
The Unrealized Horrors of Population Explosion - samclemens
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/the-unrealized-horrors-of-population-explosion.html
======
tokenadult
As the article reports, the late agronomist Norman Borlaug helped fix the
world food problem, and the late economist Julian Simon helped get the world
thinking about how little of a problem population growth really is.

"One thing that happened on the road to doom was that the world figured out
how to feed itself despite its rising numbers. No small measure of thanks
belonged to Norman E. Borlaug, an American plant scientist whose breeding of
high-yielding, disease-resistant crops led to the agricultural savior known as
the Green Revolution. While shortages persisted in some regions, they were
often more a function of government incompetence, corruption or civil strife
than of an absolute lack of food.

"Some preternaturally optimistic analysts concluded that humans would always
find their way out of tough spots. Among them was Julian L. Simon, an
economist who established himself as the anti-Ehrlich, arguing that
'humanity’s condition will improve in just about every material way. [This has
proven to be true all over the world.] In 1997, a year before he died, Mr.
Simon told Wired magazine that 'whatever the rate of population growth is,
historically it has been that the food supply increases at least as fast, if
not faster.'"

I am old enough to remember when the ideas in the book _The Population Bomb_
seemed like fresh, new ideas. Decades later, the world Ehrlich and I still
live in seems more like a confirmation of criticisms of the book[1] than like
a confirmation of the book. Since the book was first published, I have spent
many years living in Taiwan, starkly poor when I was born and still poor when
the book was published, and one of the more densely populated countries of the
world during most of my lifetime, but today a prosperous, delightful place to
live. The population of the United States has increased greatly in my
lifetime, but the United States is still a great place to live too. Fears of
great harm from a population explosion were just wrong, that's all. This
article is part of a great article series published by the New York Times
looking back on predictions from earlier eras and how they turned out.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb#Criticisms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb#Criticisms)

~~~
schiffern
Anything other than techno-utopianism on HN? Cue the Norman Borlaug worship!
Nevermind the fact that the "high-yielding, disease-resistant crops" only
perform better when doused with biocides and chemicals (which leads to soil
loss, contaminates aquifers and other waters, and ultimately leads to
desertification).

We're only surviving today by stealing from our future. That's what
"unsustainable" means. The problem is that the future catches up with you. The
fact that industrial agriculture seems to work _today_ obscures that fact.

~~~
ars
There's a TON of room for more farmland. You don't have to use some
complicated chemical method.

For example make energy cheap enough, and we can desalinate enough water to
re-green the Sahara desert.

That's not something we can do today, but the future is bright, and not
limited.

~~~
logfromblammo
Or skip the desalinated water and grow Salicornia bigelovii with straight
seawater or runoff water or aquaculture wastewater.

------
ksenzee
An excellent example of how _not_ to react when your theory has been proven
wrong:

"The end is still nigh, [Ehrlich] asserted, and he stood unflinchingly by his
1960s insistence that population control was required, preferably through
voluntary methods. But if need be, he said, he would endorse 'various forms of
coercion' like eliminating 'tax benefits for having additional children.'
Allowing women to have as many babies as they wanted, he said, is akin to
letting everyone 'throw as much of their garbage into their neighbor’s
backyard as they want.'"

~~~
wahsd
Not the most eloquent way to sway people's opinions by equating their children
to garbage; as much as he's not wrong.

The first and foremost "pollutant" source of environmental damage and
degradation are humans. Simply speaking, the only way that humanity has any
real chance at fighting global climate impacts is by limiting and reducing
reproduction. But it's a really difficult topic to talk about, let alone even
just bring up. It's the 1 million pound gorilla that cannot be seen for all
the gorilla blocking the view.

~~~
crpatino
Population growth is half of the problem. I do not deny anything you have
said, however...

What do you make of the DINK couple that has foregone their reproductive
rights for the sake of "environmental concerns" but still get themselves a
couple of pets and treat them as upper-middleclass children. One would say,
disabled children that are never going to become productive members of this
society and most likely will be dead by age 16.

Maybe there would be enough room in this world for the people we already have
- at least for long enough that the correction in overpopulation comes from
the fertility rate rather than otherwise - if those of us at the top of the
pecking order would not insist on wasting so much real wealth in our natural
but unexamined impulses.

