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Note on Family Planning

by Yves Bajard (email 2001?)

Is consumption a problem? Of course it is.

Is population a problem? Of course it is.

In both cases, we are dealing with exponential growth functions with more-or-less similar rate constants in the neighborhood of a few percentage points a year (See Footnote).  Either one can and may overwhelm the earth's capacity to produce environmental goods and services, or more significantly in the short term, overwhelm local environments, leading to massive migration and environmental refugees.

The deepest and most troubling problems, however, arise when we acknowledge the complex interplay of population and affluence.

I would like to address this point.

1.Statement of problem:
We are on a course of very rapid increase of human load on the Earth's resources and ecosystems. How rapid is it really and what are the odds against a continuity of evolution at that rate without a breakdown? what are the causes of the risks to our evolution toward a livable future for all? and what can we do to correct course on time and for an acceptable cost?

In this post, I'll only deal with the first question. it is sufficient to fill a long post.

2. Primary factors of the evolution:
By primary factors I mean the factors which affect directly the evolution. Secondary factors are those which affect the primary factors, tertiary factors those which condition the secondary, etc. Let us examine the primary factors (This review is not necessarily limited to specialists in economics, or social science, or ecology, or any discipline providing MAs or MScs or PhDs to whomever has the persistence to go after these pieces of paper to hang from a wall. On the contrary, it should be open to all persons capable of thinking, whatever their academic background).

2.1. Population is an evident primary factors: the more we are on Earth, the heavier our common load will be. Distribution of population is also a primary factor, as it affects the distribution of human load on nature and its ecosystems.

2.2. So is the satisfaction of individual demands for goods and services to provide to people a certain lifestyle. The more each of us is getting to meet his or her demands, the heavier the load. Social and geographic distributions of this ability to meet demands is also a primary factor, for the same reason as population distribution.

2.3.A third primary factor is the (in)efficiency of resource and energy throughput in the production, distribution, sales, use of products and services meeting the individual demands above. The less careful and thrifty our economic and social ways of life are with saving energy and raw inputs to our consumption through the full lifecycle of our use of products and services, the heavier the human load on the system. Here again this primary factor works at two levels: its intensity and its geographical distribution.

2.4. Another primary factor, working in the same direction and also at two levels is the protection or conservation of the ecosystems. The less careful  we are in our ways of life with the protection and conservation of the livability of the ecosystems in which we live, the heavier will be our load on the system.

2.5. Finally, I would argue that a fifth factor is the inequality of access to goods, services and opportunities among people, because the resulting social stress causes added stress on nature: when conflicts arise, people are less careful than normal with the way in which they behave, and this necessarily adds to the human load on the system. Again, one can envisage a two level effect, with the degree of inequality at a given place, and the geographic distribution of this inequality.

2.6. Comment: These primary factors are interactive. That is,

•         the degree to which human demands are met compounds population growth.
•         the degree of inefficiency in throughput compounds the combination of population and satisfaction of demands
•         so does the degree of destruction of the ecological context of our existence, and
•         so does, also, the degree of social stress caused by inequality

Therefore, if we want to have a valid image of human load on Earth, we need to consider all these factors in combination with one another. Unfortunately, data do not exist on some of them, mostly because nobody has found useful to record them in an "empty world" economy. (Why bother, when we assume, as  many decision-makers still do, that we have the space and resources available for ever and ever, that competition for success at the cost of anything else is the natural way things happen., and that we as a species and among us the strongest and most unscrupulous own the whole show for our immediate enjoyment..)

•         We have data on population, not always reliable,
•         There is some data about consumption, but I doubt that they are organized . to give a valid picture of the degree to which demands are met, mostly because some essential demands of people are not met through the monetary market system
•         Efficiency of throughput is certainly not recorded over the lifecycle (from extraction of inputs to disposal of remnants) of all products and services all people are consuming.
•         There are some data about ecological situations, but I am afraid there is nothing comprehensive and organized to give an idea of the evolution of overall livability on the planet.
•         Finally, the data available about inequality among people is limited to some figures about inequality of monetary incomes or wealth in some countries, especially the affluent ones. I could not find valid information on the subject. Also to be mentioned that access to goods, services and opportunities has a significant non-monetary component

3. Projections into the future and into the past
It would be worthwhile, even with the lack of data, to try and see how current human load on Earth has evolved since say 1950 and would change at current rates of variation, as they can be assessed for those primary factors between now and say, 2025, which is not too far down the line.

An idea would be to take current population and assume that an index equal to 1.00 represents each of the other primary factors. Projections will be applied to those indexes and provide a  relative image of human load, expressed in 1995 average people. For now, we will not go beyond a consideration of the total weight. This means that we will not try to look into the geographic and social variations of the primary factors and therefore the imbalance in the distribution of the load.

3.1. Population
Based on data from  the WRI report, World Resources and Guide to the Global Environment - The Urban Environment, table 8.1. p 190, we take a global population in 1995 at 5.28 Billion people. The projection to 2025 is at a rate of 1.245% average 8.29 billion. In 1950, it was  2.52 billion, which corresponds to an average growth rate of 1.8% during that period.

