Overpopulation: Fact or Myth?

[CaptFun]

Oh my, one of the options I forgot to put on the poll:

“I believe the world can always use more people (the more the merrier)”

Oh well

He may be a low credibility source per reputation, but …

“How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many donuts.”
–Homer Simpson

… everyone has his inspired moments!

Overpopulation?! Oh, yeah, right … Almighty*** GOD*** doesn’t know what He’s doing?!

 

[CAROLOFTHEBELLS]

Dickens has Ebenezzer Scrooge saying (before his conversion) that those who would rather die than go to the workhouses should do so and “decrease the surplus population”. Obviously, the idea of over population has been around a long time. I don’t give it any thought. It is a myth. Some places are very well populated and others not so much.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

Have you considered switching to decaf?

Have you considered educating yourself on the matter?

 

[GEddie]

Dickens has Ebenezzer Scrooge saying (before his conversion) that those who would rather die than go to the workhouses should do so and “decrease the surplus population”. Obviously, the idea of over population has been around a long time. I don’t give it any thought. It is a myth. Some places are very well populated and others not so much.

Well, yeah, it’s as old as Malthus and if memory serves, Dickens wrote about 100 years later.

Local overpopulation certainly exists, as someone living in Dickensian London, or Mexico City now, would conclude. Those instances are self-limiting.

It only makes sense that the same would hold for the world.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Jon_S_1]

I accept and fully believe in the doctrine of the Church. Let me make it clear, I do not support the horrors of abortion, nor do I approve of contraception. With that said, our species [mankind] clearly cannot sustain our current population levels. As you say the resources are not there, nor is the will there for the rest of the world to insure that people do not starve because there are millions who are starving.

I don’t know what the answer is but given the maturation of mankind and the constant talk of end times along with Biblical Prophecy, I have to wonder if we will ever live to see a state of equilibrium. I am not a Biblical or theological scholar, but I have eyes, ears, and intellect. All of these things tell me that Earth is still a very harsh place for many people, even for those who live in countries considered to be wealthy.

Were people starving 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago.

Yes, I’m actually certain the percentages line up nicely through history.

So again I will say that this is a resource management and allocation issue.

If Marie Antoinette had given up her cakes and if we had given up our SUV’s or iPods, there would be abundance of food for the world.

Our choices and social constrains make it an impossible reality at this time. But those factors are present whether there are 1,000,000 people or 6,000,000,000

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I’ve read several papers that quote the fertility rate of 1.4 as being the point of no return. I can’t speak to how they came up with that number, but just doing some quick math, with a starting population of 1,000 (assuming it’s an equal split between women & men), after two generations with a fertility rate of 1.4, you’d have a breeding population of just 115 women. That’s a pretty stark drop-off. I’m guessing recovery at that point would be theoretically possible but rather unlikely.

you math is off, TFR is the number of children the average woman has. 1.4 is 2/3 of the Western replacement rate so you go from 500 women to 333 to 222 which is still an extreme drop.

No kidding! I was rather hoping that you might just consider that there is a whole lot of unused land out there which will support agriculture right now, and probably double that with irrigation - just like has already been done in the developed world.

That points to decent economic development, as was Pope Francis’ prayer intention for January, as a means of helping to solve the problem.

Most of the unused land is marginal at best.

So you have to tie it to a source large enough to amortize those losses. The best is the sun, although capturing that energy at ground level is expensive.

ICXC NIKA

Luckily solar efficiency is improving.

 

[JimG]

Actually, I think that Jupiter probably has a lot of resources!

In any case, the drop in fertility rates worldwide, and particularly in developed nations, is a serious matter. If rates continue to drop, we are in for a permanent recession.

I would add that the world’s most important renewable resource is–human beings.

 

[white_sheep]

The population is still increasing due to population momentum and increases in longevity. The worldwide fertility rate has now dropped below replacement levels. In time, the population will begin to decrease. The fertility rate has been steadily declining, and I don’t think it is going to make a reversal. It does take 20-40 years to see the effects of a reduction in the fertility rate, and we are seeing a slowing in population in many places now.

