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Hold steady: Population growth on a shrinking planet; If the population were to shrink, what would that mean for an economy based on growth?

Posted by: Maven on June 10, 2009 at 6:39 am

From CommonDreams.org:

It’s highly unlikely that life as we know it – or want it – can continue for long unless we rein in population growth. Too many measures indicate that the great mass of us burning fossil fuels, gobbling up renewable resources, and generating toxic trash is overloading our life support ecosystems. In the central North Pacific Ocean gyre, swirling plastic fragments now outweigh plankton 46 to one. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is far higher today than at any point in the past 650,000 years, and climbing. Nearly one in four mammals is threatened with extinction, as is one in three amphibians and a quarter of all conifers. In many parts of the world, including the High Plains of North America, human water use exceeds annual average water replenishment; the United Nations predicts that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity. Unsustainable farming practices cause the destruction and abandonment of almost 30 million acres of arable land each year. The list runs far too long.

Meanwhile, our population continues to grow in leapfrog fashion. Despite declines over the last several decades in the annual global population growth rate and near zero population growth in several countries, the number of humans is still increasing by 1.18 percent per year. That sounds manageable – until we do the math. With more than 6.7 billion of us, even a growth rate of just over one percent translates into 80 million more of us annually, the equivalent of nearly two Sudans, or three and a half Taiwans. Each year, China must find room and resources for eight million more people even though its population is growing by only a little more than a half of one percent annually. The US, with a growth rate of nearly one percent per year, increases by more than 2.9 million people annually, the equivalent of almost four new San Franciscos.

But dare we, as a matter of international or domestic policy, make an effort to reduce our population to a size that better fits our environment? Given that our economy is based on the idea of growth, wouldn’t a decrease in human numbers lead to a fiscal catastrophe? After all, it’s no coincidence that the last 200 years of historically unprecedented economic growth have been accompanied by an equally unprecedented increase in world population. During the 1800s and 1900s, up to half of world economic growth was likely due to population growth. As Georgetown University environmental historian John McNeill explains: “A big part of economic growth to date consists of population growth. More hands, more work, more things produced.”

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June 10, 2009 · Filed Under Development & Population

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