Over Population
by Roedy Green ©1996-2008 Canadian Mind Products
“Humans are now the most numerous mammal on the planet. There are more humans
than rats or mice. Humans have a huge ecological footprint, magnified by their
technology.”
Dr. David Suzuki (born 1936-03-24)
Introduction
Nearly all global problems are made worse by overpopulation.
- We have wars fighting over scarce resources and territory.
- We destroy the habitat of every other species, pushing them to extinction. In
India alone the population increases by 20 million every year. These people have
to live and farm somewhere. The increase won’t stop until all the
wildlands are gone. Which do we really need more of on earth? humans or the
other species?
- Dealing with the pollution of our industries and fecal waste is compounded by
overpopulation.
- Plagues thrive in overcrowded conditions.
- We are rapidly depleting our non-renewable energy reserves. Every person in the
developed world consumes 40 times as much as in the developing world. As the
huge populations of the developing world demand the fruits of development the
energy and resource needs will soar.
Yet we refuse to take any sort of action to limit our populations even though
our species has hit the planet like a plague of tent caterpillars. We consider
ourselves a rational species, but we foolishly overbreed in a race to turn our
paradise of earth to a hell. We have no more sense than tent caterpillars, We
are as much a slave to our gonads as any insect.
World Population
“There have never been more people on Earth. There have never been more
cows on Earth, nor pigs, nor chickens. We are using more pesticides today than
at any other time in history and we are losing a greater percentage of the crops.
At the same time, there has never been less clean water on Earth. There has
never been less available topsoil, nor fewer fish, nor fewer mature trees. There
has never been less cause for optimism for the future of the human race. Our
natural resources are disappearing at an unbelievable rate, and our so-called
leaders offer only cosmetic solutions. The Earth’s population calls for
more of everything while the Earth demands time to recover from years of abuse.”
~ Howard Lyman
World Population Growth
You can see from this graph of world population growth the incredible extra
burden we are putting on the earth’s carrying capacity, especially in Asia
and the Pacific. source.
“The growth in population is very much bound up with poverty, and in turn
poverty plunders the earth. When human groups are dying of hunger, they eat
everything: grass, insects, everything. They cut down the trees, they leave the
land dry and bare. All other concerns vanish. That’s why in the next
thirty years the problems we call ‘environmental’ will be the
hardest that humanity has to face.”
~ Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama
Sustainable Population
How big a population can the earth sustain? If everyone consumed like Americans,
we would need three entire planets to support them. Experts believe that if we
reduced consumption, we might be able to sustain 0.5 to 3 billion people.
The Habit Of Overpopulating
Most animals don’t need to concern themselves with overpopulation.
Predators take care of the problem. For predators, starvation handles it. On
average only two offspring survive to adulthood, even when an animal has
millions of young. Yet we humans have developed technology to strip the land
bare and pile layer upon layer of humanity, protected by vaccines. No matter how
densely we pack ourselves in, we still strive for ever higher populations out of
an ancient biological imperative. It shows up in our outdated religious beliefs.
They still push for maximal fecundity even though such fecundity is no longer
appropriate. People also have children for status reasons. They also have
children to provide for them in their old age. Social institutions refuse to
adjust to the new reality of overpopulation.
The American Excuse
Americans tell me that it is not their fault the world is overpopulated. The
fault lies in Asia and Africa where people have large families. Yet each
American consumes 11 times the resources of someone living in Asia or Africa.
Americans import these resources from all over the planet. Every American kid
counts as 11 kids in terms of burden on the planetary ecosystem. Not only do
Americans need to reverse their population growth, they must reduce their
ecological footprint. Each American woman has about 2.07 children, equivalent to
a family of 23 children in terms of drain on the ecosystem.
Action
We must change the archaic attitudes towards breeding. It must become socially
unacceptable. This is quite a revolution in our thinking. The urge to breed is
so strong it will prevail against almost any social pressure. There is no worry
about going too far. If we do, we can adjust.
For example here are some approaches that have been tried, not all of which are
very palatable:
- We need massive research on birth control that is cheap to administer that works
by default. Both parties should need to do something active, (other than have
sex), to allow a pregnancy, e.g. take a pill.
- We must provide programs to ensure people are cared for in old age whether or
not they have children.
- We must get rid of all government subsidies that encourage people to have
children.
- We should provide large cash incentives for vasectomies and tubal ligations.
- We need new technology to attempt to support the huge populations with
sustainable clean energy and sustainable agriculture.
- We must start making rude jokes about people who have children. We must call
them breeders or other nastier epithets.
