Global Population Issues

[jacob]

You'd almost surely notice the difference. While humanity in its wisdom doesn't see fit to store more than about 30 days of food in the aggregate and while human can't live longer than about 3 weeks without eating, any adjustment to the current distribution both in relative and absolute terms will surely be noticed. The [increasing] cost of food is one of biggest security risks in the Middle East. Riots were started some years ago as ethanol subsidies caused the price of corn to increase beyond what many people could afford so that the rest of us could feel green while filling up our iCars.

Unlike deer, humans don't starve or die quietly.

[7Wannabe5]

Okay, so who in my social system is wasting more resources, the single 53 year old guy I recently dated who lives by himself in a 3000 sq. ft. house with in-ground heated pool, owns three vehicles and commutes 30 miles to work or the family of 6 who recently immigrated from Bangladesh and are living in a 720 sq. ft apartment and maybe own one vehicle and the kids all get free breakfast and lunch at the school where I teach? Is the older man a better ERE-er because he is earning more than he is spending and saving the difference and managing his investments wisely unlike the big-eyed little girl who does not yet know how to spell "graff" or add numbers with more than 1 digit and so is sucking down chocolate milk provided by Uncle Sam in blithe disregard to her lack of contribution to GNP?

[theanimal]

I'm not talking drastic measures, like cut the food supply in half immediately. I don't know how one would determine it but little by little. Or forget even decreasing it, why not just adjust to the actual numbers to match the number of people now? Food is already grossly produced beyond what is needed. The population will respond by growing to match that number.

Of course, this solution lies in the ability of those in government to see the current agriculture practices as a problem. I do not see that happening. A more likely scenario is that the population continues to grow and then collapses due to a variety of linked problems.

[workathome]

So Gates & Buffett seem to be dumping all there charity money into the idea that if we increase "undeveloped" countries living standards they will stop having so many kids, just like the West. Are there enough natural resources, oil, energy, etc. for something like that to really work?

Really, one of their main vectors right now seem to be making sure everyone gets vaccinated - with the theory that lower mortality alone leads to lower birth rate. I wonder if it might simply lead to lower mortality and the same birth rate (amplifying the "problem") without the other changes?

[theanimal]

WAH- I don't think so. For instance, the native population of the US 500 years ago was seen to be living in "poor living conditions" and the non native population was 0. Today the population is over 300 million. The explosion wasn't a result of poor living conditions.

[Ego]

Now if the food available was to decrease, would we have even more starving children, famine or riots? No, the population would simply decrease as it does with all other species. The old die off and the population decreases to match the availability of food.

Doesn't the deer population decrease as a result of famine and starvation or is there another biological mechanism that causes the decline?

[7Wannabe5]

There is a mythology that increased food production over the last 100 years is solely due to petroleum use and machinery. A heck of a lot of it is actually due to the work of amateur and scientific plant breeders and I'm not talking about scary mono-crop genetically tagged and patented super-hybrids. You can buy organic seeds that will allow you to grow a more bountiful, healthy and resilient selection of crops in your own backyard garden than you could 100 years ago.

People are not deer. They are highly intelligent omnivorous scavengers. You could take every human family on the planet right now and they would all fit in the state of Texas on small size suburban lots. If through intensive organic gardening/perma-culture you can grow enough food to feed your family on another lot of similar size then all that is needed to feed/house the current human population is a land area twice the size of Texas. The rest of the planet could become a Nature Preserve.

[theanimal]

JP- to correct my earlier post. While people's iThings and junk is detrimental to the planet, I don't think those have led or lead to overpopulation. Its just simply wasteful.

Using deer was a bad choice...

Doesn't the deer population decrease as a result of famine and starvation or is there another biological mechanism that causes the decline?

Well I guess yes, combined with a decrease in reproduction.

People are not deer. They are highly intelligent omnivorous scavengers. You could take every human family on the planet right now and they would all fit in the state of Texas on small size suburban lots. If through intensive organic gardening/perma-culture you can grow enough food to feed your family on another lot of similar size then all that is needed to feed/house the current human population is a land area twice the size of Texas. The rest of the planet could become a Nature Preserve.

Just because our culture of humans happens to be the dominant species on the planet right now does not mean that they are exempt from ecological/biological principles. Humans are no higher on the totem pole than any other species. As I've stated earlier in this thread, the problem is not that we have a lack of food. We have more food required than there are people on this planet. Yet, there are still people starving, famines etc. It has been this way for hundreds, no, thousands of years now. Do you really think that more food will solve this problem? That it hasn't been tried before? More food will mean more people.