3.2. Satisfaction of demand:
Curtis Bohlen argues that population and consumption are increasing at similar rates.  This may be true at the level of the US, but I doubt it is at that of the planet.  Anyway, for the sake of the argument, let us assume that

• for the next few decades, satisfaction of demands in the affluent countries will take place at the expense of the people living in poorer parts of the world. Therefore, one can expect an average growth of satisfaction in demands of say half the population growth. This assumes that the market works well. at .623 increase worldwide the demand indicator in 2025 would be equal to 1.23.
• If we assume that the satisfaction of demands increased between 1950 and 1995 at half the demographic growth rate during the same period, we come with a rate of 0.9% per year, which provides a demand satisfaction index for 1950 of 0.67

3.3. Throughput inefficiency:
In spite of Harald Agerley's optimism on the factors of efficiency possible in the production of some goods, I would argue that the economic system, geared as it is to the maximization of short term monetary profits at all costs, must externalize all possible costs. This implies a low priority to the efficiency of resource and energy throughput, the more so as one fundamental premise underlying the economy is the replacability of all resources exhausted and the infinite availability of energy. Therefore, the policy can be summed up by: "Why save and engage in costly efficiency efforts, when we can as well do without them and increase our dividends?" I therefore assumed that at global scale,

• the efficiency in resource and energy throughput would decrease by 0.5 % per year between now and 2025. This provides an additional multiplier of 1.16 if we want to express the human load in equivalent 1995 people. With consideration of resource and energy throughput increasing inefficiency, the total human load expressed in equivalent 1995 people becomes 11.81 Billion.
• If we examine growth between 1950 and now, and the resulting depletion of resources, it must have evolved much faster that we can assess for the future. The us therefore assume a growth rate in throughput inefficiency of 0.8% per year. (God knows how much it has been). The 1950 value of the index would then be 0.70, with an  equivalent of 1.17 billion 1995 people in 1950, considering only the first three  primary factors of  human load.

3.4. Ecological degradation: Now, in a similar fashion, the economic system in place does not put any real priority on ecological preservation: conservation corresponds to costs without returns ...

• With an evolution of the ongoing environmental degradation similar to that of resource and energy throughput inefficiency, we would have a 2025 index of 0.50 again, providing at 13.5 billion equivalent 1995 people at that time.
•         Assuming between 1950 and now a similar evolution of the ecological degradation and of throughput inefficiency, we reach a 1950 index of 0.70 and a total compounded 1995 equivalent population with consideration of the four first primary factors of 0.82 Billion.

3.5. Social inequality
Finally comes the fifth factor, that of inequality of access to goods, services and opportunities among people. I know that several among the ecol-econers tend to shrug this factor off. Competition is competition and an immutable in the nature of things. Humans are competitive and inequality is in human nature.  Perhaps, but we don't know to what extent inequality among people is genetic or culturally acquired, say during the past ten thousand years, with a paroxysm now. In any event, inequality at current intensity and rate of growth is socially disruptive and ecologically destructive. The Gulf War is a good example of the latter. The conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, the former colonies of the USSR (so called former Soviet republics), etc.. are witness to the former.  David Korten indicates in his "When Corporations rule the world" (1997) that between the early seventies and 1997,  i.e., in 25 years, the ratio between the upper and lower deciles in the US moved from a value of thirty to a value of sixty. Doubling in 25 years. This represents a growth of 2.8% per year. Now this may be extreme and it does not take into account the non-monetary aspects of the issue, which may compensate this inequality.

• For the projection into the future, let us assume that the powers that be recognize the problem and take some action to moderate the growth in inequality. If we assume a conservative growth rate for inequality of 1% between now and 2025. the 2025 index  will be 1.35, giving a total 2025 human load in 1995 equivalent people of 18.49 Billion.
• Looking back into the past, we may assume a much wilder behavior and a rate of growth of inequality of say 1.35% per year, which would  provide a value for the 1950 inequality index of  0.55 and a 1995 people equivalent load of 0.45 Billion in 1950

4. Conclusion for now:
If we take into account all five primary factors of human load on the Globe, and assuming the guesswork proposed here for a projection is not too far off the mark,  current weight of  5.29 Billion people now would produce, at  assumed rates of worsening in the variation of the primary factors, an equivalent weight of 18.49 billion. Looking back into the past, the 1950- 1995 period represents a shift from 0.45 billion in 1995 equivalent to the current 5.29 billion. The ratio of load increase between 1950 and 1995 is 12.7. Between 1995 and 2025 it is slower, even considering the time period is shorter: the ratio is 3.23. The total compounded  ratio between 1950 and 2025 is 41. This means that the human load on its ecosystem and sources of natural inputs will be 41 times larger in 2025 than it was in 1950, if we let things continue as they do, even considering a milt slowing down of tendencies.

I invite you to give some thoughts to the significance of this evolution and to its possible continuation. How long t do you thick we can hold along this course? The figures given here are projections, not prediction. I am not an oracle, but a scientist. These figures are as good as any. One can dispute the rates of evolution, but they ere prudently taken. You can propose similar projections with slightly different guesstimates. I doubt that you will find anything reassuring.

The figures given here are adequate for discussion and reflection. I do not propose that these are true figures. Just illustrations of what may have been and of what may occur if we let things evolved along the usual laissez-faire pattern.

I expect some reaction for once. Our common future may well be at risk.

See also The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg 1999.

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