- We must discourage religions that encourage overpopulation by taking away their
tax breaks.
- We must encourage people to have homosexual relationships wherever possible.
- We should encourage people to keep small pets instead of children.
- We should continue the Bush approach to AIDS, namely actively encouraging it. We
should create some new plagues as well, ones better aimed at those who have
large numbers of children.
- We should foment wars to help kill off the young men.
- We should not intervene when crazed dictators such as Hitler, Idi Amin and Pol
Pot decimate their populations.
- We should relax the taboos against inter-species sex.
Not all these approaches are equally palatable. Even I don’t endorse them
all. However, if we don’t get serious about the more palatable ones, we
will be forced to use the less palatable ones instead. People sometimes write me
furious that I would advocate such strange measures. I don’t. I merely
list what has been tried or suggested.
The USA
There are three ways to approach the population problem:
- reduce the birth rate.
- increase the death rate.
- increase the efficiency with which you can sustain a population with limited
resources.
“Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the
third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of
minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.”
~ Henry Kissinger
America has focused almost exclusively on increasing the death rate. This is a
startling thing to say, but look at her actions, not George W. Bush’s fine
speeches.
- She interfered with condom education in Africa, which does work, and forced
religious-based abstinence education which has been proven to make the AIDS
epidemic worse.
- America blocked African countries from making and distributing AIDS drugs to
stop the epidemic. Preserving patents was more important than preserving lives.
- America is the stingiest country of all the western nations in terms of foreign
aid. Even the “greedy” Saudis are 50 times as generous. It is ironic
two of the richest countries in the world are also the stingiest. Canada is the
second stingiest western country giving 2.8 times as generously as the USA as a
percentage of GNI. What makes America’s stinginess even more shameful, is
American gives the 1/3 her foreign aid to Israel who spends it on their military
to oppress her Palestinian citizens. Israel is a relatively properous nation.
There are many countries more deserving of help than Israel.
- 47% of the planet’s military spending (i.e. spending on ways to kill
people) is done by America. Americans kill more people than all other nations
combined. Ostensibly this spending is to protect Americans and to improve the
quality of American life. However, it accomplishes this by killing people who
live in countries that possess the natural resources America wants, such as Iraq,
Iran, Afghanistan and Zaire.
- America backs corrupt political regimes who oppress their people in return for
access to natural resources. Let us not forget that it was America who
originally helped Saddam, Marcos and Pinochet into power.
- American sponsored immunization programs in Africa deliberately reused needles
without sterilisation. This spread all manner of diseases including AIDS.
- Americans are the most deliberately wasteful group of people on the planet when
it comes to resources. There whole culture and status system is built on
consumption and waste. Canada is almost as bad.
- America encourages ever higher birthrates at home and abroad by discouraging
family planning, contraceptives, condoms and abortion.
- America encourages ever higher birthrates by destroying economic stability in
other countries exploiting workers and destroying unions. Impoverished people
have no social security other than a large family.
The Good News
Ever since 1968, when the United Nations Population
Division predicted that the world population, now 6.6 billion (2006),
would grow to at least 12 billion by 2050, the agency
has regularly revised its estimates downward. Now it expects population to
plateau at nine billion. That is still 2.4 times higher than the goal of 2
billion.
“I have severe doubts that we can support even two billion if they all
live like citizens of the U.S. The world can support a lot more vegetarian
saints than Hummer-driving idiots.”
~ Paul Ehrlich
Many western countries have achieved a negative population growth if you
discount immigration.
Even in North Africa, regarded as the great exception to the shrinking
population trend, birthrates have dropped somewhat. Egypt’s, for example,
went from 5.4 births per woman in 1970 to 3.6 in 1999.
If all you do is teach people how to use birth control and provide women with
access to it, you don’t need any coercion. In Africa people still have
large familiies, but that is because there is no old age security other than
children. When that security is provided, family size automatically shrinks,
because birth control frees women to other things besides raise babies.
The Bad News
Corporations have magnified the power of human greed to widen the wealth gap.
They have encouraged conspicuous consumption. Religions are still goading their
adherents to breed faster than any other sect. At the same time the power of the
earth to sustain is waning through the end of oil (upon which the green
revolution is based), the erosion of soil, pesticide and chemical contamination
of soil and water, urban sprawl into the prime farm land, and global warming
which is destabilising climate and rain.
