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As Earth Day Arrives, Population Still the Uneasy Issue

by Robert Engelman on April 21, 2008

This entry was originally posted to the Island Press blog, Island Interactive, at www.islandpress.org/blog. Robert will post periodic updates on population as he promotes his new book, More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want.

Robert Engelman NEW ORLEANS-People walking around the Sheraton Hotel here are talking about population as if it were the most natural conversation in the world. The topic interests me, so I join in. As it happens, I've written a book on it, just published by Island Press, which I don't shrink from mentioning. Just being here, though, reminds me that human numbers aren't often talked about outside this hotel.

If there's a time and place for talking population this is it: the annual meeting of the Population Association of America. The association's demographers and public health specialists gathered this year in a city that lost about half its own residents to other places after a hurricane named Katrina. Panel topics ranged from that unprecedented urban population drop (the city's population has since rebounded to around 70 percent of its pre-Katrina size) to the intriguing idea that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has peaked globally. While PAA members presented findings and partied at the Sheraton, people in the nearby streets of the French Quarter let the good times roll, as they usually do, with nary a thought of the number of us in the city, the country or the world.

But you don't have to wander around the Big Easy to get a sense of how uneasy we are with population as an issue. Discomfort with the topic is everywhere, not least among environmentalists, who grapple daily with the ways human beings are altering the natural world and the its life support systems. Who wants to reduce humanity to a number, or to see themselves as one? And population trends touch on some of the most sensitive issues in our experience: sex, race, childbearing, family size, immigration, abortion. Yet anyone paying attention to human-induced climate change or the ongoing surge in global energy and food prices must sometimes pause to think about just how many we are.

The fact that a few thousand professionals meet once a year to talk about population, at least, is a good sign. And this Tuesday is Earth Day, which on its launch back in 1970 integrated population into discussions about the environment. I'll celebrate the day by discussing my book-titled More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want-along with the author of a different take on population at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

World population has doubled since the first Earth Day. Does that mean worries about population growth were groundless, or that we're in more peril today than in the past? And what does the future hold? From now through June, I'll be weighing in from time to time with some thoughts on such questions on the Websites of both Island Press and the Worldwatch Institute. My book explores a few ideas that I hope will stimulate some conversation of its own, and maybe even a bit of hope for the future. I'll welcome your comments.

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I appreciate the comments by

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I appreciate the comments by Peter Salonius and Steve Salmony. Thanks for your attention to the panearth.org narrated slide show. This presentation features the interaction between food production and human population growth. Just click the icon at www.panearth.org

Steve Salmony What a

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Steve Salmony What a shambles is being constructed for our children to confront. What a colossal sham is the soon to be unsustainable pursuit of the primrose path of endless economic growth. What a shame. Please consider the exemplary work of a splendid scientist, Martha M. Campbell, Ph.D. Her 2005 presentation has been ignored and yet it is particularly timely in 2008, especially in the light of so many of the world's major polluters avoiding their duties and responsibilities to protect human wellbeing and to preserve the integrity of Earth and its ecosystems. Please click on the following link, http://www.populationandsustainability.org/papers/campbellagm.pdf Thanks to all, Steve Steven Earl Salmony AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001 http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php

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Dear Peter Salonius and Bob Engelman, Is UNBRIDLED Economic Globalization a material breach of God's Creation? Perhaps the time is coming when government officials stop employing every ruse under the sun to protect the selfish interests of over-consumers and hoarders, and start by choosing to do the right thing? Life and human institutions like national economies are utterly dependent upon the Earth for existence; but too many of our leaders view the Earth as some kind of thing to be manipulated, dissipated, and ravaged secondary to their adamant practice of a religion called Endless Economic Growth. This clear and obvious object of their idolatry is the soon to become unsustainable expansion of the leviathan-like, global political economy. What a colossal sham. What a shame. What a shambles for our children to confront. Always with thanks, Steve