When the overpopulationists start killing themselves, I’ll take them more seriously.

 

[GEddie]

Actually, I think that Jupiter probably has a lot of resources!

Yeah, but not for keeping human beings alive.

Our poor old somas just don’t take oxygen lack and millions of atmospheres of pressure very well.

And the gravity is too high to prospect it even by robots.

ICXC NIKA

 

[joshvanrad]

Isn’t the population in Europe actually beginning to decrease?

 

[GEddie]

Isn’t the population in Europe actually beginning to decrease?

Seems to be.

I’ve heard that it is supposed to fall by half by 2100.

Russia, Europe’s largest nation, has had a falling population for some years.

ICXC NIKA

 

[manualman]

Professional Demographers widely agree that there are (at least) THREE stages of the demographic transition.

1. Sustenance Agriculture societies: High fertility, high mortality, low pop growth rates.
2. Societies transitioning to industrialized: high fertility, low mortality, high pop growth rates
3. Mature industrial societies: low fertility, low mortality, zero to very low pop growth rates.

Stage 3 has existed as long as the industrial revolution has. A good 100+ years before the pill or latex condom was invented. Interesting, eh? In the last 60 years or so, cheap, respectable and widely available contraception has created what I believe is a FOURTH unique category: Contraceptive Industrialized societies: Ultra low fertility, low mortality, negative internal population growth rates.

Total fertility rate of 2.08 is dead even replacement (slightly more boys than girls are born naturally). Stage 3 societies used to have TFRs right around 2 before the pill came along. Today every single mature industrial nation on earth has widespread contraception and has thus moved onto stage 4.

The UN 2012 population projection models for global population were based on three different assumptions about ultimate fertility trends. The highest assumed (IIRC) that global TFR would tend towards 2.6 over the rest of the century, the median assumed they would tend towards 2.1, the low range assumed they would trend towards 1.6. ALL the actual data about mature industrialized societies supports an assertion that 1.6 is the most accurate of these assumptions. While there are still countries with higher TFRs, they are generally high immigration countries that attract people from higher TFR.

That UN model projects a global peak population around 2050 and an indefinite decreasing trend thereafter.

WarriorMonk and I have sparred on this one before. He’s apt to make utterly bad comparisons like Ireland’s diaspora or the Black death and note that populations rebounded from those. Neither of those were declines due to aging though. He simply hasn’t done the demographic homework to see how structurally difficult it will be for a long term 1.6 TFR society to start having more children. Who can afford to when the majority of the population is elderly and votes themselves taxpayer benefits? Watch and see.

 

[E_7]

There is no overpopulation. The problem is distribution.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

WarriorMonk and I have sparred on this one before. He’s apt to make utterly bad comparisons like Ireland’s diaspora or the Black death and note that populations rebounded from those. Neither of those were declines due to aging though. He simply hasn’t done the demographic homework to see how structurally difficult it will be for a long term 1.6 TFR society to start having more children. Who can afford to when the majority of the population is elderly and votes themselves taxpayer benefits? Watch and see.

If someone has evidence that populations of tens of millions of people have permanent decline to the point of underpopulating themselves out of existence, I’m all ears. That is the only way it is a “problem.” Most people think a decline in population is a death spiral. The reason that many think that is the case is simply due to the pyramid economic system they live under.

There are no-growth societies that have existed for thousands of years. The things they have in common is that the live within their means, and don’t have an economic system built on every-increasing populations.

 

[manualman]

If someone has evidence that populations of tens of millions of people have permanent decline to the point of underpopulating themselves out of existence, I’m all ears. That is the only way it is a “problem.” Most people think a decline in population is a death spiral. The reason that many think that is the case is simply due to the pyramid economic system they live under.

There are no-growth societies that have existed for thousands of years. The things they have in common is that the live within their means, and don’t have an economic system built on every-increasing populations.

