Population impact (split from Is global warming the most urgent environmental crisis ?)

[mistermack]

When I was born, the world population was 2.5 billion.

Today, it's about 7.7 billion. Surely there's a clue in there somewhere? 

What would the world ecology look like today, if the population was still 2.5 billion? Would there even BE any environmental crises? 

[iNow]

26 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Would there even BE any environmental crises? 

Yes, it just would be going slower. We’ve been seeing climate impacts since the industrial revolution. This isn’t new

[Phi for All]

35 minutes ago, mistermack said:

What would the world ecology look like today, if the population was still 2.5 billion?

Difficult to say. What cataclysm caused so many to die off in the last 70-80 years? What caused such a drop in overall prosperity that the population didn't prosper? In an age of discovery and travel, what forces could have acted to keep the population the exact same?

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

What would the world ecology look like today, if the population was still 2.5 billion? Would there even BE any environmental crises? 

That depends on whether the  small population would have become ever more voracious consumers. (read Dancers at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock) What would the world look like if everyone lived like the upper third of the current income level? Only, that's not really indicative, because the present top 30% is different for each nation, and all based on the economic and industrial precedents set by a much larger population.

There is a good deal of scope for speculation in that question - By what means does the population level off? How does population pressure affect international relations? What alternative routes might the advancement of technology taken? How would an earlier introduction of robotics and genetic manipulation have affected social stratification and economics? Far too many embedded questions. Fun to contemplate but impractical.     

Edited October 8, 2021 by Peterkin

[mistermack]

57 minutes ago, iNow said:

Yes, it just would be going slower. We’ve been seeing climate impacts since the industrial revolution. This isn’t new

So we have, but not due to CO2 levels. That only started rising significantly from 1950, the year I was born, and coincidentally, the benchmark I quoted of population at 2.5 billion. 

Cars in 1950 would average about 15mpg. Today my car does nearly four times that, per gallon. That sort of economy has been repeated across the board, with things like double and triple glazing, jet engines, internet conferencing etc etc. So more affluence doesn't have to mean more environmental problems. It does cause some, but if the population was still 2.5 billion it would be manageable. 

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

Difficult to say. What cataclysm caused so many to die off in the last 70-80 years? What caused such a drop in overall prosperity that the population didn't prosper? In an age of discovery and travel, what forces could have acted to keep the population the exact same?

Why would you just assume that it would take a cataclysm? This assumption that population rise is inevitable is the real problem. It's inevitable, only because people shut their eyes to it.  It's not inevitable in these countries :  

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-shrinking-populations.html 

 

43 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Fun to contemplate but impractical.     

Not in the countries I linked to. It's just a lack of will. 

I listened to an interview with a Greenpeace activist today, she was banging on about the environment, but you could hardly hear her, because of the noise from babies in the background. Seemed a bit ironic to me.

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

When I was born, the world population was 2.5 billion.

Today, it's about 7.7 billion. Surely there's a clue in there somewhere? 

What would the world ecology look like today, if the population was still 2.5 billion? Would there even BE any environmental crises? 

Fewer people would like to cause less emission, but each person using emitting less, would obviously do the same. A French person emits ca. 5.13 tons per year, a Chinese person 7.38 and an American 15.52.

So if Americans were somehow able to replicate the French model they would be cutting down their effective population by a third.

Affluence is an issue. Despite increase of efficiencies that you cite, only recently did US per capita consumption went back to 1950s levels. I.e. while we have more efficient technology, we seem to make up for it by using more of it. Likewise, despite reduction in growth rates, industrialized nations are also the highest consumers of products and have added the most to the overall CO2 budget. This is a trend that only has slowed down in recent years due to the rise of rise of green energy movements.

 

[TheVat]

5 minutes ago, mistermack said:

...but if the population was still 2.5 billion it would be manageable. 

But your hypothetical situation cannot map precisely onto the real world.   In a world where human fertility went off a cliff in 1950 and population growth flatlined (which in population biology means that fertility rates actually slumped a couple decades before) , there would have been all sorts of societal changes that we might not expect.  For example,  the southwestern US and west coast might still have seen mass migrations due to the attractive climate and scenery,  and so would still be afflicted with rapid-growth ills - water shortages,  smoggy urban basins like LA,  offshore drilling leaks,  etc.  And where people are more sparse,  there may have been less regulation of some human industry and agriculture, thus enabling more casual and irresponsible dumping,  leaking,  polluting.  Nations that are now moving away from coal might,  if they had one third their present populations and proportionate energy demands, more easily shrug off the downsides and drag feet on green policymaking. 

