Pop! (ulation)

Thomas Malthus

• Anglican Clergyman, of upper class birth at a time populations (especially of the poor) were starting to take off.

– Idea: That people’s ability to reproduce is exponential (ie 2, 4, 8, 16) but ability to grow more food is arithmetic (2, 3, 4, 5)

– This will lead to the need for preventative checks (delaying marriage) or positive checks (war, famine, disease) to keep the population in line with the food supply

• He despised lower classes as amoral (ie to sexual), but thought that class differences could not be helped – so not a nice dude

– Despite not reaching a collapse (b/c of rapidly improved farming and more land under till), he is still read b/c first to say humans can outstrip their resources to the point of ruin

Bosrup and Allen

• Bosrup, in 20^th century, argued that societies, because of population pressure, have always innovated in agriculture

– Through irrigation, terraces, fertilizers, improved tools, draft animals, mechanization, and changes to labor, land went from having lying fallow for a decade or more to annual cropping and multi-cropping

• Allen showed what happened in more marginal agricultural areas (much of steppe Sub-Saharan Africa) as populations increased

– Based on soil and climate type, he determined a maximum carrying capacity for land after which yields declined due to nutrient exhaustion

• Because of lower yields, people reuse fields more quickly, plant more fields to make up, (which causes even lower yields)

Population Vocabulary

• Birth Rate (BR): births / population per 1000

• Death Rate (DR): death / population per 1000

• Rate of Natural Increase (RNI): BR-DR (does not include migration data)

• Doubling Rate: the amount of time it takes a population to double

• Counting: The process by which you determine how many of something there are. It is most efficiently done by a purple faced muppet who also wears a cape.

Geography of Population Growth

• Parts of Europe, former Soviet Union, Japan no longer at replacement level (fertility rate of 2.1, birth rate under 10), meaning their populations will shrink

• However some African, Middle Eastern countries have fertility rates of above 6 (birth rates above 50)

– These countries also have very low death rates, but that’s b/c the population is very young

• Too many old people means more people paying for expensive old age social services

• Too many young people means hard to build schools, build housing and infrastructure, create enough jobs

– Absent social security, having a lot of children (esp sons) insures someone to care for you when you are old

• In rural areas, children are farm labor, not an expensive little people who you have to support totally (as in urban areas)

Ways of Managing Population

• In 1970’s, West wanted to provide family planning policies and rest of world wanted development. In 1980’s switched positions

• Now, all agree cannot apply same arguments everywhere,

– But, it is accepted that women are the key and policies should be directed at women, not just men

– Women’s literacy, schooling, and per capita income are most strongly correlated to low birth rates

Managing Population (cont.)

• Policies to Control population

– Taxes on large number of children, rebates for one child

– Cash rewards for sterilization after having a child

– Education programs ranging from meetings to billboards

– Expanding other services (clinics, schools) seems to help just as much

• Birth rates almost universally declined, but still some high growth because of children as economic safety net, fear of losing group power, and tradition

• Penalties on children have sometimes led to “missing females,” lost through abortion, infanticide, lower standards of care provision because male children more valued. At least 100 million females statistically should be there that aren’t.

Harvey’s identification of 4 ideas to control population

• Salvation through redistribution of scarcity– that if you redistribute life-sustaining resources and human capital, poverty will end and birth rates decline

– But means first world would have to give up some of what they had

• Salvation through science and technology – that is science is used to sustainably use natural resources, people will be healthier and feel more secure

• Salvation through consumption – That you can grow the world economy until everyone is a consumer

– But that could be environmental disaster

• Salvation through curbing fertility – Promote birth control

– But it does nothing about underlying inequalities, sees population as an isolated issue

A Malthusian Future?

• Right now the most industrialized 25% of the world’s population uses 75% of resources

– There is no way the world could consume like U.S., Canada does, especially cars (pollution & traffic).

• A concept called “ecological footprint” which is an expression of how many resources it takes to sustain a nation compared to its renewable resources

– United Arab Emirates has the world’s largest ecological footprint according to WWF, because of water and petroleum usage compared to miniscule renewable resources

• However, in many places, population increases outpace economic growth

– Drinkable water, not access to food, likely to become biggest sustenance issue in the near future.

Recent Studies

• Mike Davis showed that most famines in the 19^th century were not caused by a lack of food, but by inequalities in the distribution of food

– For example, during all famines in British India, at least some part of the country was exporting grain

• Against Neo-Malthusians, several author have done studies of forest cover change, and note that some W. African countries and Nepal have likely seen growth of forest cover even with increasing populations

– Shows that humans, through community agreement and education, don’t just march the path of destruction

• Again, what this shows is that population should not be taken as an issue in isolation

– Especially since predictions about it are always iffy at best