A 1.6 TFR society isn’t a “no growth” society, it’s a declining society. The reason that modern industrialized nations are so persistently holding around that 1.6 TFR is because industrialized society innately punishes parenthood economically. It’s a system that takes the replacement of populations for granted, while incentivizing non-parenthood. The evidence is right in front of you. There are NO counties (well, Israel, but that’s a special case due to cultural conflict reasons) on earth whose ethnically native population TFR is above replacement rate and the actual average is more like 1.6. This IS evidence, but you refuse to acknowledge it.

 

[manualman]

The “death spiral” people refer to is not primarily economic, but statistical. If you start with an even age distribution over a population and suddenly alter the TFR in the fertile cohorts to 1.6, then after a 100 years the population will be about 65% of what it was. Suppose the people finally notice the disaster at that point and want to fix things. They manage to immediately jump TFR to 2.15 (an incredible increase from 1.6). Even so, the population will CONTINUE to decline for the next 100 years before stabilizing (bottoming out around 160 years and 60% of original population). But that improvement to 2.15 isn’t likely to happen because the fertile cohort at year 120 will be only 20% of the population. They and the empty nesters together will be only 46% of the population. 26% of the population will be retired and the workers will have an awful hard time paying for their upkeep AND the 27% of the population that would be minors if the TFR got back to 2.15 at year 100.

How often do you hear people TODAY complain that they can’t afford more kids? All the time. That pressure is only going to get worse as the proportion of elderly increases. To expect people under those additional pressures to suddenly start, on average, having 0.5 more kids per woman is not reasonable. Instead, they’ll likely have LESS as their economic burden increases and the long term population decline steepens.

You can build your own quick and dirty demographic spreadsheet to verify the above. Split the population into 20 year cohorts, calculate new cohort populations at 20 year intervals and assume it is the 20-40 cohort that is fertile. In each year increment move the cohort population one category over in age (assume death at 80). If 1.6 does end up being the long term post-industrial TFR, earth is headed back to one billion humans in about 400 years. Civilization as we know it wouldn’t survive that kind of contraction though. Expect wracking conflict and total civilizational handover to something else.

Some assume that we NEED to reduce our population that much since petroleum will run out before then. I think that’s a pretty bleak outlook. Technology so far has kept ahead of need, why can’t it continue? Gravity equations looks suspiciously like magnetism equations, for example. If science figures out how to locally induce artificial gravity like they have magnetism, the game is changed forever and the solar system holds enormous resources to cheaply exploit. That’s just ONE potential game changer lurking on the horizon.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

Sometimes the population increases, sometimes it decreases. I’m failing to see the problem (other than problems man made for himself; i.e., pyramid economics). We are in no danger of going extinct, and there is no evidence that mankind will go out of existence anytime soon. The decreasing population argument is simply an artificial problem.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

you math is off, TFR is the number of children the average woman has. 1.4 is 2/3 of the Western replacement rate so you go from 500 women to 333 to 222 which is still an extreme drop.

I based my math on the fact that 2.1 is considered the replacement rate for an industrialized society. The extra 0.1, or about 5% of the 2.1, is needed to account for infant mortality and more males being born than females. Taking that excess 5% into account, I estimated that each generation with a TFR of 1.4 will produce a number of females equal to 33.9% of it’s current numbers. Either way, the drop off is pretty severe and somewhat stunning when you look at it on paper.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

i based my math on the fact that 2.1 is considered the replacement rate for an industrialized society. The extra 0.1, or about 5% of the 2.1, is needed to account for infant mortality and more males being born than females. Taking that excess 5% into account, i estimated that each generation with a tfr of 1.4 will produce a number of females equal to 33.9% of it’s current numbers. Either way, the drop off is pretty severe and somewhat stunning when you look at it on paper.

1.4/2.1=2/3

 

[Gordon_Sims]

1.4/2.1=2/3

I see what I did wrong, 222 would be correct after two generations.