but where is the cheese?
I used myspace.com blogs for the past few years for my randomly-spaced blogging. Therefore, I am jumpstarting my blog here with most of those blogs, lightly edited.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original posting: Friday, November 14, 2008, 8:51 PM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Essentially, it's common knowledge that the world's population is increasing at an exponential rate. There are issues of starvation and crowdation in areas that are poster nations for significantly large population growth rates (Nigeria, Bangladesh, Brazil). There is a migration of people from rural to urban regions in the past century, so much so that nearly half of the world's 6.6 billion (that's 6,600,000,000!) live in urban areas. This means that over 3 billion people live in concentrated areas around the globe! Dear god, we must do something, right? Well, that's what the mainstream mindset has been ever since Paul Ehrlich published his book Population Bomb back in 1968.
However, we must look past the macro numbers that keep getting thrown at us. True, it's been taking much less time for people to reach the next billion milestone.
As evidence by this nifty map, it's been taking less than 20 years for the human world population to reach another billion people. But if we take a closer look, we'll notice something much more interesting and much more drastic and even terrifying.
The population increase is happening predominantly in the developing world.
Let me go back in human history for a moment and explain something. There are only two factors that affect human population at the international level: fertility and mortality (i.e., births and deaths). (As a side note, migration also affects population increases or decreases, but since people aren't leaving or entering the earth, migration isn't an issue.) Before industrialization and great medical advances, there were lots of deaths, and, as such, people had lots of babies to try to make up for it because there was no way to know if the child you just gave birth to would live long enough to give you grandchildren.
Then industrialization and the scientific revolution come along and determine factors of mortality and how to overcome them. Here enters the lowering of mortality. However, fertility is still high. Therefore, population boom due to lots of births but not as much deaths. Ergo, big population growth occurs.
But then as countries become developed and medical advances and resources give people assurance (and insurance) that their children will survive, fertilty decreases because not a lot of people want to have 10 children if they know all of them will survive. So as nations become developed and established and stable, fertility and mortality are again at similar levels, except as opposed to early human history instead of being really high, they are both really low.
Now why did I mention this? Because developed nations are the ones that have exhibited this. All developed nations had great population growths when they were becoming industrialized. For example, here is the U.S.:
Does the shape look familiar to you? Yep, that's right. It looks eerily similar to the world population growth chart. Of course, with a population overtime graph of a single nation, it's hard to factor in things like in- and out-migration (especially since there is a lot of migration into the U.S. in recent decades). Now, let's look at a nation that might not experience as much in-migration as the U.S., like France:
As you can see, the population is stablizing! (Even though, there has been a lot of controversy about the in-migration of Muslims from former French colonies and such.)
So what's my point? As the world becomes developed, the "population bomb" will no longer exist. Not only that but populations might actually end up declining! In developed nations likes Italy and Japan, the total fertilty rates are below replacement. They are only experiencing non-negative population growth rates because there is an inequality world-wide between developed and developing nations, which leads to people in developing nations wanting to migrate to developed nations, essentially countering the negative natural growth rates in developed nations.
There is a push for nations to become developed. In doing so, mindsets change about having large families. People will end up having fewer children (or no children at all!) and then what? Population will steadily decrease.
As shown in one of the previous maps, the developed world makes up a much smaller portion of the world population compared to the developing world.
Yes, there are issues of overpopulation in DEVELOPING nations. But inevitably and in the long run, nations of the world will be DEVELOPED. And when we look at the data of developed nations now, we are looking at issues of underpopulation in the future to come. Empty schools, empty workplaces, empty stores. A shrinking workforce (which basically means a smaller economy!!!). What will we do with the excess buildings we've built overtime to accommodate the growing population when populations start shrinking? Will ghost towns be normal globally?
And I haven't even begun discussing the aging population. People over 65 are becoming a much larger group. They don't work. They're done with contributing to the labor force. With developed nations comes better health comes older people comes a large elderly population.
Are we screwed?
Some sources I used:
http://www.census-charts.com/Population/pop-us-1790-2000.html
http://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/explosive-population-growth-affects-world-food-supplies-and-environment/
Shorto, Russell. "No Babies?" The New York Times. 29 June 2008.
However, we must look past the macro numbers that keep getting thrown at us. True, it's been taking much less time for people to reach the next billion milestone.
As evidence by this nifty map, it's been taking less than 20 years for the human world population to reach another billion people. But if we take a closer look, we'll notice something much more interesting and much more drastic and even terrifying.
The population increase is happening predominantly in the developing world.
Let me go back in human history for a moment and explain something. There are only two factors that affect human population at the international level: fertility and mortality (i.e., births and deaths). (As a side note, migration also affects population increases or decreases, but since people aren't leaving or entering the earth, migration isn't an issue.) Before industrialization and great medical advances, there were lots of deaths, and, as such, people had lots of babies to try to make up for it because there was no way to know if the child you just gave birth to would live long enough to give you grandchildren.
Then industrialization and the scientific revolution come along and determine factors of mortality and how to overcome them. Here enters the lowering of mortality. However, fertility is still high. Therefore, population boom due to lots of births but not as much deaths. Ergo, big population growth occurs.
But then as countries become developed and medical advances and resources give people assurance (and insurance) that their children will survive, fertilty decreases because not a lot of people want to have 10 children if they know all of them will survive. So as nations become developed and established and stable, fertility and mortality are again at similar levels, except as opposed to early human history instead of being really high, they are both really low.
Now why did I mention this? Because developed nations are the ones that have exhibited this. All developed nations had great population growths when they were becoming industrialized. For example, here is the U.S.:
Does the shape look familiar to you? Yep, that's right. It looks eerily similar to the world population growth chart. Of course, with a population overtime graph of a single nation, it's hard to factor in things like in- and out-migration (especially since there is a lot of migration into the U.S. in recent decades). Now, let's look at a nation that might not experience as much in-migration as the U.S., like France:
As you can see, the population is stablizing! (Even though, there has been a lot of controversy about the in-migration of Muslims from former French colonies and such.)
