How to address the big problem of overpopulated Earth?

[przemeknowicki]

Because of our Christian roots and tradition (I am talking about this country, the US, not you) we don't dare even to discuss the subject of how to address the problem of too many people inhabiting this planet. This tabu, similar to other "lesser" tabus like the fear to discuss death does not serve us well. But inevitable we will be forced to confront the issue and the sooner we do it the better.

I would like to solicit your opinion about what would be acceptable in terms of policies designed to keep the population in this country under control. Please, include in your opinion the issue of immigration, too.

Another related issue I would like to discuss is how the country should deal with the threat of other countries, cultures, races, or whatever, who urge their members (citizens) to produce a lot of babies with the goal of "conquering" other cultures, races, religions.

If you believe that over population is not an issue you are invited to participate in this discussion, too.

Thomas Orr

[ST88]

Because of our Christian roots and tradition (I am talking about this country, the US, not you) we don't dare even to discuss the subject of how to address the problem of too many people inhabiting this planet. This tabu, similar to other "lesser" tabus like the fear to discuss death does not serve us well. But inevitable we will be forced to confront the issue and the sooner we do it the better.

I would like to solicit your opinion about what would be acceptable in terms of policies designed to keep the population in this country under control. Please, include in your opinion the issue of immigration, too.

I hesitate to answer this question because it has within it an assumption of paternalism that I generally disagree with. I think sovereignty is a big issue regarding world-wide problems like this.

The natural population rate (birth/death) in developed countries is not at critical levels, including in the U.S. In fact, these levels have been in decline since the late 1800s. The birth rate of "developed" countries (which tend to be Christian countries) was about 40 per 1000 people (annually) in 1875, and dropped to around 30 by 1900, 20 by 1960 and is currently around 12. [1] The death rate has generally kept up with the birth rate until the last couple of decades, in which it has actually increased. Some countries in Europe currently have negative population rates.

The real problem with birth rates is in less developed countries, where the vast majority of births have occurred and will occur (90% of the 10 billion worldwide population figure by 2075 or so is expected to come from underdeveloped countries)...

Source: United Nations, World Population Prospects, The 1998 Revision; and estimates by the Population Reference Bureau.
(Hedge: I'm not sure how India and China were counted.)
I don't know that anything can be done about geometric population growth in other countries, especially while the right-wing controls the debate in our country.

Immigration, as you say, is the primary cause of population growth in this country. Whether this is a bad thing is largely a matter of opinion. It is true that the U.S. has the highest rate of resource consumption in the world, which is a huge problem. However, immigrant Americans as a group tend not to use nearly as many resources as non-immigrant Americans. Further, immigrants are less likely to be a drain on government or the economy in general. It is possible to argue that immigration is vital to our economy because it makes certain sectors of the economy possible, like agriculture and manufacturing.

The pattern of popluation growth among immigrant groups is largely misconstrued because these individuals, for the most part, show up in the population "suddenly" as viable workers, and so have fewer years, on average, of U.S life than those who were born in the U.S. But aside from this, the U.S. birth rates of immigrants in a modern world have not been adequately established. This is one of the main reasons I do not think there will be an overpopulation problem in the U.S. In my opinion, the size of families largely has to do with cultural factors rather than religious ones.

Overpopulation is only as serious an issue as the scarcity of resources. This is the real issue behind population concerns (leaving aside xenophobia). Will there be enough water and food and what all for everyone? Living in a greater metro area like San Diego, I am amazed at the extent of population growth that can be sustained using today's engineering and technology, and while I acknowledge there are serious problems with such a great number of people living in such a constrained space, this is not the densest part of the country. As far as I can tell, the main issue with resources is the corruption of governments where scarcity is a problem.

The countries with the highest fertility rates are in Africa and the Middle East, and they also happen to have the highest death rates and infant mortality rates. It seems to me that the attitude towards having children in a society has a lot to do with the attitude towards death. As was true with the U.S. just over 100 years ago, people tend to have more children when it is more or less a crapshoot if they will reach adulthood.

[przemeknowicki]

ST88, Am I right to read your post as generally optimistic meaning that there is no need for population control policies because the issue will take care of itself similarly to how the free market forces balance supply and demand?

While I could accept such position if we discussed countries like Japan I have no faith in the ability of the United States to spare its citizens the hardships of overpopulation. Not only that but here in America the effects of the crisis will very likely be magnified similarly to how deregulated California was forcefully thrown into energy crisis two years ago. Yes, you are right that scarcity of resources is the real danger and not the space or lack thereof. The scarcity of resources that worries me most is water, the ability of oceans to deliver more fish for human consumption, deforestation and prospects of collapsing ecosystems due to human encroachment. To successfully cope with the problems of growing population this country lacks the cultural advantages the Japan has. We are individualists. Many years ago we made the wrong turn with our sudden love affair with cars and complete neglect of the public transportation. We didn't bother to learn from the Native Americans how to develop an intimate relantionship with the nature and the Japanese appreciation of nature is alien to us. That doesn't help in our efforts to preserve waters, forests and other ecosystems.