Too many things have to go right for us to get out of this one without massive
pain. It is just not going to happen. Most of the world are like pigs in a
trough trampling the environment not thinking about anything other than their
immediate gratification. All we can do is try to make it not quite so awful, to
preserve at least a few acres from the ravening caterpillars that humanity have
become, so that at least there will be islands of life to reseed the earth after
the human plague has passed. We humans are the biggest extinction event in the
history of the planet, wiping out even more species than the asteroid that hit
earth and ended the age of the dinosaurs. Being proud of being human is like
being proud of being an ebola virus.
“They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.”
~ Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
Earth’s Carrying Capacity
In 1961 the earth had 3 billion people. They were
using 0.5 of the sustainable resources of earth.
In 1986 the earth had 5 billion people. They were
using all of the sustainable resources.
Ever since we have been running that might be called an environmental deficit
budget which is only sustained by plundering our capital base.
By that I mean:
- overexploiting fisheries.
- overgrazing to the point of desertification.
- destroying forests.
- polluting the waters and atmosphere, including greenhouse gasses.
You have seen the results of Bush deficit budgets. The same sort of thing is
happening on a planetary basis.
At the rate we are going, we would need 2 whole planets to sustain our rapacious
appetites in 2050. Something has obviously got to give —
most pleasantly our wasteful use of energy.
Club Of Rome
A group of scientists known as the Club of Rome back in the 1970s attempted to
predict when population would outstrip resources. They predicted serious
problems much too soon. The data they were given about energy and mineral
resources seriously underestimated the untapped wealth of the earth. They were
basically right, but got the timing wrong. In contrast, today we know exactly
how many pollutants of each kind are being released into the atmosphere with
great precision. Further, because of extraordinary improvements in computers,
the mathematical predictions are now much more accurate. People afraid to look
at the serious problems facing humanity like to bury their heads in the sand by
telling themselves scientists are always wrong, because the Club of Rome’s
timing was off. Of course they trust scientists in nearly ever other instance,
from pharmaceuticals to aeronautics.
Infant Mortality Rate
The usual measure of a country’s health care system is the IMR, Infant
Mortality Rate. the number of infant deaths per 1000 births. There
are some surprises taken from this table compiled by the CIA.
Countries near the top of the list have the best healthcare systems. Even though
the USA spends more on health care than any other country it has the worst IMR
of any first world country. Even third world Cuba beats it. Canada spends about
half per capita of what the USA does, yet Canada ranks 23 to the USA’s 43.
Americans are paying more than anyone else in the world and receiving third
world quality health care. Clearly they are being ripped off, but Americans are
too proud to admit it. They live under the delusion their health care must be
