Then again, neither is anything else. The long lag time between fertility reduction and population stabilization is a key reason we need to address excessive human numbers sooner rather than later.
by Phil Cafaro
There’s an argument one often hears that goes like this: “sure, population is important. But we need to reduce our environmental impacts (particularly carbon emissions) so fast that action on population just won’t cut it. We need to focus on other things to make a difference NOW.”
Corey Bradshaw and Barry Brook provide a version of this argument in their influential article Human population reduction is not a quick fix for environmental problems. “Humanity’s large demographic momentum means that there are no easy policy levers to change the size of the human population substantially over coming decades,” they write. True, “some reduction could be achieved by midcentury and lead to hundreds of millions fewer people to feed.” But “more immediate results for sustainability would emerge from policies and technologies that reverse rising consumption of natural resources.”
Reduced fertility, they say, “is a solution long in the making from which our great-great-great-great grandchildren might ultimately benefit, rather than people living today.” For that reason, Bradshaw and Brook argue that “society’s efforts toward sustainability would be directed more productively toward adapting to the large and increasing human population by rapidly reducing our footprint as much as possible through technological and social innovation, devising cleverer ways to conserve remaining species and ecosystems, encouraging per capita reductions in consumption of irreplaceable goods, and treating population as a long-term planning goal.”
The projections presented by Bradshaw and Brook have been criticized for underestimating the impact of fertility reduction efforts on global population. Nevertheless, they are right that barring war, epidemic disease, or other demographic catastrophes, there is no way to shift quickly from rapidly growing populations to stable or declining ones. But they are wrong to assume new technologies, clever management, or decreases in per capita consumption can reduce overall human environmental impacts any more quickly. They provide no evidence that such efforts have led to rapid decreases in human demands on nature in the past, or reasons to think they are likely to do so in the future.
In truth, there are no quick or easy fixes for humanity’s global environmental problems, period. People will need to work hard for a long time, and make fundamental changes, to have any hope of creating ecologically sustainable societies. Even if we do, we are so far into ecological overshoot that things will get worse before they get better, and many other species won’t make it with us into the next century.
Bradshaw and Brook are also wrong to say only our distant descendants will benefit from good population policies today. Women and couples today benefit from living in countries with universal contraceptive availability and the freedom to use it to determine their family sizes. Children today will immediately benefit if their parents choose small families and can better ensure their health, education and wellbeing. Their children will benefit if we have hundreds of millions fewer mouths to feed at midcentury, particularly with climate change threatening agriculture in many parts of the world.
Indeed, whole national economies are benefiting now, only a few decades (not generations) after adopting small families, through lower unemployment, better educated workers, and better housing and infrastructure provision. Many have moved rapidly into middle-income status, while countries with persistent high fertility have stayed poor.
Still, the likelihood that “our great-great-great-great grandchildren” will benefit from smart population policies today is true, and a strong reason to endorse them. Given the many demands people put on the natural world, and how technofixes in one area often lead to greater impacts in others, fewer people has to be part of the equation for long-term sustainability. Bradshaw and Brooks emphasize this in their article, as do many others.
Act now, if not sooner
It is true that the fruits of addressing population take time to manifest (see our blog on the topic from last month). But over time they cumulate and become ever more important. Consider several comparisons between countries that created successful family planning programs over the past half century and countries that failed to do so (the following graphs were generated at Our World in Data, a valuable resource we gratefully acknowledge).
Costa Rica initiated family planning (FP) efforts in the late 1960s and continued them in following decades, while Guatemala did not. This led to the following changes in fertility (TFR) in the two similar Central American countries:
Today Costa Rica and Guatemala are on very different population trajectories going forward:
Costa Rica is in much better shape to provide for its citizens and preserve its remaining forests today and in the future, in large part because of far-sighted FP policies that began half a century ago.