In addition I have no faith in science as applied worldwide to the aggro and food industry and I expect that the crisis of huge proportion is going to hit us hard in not so distant future. I am not talking here about the food distribution problems. I am talking about the ability of places like California, Florida and Midwest to continue supplying us with cheap food.

Finally, there is the cultural aspect of the population growth and the fact that it is used as a mighty weapon in cultural conflicts. If you don't know what I am talking about ask the Israelis. In this country one problem is having excessive birth rate among poor who can cope with and afford it the least. The second potential problem is the excessive birth rate among native or imported cultures of fundamentalist inclination. To be specific I am thinking about Mormons and Islam being the potential threats to the American identity. This is not xenophobic as you might think. Bush presidency scared me already with the prospect of loosing my civil rights to the religious ideology. I may be tolerant to religious beliefs of others but the prospect of those beliefs shaping the laws of this country does not sit well with me. Few years ago on this discussion forum I came across the debate with a follower of Islam who seriously advocated transforming this country into Islamic theocracy.

In conclusion, I still believe that the issue of population growth is a valid concern for this country. By the way, could you explain what you meant by "assumption of paternalism"?

Przemek

[ST88]

ST88, Am I right to read your post as generally optimistic meaning that there is no need for population control policies because the issue will take care of itself similarly to how the free market forces balance supply and demand?

Not exactly. I am just pointing out that there is way too much doom and gloom in population forecasts for the coming century. I am optimistic about population growth, but although there is a chance that resource allocation pressures will push more people into the U.S., this does not mean that the world population will be affected by this immigration. That is, the immigrants would have to either live here or elsewhere. And we have a better resource allocation model than most of the other places in the world; the U.S. is the country most able to accept such a large group of people into it. A similar population growth trend in most other countries would be unwieldy.

Many years ago we made the wrong turn with our sudden love affair with cars and complete neglect of the public transportation. We didn't bother to learn from the Native Americans how to develop an intimate relantionship with the nature and the Japanese appreciation of nature is alien to us. That doesn't help in our efforts to preserve waters, forests and other ecosystems.

Essentially, I agree. But, as for myself, I was not involved in this decision and only accepted myself into such a society when it was too late to change it. What we really have to do is say to ourselves: "tough noogies" and try to work with the system we have in order to improve it. We will never get rid of the American urge to get into a car now that this urge has developed. One example for improvement is with more energy efficient cars. This will happen anyway as the oil in the ground winds down with increased usage for a multiplying number of products and amount of consumers. First, we will see synthetic oil used in plastics and industrial lubricants, for example. We are already seeing this with alternative lubricants such as silver plating and grain oils. Environmentalists will have a tough time of it for the next hundred years or so, it's true. But there will have to be someone offering resistance to the path of continued oil dependence.

In addition I have no faith in science as applied worldwide to the aggro and food industry and I expect that the crisis of huge proportion is going to hit us hard in not so distant future. I am not talking here about the food distribution problems. I am talking about the ability of places like California, Florida and Midwest to continue supplying us with cheap food.

I totally diagree with you on this point. There is an enormous amount of elasticity when it comes to food production, and food prices are, right now, artifically propped higher than they should be. Right now, there are cotton and rice fields in places which have no business being there. They are resource-greedy and are subsidized by the government. Can you imagine the amount of fresh water required to produce rice? This water would be better spent elsewhere. In my opinion, the farming subsidy is on the way out. As farms get more and more corporate, it makes less and less sense to give them incentive to not plant a field of flaxseed, for example. Sugar is a particularly egregious example. Caribbean sugar sells for a fraction of what U.S. sugar sells for, but because there is such a high tariff on foreign sugar, we have to pay the U.S. price for it. Government subsidies are the primary governor, if you will, on the food supply.

By the way, could you explain what you meant by "assumption of paternalism"?

It means that we assume that all reasonable solutions will flow from U.S. intervention. I don't necessarily subscribe to this view. Although, admittedly, I am a U.S. citizen, and I think I have an idea of how to fix things that will benefit the world in general, that doesn't mean I have the right to tell other countries what is best for them.

