implications of its own actions. How we achieve a collective morality to achieve this presents us with the key challenge of our time.

‘Equal opportunities for all’ requires that all peoples may reasonably aspire to and achieve the basic standards for survival. Professions have emerged amongst those concerned, working against prejudice and pursuing a moral imperative within increasingly complex and enlarging communities. Basic standards of acceptable quality of life require sustainable livelihoods. These depend upon community value systems. Equal opportunities need to integrate with safe environment and equitable wealth generation without dysfunctional exploitation of resources or the workforce.

Such ideas require propagation. The adoption of the policies of Agenda 21 provide such mechanisms and correspond with Schumacher’s previously elucidated analysis of the essence of education being the transmission of values. Values can only be owned by the community or society after they have been adopted by individuals prepared to be influenced in whatever way they experience the world.^[6]

CHOICE AND CONTROL OF CHOICE

Principle 8 of Agenda 21 addresses the achievement of improved life quality. Sustainable production and consumption are linked through policies to balance population with available resource and the issues of poverty and peace addressed in Principles 5 and 25 respectively.^[7] Schumacher applied Gandhian philosophy to outline a way of behaving which moves away from materialistic gain and unsustainable patterns of living. The problems of production are recurrent and Nature represents irreplaceable capital which is consumed without much acknowledgement of the need to respect the obligation to preserve the ecological base. Natural, replenishable energy, such as wind, wave and solar power continues to remain largely under-utilised. Investment to attain sustainability is needed to manage these aspects of nature in a manner acceptable to the growing population.^[6] It will require some changes in attitude if the objections to windmills are allowed to frustrate these initiatives and this is but the beginning. Re-directing of social and political priorities and changes in acceptability will be even greater challenges to our moral fabric as we aspire to redirect and amend lifestyles.

When considering environmental impact and sustainability, a great deal of attention has been traditionally directed towards population policy. In 1993 the Earth was supporting 5.5 billion people. Every 15 seconds another 45 people arrive on the planet; during the same 15 seconds, the planet’s stock of arable land declines by one hectare.^[8] The nations of the Southern Hemisphere are often the target of criticism for the crises caused by a rapidly expanding population. Less access to contraception, child orientated tradition and large family culture make these countries objects of western denunciation for overpopulating and stressing the Earth’s resources. Whilst Schumacher encouraged the protection and improvement of natural resources by enhancing the quality of soil and using technology to purify rather than pollute water sources^[6] there is a reluctance to re-direct energies from criticism to constructive activity.

In March 1994 an all-party group of MPs told the British Government that it should redirect the priorities of its overseas aid budget towards population control programmes. Yet, whilst the population of other countries may be growing much faster than that of Britain, the British lifestyle contributes much more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and hence has a greater contribution to global warming. It is sustained by a ‘shadow ecology’ i.e. the land of other countries, producing up to one-third of the food supply for Britain.^[9] Over-consumption in one country therefore contributes to reducing local food production and possible water logging or desertification and resultant hunger several thousand miles away.

If we are to achieve sustainability, then we must be certain of the Earth’s carrying capacity (the number of people that the planet can support without irreversibly reducing its capacity to support people in the future). Holdren and Ehrlich and suggested an equation $I=PAT$ to calculate environmental impact (where I represents environmental impact, P represents population, A is affluence or per-capita consumption, and T is the environmentally harmful technology that helps create affluence).^[10] This formula may be used to predict when, if we continue at the same rate of population growth, with similar patterns of per capita consumption and adverse environmental development, the global carrying capacity will be seriously affected by the impacts of the three compounding factors. ‘Affluence’ however, is a measure of material standard of living—and not consumption.^[11] Technology is available to reduce energy requirements, enabling affluence to increase but with less consumption. This derives from the product of technology and affluence. As population increases—to at least double present numbers, even if immediate comprehensive control policies appeared immediately^[12] the effects of the variables become insignificant. This is the message too from ‘Limits to Growth’^[13] which argues that the technological fix will be ineffective in the long run. Myers confirms that “No matter what kind of technology a society has, no matter how many goods it consumes or how much waste it produces, no matter how much poverty or inequality it allows, its impact on the environment will be proportional to the size of its population”.^[8]

The Ehrlich equation with or without modifications, demonstrates that exploited nations with large populations but limited economic advancement, can generate a significant impact on the environment. Likewise, it shows why developed (exploiting) countries with relatively small but technologically sophisticated and highly affluent populations, can also dramatically affect the environment. The technology might well buffer the consequences on the home territory but the effects are not so cushioned elsewhere. Food, energy supplies, ecosystem services, human capital, lifestyle, social institutions, political structures and cultural constraints interact together. They create a highly complex reactive process which will need to be addressed if sustainability is to be achieved.

More than a billion of the Earth’s population live in a state of absolute poverty. Poverty can be described not only in terms of income, but also in being essentially bereft of such necessities as adequate nutrition, access to clean water and sanitation, health care and education, high levels of infant mortality, low life expectancy. The poor are at greater risk from natural disasters and have no margin for survival when their housing, possessions and means of production are destroyed. Inequalities in access to resources become more defined as a system reaches its ecological limits. Poverty consequently leads to lack of choice, lack of voice and inequitable standards of living. Sustainable development depends upon a political system which enables effective participation in decision-making for all the world’s citizens so that there is pursuit of the ‘common interest’, i.e. the achievement of a minimum living standard for every individual.

Rapid population growth makes it extremely difficult to raise living standards and reduce poverty. Holmes Rolston III explains that the distribution of wealth would be ineffective in changing the pattern of poverty within a growing population. There would always be too many to share to make any difference. “The pie would continually need to be divided into smaller pieces as the population grew.”^[4] An experience shared by family members as their inheritance is shared after the death of their parents.

If population growth continues at its current rate, there will be 10 billion people on the Earth by 2050. The World Hunger Project at Brown University estimate that current agro-technologies could sustainably support 5.5 billion people from the planetary ecosystem, provided food were distributed equally world-wide and everyone lived off a vegetarian diet. If populations derived 15% of their calories from animal products the total would decline to 3.7 billion. If 25% of calories came from animal protein, only 2.8 billion could be supported indefinitely.^[8] Will farmers be required to intensify agricultural practices which already cause grave ecological damage? They can only over-plough a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• List of Contributors
• 1 Population Growth, Agenda 21 and the Survival of a Natural Morality
• 2 Population and the Environmental Crisis
• 3 Potential Carrying Capacity of the Human Population
• 4 Population Dynamics: Why We Can Sit Back and Watch Fertility Fall
• 5 Panorama of Fertility Control in the World
• 6 Worldwide Water Demand-Supply Imbalances: Rising Threats, Diminishing Prospects for Solutions
• 7 Population, Food and Water in the 21st Century
• 8 Population and Environment: Case Studies from Tribal Societies
• 9 AIDS in Developing Countries: A Comparative Epidemiologic Analysis
• Index