Similar points could be made by comparing Bangladesh and Pakistan. Although both countries are likely to be greatly harmed by climate change, Bangladesh’s successful FP policies over the last four decades should help it limit the human suffering that is coming. Compare the two countries’ changes in fertility rates and population, and especially their population projections out to 2100:
It has taken decades for Bangladesh to reduce its TFR to replacement rate, and it will take more decades for its population to peak and then, hopefully, decline. But peak population is within sight. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s failure to provide FP and gender equality to its citizens has locked in immense population growth in the coming half century (barring demographic disasters), even if it changes course now. It’s not clear the country will be able to provide food for hundreds of millions more people, much less healthy and enjoyable lives.
Finally, compare South Africa and its regional neighbor Tanzania. South Africa has taken strong steps to provide FP to its citizens in recent decades, although its fertility remains well above the ‘replacement rate’. Meanwhile, Tanzania’s support for FP has been weak and inconsistent. The results can be seen in the following graph:
While South Africa’s population continues to grow, peak population is within reach this century, according to UN demographers. Tanzania, meanwhile, with one of the youngest national populations in the world, is set to detonate an immense population bomb during the rest of this century, with no end in sight to population growth:
Based on these projections, South Africa appears much more likely than Tanzania to be able to feed its population and preserve its remaining biodiversity in coming years. Failure to initiate FP programs in a timely manner means Tanzania faces the threat of mass starvation. Still, starting such programs now would be better than continued demographic irresponsibility.
It’s only by looking at the long-range population projections for these six countries that we fully see the importance of addressing population matters sooner rather than later. Yes, the populations of Costa Rica, Bangladesh and South Africa are much higher than they were 50 years ago. Yes, they continue to grow. But they would have been much higher without strong FP programs, and an end to growth is within reach. The same cannot be said for Guatemala, Pakistan and Tanzania. Citizens in these three countries are likely to face worse conditions than their neighbors going forward—perhaps a lot worse.
Human population reduction is not a quick fix for environmental problems. But in a world with no quick fixes, its contribution should not be downplayed. To say society’s efforts would be directed more productively elsewhere is to imply a trade-off between lowering birth rates and rolling out better technologies. This is a false dichotomy; we can and must do both. For these reasons, giving all women and couples the means to avoid unwanted births, and the motives to want small families, should be at the top of the global sustainability agenda.
As someone who has lived a long time, I can add to Dr Cafaro’s well-stated summary the fact that 50 years passes VERY quickly indeed. By the time our grandchildren are adults, any changes that are or are not made now will be apparent in front of their own eyes, and our generation will be credited or charged with the sustained or deteriorated conditions of their future lives. Funding better technologies at the expense of current efforts to decrease future population growth is foolhardy at best and likely also destructive of the future well-being of our only planet. THANK you.
Thanks, Laura. And the thing is, we don’t have to choose between addressing one or the other. We can and should do both.
I don’t understand this contemporary obsession with extreme binary thinking. We have 8 billion people in the world all busy doing all sorts of things, but when it comes to environmental action it’s assumed we can only focus on one issue at the time.
“Bradshaw and Brook argue that “society’s efforts toward sustainability would be directed more productively toward adapting to the large and increasing human population by rapidly reducing our footprint as much as possible through technological and social innovation,”
I see this argument a lot and it’s always made by someone who drives a gas car and powers their home with dirty electricity. The fact is, we have made technological solutions that are readily available to everyone, but most folks continue using dirty gas cars and electricity generated from fossil fuels. They are massive hypocrites, of course, and these include people like Bernie Sanders and Katie Porter, otherwise intelligent progressives who fight against the very polluting industries they support with their dollars when they buy gasoline or pay their power bill. In other words, talk is cheap. If your actions do not comport with your words, then I suggest you be shamed into doing the right thing.
And so, as you read Bradshaw and Brook arguing that–as it’s been argued for 50 years–do you see ANY EVIDENCE ANY OF US ARE SERIOUS ABOUT DOING THAT? More, for every step forward we take, the addition (particularly in the highest per-capita carbon nation of the United States) of almost 50 MILLION PEOPLE SINCE 2006 MORE THAN NEGATES ALL CONSERVATION EFFORTS!