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I take exception to pwdueweke's last point (April 24, 2008 - 11:28am) that: "6) Consumption is the world's greatest problem, and the US is the biggest consumer. Total consumption = per capita consumption X population. We need to stay focused on both terms on the right side of the equation." MY RESPONSE: Consumption is, of course, an important part of the "right hand side of the equation" --- however the global dilemma can not be resolved by decreasing the consumption levels of all 6.7 billion (and rising) people on the planet to a mere susbsistence intake of calories per day. The only way "Total consumption" can be brought down to levels that can be supported sustainably in the long-term, by the ecosystems upon which we depend for our sustinence, is to bring down the number of people to a fraction of the 6.7 billion (and rising) who are continuing to side step carrying capacity limits, now, as humans have been doing since the advent of cultivation agriculture -- read on: **** 10,000 YEAR MISUNDERSTANDING/ soil fertility, energy and population **** I am sure you have noticed the news of food price escalation that is bringing the global carrying capacity 'front and center'- with food riots all over the world. This is being precipitated by food-to-ethanol programs, although with constantly rising populations fed by the increased food produced by various AGRICULTURAL revolutions (the Green Revolution being the latest) -- these riots would have eventually happened, the speed of these developments is awe inspiring. On Monday, April 14, we had Robert Zoellick, head of the WORLD BANK calling for a crash program of food production increases to stave off the approach of famine //?? I wonder how many times he thinks we can pull new RABBITS OUT OF THE HAT when soil resources of the planet continue to be degraded to produce MORE FOOD FOR THE IRRESPONSIBLY BREEDING HORDE ?? I am leaving, attached, to the LONG essay/rant (below), my note to Branko Milanovic, another officer of the WORLD BANK -- for your interest. Peter Salonius ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -----Original Message----- From: Salonius, Peter Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 10:55 To: bmilanovic@worldbank.org; director@ei.columbia.edu Cc: Salonius, Peter Subject: 10,000 YEAR MISUNDERSTANDING /soil fertility, energy and population To Branko Milanovic and Jeffrey D. Sachs Gentlemen I have just read Branko Milanovic's review of Jeffrey Sachs' new book entitled: 'COMMON WEALTH: Economics for a Crowded Planet' in the Saturday, April 5, 2008 issue of the Toronto Globe and Mail's BOOKS. Milanovic says that "Sachs argues ......... the identification of the problems and the technological solutions for them are already available." / AND that Sachs correctly identifies the key issue as: "At the core of our problems today has been the collapse of faith in global problem-solving and a widespread cynical disbelief in global co-operation itself." Meanwhile I have concluded based, on lifetime of studying, that --- -- At the core of our problems today has been the unwillingness to see the relationship between the unsustainable population numbers, that we have built up since the advent of cultivation agriculture, and the global problematique. I hope you both have time to skim the material I have pasted below. Since 1969 my approach - to the problems faced by the global human experiment - has concentrated on the way population growth has continually made them worse. I now have developed a long-term (several centuries) plan to begin to move the global human family back toward a sustainable relationship with its supporting ecosystems. I have recently been moving away from the reductionist research that I have carried on in soil science for over 40 years and I have finally started to marry my soil dynamics knowledge with my interest in the cultural history of the human race -AND- I have reached some startling conclusions concerning the human overshoot dilemma, and its depletion of essential resources that began long before we started using fossil fuels in the last few centuries ---- read on: ++++++++++++++ Many keen thinkers have understood that the driver that has enabled our numbers to shoot so far over long-term carrying capacity is the planet's one-time gift of fossil fuels and this overshoot has resulted in our rampant destruction of the biosphere. The global human population before the start of the Fossil-Fuel Revolution was about 1-billion, while it is now about 6.6 billion and rising. These holistic thinkers suggest that without oil, the earth will only support about 2-3 billion. Their forward thinking has not yet included an understanding of the thesis that: THE OTHER MAJOR FACTOR THAT HAS ENABLED OUR NUMBERS TO SHOOT SO FAR OVER LONG-TERM CARRYING CAPACITY IS THE ONE-TIME GIFT OF ERODABLE SOILS AND THE VAST STORE OF PLANT NUTRIENTS THEY CONTAINED - UNTIL WE BEGAN TO IRREVERSIBLY MINE THEM ABOUT 10,000 YEARS AGO WITH CULTIVATION AGRICULTURE. I suggest that without petroleum, AND AFTER WE STOP MINING THE PLANET'S SOILS, the Earth will only support about 100-300 million. The global imbalance between humans and their supporting environments is much more serious than most people on Earth realize. Recent prognostications about the possibility of SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT in the context of further population and economic growth, are in direct opposition to a growing understanding among ecological economists that all economic and population growth, since the advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago, has effectively lowered the basic long-term carrying capacity (food productivity potential) of the Earth's soil resources. William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel have developed the ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT ANALYSIS and they appear (many publications) to believe that humanity overshot global carrying capacity sometime in the 20th century, while I have been circulating the thesis that the human family has been in overshoot for the last 10,000 years // Rees agrees that I am on the right track. I hope the material presented below in a series of video clips, a slide show and a couple of essays will help you in the presentation of your ideas ---------- or at least help you to consider giving those ideas a very long historical perspective. Peter Salonius Research Scientist Canadian Wood Fibre Centre Natural Resources Canada Canadian Forest Service P. O. Box 4000, 1350 Regent Street South Fredericton, New Brunswick, E3B 5P7, Canada Tel.:(506) 452-3548, Fax: (506) 452-3525 Email: psaloniu@nrcan.gc.ca Chercheur scientifique Centre canadien sur la fibre de bois Ressources naturelles Canada Service canadien des forêts C. P. 4000, 1350, rue Regent sud Fredericton (Nouveau-Brunswick) E3B 5P7, Canada Tél. :(506) 452-3548, Téléc. : (506) 452-3525 Courriel : psaloniu@nrcan.gc.ca http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/directory/psaloniu ============================================================================-----Original Message----- From: Salonius, Peter Sent: Sat 2/23/2008 8:49 AM To: RussH100@aol.com Cc: Salonius, Peter Subject: Population, Environment & the Future of Human Society Good Morning Dr. Hopfenberg I am ecstatic: I have been looking for a VISUAL presentation on the relationship between food availability and population to growth go along with a 20 minute video by Albert Bartlett on the subject of THE EXPONENTIAL FUNCTION that I found at: http://tinyurl.com/2gfyla ( ONE HOUR VERSION: http://tinyurl.com/yr3crr ) I have just watched your excellent slide show entitled: 'WORLD FOOD AND HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH' at: http://www.panearth.org I will circulate this slide show to the widest audience possible. I hope you will find some interest in the two URL web sites that I have been circulating for the last couple of weeks. I will paste (below) the MESSAGE I have been circulating to various recipients. Comments, suggestions and/or criticisms of my ideas are most welcome. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ CIRCULATED MESSAGE BEGINS Please forward this message and its attached PDF to the electronic mail boxes of members of your organization who may be interested in dealing with the basic cause of the imbalance between humans and their supporting ecosystems -- as opposed to concentrating on the symptoms of this imbalance. ----------------- I encourage you to read the material below - including the two (2) URL web sites provided, and I encourage you to make use of the ideas present as you see fit. Please contact me by return email if you are confused by anything I have written and/or if you wish to have further clarification of the ideas presented. NOTE that the CULTURE CHANGE web site leads to a second essay based on a peer reviewed journal paper - AND NOTE ALSO that the 'Relocalize' web site, operated by the POST CARBON INSTITUTE has the original journal paper and three (3) relevant book reviews attached to it. The material presented deals with the novel thesis that most cultivation AGRICULTURE, not just modern industrial fossil-fuelled agriculture, has been unsustainable since its adoption 10,000 years ago --- and that it follows that: IF "AGRICULTURE, not just modern industrial fossil fuelled agriculture, has been unsustainable since its adoption 10,000 years ago" then the global human population has been in overshoot of the carrying capacity of its supporting ecosystems since the abandonment of hunter gathering and the adoption of farming. Many of us have finally understood the dilemma faced by humanity in the context of the depletion of the fossil fuel energy subsidies upon which modern complex societies are dependent, however I have finally come to understand a more serious and basic resource depletion that has been looming over us during most of the run up to the present global human population of 6.5 billion ---- please see the development of this thesis in the two essays that have been posted on the CULTURE CHANGE web site at: http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=154&Itemid=2#cont Also you may find some interest in the following email message I been sending to various creative colleagues during the past week or so. The message entitled 'SCIENCE AND MEDIA AVOID THE MAIN ISSUE'(below) features another version of the same ideas at another URL web site operated by the POST CARBON INSTITUTE. Peter Salonius Research Scientist Natural Resources Canada Fredericton, New Brunswick Day time (WORK) Phone (506) 452-3548 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SCIENCE AND MEDIA AVOID THE MAIN ISSUE My reason for sending this email has to do with your authorship on articles/papers/films/letters to editors concerning (usually unsustainable) aspects of interactions between our species and the ecosystems upon which we rely for life support. In most of the items I have read/seen the issue of remedial measures, to relieve the environmental pressure/damage caused by human numbers, is given short shrift --- and in some cases we see writers and thinkers actually interested in further demographic and economic expansion, in apparent denial of the finite nature of the planet Earth and its resources. We have generally concerned ourselves with individual aspects/areas of the imbalance between humans and their supporting ecosystems - - however we very seldom stand back and assess the major drivers of this imbalance // and in the few instances that we do stand back to assess these drivers, we resist the temptation to suggest remedies to policy makers that involve reshaping the direction of human society -or- we are told by peers, employers, reviewers or editors to stick to individual issues and leave social organization to policy makers and politicians. The enormity of required solutions usually makes it less stressful to get back to picking away at the easier digested symptoms of the global human dilemma that can be addressed by reductionism. In 1999 I published an appeal (CONSERVATION BIOLOGY 13(6): 1518-1519)that scientists consider spending a considerable portion of their efforts to educate policy makers "about the diminishing ability of the biosphere to withstand the onslaught of exponential human population and economic growth." In 1999 I thought that measures "to stabilize or slowly reduce population numbers" would suffice. I am now convinced that we will have to orchestrate Rapid Population Decline -or- have such a decline imposed upon us by resource depletion realities. Most of us agree that the human experiment, which is now the size of the Earth, has gone terribly wrong. At issue is the point at which humanity took the unsustainable fork in the road -and- what we must do to get back on track. There is a growing realization that human numbers will decrease, either by planned contraction or by the development of various scarcities. My recommendation for the necessary decrease of the global human footprint includes allowing the functional integrity of terrestrial (and aquatic) communities to begin to re-establish by ceasing to stage manage ecosystems. A reliance on self-organizing/self managing systems, that evolution has already created, would feed a very small number of humans sustainably - if they regulated their exploitation/harvesting activities to fall within the (now better understood) capacity of their supporting ecosystems to maintain critical breeding populations, species and structural diversity, to replace soil lost by erosion and to replace soluble plant nutrients lost by harvest export or leaching. In fisheries, because they represent such as small fraction of the global human diet, a return to sustainably harvesting wild populations would not cause widespread starvation. In forestry a shift, to alternate harvesting systems that accommodate the time requirement for full species and structural restoration, and that approximate natural disturbance dynamics - as opposed to creating ecosystem-simplifying, product- driven species assemblages - could be initiated very quickly. The abandonment of agriculture in favour of the re-establishment of self-managing, native, nutrient conservative forest and grassland/prairie ecosystems would require much more time because these unmanaged systems can not produce enough food for humans -- until population numbers have fallen to a fraction of present levels. I have said, in the recommendation I have for the sustainable future of the global human experiment, that agriculture must be relied upon to feed us until we have reduced our numbers to a level that can be supported by regulated exploitation/harvesting activities that fall within the (now better understood) capacity of supporting ecosystems to maintain diversity, to restore soil mass lost by erosion and to replace soluble plant nutrients lost by harvest export or leaching. This recommendation is outlined in an essay entitled: 'POPULATION AND INTENSIVE CROP CULTURE ARE UNSUSTAINABLE' -------- that can be read at: http://www.relocalize.net/population_and_intensive_crop_culture_are_unsustainable ------ to which is attached one journal paper and 3 book reviews. The attractive aspect of moving toward sustainable co-existence with self-managing ecosystems is that the hit-and-miss process of evolution has already established how to make them work. Our responsibility (after our numbers have fallen to sustainable levels) will be to learn to live within the regeneration capacity of restored self-managing natural ecosystems. The penalty for exceeding their regeneration capacity will be hunger and privation, as it was for our hunter gatherer ancestors. Please forward this email to your colleagues if you think its message may be of interest to them. Peter Salonius