~~~
wutbrodo
This comparison is a really bad one. The amount of resources a dog consumes is
very very very very far below the cost of raising a child (~$250k in the US,
up to age 18). And that's just til age 18! There's another 80 years of adult
life after that, and the rate of consumption only increases (especially if
they themselves have children etc). I think your key error here is counting
unproductivity of the pets as an issue: from the perspective of resource
consumption, that's not a bad thing.

This may sound like a pedantic complaint about your point, but the fact of the
matter is that the average DINK couple who decides not to have kids is going
to be using massively less resources, despite having a lavish lifestyle as a
substitute. I agree that discretionary resource consumption is a perhaps-
underrated concern when compared with raw population, but the point you're
making really has nothing to do with that.

~~~
dragonwriter
> And that's just til age 18! There's another 80 years of adult life after
> that

Well, if you assume an average life expectancy of 98 years, but I'm not sure
why you would do that.

~~~
wutbrodo
I can think of a couple of reasons:

1) I'm not obsessive enough to think that making an estimate of life
expectancy far in the future is a good use of time when it has no impact on
the point I'm making.

2) More directly: more than 25% of 16 y/o's are expected to live to 100[1].
We're talking in this thread about rich DINKs in high-income countries, and
income and life expectancy are correlated; According to a recent study by
UMich, those in the top quintile of income born in _1940_ have a life
expectancy at age 55 of 90 years old[2]. It seems an extraordinary claim to
say that life expectancy won't climb by (at least) another few years for the
richest cohort of people in the world over the next ~century.

If you're going to be childishly pedantic, at least try and be accurate.

[1][http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/aug/04/live-
to...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/aug/04/live-
to-100-likely)

[2] [http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/04/18/the-richer-you-
are...](http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/04/18/the-richer-you-are-the-
older-youll-get/)

I'm aware that life expectancy at age 55 is not the same as LE at age 18, but
at-birth life expectancy numbers aren't available broken-down by income, for
obvious reasons. It turns out that (unsurprisingly), the rich have a very low
mortality rate before age 55, so this doesn't particularly skew the numbers.

------
danbruc
In 1972 the »Club of Rome« published »The Limits to Growth« [1] where they
used a computer model to model possible scenarios for the longterm development
of human society. More than forty years later the actual development is pretty
close to a scenario predicting a collapse mid century. This chart [2] based on
a study from 2008 [3] compares the prediction of the »standard run« scenario
with thirty years of actual data.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth)

[2]
[https://pbmo.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/world3.jpg](https://pbmo.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/world3.jpg)

[3]
[http://ecohist.history.ox.ac.uk/readings/Technological_limit...](http://ecohist.history.ox.ac.uk/readings/Technological_limits/limits-
to-growth-simulated.pdf)

~~~
slapshot
Well hang on a second. You show a graph and claim that "the actual development
is pretty close to a scenario predicting a collapse mid century". But the
model to date (1900-2000) shows steadily increasing population, food
production, pollution, etc. Unsurprisingly, the 25 years of reality on the
graph (1975-2000) following the date of the model shows steadily increasing
population, food production, etc.

The model then predicts a sudden shift in 2025 without any inherent
explanation. There's a vaguely-defined downward-sloping "resources" line on
the graph that seems to drive the sudden shift, but there's no actual data
given for the 1975-2000 period to know if actual "resources" are tracking the
model. I'd guess not --- as much as the Bakken shale oil formation may have
some serious environmental impacts, it (and many other discoveries) have
dramatically increased energy resources. Food production doesn't show any
signs of immediate collapse. Renewable energy is still expensive, but it's
getting better faster than many expected. Etc.

So, 25 years of steadily increasing population does not validate this model in
any meaningful way. The model depends on a sudden shift in ~2025 that no
empirical evidence supports. It might still happen -- I can't rule it out --
but the data given hardly confirms this model.

~~~
nostromo
There's no denying that civilization today is unsustainable.