And personally, I’m fed up with naive nitwits such as them who, fundamentally advocate ENDLESSLY MOPPING THE FLOOR, RATHER THAN TURNING OFF THE FAUCET!
I was going to say the same as Laura. Generations accumulate very fast, but you don’t really notice it until you get older. You should try adding Ethiopia to your examples: it doesn’t seem that long since Bob Geldorf was swearing at the world to hand over the money to save starving masses of people in Ethiopia, hit by famine induced by drought and the political instability that goes with it. Well, that famine was when the population was about 35million, and, after the world did respond, there is only a slight kink in the growth curve to 120million just 40y later! That worldwide collective effort of goodwill, was a golden opportunity for introducing family planning measures that could have levelled the curve at a stroke, but, instead, a period of of better climate and ‘improved’ farming methods, supercharged growth, so that now the drought is back with a vengeance, and the whole Horn of Africa is suffering terribly. And Live Aid is nowhere to be seen.
And, I’m not so sure about the rosy picture for Bangladesh presented here. I watched a documentary on how the rate of land loss in the delta is forcing farmers with no land to sell their daughters as young as 8y old, and people are driven to go and try to work in the clothing industries around Dhaka which supply us all with cheap throwaway clothing but pollute all the waterways with dyes and tanning chemicals, so that the clothing workers living in slums with no services, are drinking contaminated water and dependent on poisoned and declining fish stocks, while the sea keeps getting nearer! Yet still they are bringing more children into the world, and the documentary said nothing about population at all, apart from all the suffering! They are even the world’s leading ship recyclers, and they rip out asbestos and all the other horrors to be found in old ships, with no protective gear, and just leave it to be consumed by the sea.
Bangladesh already looks like Hell on Earth. No way is it’s population going to keep growing into the next century. It’s pointless to project anything beyond 2050, anywhere, if you ask me, to be honest. Water is vanishing, soil is vanishing, fish stocks are crashing, and shrimp farmers can’t afford to eat their own produce as it is. Even in ‘developed’ countries people are already dying of heatstroke if their air conditioning fails. People were not bothered by scientists warning of 2C average temperature rises, but nobody explained what only 2C can do inside our bodies when we run out of ways to cool down! Our cell walls literally melt because they are mostly fat and oil!
Things are much much worse than most people realise. We’ve been led to believe that climate change would begin *if* the temperature was allowed to rise 2C, when we should have been warned that if the temperature started to rise at all, we have already destroyed the most complicated ‘air conditioning unit’ the Universe has ever devised, and we have very little hope of fixing it, because we only have the most rudimentary understanding of how it all worked!
I wouldn’t want to say that the outlook for Bangladesh is rosy. But its success in cutting fertility in recent decades hopefully will help. As for Ethiopia, its TFR is down from over 7 in the 1990s to a little under 4 today; still way too high.
Bangladesh is coming here, to Europe. Same as Pakistan, and Afghanistan. I live in a small town in Italy that was overwhelmingly white when I was growing up, and when I walk or bike around now, often all I see are South Asian young men (who are especially visible because they don’t own a car yet, as opposed to most locals). This happened in less than a generation.
Ironically, perhaps, the go-to employment option for young Italians educated in the humanities who don’t want to teach or migrate is working in refugee centers hosting African, South Asian and some times Albanian young men, who will then go on to do the jobs said young Italians could have done, but do not want to do.
And it’s all accelerating exponentially.
Sorry, Kosovars, not Albanians. Based on anecdotal evidence. Many from SS Africa too.
The immediate benefits of reducing birth rates are easy to see and point out to the average person. As an economics teacher I have pointed out a million times that as things become more rare they become more valuable. This applies to children as well as commodities. Fewer births mean fewer future laborers each of which will be more valuable. Population control has immediate benefits for the average person.
After the population crash in Europe in the 1300s, due to the plague and other overpopulation-related disasters, workers became so rare landowners had to pay them much more even though they really didn’t want to; poor people started dressing better and eating more meat. It was a terrible time, but life got much more comfortable, for a while at least, for those that survived.