It's also possible that without any population growth for the last 70 years,  there would have been less push towards innovations that were partly in response to population pressures.   We might be using more arable land per person, employing fewer agricultural advances and using water and chemicals less efficiently.  And,  given the demographics of non-growing populations, people might be on average more conservative and less willing to try new ideas.   Your alternate world could be dangerously complacent.

[Phi for All]

39 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Why would you just assume that it would take a cataclysm? This assumption that population rise is inevitable is the real problem. It's inevitable, only because people shut their eyes to it.  It's not inevitable in these countries :  

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-shrinking-populations.html 

 

Not in the countries I linked to. It's just a lack of will.

A LOT of those countries experienced cataclysms (Venezuela, Boznia and Herzegovina, Syria, Serbia to name a few). Since you're removing 5B people, I think most would have gone the route of war, famine, and pestilence.

Most of the others on the list keep their populations in check with education and healthcare. Seventy years ago, if the entire world would have focused their efforts on educating the population and making sure healthy choices were always available, I suppose that would allow us to grow our culture and technology in ways that don't automatically require more of us to do the work.

[mistermack]

21 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Since you're removing 5B people,

It's only your assumption that those five billion would have been born. I'm not removing anyone. You can't remove people who never existed. If there were no churches, preaching against the sin of contraception, the numbers today would be massively less. 

The estimate is that the population will eventually stop expanding in 2100. That seems to be on the assumption that nobody does the slightest thing about it.

The truth is that people bang on about the environment, but they don't really care enough to make the more difficult choices. They seem to think they can do it all, just by spending other peoples money on pet projects, and ignoring the real cause of the problem. 

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

Fun to contemplate but impractical.     

Not in the countries I linked to. It's just a lack of will. 

Lack of will covers a lot of territory. All of it, really. Of course, if the will had existed and been exerted, everything would be different. But it didn't and wasn't. Ever. The countries where population is shrinking (now - maybe the situation has not been similar from 1950 to now) are products of the way things actually did happen, just as are the countries where population is growing. There could be a billion divergent time-lines all with different outcomes - and only +/- a hundred SF novels to depict them, so far. 

 

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

So more affluence doesn't have to mean more environmental problems. It does cause some, but if the population was still 2.5 billion it would be manageable. 

If people choose to manage it. But people tend not to choose to manage any things that are not looming directly over them, threatening imminent destruction. Whereupon they talk for a long time, then do too little, too late.  The contributing factors to climate change were known when we had 5 billion people, 6 billion people - when they still would have been manageable. At 7 billion, it was still possible, with strong, decisive, concerted action.... Now, we can't even scrape up the collective will for effective mitigating measures.  

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

A French person emits ca. 5.13 tons per year, a Chinese person 7.38 and an American 15.52.

Is that domestic use or does it include industry and transport? Because the American is using an awful lot of products that polluted China and the Pacific on their way to him. I suspect the French person also benefits from polluting some other place. Global commerce works the same way as empires used to: importing the clean goodies, while leaving the mess and misery behind.

[CharonY]

12 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Is that domestic use or does it include industry and transport? Because the American is using an awful lot of products that polluted China and the Pacific on their way to him. I suspect the French person also benefits from polluting some other place. Global commerce works the same way as empires used to: importing the clean goodies, while leaving the mess and misery behind.

That is a good point, the values are actually total emission. Household values are a bit trickier to get. I think that in the US residential consumption was about 20% of total emission, but I do not know off the top of my head how the sectors in the different countries look like. China would certainly be an interesting country to look into in that regard.

[Peterkin]

6 minutes ago, CharonY said:

China would certainly be an interesting country to look into in that regard.

always assuming you could get accurate reporting from that government. I understand that they've been grappling with the problem in a meaningful way, but they always pretend they're achieving better results than is actually the case - just like Russia. (In fairness, I imagine the US would lie a lot more, too, if it were up to a central government PR agency.)  

Looks an awful lot like too little too late.

