A new survey from the Global Challenges Foundation shows wide concern about population growth and overpopulation in many parts of the world.
by Pernilla Hansson
In an attempt to assess the general public’s understanding of global catastrophic risks, the Global Challenges Foundation (GCF) recently carried out a large survey among people in 10 countries: Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the USA, and the UK. In Global Catastrophic Risks and International Collaboration: Opinion Poll 2020, GCF asked around 1000 people per country about their attitudes towards a growing population and the overpopulation problem as well as other risks.
The survey yielded plenty of interesting results. A majority of the respondents agreed that human population growth should be considered a global catastrophic risk. However, the amount varied greatly between countries. India had the highest percentage, with 86% of the respondents answering that population growth is a global catastrophic risk, while only 52% of Russian respondents agreed, the lowest of all surveyed countries. These results are not surprising. India’s population is dense and rapidly growing, while Russia’s is stable and relatively sparse. This suggests that local and regional conditions play an important role in people’s estimate of global challenges.
A related question asked if respondents perceived the consequences of projected population growth to 10.9 billion by 2100 to be negative or positive. While many answered neutrally, the results slightly contrasted with the answers of the previous population question. To this question, Indians spoke most positively towards the projected increase, even if the majority still believed the consequences would be negative (34% positive versus 48% negative). Russia now landed in the middle of the pack, with 11% thinking the consequences would be positive and 47% negative. The country whose citizens believed the consequences of future population increase would be least positive was Sweden, where only 1% responded positively, while 82% of respondents viewed the projected increase as a negative outcome. For a sparsely populated northern country (25 individuals per square kilometer), this is a surprising result.
One may speculate about the case of Sweden. Sweden has seen a relatively large increase in population, from around 8.9 million at the start of the millennium to around 10.3 million today, mainly due to immigration; it has had the largest immigration from southern Europe, Western Asia, and Africa per capita of all European nations. For such a sparsely populated country, such a relative increase in population may contribute to the experience that an increase in population leads to large societal changes, which could be reflected in the negative attitude towards a generally projected population growth. This in contrast to a densely populated country such as India (410 individuals per square kilometer) where dense populations have been part of life for a long while.
Education and age seemed to correlate with an understanding of global population growth as a problem. In most countries, a higher education indicated a greater likelihood of belief that the forecasted population increase to 2100 would be negative, although in some countries there was no effect of education level. Sweden was the only country where people with an education equivalent to upper secondary school were slightly more likely to believe the effect to be negative than those of higher education.
When it comes to age, people younger than 50 were generally less likely to believe that the consequences of population growth would be negative than people older than 50. Maybe this is a result of being too young to have heard the open discussions on the effect of population growth during the 60s, 70s, and 80s, or from having internalised more recent messages that nothing can be done about population numbers.
Respondents were also asked to rank global catastrophic risks based on the need for urgent action, and the survey displayed the top three risks seen for each country. Climate change was always ranked among the top three most urgent in every country, while population growth never was. This despite the overarching environmental effects of population, and that a majority of people agreed that human actions are the main cause of global warming. While there seems to be an understanding that population growth is an underlying factor in climate change and environmental degradation, the urgency to curb it is clearly lacking. Again, this may be because people do not understand what can be done to address the problem.
Another relevant survey, carried out by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), looked at attitudes towards family planning, population, and the environment. “Contraception and Consumption in the Age of Extinction: U.S. Survey Results,” conducted in 2019 and published in 2020, surveyed 900 citizens from across the United States. Some of the questions were repeats from a similar survey in 2013, allowing for the identification of changing attitudes.
This survey, too, gave enlightening results. 73% of Americans believed that the world population is growing too fast. Compared to the 2013 survey, this was an increase by 23%. The same percentage felt that human population growth is driving other species to extinction, and 67% agreed that stabilising the human population would help protect the environment. A majority of respondents (71%) also agreed that population growth is worsening climate change.
There are some differences in the numbers between the surveys conducted by GCF and CBD; most importantly, the CBD found more support for tackling the overpopulation issue in the US than the GCF did. Still, both surveys support the idea that the general public is ready to discuss the population crisis. So why are we not seeing such open discussions? One third of the respondents of the CBD survey said they voted for policymakers who acknowledged that pressures from the human population impact the environment, and most countries in the GCF study ranked existing global organisations, such as the UN, EU or NATO, as the most appropriate to deal with population growth. Yet population is seldom brought up by politicians and unfortunately downplayed by organisations such as the UN. Perhaps a focus on global population growth to the exclusion of the problems caused by local, regional, and national population growth has undermined more robust discussion.
