Life in the Rear-view Mirror

Another Recap

In the first few chapters I talked about the changes I observed during my lifetime brought about by the technological revolution. In subsequent chapters, I focused on the consumer revolution and how various factors came together to stimulate consumption, to the point that we are harming ourselves, and Mother Earth who sustains us. In the last few chapters I talked about the relentless growth in the Earth's population and some of the factors that have contributed to it. I recap these last chapters below because they are fundamental to the story.

From 1950 to 2010, the world's population increased from 2.5 to 6.9 billion. That's an increase of slightly less than 1.8% per year. If this rate of growth continues, which almost certainly cannot, by 2050 the population would double to 14 billion. Even if we could cut the growth rate by half, a very significant reduction, by 2050 the world's population would be about 10 billion, a 44% increase from the 2010 number. Hello Mission Control! We have a problem; and we don't know how to fix it.

The problem is complicated. In the northern hemisphere, particularly the West, which includes Europe and North America, population growth is only through immigration. Without it, population would decrease, a phenomenon that correlates well with standard of living. When a country's GDP exceeds a certain level, the fertility rate drops. However, in the rest of the world, population growth is significantly higher than 1.8% per year. In India, the second most populous country in the world, population growth has averaged about 2% per year, since 1950. Even if that rate were to drop to 1%, by 2050, India would be the most populous country in the world, with a population over 1.7 billion. How will that country manage to feed half a billion more people? It already has severe food shortages to feed the current 1.2 billion! India's government policy, or lack of it, is incomprehensible. While China has acted decidedly to halt its rampant population growth, India has not. While China's population has already peaked and is on its way down, India's continues growing relentlessly. India's continued population growth is one of the most serious problems of the 21st century.

The next area of concern, after India, is Africa, whose present population of one billion is expected to double by 2050, according to United Nations projections. The major African growth areas are Nigeria and Ethiopia. A doubling of population in 40 years means a growth rate of just under 2% per year. That's another India in the making! In Africa, the church is playing a significant role in the country's population explosion: its position on contraception is helping to fuel it. Given the continent's problems with food shortages and malnutrition, the church's position is immoral, to say the least.

While the population of poor countries exploded, that of wealthy countries would have imploded, if it weren't for immigration. The technological revolution that created a large middle class in Europe and North America, also created the conditions for a drop in fertility rate and a slowdown of population growth. And without immigration, Western countries would have had negative population growth.

In the future, migration can alleviate India's and Africa's problems to some degree, but their emigration is someone else's immigration. Therefore, for the world as a whole, it's a zero sum game. The major benefit from emigration is that, generally, people do it to better their lives.

A world of 14 billion people is as imponderable now, just as a world of 7 billion was imponderable in 1970, when the Club of Rome first raised sustainability red flags. The key difference is that now we are much closer to the limits than we were in 1970. We squandered forty-five precious years!

There isn't a single simple solution to halting population growth, but it's clear that a collective response is required.  Drawing attention to the problem is a good first step to solving it, but no one is talking about it. The media have jumped on the climate change bandwagon, an issue that is much less urgent, and ignore population growth at our peril. Why are the media silent on population growth?

Inequality impoverishes people and fuels population growth. Therefore, reducing income and wealth inequality, which have reached pre WW I levels, has to be part of the solution. Governments have a lot of work ahead of them to reign in skyrocketing inequality. But will they do it?

Antiabortion and anti birth-control policies also fuel population growth. Accordingly, more enlightened church and government policies are essential. The church can no longer keep a blind eye to the disastrous consequences of its birth control policy. The dark-age mentality has to change. The twenty first century has no place for irresponsible and counterproductive dogma. Let the light of knowledge shine into the murky caverns of the Vatican, and similar institutions!

As already noted, immigration from poor countries is a band-aid measure. It doesn't solve the problem, and has changed Toronto's face remarkably. In fifty short years, it has changed from a WASP society to a multicultural one. More than half of Toronto's population is now made up of visible minorities! 

The reasons the media are silent, and governments placid, on this critical issue will become clear in subsequent chapters. In the following chapters I first discuss how society has changed during my lifetime, which is part of the answer, and then discuss why nothing is being done, and why it's unlikely that anything will ever be done.

I have witnessed a sea of change in all aspects of living; and although psychologists tell us that human behaviour is hard to change, as we are all creatures of habit, looking back I am surprised to see how much we have changed as individuals, and society as a whole. Did we change because we wanted to, or were there invisible forces compelling us?

Were we too preoccupied with enriching ourselves to pay attention to those pulling the strings? To highlight this preoccupation with making money and spending it, I leave you with these magnificent words from the Dalai Lama.

When he was asked what surprised him the most about humanity, he replied, "Man: because he sacrifices his health to gain money, and then sacrifices his money to regain his health. He is so anxious about the future that he doesn't enjoy the present, with the result that he lives neither the present nor the future. He lives as if he is never going to die, and dies without having really lived."