[CharonY]

6 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

always assuming you could get accurate reporting from that government. I understand that they've been grappling with the problem in a meaningful way, but they always pretend they're achieving better results than is actually the case - just like Russia. (In fairness, I imagine the US would lie a lot more, too, if it were up to a central government PR agency.)  

Looks an awful lot like too little too late.

I am not even sure whether the government releases official numbers but there are researchers looking into that but of course there is probably a bit uncertainty attached for sure.

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

It's only your assumption that those five billion would have been born. I'm not removing anyone. You can't remove people who never existed. If there were no churches, preaching against the sin of contraception, the numbers today would be massively less. 

The estimate is that the population will eventually stop expanding in 2100. That seems to be on the assumption that nobody does the slightest thing about it.

The truth is that people bang on about the environment, but they don't really care enough to make the more difficult choices. They seem to think they can do it all, just by spending other peoples money on pet projects, and ignoring the real cause of the problem. 

You'd have to change a LOT to remove/reduce the pressures that led to our current population. Those 5B happened for LOTS of reasons, and to assume it was just the church or just the need for labor or just the fun of procreation is too simplistic for a sophisticated septuagenarian such as yourself.

By difficult choices I assume you think we should kill some folks off or force sterilization, but again that's too simplistic a solution. You can achieve MUCH more with better education and healthcare. Educated people have/need fewer children, it's a fact. Make 'em smart and you also get to live with smarter people, which would really be a treat.

[mistermack]

43 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

By difficult choices I assume you think we should kill some folks off or force sterilization, but again that's too simplistic a solution. 

Where on earth did you get that idea? Not from me. I gave one example, of countering religious propeganda. A harder choice would be to restrict religions, like they did in China. Not very liberal. But which is more important, the right to indoctrinate, or the planet? You then answered your own question, with the healthcare and education points. Perfectly good options, but difficult choices, as I said, because they cost money.

Then there are practical options, like providing free contraceptive advice and products right across the world. Another hard choice, but good for the planet. One free condom can save thousands of tons of CO2, over three or four generations. People who don't get born don't use fossil fuel. Bill Gates is a Christian, but I think I read somewhere that his foundation are working in that direction. If it's true, then good for him. 

If we can plan on going to Mars, then working out strategies for reducing population growth sooner rather than later can't be beyond the wit of man. Like I said, if people REALLY cared then they would find a way. Not an easy way, but it depends how much you want it.

[iNow]

It’s not a technical problem. It’s not even a financial one. This is about ethics and morality. Your suggestion that it’s so supremely simple is either disingenuous or painfully ignorant, neither of which encourages us to engage you further in a meaningful way. 

[Peterkin]

 Morals are complicated. Politics are complicated. Psychology is complicated. Economics are complicated.

Death is simple.

[mistermack]

22 minutes ago, iNow said:

It’s not a technical problem. It’s not even a financial one. This is about ethics and morality. Your suggestion that it’s so supremely simple is either disingenuous or painfully ignorant, neither of which encourages us to engage you further in a meaningful way. 

That is in itself a simplistic view. It's actually a situation where one set of ethics works against another set. Which is more important, the planet or our treasured "freedoms" ? In cases where you can't have both, you are eventually forced to choose. 

But with human nature as it is, we always end up putting off hard choices, preferring the "do nothing for now" approach until it's too late anyway. After all, the levelling off of population growth by 2100 is just an hypothesis, a projection, someone's best guess. It might be right, it might not.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

Which is more important, the planet or our treasured "freedoms" ? In cases where you can't have both, you are eventually forced to choose. 

Actually, it’s always both because 1) there are billions of people on the planet and 2) there’s no single one person deciding. Since different people feel differently about the topic and neither are supreme galactic emperor free to donwhatwver they want, it’s always both. 

I’m glad you’ve got it all figured out, though. I’m sure that’s a very comforting feeling to have such simple solutions to such complex issues. 

[swansont]

15 hours ago, mistermack said:

So we have, but not due to CO2 levels. That only started rising significantly from 1950, the year I was born, and coincidentally, the benchmark I quoted of population at 2.5 billion. 