Both surveys show that significant concern about population issues exists among the general public. Uncontrolled population growth is a global threat. The public can see it. When will policymakers?
Why the hell can’t the smartarse politicians of the world see the blindingly obvious answer to the planet’s major problem?
Have they never heard that one cannot get two pints into a one pint pot?
And don’t mention ‘vegetarianism’ – there is not enough edible vegetable matter to feed and sustain 7+ billions of humans and countless animals!
All three legs of environmental rescue must be instigated: stabilizing human population, plant-based and cultured protein eating, and replacing fossil fuels/carbon. We are in such dire straits that one or two alone won’t do it.
Deborah.
Whilst it has to be said that all three of your points are of course valid, the overwhelmingly most obvious factor is TOO MANY HUMANS!
The others are tinkering at the edges.
Reducing the world population would go a long way to solving the other two problems.
Besides, there is not enough ‘plant based’ food (vegetation) on the planet to sustain all.
And do bear in mind that many animals eat material that we cannot, though we can and do eat those animas!
Of course a greatly reduced population would mean reduced use of fuels of manner.
As I infer the overriding problem is OVERPOPULATION!
Your chart of “World Opinion” had some very nice colors.
But more to the point: In the United States, no effective discussion will take place until (and unless) the “Major Media” chooses to take up the issue. .Choose to shine attention on it. Chooses to pay reporters to write about it. Chooses to take a position.
“Uncontrolled population growth is a global threat. The public can see it. When will policymakers?” Let the policymakers (and the media) see the survey results.
I published an article on this years ago and even had a complete chapter in my book. Population growth is slowing rapidly. Studies done by the World Bank illustrate and confirm it. This reduction in the rate of growth is even being felt in many western nations to the extent they are looking to increase immigration to continue their rate of population growth. The forecast is for no growth at all before the end of this century, a stabilized world population, which won’t happen because the same conditions reducing growth mean it will actually begin shrinking in the years afterward. Why are you people, who work out of the same organization, the UN, who supply these statistics, spreading fear over something that is diminishing. Aren’t there enough real catastrophes in the offing?
As you say, population growth is slowing. However, the fertility declines in several developing countries have started to stall, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, which is a worrying trend. The case of western countries looking to continue population growth through immigration is also a problem, as people in western countries generally have a high consumption, so an increase in population in such countries is particularly bad. This panic is often based on the idea that countries need a larger young population to sustain a growing population of older citizens, which isn’t true, as discussed in our research paper “Aging Human Populations: Good for Us, Good for the Earth”. Unfortunately, whenever decreasing populations is discussed in media, it is often portrayed as something negative, rather than highlighting the positive aspects.
The forecast from the UN is just that, a forecast. It is not a certainty that fertility, and therefore population growth, will keep decreasing. The positive aspects of a decreasing population therefore keeps needing to be highlighted, as well as the threat of an increasing population, to ensure that we manage to achieve the medium variant of the UN projection, or even better, the low variant. The medium forecast is also based on the assumption that fertility will continue declining, something that is far from certain, as seen in the recent slowdown of the fertility declines in sub-Saharan Africa.
In regards to working out of the same organisation, we are an independent research and outreach organisation, not funded or affiliated with the UN.
Population growth is still a major threat. There are still around 270 million women who lack contraceptives they desire. Large tracts of wilderness is still being converted to food production for a growing population, while more species are facing extinction. The IPCC has identified both population and economic growth as the two drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, yet the general media still tend to portray population decrease as something negative. There is therefore still a great need for spreading information about this major challenge, helping people make educated choices about their family size, and ensuring that everyone has access to safe contraceptive methods.
Ross, the rate of growth might be slowing, but the population itself (which is the thing that matters) is still rapidly growing, and that rate is to be applied over a larger and larger base each year. Rate of growth isn’t everything. We need to look at actual numbers too.
Moreover, if I’m not mistaken those forecasts rely on the fact that we will do *something* to lower the fertility rates. They won’t go down by themselves. It’s like warning someone who’s about to make something bad happen, they don’t because of our advice, but then turn around and say: see? There was no reason to worry!
It doesn’t make sense.
i am shocked that no one speaks in america of how overpopulation is our #1 problem..it is the big picture of the umbrella, everything stems and is under it….from climate change to suicide.ITS OK to demand a reduction in breeding it doesnt make you anti human. But actually pro human.
the reason many american are anti immigration is the fear of overpopulation.