[jennypenny]

JP- to correct my earlier post. While people's iThings and junk is detrimental to the planet, I don't think those have led or lead to overpopulation. Its just simply wasteful.

I think shipping plastic crap from China wastes oil that could be used for food production. New construction uses up materials and (usually) converts green space that could be used for food production. That's the kind of waste I was thinking of.

[Ego]

More food will mean more people.

Looking at the global hunger index by country it seems that the hungriest countries have the highest number of live births per female. For instance Burundi is one of the most starved nations in the world (35% of the population in hunger) yet they have one of the highest fertility rates in the world (6 births per woman on average).

Did he discuss this correlation?

To be clear, I'm not saying he's wrong. My mind just spit out these objections to the theory and I wondered how he dealt with them.

[workathome]

Permaculture looks pretty interesting. In theory it would be possible for more than enough food without all the oil-based fertilizers, pesticides, etc. That's the only thing that makes me pause and wonder if it's not too-good-to-be-true for some reason after all.

[theanimal]

More food will mean more people.

Looking at the global hunger index by country it seems that the hungriest countries have the highest number of live births per female. For instance Burundi is one of the most starved nations in the world (35% of the population in hunger) yet they have one of the highest fertility rates in the world (6 births per woman on average).

Did he discuss this correlation?

To be clear, I'm not saying he's wrong. My mind just spit out these objections to the theory and I wondered how he dealt with them.

Yes, he did. Quite directly. Taken straight from the book:

Q. Your models of population growth fail to take into account the well established correlation between standard of living and population growth. Countries with a high standard of living have a growth rate near zero or even below zero (as in Germany!) [Note:Where the current scene in the book takes place], whereas countries with a low standard of living are the ones that account for the greatest growth. This shows that food production and population growth aren't necessarily connected.

A. The argumment you've presented is the sort of argument that the tobacco industry likes: "One of my best friends never touched a cigarette in her life, didn't grow up among smokers and didn't work among smokers, but she died of lung cancer at age thirty seven. On the other hand, my father has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day since he was seventeen and is still hale and hardy at age sixty-three. This shows that smoking and cancer aren't ncessarily connected."

When our population system is assessed as a whole- on a global scale, rather than country by country- there is no doubt whatever that, as a whole, our population is increasing catastropically, so that studies conducted by international groups like the United Nations predict without reservation that there will be twelve billion of us here in forty years or so.

I apologize if I'm not being coherent enough. I'm trying to develop my own line of thinking on the material. As an aside, I'd heartily recommend his books or he also has a website where he has answered hundreds of questions on various topics. http://www.ishmael.org/Interaction/QandA/qanda.cfm

[jennypenny]

I apologize if I'm not being coherent enough. I'm trying to develop my own line of thinking on the material.

No need to apologize. This is the best place to do that. (if you can hold your own here, you can hold your own anywhere )

[Scrubby]

So what I'm saying is that you may try population control by contraceptive methods but it won't work because it'll still violate the ecological principle. When more food is made available, the population will increase.

It works like that in nature because animals will have on average have more babies than can be fed. The least fit (or just unlucky) will die from starvation in bad times. If all humans had on average 0.5 babies (it takes two people to make 1) the population would eventually start halving. That one baby isn't going to split into two no matter how much you feed it. The difference between humans and other species is that we can understand this and adapt by having fewer children.

[Dragline]

Yes, he did. Quite directly. Taken straight from the book:

Q. Your models of population growth fail to take into account the well established correlation between standard of living and population growth. Countries with a high standard of living have a growth rate near zero or even below zero (as in Germany!) [Note:Where the current scene in the book takes place], whereas countries with a low standard of living are the ones that account for the greatest growth. This shows that food production and population growth aren't necessarily connected.

A. The argumment you've presented is the sort of argument that the tobacco industry likes: "One of my best friends never touched a cigarette in her life, didn't grow up among smokers and didn't work among smokers, but she died of lung cancer at age thirty seven. On the other hand, my father has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day since he was seventeen and is still hale and hardy at age sixty-three. This shows that smoking and cancer aren't ncessarily connected."

When our population system is assessed as a whole- on a global scale, rather than country by country- there is no doubt whatever that, as a whole, our population is increasing catastropically, so that studies conducted by international groups like the United Nations predict without reservation that there will be twelve billion of us here in forty years or so.