Cars in 1950 would average about 15mpg. Today my car does nearly four times that, per gallon. That sort of economy has been repeated across the board, with things like double and triple glazing, jet engines, internet conferencing etc etc. So more affluence doesn't have to mean more environmental problems. It does cause some, but if the population was still 2.5 billion it would be manageable. 

Not if we continued to do too little about it, as we collectively have. The impact is still there, and as iNow said, it would just be slower.

15 hours ago, mistermack said:

Why would you just assume that it would take a cataclysm? This assumption that population rise is inevitable is the real problem. It's inevitable, only because people shut their eyes to it.  It's not inevitable in these countries :  

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-shrinking-populations.html 

They include emigration as part of the discussion, which doesn’t fix anything. The overall population hasn’t gone down just because some people moved around.

Do you have stats for the population growth/decline, ignoring emigration and immigration? (I believe this is called organic/natural population growth)

14 hours ago, mistermack said:

It's only your assumption that those five billion would have been born. I'm not removing anyone. You can't remove people who never existed. 

No, some would have to be removed because of medical advances that extended lifespans. You reduce/eliminate smallpox, tuberculosis and polio, for example, and the population must go up, because you’ve reduced the death rate. Medical advances have to be eliminated for your scenario to work.

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

They include emigration as part of the discussion, which doesn’t fix anything. The overall population hasn’t gone down just because some people moved around.

But if outward migration put some of those countries in the list, then inward migration keeps other countries out of it. It's likely that the UK and Germany and many other countries would feature in the list for example, without inward migration. If there were no migration happening at all, I'm pretty sure that the list of countries with shrinking populations would be much longer, so migration is really a red herring.

[dimreepr]

7 minutes ago, mistermack said:

But if outward migration put some of those countries in the list, then inward migration keeps other countries out of it. It's likely that the UK and Germany and many other countries would feature in the list for example, without inward migration. If there were no migration happening at all, I'm pretty sure that the list of countries with shrinking populations would be much longer, so migration is really a red herring.

As Brexit demonstrates with frightening clarity. It's not about population, it's about what we do, now... 

[iNow]

 

19 minutes ago, mistermack said:

If there were no migration happening at all, I'm pretty sure that the list of countries with shrinking populations would be much longer, so migration is really a red herring.

Oh, well so long as YOU’RE sure, then I guess that’s evidence enough for me!

[Peterkin]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

But if outward migration put some of those countries in the list, then inward migration keeps other countries out of it. It's likely that the UK and Germany and many other countries would feature in the list for example, without inward migration. If there were no migration happening at all, I'm pretty sure that the list of countries with shrinking populations would be much longer, so migration is really a red herring.

So is listing of countries in one column or another. People tend to migrate from poor countries (low per capita ecological impact) to rich ones (high per capita ecological impact), presumably for an opportunity to increase their individual consumption from near zero to near the rich people's. That transition incidentally decreases the birth rate of the next generation of the ethnic bloc that had migrated, so the host nation's status on the low-increase list is quickly restored.

OTOH, every new resident of a rich country produces more carbon, eats more beef and imports more exotic fruits, raw materials and manufactured goods from poor countries where labour is cheap, taxation is low and regulations are lax. Have you ever watched recent immigrants shop? They're not going for the locally handcrafted items - they can't afford to. They're buying the cheapest products available - which may very come from, be recycled in or the waste dumped in their own countries of origin. Their ecological footprint becomes more difficult to measure to more diffuse it is, due to global commerce. That organization of industry and commerce, more than any other factor, drives climate change as well as population distribution.

Of course, migration patterns have been disrupted by territorial wars, resource wars, and will, in he very near future, be massively disrupted by climate change and its attendant wars. (This book was a bit ahead of its time.) When people have no water, the threat of barbed wire and machine guns doesn't stop them: their only choice is to move or die - yet the barbed wire and machine guns will figure largely, however ineffectively, as they always do.   

Edited October 9, 2021 by Peterkin

[swansont]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

But if outward migration put some of those countries in the list, then inward migration keeps other countries out of it. It's likely that the UK and Germany and many other countries would feature in the list for example, without inward migration. If there were no migration happening at all, I'm pretty sure that the list of countries with shrinking populations would be much longer, so migration is really a red herring.

Pretty sure. That’s something like evidence or data, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_increase

UK is positive, Germany is negative. Europe is negative, but it’s eastern Europe doing the heavy lifting.