A Growing Population

 

 

Population Estimations:  How Accurately Can We Predict Population?

    In order to predict the effects of a growing population, we first must have some idea of how it is growing:  how quickly, in what areas, etc.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to estimate future population sizes.  Many past estimates have been shown to be significantly different from actuality, and population forecasts change regularly.  For example, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated in 1989 that the U.S. population would peak at 302 million in 2030, and then decline.  Just three years later, in 1992, they predicted that it would reach 382 million in 2050 and keep rising.  They also estimated that Nigeria's population was 122.5 million in 1991, when in actuality it was 88.5 million.  (see pages 330 and 331 in The Ultimate Resource 2)  The current predictions by the U.S. Census Bureau of future world population can be seen here.  The table created by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that although absolute population has continued to rise, the rate of growth is falling, which will lead to a peak and decline pattern.  This pattern holds true even when looking only at the developing world, as you can see in the graph below.

But these are all just estimates based on current data, and future population depends on many many different factors.

 

Paul Ehrlich:  Big Name in the Overpopulation Discussion

Maybe this section should be called Paul Ehrlich's embarrassing quotations.  He certainly said quite a few. 

 

  In the 1960's, he wrote a book called The Population Bomb.  In it, he predicted the pending doom of the planet with statements such as these:

 

•"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..."

"a minimum of ten million people, most of them children, will starve to death during each year of the 1970s. But this is a mere handful compared to the numbers that will be starving before the end of the century"

Despite these horrifyingly inaccurate predictions, he is still considered an authority on population issues. 

Many prophets of environmental doom and gloom have simply not had their predictions verified by the facts.  So what went wrong between theory and practice?  Maybe we need to look at our natural resources in a new way.

The Bet

  Julian Simon, an economist, came up with a theory that would fit with the current facts of population growth and human well-being.  He proposed price as a measure of the scarcity of a natural resource.  If the amount of a resource declines, demand for what is left will increase, causing the price to rise.  If there is a lot of the resource, the price will fall. 

He challenged Paul Ehrlich to a bet.  The bet would use price as a measure of scarcity, and they would measure whether certain resources were getting scarcer or not.  Julian Simon let Paul Ehrlich pick any natural resources, and a period of time.  He bet him that after the time had elapsed, the resources would be less scarce (i.e. they would cost less money, after adjustment for inflation).

Paul chose copper, chrome, nickel, tin, and tungsten as his resources and he chose the period of time from 1980 to 1990.  At the end of the ten years, the loser would pay the winner the difference in price that had occurred during that time.  Julian Simon won this bet.  After those ten years, each resource was cheaper (more plentiful) than before. 

In fact, the prices of natural resources across the board have been declining.  Why does this happen?  It seems to contradict common sense.  How can natural resources be getting more plentiful?  Julian Simon has an answer.  He believes that natural resources are, in the long term, finite.  We do not desire certain resources, we desire certain services.  As long as we can get the services we want, we don't care which particular resources are used to obtain it.  If a certain resources becomes expensive, we will just find some sort of substitute for it.  In this way, we will never use up all of any one resource, because the desire to save money will cause us to either move on to another resource that can provide the same service, or we look for ways to use the resource more efficiently.  So the effects of technology and substitute goods makes it very difficult to talk about natural resources being finite.

Although Julian Simon's conclusion is counter-intuitive at first, it does fit the facts.  It makes it easy to explain why world hunger has gone down as our population has grown.  Advances in technology have so far exceeded population growth that we would have absolutely no trouble growing enough food to feed our current population.  (see articles in Sources)

Which brings us to our next point.

Is Overpopulation the Real Problem?

Overpopulation is not just measured by population density.  The U.K. has the same population density as Southeastern Asia, the most densely populated area of the world.  No one thinks of the U.K. as overcrowded.  There are many more examples like this. 

Ultimately, it comes down to poverty as the problem.  Densely populated rich areas of land are not considered overpopulated.  Poor ones are.  It seems to me that the real problem is poverty, not overpopulation.  If we could help developing nations to stimulate their economies, educate their people, and increase their technology, we would soon be in a world where people could afford to look at the pollution situation, and try to fix it.  The birth rate would decrease naturally, as women delay child-bearing in order to finish school.  Each additional person would be seen as a blessing from God who has something to contribute to the world. 

The vast amounts of funds that go to population control measures should be redirected to address the real problem -- the poverty of many nations, and the disrespect for human life that is so common in our world today.

After note

 

Sources