Hard to say – but should be said more often. It is a proven paradox – proven many times on both the small scale and the large – that disaster and catastrophe can not only be solutions, but can even be the ONLY solutions when things have become intractable. Someitmes when we fall ill as individuals, it is terminal, or at least it changes our lives by making them irreparably worse. But sometimes, it is just our body telling us we need to withdraw and take a rest for a very long time, as long as it takes to recover. Recover is a nice word, from from Medieval Latin recuperare “to recover” (source of Spanish recobrar, Italian ricoverare). Lawyers are fond of it, as well as doctors – and soldiers too, because (in English at least) “to recover arms” means to move from the “Aim” position to the resting “Ready” position.
In connexion with migration, I believe people should wait for their country to recover instead of abandoning it for good by emigrating. However, I am a fine one to talk, with more than half of my family tree in the USA, Canada, Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. My branch stayed here, however, and I think it did the right thing though things were pretty awful for centuries and still are in some respects. Not least because other continents are getting pretty brutal due to climate change and whilst Northern Europe is affected, it has come off relatively lightly so far. This will change if sea levels rise a lot, of course, especially for the British Isles. However I am quite happy about coastal land being swallowed by the sea – it is probably the only thing that will bring us to our senses if we are not burning up like hotter parts of the world. And I live at sea-level – 0 on the altimeter – quite a way inland, but on a huge tidal river floodplain. So do friends and family in London and Norfolk.
I believe too many environmentalists and ecologists are accused of being pessimists or doom-mongers, when all they are saying is that humanity needs to take a good long rest for a couple of centuries or more. ALL of humanity, there are no virtuous exceptions to human nature when it comes to go-getting, or “getting and spending” as Shakespeare put it. Some of us use or rather use up less natural resources than others, but we all use up quite a lot unless we have gone wild. I am trying to reduce my internet usage – this has a massive impact, far away in databanks. But it is very difficult – and it probably uses less natural resources than going out and socializing physically, all told, unless you are a Tuareg or something, and I suspect even the Tuareg are plugged into some sort of grid now, given North Africa’s vast Energy Resources.
Two points:
In the nations where it counts the most (the high-carbon, high-environmental footprint nations, particularly the UNITED STATES) birth rates ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, IMMIGRATION IS AND IT CAN BE SHUT DOWN OR REDUCED DRAMATICALLY, IMMEDIATELY, though we’ve all been so effectively brainwashed to think that isn’t true that there’s little hope. That’s especially that’s true of the “liberal” so-called educated people who should remember the population concerns of the 1970s and get real! After all, if Coretta Scott King can join an effort to turn back a La Raze open-borders effort, I can fight immigration PROUDLY too! And, come on, Biden gutting our immigration system so that, effectively, 4 million people or MORE are flooding over our borders is fighting climate change how? Trust me! He doesn’t care a hoot ‘n Hades about climate, and might I sell you some prime Louisiana swamp lands if you’re naive enough to believe otherwise.
Secondly, on a global scale, if we don’t start (and right now we’re doing ALMOST NOTHING), reducing the birth rate, Mother Nature is showing signs of doing it for us, and as the saying goes, “Nature’s way is never kind.” It’s education, contraceptives and birth-rate reductions or risk pandemics and famines that will do it for us!
Andrew Wilkow recently said on his Sirius XM radio show, that if Democrats knew that (illegal) immigrants would vote Republican, they would shut down the border immediately.
But I don’t think either party cares about the environment, especially the climate destruction denying Republicans.
We have quadrupled the population in a person’s lifetime (when I poked my head into this world there were 2.2b others there). Why can it not work in the reverse? Sure, piling on is easier than reducing – not only with population. However, we have to make a start and take stronger action to reduce the population especially in developing countries. Too much emphasis is given to human rights. We need to emphasize human responsibilities. They go hand in hand, for me the responsibility comes before the right.