Thanks for this comment,

Submitted by Robert Engelman on April 24, 2008 - 5:17pm.

Thanks for this comment, pwdueweke. You state your premises clearly and make some good points -- as well as a few I might quibble with. On your point 2, for example, most of the 3 million people added to U.S, population each year don't come from other countries, even if many of their parents did. Both my book More (which is published by Island Press and is not technically a Worldwatch book) and some of my writing for Worldwatch do in fact treat U.S. population issues. See for example this recent post on the Worldwatch Website http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5542 for some commentary about the impacts of U.S. population growth. At Worldwatch we are, of course, Worldwatch and don't tend to focus as much on domestic aspects of any of the issues we follow as on the international aspects. Our work has at least as much of an audience in other countries as it does here in the States. Still, U.S. population issues are important and deserve discussion, and I expect you'll see more of that if you watch this space. Robert Engelman Vice President for Programs Worldwatch Institute

Worldwatch tends to look at

Submitted by pwdueweke on April 24, 2008 - 11:28am.

Worldwatch tends to look at population as a global issue, which it is at its core. But I believe you should focus more on US population growth for the following reasons: 1) We have far more control over issues at home than around the world. 2) The three million people we add to the US population every year soon become bigger than average consumers and far bigger consumers than they were where they came from. 3) Immigration to the US significantly relieves population growth pressure from many countries, notably Mexico, Cuba, and several Central and South American countries. To the extent that they can export their population growth pressures, they will reduce their resolve to address population growth at home. 4) The US environment is being severly damaged by our population growth. This is the environment that our grandkids will directly experience, even though the global environment will also affect them in major ways. 5) The US is the world's greatest leader. Sadly, we have been leading in the wrong direction. We have led toward easy corporate profits driven by a growing market (population) and a shrinking cost of labor (immigrants). 6) Consumption is the world's greatest problem, and the US is the biggest consumer. Total consumption = per capita consumption X population. We need to stay focused on both terms on the right side of the equation.

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As Earth Day Arrives, Population Still the Uneasy Issue

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