The answer to this question does not actually answer the question, but relies on an inapt analogy to some other fallacious argument by tobacco companies that is irrelevant. The question was whether he had accounted for the well-known correlation between aggregate, country-by-country data. His response was something akin to, well, what if we only looked at two families in Germany, one who had a lot of children and one who didn't, that wouldn't really tell us anything, now would it? That's fallacious, because the aggregate data accounts for all of the millions of data points in Germany. We're not talking about only two data points as in the tobacco case. [Moreover, we see the same correlation between cancer and tobacco in individual countries as we do worldwide.]

Then he leaps to say that "countries don't matter" anyway, because we should look at the world as a whole. Why? Going continent by continent, with the millions of data points on each one (except Antarctica), the data shows that virtually the only place population is projected to continue growing after 2050 is in Africa. Shouldn't he simply focus on where the problem actually is?

Stated differently, are we really to believe that reducing food production in say, Canada -- or even China, will reduce the growth of the population in Africa?

This is not well-reasoned material.

[theanimal]

Stated differently, are we really to believe that reducing food production in say, Canada -- or even China, will reduce the growth of the population in Africa?

This is not well-reasoned material.

Well, wouldn't you say that would be the case if Canada is sending food to Africa? That's the point he's making.

[theanimal]

So what I'm saying is that you may try population control by contraceptive methods but it won't work because it'll still violate the ecological principle. When more food is made available, the population will increase.

It works like that in nature because animals will have on average have more babies than can be fed. The least fit (or just unlucky) will die from starvation in bad times. If all humans had on average 0.5 babies (it takes two people to make 1) the population would eventually start halving. That one baby isn't going to split into two no matter how much you feed it. The difference between humans and other species is that we can understand this and adapt by having fewer children.

OK but I'd say this leads to more questions. This would be a huge cultural/societal change. How would you enforce this? What would stop people from having more .5 babies?

Edit to add: We've had the ability to do this for however far back you want to go. I guess the concept of free will/choice. Every one of those years the population has increased. As it will again this year. What will make it suddenly change?

[Dragline]

Stated differently, are we really to believe that reducing food production in say, Canada -- or even China, will reduce the growth of the population in Africa?

This is not well-reasoned material.

Well, wouldn't you say that would be the case if Canada is sending food to Africa? That's the point he's making.

I don't think that necessarily follows either. For the thesis to hold, you would think that the increase of food production in one country would most affect the neighboring ones, where most of the excess production would go. But that has not been the case -- the entire area of the Americas, for example, is not blowing up in population due to excess food production, and is predicted to level off and/or decline in population within a generation.

I think the data tends to show weak or even negative correlation between food production and population growth, and you have to do some mental gymnastics in logical reasoning to reach his conclusions -- like his failure to account for regional differences, which is the first thing demographers do. His model just isn't very well-fitted to the data.

As for the regional differences, this UN slide presentation makes the point -- see slides 19-21 in particular: http://esa.un.org/wpp/ppt/paa/PAA_2012_Heilig.pdf

Lots more data here: http://esa.un.org/wpp/Documentation/pdf ... ofiles.pdf

"Almost all of the additional 3.7 billion people from now to 2100 will enlarge the population of
developing countries, which is projected to rise from 5.9 billion in 2013 to 8.2 billion in 2050 and to 9.6 billion in 2100, and will mainly be distributed among the population aged 15-59 (1.6 billion) and 60 or over (1.99 billion), as the number of children under age 15 in developing countries will hardly increase.

Growth is expected to be particularly dramatic in the least developed countries of the world, which are projected to double in size from 898 million inhabitants in 2013 to 1.8 billion in 2050 and to 2.9 billion in 2100.

In contrast, the population of the more developed regions is expected to change minimally, passing from 1.25 billion in 2013 to 1.28 billion in 2100, and would decline were it not for the net increase due to migration from developing to developed countries, which is projected to average about 2.4 million persons annually from 2013 to 2050 and 1 million from 2050 to 2100.

At the country level, much of the overall increase between 2013 and 2050 is projected to take place in high-fertility countries, mainly in Africa, as well as countries with large populations such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United States of America."

And more than you ever wanted here: http://esa.un.org/wpp/Documentation/publications.htm

[theanimal]

I don't think that necessarily follows either. For the thesis to hold, you would think that the increase of food production in one country would most affect the neighboring ones, where most of the excess production would go. But that has not been the case -- the entire area of the Americas, for example, is not blowing up in population due to excess food production, and is predicted to level off and/or decline in population within a generation.