[przemeknowicki]

ST88,

I am very much interested in continuing this debate even if it seems to deviate from the original topic. Before I get to the main points of disagreements I would like to explain two things. I am not an expert on the population growth. The reason I brought up the topic is my frustration with the fact that the issue seems to be dominated, at least in this country, by the religious ideology. I despise China as an international bully of a huge proportion yet it seems absurd to me that China is accused and attacked by this country for two things that it is doing right. Firm policies regarding keeping the religions under control and serious attempts to control the population growth. In addition I can see many powerful political forces interested in keeping the population growing regardless of the consequences and no forces capable of bringing the balance in this equation. The pro-growth forces are religions, expansive nationalism and corporations whose hope for ever growing profits depend on ever expanding markets.

The second thing I want to explain is that in my opinion there are already too many people on the planet and in the US. My concerns are not necessarily limited to the issues of survival. I believe that other issues like our freedom and quality of life are important as well and we are already negatively affected in those areas by the simple fact that there are too many of us. It would be a fascinating topic for a separate discussion but let's leave it alone now.

Before I get to my disagreements with your post let me explain that on the issue of paternalism I am 100% with you. So, probably how I formulated the topic subject was a little misleading.

My main disagreement with what you stated in your post is in assessment of the ability of the modern food industry and agrobusiness to feed the world. Here are my main points. First, the cheap food we are so proud of is just that, cheap and inferior. Secondly, the cheap food we seem to produce in abundance comes at the expense of the environmental destruction and the process is not sustainable. In other words, as it is usually the case with the corporate order, we produce the food at the expense of the environment and of the future generations. The so called green revolution turned out to be a humanitarian and ecological disaster. If the green revolution is not an example of paternalism I don't know what is. As you can see I am not enthusiastic about it.

Thomas Orr

[ST88]

The reason I brought up the topic is my frustration with the fact that the issue seems to be dominated, at least in this country, by the religious ideology.

I only partially agree with you here. I believe the more powerful social forces at work here are cultural, not religious.

I despise China as an international bully of a huge proportion yet it seems absurd to me that China is accused and attacked by this country for two things that it is doing right. Firm policies regarding keeping the religions under control and serious attempts to control the population growth.

Yeesh. Do you really want to bring up China's one-child policy? This has been and is waiting to be a societal disaster. There is currently a disparity among Chinese births, with a preference for males, which has already led to a marriageable female shortage.

The one-child policy was established in 1979 to limit communist China's population growth. It limits couples to one child. Fines, pressures to abort a pregnancy, and even forced sterilization accompanied second or subsequent pregnancies...This rule has caused a disdain for female infants; abortion, neglect, abandonment, and even infanticide have been known to occur to female infants. [1]

Not only that, but the current generation of Chinese, a much smaller number than previous generations, will be inadequate to deal with the explosive industrial growth that China is experiencing. There are many other unsavory aspects to this policy which I won't go into because this is already outside the scope of this topic. [2]

In addition I can see many powerful political forces interested in keeping the population growing regardless of the consequences and no forces capable of bringing the balance in this equation. The pro-growth forces are religions, expansive nationalism and corporations whose hope for ever growing profits depend on ever expanding markets.

I would agree with this to a point. Political forces in this country are generally anti-immigration while commerical forces are generally pro-immigration. I don't think that religions in this country really have any control over the birth rate.

[ST88]

My main disagreement with what you stated in your post is in assessment of the ability of the modern food industry and agrobusiness to feed the world. Here are my main points.

First, the cheap food we are so proud of is just that, cheap and inferior.

This is true only in terms of the processed, packaged foods. The "cheap" produce that we are able to transport from field to grocery store is actually better than can be found in other countries.

Here's my rant on packaged foods.
The act of processing, including the extreme heat generated by food packaging machinery, thoroughly destroys many of the nutrients in food. Those foods that are supplemented with extra vitamins and other micronutrients are not nearly as nutritious as the unprocessed versions because supplements are inherently less effective as food-borne nutrients.

But why the extreme heat? Pasteurization, for example, destroys any bacteria that might be present in the food at the point of packaging, increasing the shelf-life. I would much prefer that packaged food was treated with chemical preservatives like they used to be. The trend in food packaging away from these preservatives was based on "junk science" and pandered to the very fears you are speaking of. Big Food was seen to be tinkering with the food supply and so these preservatives were labeled as unnatural additives despite the fact that there was no evidence that these additives were harmful. You will often see "No Preservatives!" as a feature of a packaged food item. This is just an indication of how well that phrase helps to sell something. Please! Put preservatives in my milk! Irradiate my chicken! I recently fell victim to salmonella poisoning because of poorly prepared chicken -- obtained from a reputable butcher shop that did not believe in preservatives or irradiation. People and their small-minded attitudes about food (see the "alar" scare in the 80s) fall victim to junk science more often when it has to do with the food supply.