Couldn’t agree more: rights and responsibilities. It’s a huge mistake to focus just on rights. UN rights treaties that discuss procreation have always used phrasing that acknowledges this, in speaking about “a right to decide responsibly” about family size.
“Human population reduction is not a quick fix.” Therefore, United Nations and the corporates have proceeded to lose their collective minds, over something which is not even a slow fix – the fakery of UN net zero emissions. They don’t even care, about the greatly increased real-world human misery, in the Guatemalas and Pakistans and Tanzanias of the world. All part of the fun.
Perhaps they care, but they have an inflated view of human societies’ ability to solve the problems caused by ecological overshoot. Looking at the UN’s population projections for Tanzania, for example, it seems much more likely that starvation and social chaos will cut this growth short sometime during this century, as opposed to Tanzania actually being able to accommodate more than a quarter billion people.
I’ve long had this idea that food delivery during a humanitarian crisis in a high-fertility country should be made conditional upon immediate acceptance of a contraceptive option of one’s choice. I can only imagine the outrage if something like that was actually implemented.
About the article: “barring war, epidemic disease, or other demographic catastrophes, there is no way to shift quickly from rapidly growing populations to stable or declining ones.”
Someone from this blog who knows how to do it should look into current changes in mortality rates. They could be shifting under our noses but because we don’t see any massive catastrophe we could be missing it. I am not implying it would be a good thing, of course, just saying we shouldn’t discount the possibility.
“But they are wrong to assume new technologies, clever management, or decreases in per capita consumption can reduce overall human environmental impacts any more quickly. They provide no evidence that such efforts have led to rapid decreases in human demands on nature in the past, or reasons to think they are likely to do so in the future.”
I don’t think this is right. With Covid, energy consumption and, if I remember correctly, even GHG emission dropped suddenly and significantly. It wasn’t a choice – well, it was to an extent, but it showed on the one hand, how much of our energy and goods consumption is totally unnecessary, on the other, how fast it can drop all of a sudden.
R “I’ve long had this idea that food delivery during a humanitarian crisis in a high-fertility country should be made conditional upon immediate acceptance of a contraceptive option of one’s choice. I can only imagine the outrage if something like that was actually implemented.”
I totally agree, but in areas such as Brasil Africa or India condoms do not work neither in short term because of a plurality of factors: only option is permanent sterilization.
There are temporary injections for women that work and are more acceptable.
As for condoms, men might refuse to wear them, but I read about some Latin American countries passing laws to force men to care for their offspring (and interesting topic for TOP here!), which apparently is an issue there, given how families are structured. That might work to reduce births!
R “There are temporary injections for women that work and are more acceptable.”
Y, for sure they are more acceptable, but what is more acceptable individually it is not necessarly the best option for the community ( I mean here the community of humans and not humans living beeings). After 1st child you do not need army to impose sterilization: all welfare, starting form the one granted by humanitarian organizations, should be denied to all family, mother and first child included, once second child is unfortunately born. It is easier to start with not governative welfare, and european community could discuss about imposing this costraint to all legal humantarian organizations that can collect funds in Europe in order to aid populations in Africa,Brasil,India. It is feasable from a legal point a view; to ignite discussion about this topic to all levels is a very good thing, in my opinion.
Sure, consumption can drop suddenly, if people are forced not to consume by forces beyond their control. Like a pandemic, or war, or ecological catastrophe. But the people who argue that we should focus exclusively on per capita consumption decreases claim that we can get big decreases through democratic political action, and this is what I see no evidence for.
Edith, the Italian is recuperare, not ricoverare (different meaning).
Nordic countries should probably worried more about the Gulf Stream than even rising sea levels…
As for socializing, if you do it locally or at each other’s house, I don’t see it having much of an environmental impact at all. Besides, social life is an essential need for humans, comparable to shelter or warmth.
