Life in the Rear-view Mirror

Global Population Growth

Global population growth is the biggest problem we face in the twenty-first century, and, in my opinion, not much is being done to address it. Planet Earth is essential for our survival, as indeed it is for the survival of the entire animal and vegetable kingdom. It’s time we start looking at it as a crowded spaceship running out of air to breathe, and unless we find a solution we will perish. But as thinking animals, with the capability of saving the ship, we are not working together to keep it flying.

In 1950, when I was just a toddler, the world’s population was about two and a half billion. By 1960, when our family was already well settled in the new world, it had increased to just over 3 billion. Over the next forty years it doubled, and by 2010 the world had close to seven billion people. China and India, whose populations at the end of 2010 stood at 1.33 and 1.17 billion, respectively, were mostly responsible for the rapid growth. In 1950, China’s and India’s populations were only 0.56 and 0.37 billion, respectively, compared to 0.15 billion for the U.S. By 2010, America’s population had doubled, but India’s had tripled.

In 1979, the most populous country in the world adopted the controversial, but well-known one child policy. A full generation later, that policy’s impact has been significant. Until 1995, China’s population was growing in excess of one and a half percent per year, at least half a percentage point more than that of the U.S. That’s when the effect of the one-child policy started showing up in the statistics. Afterwards, it dropped to about half that rate, and continued dropping until it reached about 0.5% per year, in 2010. In contrast, until recently, India’s population continued growing at about 2% per year, and is slated to become the most populous country in the world by about 2020, just five years away.

In addition to the well-documented post-World War II baby boom, there are several reasons for the rapid population growth during the latter half of the twentieth century. The biggest causes were a reduction in child mortality and an increase in life span. Both of which were due to medical advances, such as vaccination and immunization, and the widespread use of penicillin after the war. Such a rapid population growth has brought significant global challenges in food production. Producing sufficient food, particularly animal protein, for an ever-growing population is an immense challenge.

Clearly, the Earth that we inhabit has limited capacity for sustaining life. While the actual limits are open for debate, nobody disagrees that we are getting close to them, and we have already exceeded them in some cases. Fresh water for drinking and irrigation is one of them. Long-term sustainability means that we cannot use more water than we get from rainfall. Some years we get less and some more, but the average is the limit of sustainability. The only reason the alarm bells haven’t gone off yet is that we are using up water that was stored under the surface of the earth a long time ago. But those reservoirs are being rapidly depleted. Before that happens, we need to moderate water usage or face dire consequences, particularly when there will be more mouths to feed and satiate.

Despite the unsustainable rate of global population growth, the world’s poorest countries continue to grow at alarming rates. What is the solution to the population explosion? The Chinese one-child policy was successful in stemming the rapid population growth in that country, although it had some unintended consequences, such as an aging population. But, that’s not any different than in Japan and many European countries with low birthrates and insufficient immigration. It took great political courage to implement it, but the same political nerve is lacking in other countries. The population growth of any country is the sum of births and immigration, minus deaths and emigration. For the world as a whole, it's simply births minus deaths. Therefore, in the absence of policies for reducing the birth rate, when food and water supplies become insufficient to feed the entire population, deaths will outnumber births and population growth will become negative. Hopefully, world leaders will find the courage to implement more humane policies to control this runaway train.

What can be done to curb world population growth? To answer this question we need to examine its causes, which range from government incentives to increase fertility rates, lack of education, lack of social safety nets, and religious preaching and beliefs. It’s generally true that poor people have large families, while wealthy people have small ones, or none at all. In poor countries people view their children as their security for when they are old – the more children, the more security one can look forward to. It’s more than a tradition: it’s a way of life. The problem lies not with the people having large families, but with the governments that fail to provide social safety nets that would allow the elderly to live their final years with dignity, and not having to beg on the street, as I have seen in many poor countries.

Therefore, other than the Chinese stick approach for reducing fertility rates, despite its success, governments could use the carrot approach, and provide a social safety net, sufficient to keep old people out of poverty. Other approaches include: incentives for reducing fertility rates, free abortions for people who want them, better healthcare for everyone, so people won’t have six children, hoping that three will survive to adulthood, and better education. Well-educated people generally have fewer children.

There is so much that governments can do, but so little is being done, except in China, of course. The church could also do its part to discourage, rather than encourage, large families. However, its stand on abortion and birth control is in direct conflict with humane ways of slowing the freight train, to avoid derailment and tremendous loss of life. Is that what the church wants? What is the likelihood that Christian churches will change age-old policies? Religious dogma is probably the biggest hurdle in addressing this very serious issue. Millions of people die each year from malnutrition because in many areas of the world food production is inadequate, due to water shortages. Don’t these children have the right to live? Why is the church so adamant against birth control? Don’t suffering, malnourished children have more rights than unborn ones?  If an embryo has a right-to-life, why don’t these children have the same right? Why are they being condemned to die? Why is the church obsessed with embryos and not with suffering children? The logic simply escapes me!

Governments have as much obligation as the churches to address this issue; and one of the quickest fixes is to reduce income and wealth inequality. Is it any wonder that more children are dying at the same time that such inequality is growing? A country’s wealth is there for all to share, not just for the wealthy to concentrate it in their hands, as has been happening since the seventies. The gap between the lowly factory worker and the CEO has grown far too big. When the floor sweeper makes $20,000 per year and the CEO $20,000,000 per year, one might even say that entitlements for the rich have gone too far.

Corrupted politicians are serving the interests of the rich and not those who voted them into office. When poor children in France were dying of starvation and malnutrition, Marie Antoinette wanted them to eat cake, but all they wanted was some bread. It seems to me that history repeats itself.
Is it any wonder that governments are continually eroding our personal freedoms in the guise of fighting terrorism? Is it because the rich fear the return of the guillotine? Why is population explosion a non-issue for the media?