I doubt any of these models will be accurate. But do they need to be? Either
our technology will make our current lifestyles sustainable, or reality will
catch up with us and cause much distress.

~~~
schizoidboy
How do you define sustainability? Various metrics suggest human society has a
likely chance of sustaining its most important trajectories:
[http://radicaloptimism.org/wiki/Human_Society](http://radicaloptimism.org/wiki/Human_Society)

See also The Rational Optimist by Ridley, The Improving State of the World by
Goklany, etc.

------
klenwell
I recently started reading Philip E. Tetlock's Expert Political Judgment[0]
and Ehrlich gets namechecked pretty early in it. For me, this article proved
timely.

Ehrlich gets credit in my book for making concrete falsifiable predictions and
acknowledging some are wrong. He follows a classic pattern identified by
Tetlock in claiming his major error was a matter of timing.

My questions:

1\. To what extent did his efforts help forestall the catastrophe he
predicted? Any at all? In the article, his efforts are cited as having a
significant impact on Indian family planning policies. Any way to measure the
impact on the population numbers?

2\. Was anybody citing Borlaug and the Green Revolution at the time he made
his prediction? Was the Green Revolution complete at that time or its impacts
a foregone conclusion? If not, how much more probable might his predictions
have been absent this revolution? (I guess question hints at another excuse-
making Tetlock pattern: the historical counter-factual or "I just got
unlucky!")

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-
Know/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Expert-Political-Judgment-Good-
Know/dp/0691128715)

------
eli_gottlieb
Basically, it turns out that your population explodes when you're very poor,
but then stabilizes and even shrinks as your society gets richer and richer.
We have a population paradox: the highest-impact lifestyles are lived in
countries with falling populations, while the major population growth takes
place where the resources don't exist to disincentivize it.

~~~
panglott
I think "very poor" is a little inaccurate. Hunter-gatherers are "very poor",
but don't have a population explosion problem. The societies that have
population explosion are traditionally agricultural economies with restrictive
gender norms that have not fully industrialized.

Basically, it's all about the returns to education. When women have
reproductive choice, and when the returns to higher levels of education
increase, then parents have fewer children but invest more resources into
raising them.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
You're right, actually: women's education is a more proven intervention for
reducing population growth than the increase of per-capita wealth.

------
Fiahil
My thoughts when confronted with "we have a finite planet with finite
resources" is more "why don't we expand beyond the earth?" rather than "We
have to limit the number of children people can have". So, why don't we?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Regardless of where people venture out in the solar system, the folks back on
Earth will have to operate within their resources, right?

~~~
jessaustin
Yeah, I doubt someone with a sustainable habitat on Mars, and enough resources
to send some back to Earth, is going to just send them without getting paid
more than it would take to claw them out of the ground on Earth in the first
place. It would make more sense to just keep the resources on Mars where one
can use them, rather than wasting 95% of them transporting 4% to Earth.

------
mcmSEA
For the rest of the natural world, human population is an absolute disaster.
The Anthropocene is a direct result of the pressure human population places on
all other species on this planet.

~~~
ams6110
99% of all the species that ever existed on earth are now extinct. The vast
majority of these extinctions occurred before humans were a significant
presence in the ecosystem. Maybe the more accurate statement is that the
natural world is an absolute disaster for all living populations.

~~~
zanny
That isn't particularly fair though, since most biologists would have roared
from the rooftops top stop other extinction events if they could avoid them.

And we _are_ the cause of the current mass extinction. Through the innovation
of society we have conquered the planet in a way few other multicellular
organisms have managed to in the past, where they gain some evolutionary
advantage that enables them to in short order effectively conquer all of their
habitable zone.

It isn't unique though, the only difference is we can look at it happening and
have this spark of wit in the back of our heads that tells us while we
individually contribute little to the event we collectively are destroying
biodiversity.

That isn't to say biodiversity is particularly saintly. Its gone away before,
will go away again, and all we are really doing is eliminating anything that
is not beneficial to us and that cannot coexist with us, not even through
attack, but just by claiming our habitat as our own. Yes, our ignorance in how
we allow it to happen _might_ be our downfall if we kill off essential species
in food chains that cripple ourselves as a result, but thats the risk you take
dominating an environment the way we consistently do.

Its the same way any evolving mammal 60 million years ago would have been
stomped out by dinosaurs that dominated their habitat, preventing the
evolution of most mammalian life we know today back then.

------
guard-of-terra
Population alarmism in developed countries was funny: id did not peter out
until deep into birthrate decline.

I remember one book of many: Hugely overpopulated world, old people killed to
make room, not one child in sight during the whole action. As if people grew
on walls like mold!

However, overpopulation already ruins undeveloped countries. Overpopulation
lead to poverty and poverty to overpopulation. I can't imagine how this is
going to resolve.