Thanks Gaia. I agree with all your points, especially the difference between recuperare and ricoverare. But maybe we need to do both? I should not generalize, but I do think Italy and Italians are leading the way on all this. It is not called the “Club of Rome” for no reason !!!!!!! My beloved wiki says:-
“The Club of Rome was founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy. The Accademia dei Lincei ; literally the “Academy of the Lynx-Eyed”, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in the Papal States in 1603 by Federico Cesi, the academy was named after the lynx, an animal whose sharp vision symbolizes the observational prowess that science requires. Galileo Galilei was the intellectual centre of the academy and adopted “Galileo Galilei Linceo” as his signature.”
Italy is literally sinking into the Mediterranean. It’s a mess, one disaster after another, the good things we used to have, such as public healthcare, rapidly going down the drain. The land is in a much sorrier state than you’d imagine by looking at pictures of foreigners on holiday. Except for the low birth rate (offset by totally out of control migration) it’s doing nothing right. It’s a consumeristic, selfish, economic growth-obsessed society with a cultural production totally unworthy of its past. Even the few who get something right get lots of things wrong too. I love my country but am dismayed at its state.
Hello there Mr Cafaro; what about enlighting that reducing population is not an “unicuum” and is more urgently needed exactly in places where residual forest are beeing devoured most?, such as Brasil, Africa, India, while at the opposite in Europe population is slowly but steadily decling, expecially if we would implement politics of extremily quick transferring back to the first african beech of illegal immigrants, and 2nd point, forst in Europe are slowly but steadly beeing implemented.
Hello Francesco, you are right, different countries face somewhat different challenges and choices. That said, I think most are overpopulated and need to reduce their human numbers to have any chance to create sustainable societies.
European countries, too, face a diversity of demographic situations, from rapid depopulation (Baltic states, Romania) to rapid population growth (UK and Sweden). Many have relatively stable populations (Germany) but are very overpopulated at current numbers
Thanks very much for this analysis Phil. As a South African it is good to see sensible policies working out. But the outlook for Tanzania is scary. And South Africa already faces a flood of millions of immigrants from countries north of us through our very porous borders. As their population explodes we should probably expect ever more.
I read that there’s a lot of hostility in SA against migrants but, since it’s Black Africans attacking other Black Africans, it doesn’t fit neatly into the “xenophobic racism” narrative usually applied to migration and popular resistance to it.
One unfortunate reality we face going forward, is the need for more successful countries to limit immigration to avoid going the way of less successful countries.
“the humanity of the Earth is to be reduced very quickly, but this must not be done by murder and manslaughter and other violent measures etc., but solely by a birth stop. This has to be radical and absolute, worldwide and really controlled by the authorities, but really good and just. For this, a procedure must be worked out that is such that everything remains humane and must also be universally observed throughout, which should not be a problem for every Earthling of either sex in this day and age of the availability of the birth control pill, etc. It would have to be regulated in this respect that, depending on the time, a complete stop of births and a time of limited acceptance of births with regard to a certain number of births is brought about.”
Billy Meier, contact report 858
I agree, obviously. But starting is not that morally hard: after 1st child you do not need army to impose sterilization: all welfare, starting form the one granted by humanitarian organizations, should be denied to all family, mother and first child included, once second child is unfortunately born. It is easier to start with not governative welfare, and european community could discuss about imposing this costraint to all legal humantarian organizations that can collect funds in Europe in order to aid populations in Africa,Brasil,India. It is feasable from a legal point a view; to ignite discussion about this topic to all levels is a very good thing, in my opinion.
Second step is when public organizations and not only humanitarian ones are forced to follow this path, but only way to reach this second and “official” level is to start from non official, humanitarian organizations.
Excellent article, a rational, realistic assessment of what is happening.
HELLO! I am Dhananjay from India -maharashtra-(PUNE) make a two medicines for make (A) medicine for born son and make (B) medicine for born doughter.(it means only gender change) couples sex regularly.and make international very hard rules for every one couples every countries in world only two children like a one doughter and a son through medicine available.(after than make a two medicines)and this consept (policy) continue in the future.and few years later world human population is will be stayblised.99.99% WORLD’S QUESTIONS IS SOLVED.