the best in the world simply because it is the most expensive and has the most
TV ads touting it.
| Infant Mortality Rates |
|---|
| Rank |
Country |
IMR |
Notes |
|---|
| 1 |
Singapore |
2.29 |
Best in the world |
| 2 |
Sweden |
2.76 |
So much for the canard that socialised medicine does not work. |
| 3 |
Hong Kong |
2.95 |
Not quite what you would expect. |
| 4 |
Japan |
3.24 |
| 5 |
Iceland |
3.29 |
| 6 |
Finland |
3.55 |
| 7 |
Norway |
3.67 |
| 8 |
Malta |
3.86 |
| 9 |
Czech Republic |
3.89 |
| 10 |
Andorra |
4.04 |
| 11 |
Germany |
4.12 |
| 12 |
France |
4.21 |
| 13 |
Switzerland |
4.34 |
| 14 |
Macau |
4.35 |
| 15 |
Spain |
4.37 |
| 16 |
Slovenia |
4.40 |
| 17 |
Denmark |
4.51 |
| 18 |
Austria |
4.60 |
| 19 |
Belgium |
4.62 |
| 20 |
Australia |
4.63 |
| 21 |
Liechtenstein |
4.64 |
| 22 |
Guernsey |
4.65 |
| 23 |
Canada |
4.69 |
| 24 |
Luxembourg |
4.74 |
| 25 |
Netherlands |
4.96 |
| 26 |
Portugal |
4.98 |
| 27 |
Gibraltar |
5.06 |
| 28 |
United Kingdom |
5.08 |
| 29 |
European Union |
5.10 |
| 30 |
Jersey |
5.16 |
| 31 |
Ireland |
5.31 |
| 32 |
Monaco |
5.35 |
| 33 |
Greece |
5.43 |
| 34 |
San Marino |
5.63 |
| 35 |
New Zealand |
5.76 |
| 36 |
Aruba |
5.79 |
| 37 |
Isle of Man |
5.82 |
| 38 |
Italy |
5.83 |
| 39 |
Faroe Islands |
6.12 |
| 40 |
outh Korea |
6.16 |
| 41 |
Cuba |
6.22 |
| 42 |
Taiwan |
6.29 |
| 43 |
United States |
6.43 |
| 44 |
Croatia |
6.72 |
| 45 |
Lithuania |
6.78 |
| 46 |
Guam |
6.81 |
| 47 |
Israel |
6.89 |
| 48 |
Martinique |
6.95 |
| 49 |
Northern Mariana Islands |
6.98 |
| 50 |
Cyprus |
7.04 |
| 51 |
Montserrat |
7.19 |
| 52 |
Poland |
7.22 |
| 53 |
Slovakia |
7.26 |
| 54 |
Saint Pierre and Miquelon |
7.38 |
| 55 |
New Caledonia |
7.57 |
| 56 |
Reunion |
7.63 |
| 57 |
Estonia |
7.73 |
| 58 |
Virgin Islands |
7.86 |
| 59 |
Cayman Islands |
8.00 |
| 60 |
French Polynesia |
8.29 |
| 61 |
Bermuda |
8.30 |
| 62 |
Hungary |
8.39 |
| 63 |
Guadeloupe |
8.41 |
| 64 |
Chile |
8.58 |
| 65 |
American Samoa |
9.07 |
| 66 |
Puerto Rico |
9.14 |
| 67 |
Latvia |
9.35 |
| 68 |
Costa Rica |
9.70 |
| 69 |
Kuwait |
9.71 |
| 70 |
Netherlands Antilles |
9.76 |
| 71 |
Nauru |
9.78 |
| 72 |
Macedonia |
9.81 |
| 73 |
Bosnia and Herzegovina |
9.82 |
| 74 |
Ukraine |
9.90 |
| 75 |
Uruguay |
11.61 |
| 76 |
French Guiana |
11.76 |
| 77 |
Barbados |
11.77 |
| 78 |
Brunei |
12.25 |
| 79 |
Fiji |
12.30 |
| 80 |
Tonga |
12.30 |
| 81 |
Serbia and Montenegro |
12.52 |
| 82 |
Saudi Arabia |
12.81 |
| 83 |
Belarus |
13.00 |
| 84 |
Saint Lucia |
13.17 |
| 85 |
Dominica |
13.71 |
| 86 |
Sri Lanka |
13.97 |
| 87 |
United Arab Emirates |
14.09 |
| 88 |
Saint Kitts and Nevis |
14.12 |
| 89 |
Grenada |
14.27 |
| 90 |
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines |
14.40 |
| 91 |
Palau |
14.46 |
| 92 |
Mauritius |
14.59 |
| 93 |
Argentina |
14.73 |
| 94 |
Russia |
15.13 |
| 95 |
Seychelles |
15.14 |
| 96 |
Turks and Caicos Islands |
15.18 |
| 97 |
Greenland |
15.40 |
| 98 |
Jamaica |
15.98 |
| 99 |
Panama |
16.37 |
| 100 |
British Virgin Islands |
16.72 |
| 101 |
Jordan |
16.76 |
| 102 |
Bahrain |
16.80 |
| 103 |
Malaysia |
17.16 |
| 104 |
Georgia |
17.97 |
| 105 |
Qatar |
18.04 |
| 106 |
Saint Helena |
18.34 |
| 107 |
Antigua and Barbuda |
18.86 |
| 108 |
Oman |
18.89 |
| 109 |
West Bank |
19.15 |
| 110 |
Tuvalu |
19.47 |
| 111 |
Thailand |
19.49 |
| 112 |
Bulgaria |
19.85 |
| 113 |
Mexico |
20.26 |
| 114 |
Anguilla |
20.32 |