~~~
zanny
> I can't imagine how this is going to resolve.

In the near term global warming is going to destroy a lot of arable land in
third world countries and severely restrict water availability. How we respond
we'll have to see, but we are not stopping the runaway greenhouse effect at
this point that will make a lot of the equatorial belt uninhabitable.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Where will all the people go?

------
Symmetry
Things have been going very well but I can't help but think we now have this
huge selective pressure breeding for humans who will still have large families
in the new environment. This isn't a problem that we'll have to deal with in
our or our grandchildren's lifetimes but barring regulation or eugenics it
seems inevitable.

------
Bostonian
If world population tops out at about 10 billion, following the UN "medium"
projection, that could be manageable, but the population of Africa, the
poorest continent, is projected to double from 2010 to 2050. I wonder how that
will work. I am looking at the "Projections of population growth" Wikipedia
page.

------
jakeogh
The folks @
[http://overpopulationisamyth.com](http://overpopulationisamyth.com) work on
addressing the points often used to support the Malthusian catastrophe.

------
shit_parade2
Geological records show one fossiled truth, populations rise then fall.

Are we immune? Maybe, but looking at the pass 100 years and concluding we are
is simply self deception.

~~~
wahsd
I don't think geological records are all that helpful in this case. There has
never been a life-form that pushes the pendulum the way humans have. We have
done so many things to limit and prevent the natural cycles that would have by
now surely led to a significant limitation of the human population.

War, famine, disease, disaster, etc. they have all or are all being limited if
not practically being eradicated. The danger is that if you keep pushing and
pushing the pendulum the marginal effort needed to push it not only becomes
ever greater and the duration which is can be held decreases, but the risk of
something causing the pendulum to slip and swing freely exponentially
increases. We are approaching several means in which the biosphere that is
earth may collapse. We don't even really understand all the finer intricacies
of our world, there is absolutely no chance we could even identify some sort
of black swan even that we sure as hell won't be able to prevent, let alone
reverse.

It all seems to grotesquely stupid how ignorantly we are treating our only
habitat. The very single place that we can exist at the moment and we are
risking it all on a stupid bet.

~~~
shit_parade2
Populations expand until they collapse their food supply. Equilibriums are
reached eventually but they are never very stable, at least from a geological
time frame.

Humans have overcome a number of hurdles, but to say we are immune to the same
pressures is just hubris.

Already populations are declining in wealthy countries, what will happen in
JApan in 50 years? No one knows because it's never happened to such a wealthy
technologically advanced country.

Food cost spiked several times in the 2000s leading to food riots and was a
likely catalyst of the Arab Spring.

World fishing stock is over exploited and total world wild catch has flat
lined the last 5 years, aquaculture has made up the difference but that is an
entirely new area and the environmental effects are uncertain.

Technology may save us, but blind optimism is no different than baseless
pessimism.

Global climate change is happening, no one knows how fast or have massive
those changes will be, we just know it's happening. From a geological
perspective we are already living through a mass extinction event, our
influence has been profound and will be seen for millions of years in the
fossil record.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Populations expand until they collapse their food supply.

Food supply isn't necessarily the limiting factor on carrying capacity.

------
jessaustin
Disregard doomsday scenarios.

------
laichzeit0
I've always maintained that breeding needs to be licensed. You need a license
to drive, own a firearm, hell in some countries you need a license to own a
goddamned TV. A breeding license with forced sterilization and tax penalties
for non-compliance would eliminate this problem in a complete fair and
equitable way.

~~~
guard-of-terra
There's a huge hole in your logic: countries where law is upheld already have
reproduction rate lower than needed to stabilize.

And most of overpopulation is in countries where law is... episodic.

Imagine "tax penalties" in Kongo or Nigeria where people live off ground on
less than 2$/day. Funny.

~~~
laichzeit0
That's why I inserted the clause "forced sterilization". How do you stop
someone from having a family of 5-7 children who's dirt poor, uneducated and
believes it's part of their culture to be "prosperous" through progeny?

~~~
ars
You are trying to solve a non-existent problem.

Not only is that pointless, your solution wouldn't even work if the problem
did exist.

~~~
laichzeit0
You clearly have not lived in Africa if you think it's a non-existent problem.