Secondly, the cheap food we seem to produce in abundance comes at the expense of the environmental destruction and the process is not sustainable. In other words, as it is usually the case with the corporate order, we produce the food at the expense of the environment and of the future generations. The so called green revolution turned out to be a humanitarian and ecological disaster. If the green revolution is not an example of paternalism I don't know what is. As you can see I am not enthusiastic about it.

If you want to talk about environmental destruction then I am with you. Pesticides are the single worst pollution source that mankind has ever dreamed up (short of fissile nuclear material). However, the process is sustainable. With widely accepted crop rotation techniques it is possible to maintain crop land in perpetuity. Further, with genetically engineered foods that resist pests on their own, there will be less of a need for pesticides; with better food cleansing techniques, there will be less of a chance of field-borne contamination. In short, the technology of food production will continue to make the food supply sustainable for a growing population. Not that we have all the answers right now, but we will. It's just a matter of time.

[przemeknowicki]

Yeesh. Do you really want to bring up China's one-child policy? This has been and is waiting to be a societal disaster. There is currently a disparity among Chinese births, with a preference for males, which has already led to a marriageable female shortage.

No, of course not. They tried, they messed up and they will try again with better results. I praise them for trying.

Not only that, but the current generation of Chinese, a much smaller number than previous generations, will be inadequate to deal with the explosive industrial growth that China is experiencing.

Why do we interpret it as inadequacies of population control policies? How about seeing it as an inadequacy of the capitalist system? When I follow the news I am amazed how "fragile" this system is. Falling oil prices - bad for economy. Rising oil prices - bad, too. Same with interest rates, unemployement. Only consumer spending is good, it seems.

[przemeknowicki]

This is true only in terms of the processed, packaged foods. The "cheap" produce that we are able to transport from field to grocery store is actually better than can be found in other countries.

No. Actually I am complaining about the industrial ways of growing the food. The mineral content of fruit and vegetables is now only about a fifth of what it was in the beginning of the twentieth century. Inadequate supply of microelements is known to reduce the diversity and quality of aminoacids in grains for instance if we go further in analyzing the quality of food in the lab. From my childhood days I remember the difference in taste and flavor between berries grown in the wild and those grown in the garden. And this was in days when organic farming was the only known way of farming.

In contrast to you I have no faith in science developed to assist the industrial farming. Why? Because this science is tainted by the corporate drive for profit and does not care for what I care. There is nothing wrong with genetic engineering except when the goal is to increase profits and not the quality of food. Today plants are genetically modified to cope better with chemicals, grow poisons to kill the insects and increase the dependency of farmers on chemical corporations. Chemicals as the answer to farming problems turned out to be a total fiasco but that doesn't stop the chemical giants to impose their profit generating "solutions" on farmers all over the world.

The genetically altered plants at the core of the green revolution were designed to produce more and to withstand massive amounts of chemicals. They wouldn't grow at all without chemical fertilizers. But they turned out to be poor in micronutrients and specifically in zinc. The result? The whole generation of mentally underdeveloped children in the third world countries. Plus, the fertile soils turned into arid lands after only two decades of intensive fertilizing with chemicals.

Interestingely, we now know much better ways of farming and also are capable of reversing many damages done to the soils treated with chemicals. But it will take many years of struggle before people (or "junk science" followers if you prefer) can defeat the corporate science.

Personally, the food I am looking for are not "irradiated chicken" but beef from cattle grown without hormones or antibiotics and fed on grass only. If I buy such food from a local farmer I don't need to worry about ecola or salmonella contamination common in big processing plants. Also, I don't need any new research to prove the superiority of such food. The advantages of it was quite sufficiently demonstrated in the works of Weston Price seventy years ago. And this only proves that corporate science is capable of marching backwards, quite an accomplishment for a science, don't you think?

[ST88]

Why do we interpret it as inadequacies of population control policies? How about seeing it as an inadequacy of the capitalist system? When I follow the news I am amazed how "fragile" this system is. Falling oil prices - bad for economy. Rising oil prices - bad, too. Same with interest rates, unemployement. Only consumer spending is good, it seems.

I don't really want to get into China's economic system. It's such a hodge podge of wacky conflicting policies that I don't know if you can classify it as one specific thing and then discuss it as such.

But as for the news - bad news always sells better than good news. So the 5% who say that falling oil prices are a disaster for the economy and the (different) 5% who say that rising oil prices are a disaster for the economy are the ones who get covered in 48pt type above the fold (or in the first 5 minutes).

By the way, consumer spending isn't good because it tends to raise individual long-term debt.