| 115 |
Colombia |
20.35 |
| 116 |
Solomon Islands |
20.63 |
| 117 |
Albania |
20.75 |
| 118 |
Venezuela |
21.54 |
| 119 |
Gaza Strip |
22.40 |
| 120 |
Armenia |
22.47 |
| 121 |
Philippines |
22.81 |
| 122 |
Ecuador |
22.87 |
| 123 |
Suriname |
23.02 |
| 124 |
China |
23.12 |
| 125 |
North Korea |
23.29 |
| 126 |
Libya |
23.71 |
| 127 |
Lebanon |
23.72 |
| 128 |
Tunisia |
23.84 |
| 129 |
El Salvador |
24.39 |
| 130 |
Bahamas, The |
24.68 |
| 131 |
Paraguay |
24.78 |
| 132 |
Belize |
24.89 |
| 133 |
Trinidad and Tobago |
25.05 |
| 134 |
Vietnam |
25.14 |
| 135 |
Romania |
25.50 |
| 136 |
Honduras |
25.82 |
| 137 |
Samoa |
26.85 |
| 138 |
Nicaragua |
28.11 |
| 139 |
Dominican Republic |
28.25 |
| 140 |
Kazakhstan |
28.30 |
| 141 |
Marshall Islands |
28.43 |
| 142 |
Brazil |
28.60 |
| 143 |
Syria |
28.61 |
| 144 |
Federated States of Micronesia |
29.16 |
| 145 |
Algeria |
29.87 |
| 146 |
Guatemala |
30.94 |
| 147 |
Peru |
30.94 |
| 148 |
Egypt |
31.33 |
| 149 |
Guyana |
32.19 |
| 150 |
Indonesia |
34.39 |
| 151 |
Kyrgyzstan |
34.49 |
| 152 |
Moldova |
38.38 |
| 153 |
Turkey |
39.69 |
| 154 |
Morocco |
40.24 |
| 155 |
Iran |
40.30 |
| 156 |
Sao Tome and Principe |
41.83 |
| 157 |
East Timor |
45.89 |
| 158 |
Eritrea |
46.30 |
| 159 |
Cape Verde |
46.52 |
| 160 |
Kiribati |
47.27 |
| 161 |
Namibia |
48.10 |
| 162 |
Iraq |
48.64 |
Under American occupation |
| 163 |
World |
48.87 |
| 164 |
Papua New Guinea |
49.96 |
| 165 |
Zimbabwe |
51.71 |
| 166 |
Bolivia |
51.77 |
| 167 |
Mongolia |
52.12 |
| 168 |
Senegal |
52.94 |
| 169 |
Botswana |
53.70 |
| 170 |
Vanuatu |
53.80 |
| 171 |
Gabon |
54.51 |
| 172 |
India |
54.63 |
| 173 |
Maldives |
54.89 |
| 174 |
Ghana |
55.02 |
| 175 |
Kenya |
59.26 |
| 176 |
Yemen |
59.88 |
| 177 |
Togo |
60.63 |
| 178 |
South Africa |
60.66 |
| 179 |
Mayotte |
60.76 |
| 180 |
Bangladesh |
60.83 |
| 181 |
Sudan |
61.05 |
| 182 |
Burma |
61.85 |
| 183 |
Burundi |
63.13 |
| 184 |
Cameroon |
63.52 |
| 185 |
Nepal |
65.32 |
| 186 |
Uganda |
66.15 |
| 187 |
Cambodia |
68.78 |
| 188 |
Mauritania |
69.48 |
| 189 |
Uzbekistan |
69.99 |
| 190 |
Pakistan |
70.45 |
| 191 |
Gambia The |
71.58 |
| 192 |
Haiti |
71.65 |
| 193 |
Swaziland |
71.85 |
| 194 |
Turkmenistan |
72.56 |
| 195 |
Comoros |
72.85 |
| 196 |
Madagascar |
75.21 |
| 197 |
Azerbaijan |
79.00 |
| 198 |
Benin |
79.56 |
| 199 |
Laos |
83.31 |
| 200 |
Republic of the Congo |
85.29 |
| 201 |
Central African Republic |
85.63 |
| 202 |
Zambia |
86.84 |
| 203 |
Lesotho |
87.24 |
| 204 |
Democratic Republic of the Congo |
88.62 |
| 205 |
Cote d’Ivoire |
89.11 |
| 206 |
Equatorial Guinea |
89.21 |
| 207 |
Rwanda |
89.61 |
| 208 |
Guinea |
90.00 |
| 209 |
Burkina Faso |
91.35 |
| 210 |
Chad |
91.45 |
| 211 |
Ethiopia |
93.62 |
| 212 |
Malawi |
94.37 |
| 213 |
Tanzania |
96.48 |
| 214 |
Nigeria |
97.14 |
| 215 |
Bhutan |
98.41 |
| 216 |
Djibouti |
102.44 |
| 217 |
Guinea-Bissau |
105.21 |
| 218 |
Tajikistan |
106.49 |
| 219 |
Mali |
107.58 |
| 220 |
Somalia |
114.89 |
| 221 |
Niger |
118.25 |
| 222 |
Mozambique |
129.24 |
| 223 |
Liberia |
155.76 |
| 224 |
Afghanistan |
160.23 |
Under American occupation |
| 225 |
Sierra Leone |
160.39 |
| 226 |
Angola |
185.36 |
Worst in the world |
Ironically, where IMR is lowest, population growth is slowest, so it pays to
improve infant mortality to reduce population.
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