So what's my point? As the world becomes developed, the "population bomb" will no longer exist. Not only that but populations might actually end up declining! In developed nations likes Italy and Japan, the total fertilty rates are below replacement. They are only experiencing non-negative population growth rates because there is an inequality world-wide between developed and developing nations, which leads to people in developing nations wanting to migrate to developed nations, essentially countering the negative natural growth rates in developed nations.
There is a push for nations to become developed. In doing so, mindsets change about having large families. People will end up having fewer children (or no children at all!) and then what? Population will steadily decrease.
As shown in one of the previous maps, the developed world makes up a much smaller portion of the world population compared to the developing world.
Yes, there are issues of overpopulation in DEVELOPING nations. But inevitably and in the long run, nations of the world will be DEVELOPED. And when we look at the data of developed nations now, we are looking at issues of underpopulation in the future to come. Empty schools, empty workplaces, empty stores. A shrinking workforce (which basically means a smaller economy!!!). What will we do with the excess buildings we've built overtime to accommodate the growing population when populations start shrinking? Will ghost towns be normal globally?
And I haven't even begun discussing the aging population. People over 65 are becoming a much larger group. They don't work. They're done with contributing to the labor force. With developed nations comes better health comes older people comes a large elderly population.
Are we screwed?
Some sources I used:
http://www.census-charts.com/Population/pop-us-1790-2000.html
http://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/explosive-population-growth-affects-world-food-supplies-and-environment/
Shorto, Russell. "No Babies?" The New York Times. 29 June 2008.
The second to last paragraph erroneously implies that all "developing" nations will eventually become "developed." The economy has 3rd world countries relying on an agricultural economic system to support the already developed countries. That's a bad sentence but you get what I mean. This can be seen today when referencing to the flight ban in Europe that kept farmers in Africa from shipping product and therefore having less work. Also with Mexico which used to be the largest producer of corn and now is dependent on importing it from the U.S. Um....yea that was a little off topic but just figured it was worth pointing out. Economy has to change first. As for the population stabilizing and essentially dipping I don't think that's true at all. The less births would be balanced out by the longer lives. Same amount of people, more variety in ages, no dip. Also, who knows if continual advancement/longer lives will lead to a later retirement age. Medical advancements could delay body deterioration that comes with age.
ReplyDeleteI originally wrote this a year and a half ago (hahaha....), so my views and explanations have changed slightly since then.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it may be true that all developing countries may not all become as developed as today's developed nations, it is ALSO the case that these countries will very likely develop further in some sort of forward progression. That is, they will become more-developed than they are now. And the numbers have shown that as countries go through various stages of economic development, they WILL experience fast declines in both fertility levels and mortality levels, so that over time, their total fertility rates fall and their life expectancies rise.
Even if you look at general trends in fertility levels in just about any country over 50-100 years, you'll see an overall decrease in fertility. Sure, medical advances may offset some of the fertility declines through better life expectancies, but when people "age through" life, the fertility levels are still lower than before and will not be a long-term "overpopulation" issue.
Overpopulation will always be an issue in urban areas. As for the world in general, I'm sure we'll have a war or screw up natural resources eventually. I would also like to point out that you call it "underpopulation" when it only seems that way when compared to "overpopulation." Who says that the "underpopulated" numbers aren't the stable ones? I do think I missed the point of this blog though. You're just saying overpopulation won't be an issue right? As for underpopulation, depends what you define it as.
ReplyDeleteIs overpopulation really an issue in developed nations' cities? I really don't think it is.... Also, if you compare the fertility levels between urban populations and rural populations, urban fertility is surprisingly low and absolutely lower in comparison to rural fertility. If we're talking about urban overpopulation, I think it's only a matter of spatial management and organization. I mean, Austin has major traffic congestion issues due to large population growth, but places with double (or more) the population (e.g., Dallas, Houston, Chicago, etc.) don't have as prominent a traffic problem. Austin is regularly ranked as having one of the worst traffic problems in the nation.
ReplyDelete"Underpopulation" refers to below-replacement level fertility. So countries like Japan and Italy are underpopulated because their fertility levels are far below the replacement fertility level of 2.1. This would be a problem because the infrastructures currently in place are for a certain population size ... what do you do when they become underused or empty? But this is a completely different issue....
I should have mentioned something about migration too. Very complicated issue.... >_>
ReplyDeleteWell I was thinking more about issues usually attributed to overpopulation (poverty/overcrowding etc)). Then again, those issues can be in places that aren't overpopulated. My bad.
ReplyDeleteWell if a country becomes underpopulated enough policies governing the use of the buildings will be forced to change accordingly. Tear them down and use the land for something else?
I'm more curious to know why you think underpopulation would be that big of a problem? I've heard economy but it would simply adjust to the people, and buildings to the needs of the people. Elaborate?
If you think historically through human existence, human population is always growing. Therefore, infrastructure, policy, future prediction, and essentially every other policy/structure/concept has embedded within it the notion that the population will grow over time.
ReplyDeleteFor a semi-conceptual example, capitalism depends on a constantly growing economy. What's going to happen when the population stops growing? What's going to happen when the population decreases? It's going to implode and possibly collapse.
Also, as far as physical buildings go, sure you can destroy buildings when the population no longer needs it, but it's harder to "shrink" a city than it is to expand it. Have you ever played SimCity and had your city shrink? It's pretty hard to completely destroy entire sections of your city so that you can accommodate the smaller population--especially since the smaller population will still be dispersed throughout the entire city.
I could go on if you wanted....