I think the data tends to show weak or even negative correlation between food production and population growth, and you have to do some mental gymnastics in logical reasoning to reach his conclusions -- like his failure to account for regional differences, which is the first thing demographers do. His model just isn't very well-fitted to the data.

To be fair I think you're extrapolating here. It appears as if you are denying the whole thesis based off that Q and A or my brief interpretations earlier in this thread.

The thesis holds because there is food excess. Now where does that excess go? Currently, it's to Africa. If it wasn't going anywhere they wouldn't make it. I had a much longer response but found this instead. I think this may clear things up:

Q I think you've answered this question, but inadequately: There is a well-established correlation between standard of living and population growth. The higher the standard of living (and hence the more food produced locally) the lower the birth rate. This flies in the face of your contention that population growth is tied to food production. Taking this down to the microcosm - when you see a picture of people starving in Ethiopia, what is ALWAYS in the picture? A LOT of infants and children. They're not producing any food, but . . . .

A You say:
"There is a well-established correlation between standard of living and population growth. The higher the standard of living (and hence the more food produced locally) the lower the birth rate."

This is true, but only in places where the country has traversed the "demographic trap" and gotten through the growth phase of the population dynamics (see an introductory ecology textbook for more info).

Further you claim:

"This flies in the face of your contention that population growth is tied to food production."

No, actually it doesn't. What I am talking about is the fact that if you add food to any system occupied by animals, any animals (humans are animals), you will get an increasing population size (again, see and introductory ecology textbook for more info).

Finally, you suggest:

"Taking this down to the microcosm - when you see a picture of people starving in Ethiopia, what is ALWAYS in the picture? A LOT of infants and children. They're not producing any food, but . . . ."

"But" indeed! Where do you think those people are coming from? Are they being molded out of dirt? Are they eating stones to make babies?

Have you not seen the images of the UN workers spreading food among hungry crowds? Have you not seen Sally Struthers asking us to support children that are starving by sending money (food) to them? They cannot produce enough food because they are exceeding their local carrying capacity -- the land cannot support that many animals. It wouldn't matter if they were elephants, rats, beetles, or humans. If we send more resources, we will have more animals.

Do you remember this passage from Ishmael?

"We increase food production in the U.S. tremendously every year, but our population growth is relatively slight. On the other hand, population growth is steepest in countries with poor agricultural production. This seems to contradict your corre-lation of food production with population growth."

[Ishmael] shook his head in mild disgust. "The phenomenon as it's observed is this: 'Every increase in food production to feed an increased population is answered by another increase in population.' This says nothing about where these increases occur."

"I don't get it."

"An increase in food production in Nebraska doesn't necessarily produce a population increase in Nebraska. It may produce a population increase somewhere in India or Africa."

"I still don't get it."

"Every increase in food production is answered by an increase in population somewhere. In other words, someone is consuming Nebraska's surpluses — and if they weren't, Nebraska's farmers would stop producing those surpluses, pronto."

"True," I said, and spent a few moments in thought. "Are you suggesting that First World farmers are fueling the Third World population explosion?"

"Ultimately," he said, "who else is there to fuel it?"

If you look at how history has panned out over the past 10,000 years I think the data would lead to a pretty strong correlation. Before the current agricultural practices took place, population was stable as any other species. As the vast majority of cultures adopted our agriculture (meaning more food available because of excess), population doubled at a faster and faster rate. That doubling was coupled with expansion.

The projected decline in population doesn't really solve the issue. The planet will still be overpopulated. The effects will just happen at a slower rate than if they didn't decline. If you look at UN slide number 21 from the link you shared, they project the best case scenario with low fertility resulting in about 6 billion people in the year 2100. Now how does that provide any reassurance since about 15 years ago we were at that position and the world was still way overpopulated?

[7Wannabe5]

theanimal said: Just because our culture of humans happens to be the dominant species on the planet right now does not mean that they are exempt from ecological/biological principles. Humans are no higher on the totem pole than any other species. As I've stated earlier in this thread, the problem is not that we have a lack of food. We have more food required than there are people on this planet. Yet, there are still people starving, famines etc. It has been this way for hundreds, no, thousands of years now. Do you really think that more food will solve this problem? That it hasn't been tried before? More food will mean more people.

One primary difference between human beings and many other species is the extent to which we do provide and share food with each other beyond lactating period. This argument just seems very ivory tower to me. I am certain that if you were in a camp with 10 actual hungry individual children your behavior would be to figure out a way to increase food production right there, right then. Reducing the problem to statistics will not lead to a humane (literally!) solution in any actual instance in the real world.