Overpopulation: Myth and Reality

Overpopulation:Myth and Reality

Gloomy Predictions “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date, nothing can prevent substantial increase in the world death rate” Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, 1968

Gloomy Predictions “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime in the next 100 years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.” The Club of Rome, Limits to Growth, 1972

Gloomy Predictions “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind” Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798

Gloomy Predictions Population Bomb: • Rampant pollution cuts food supplies • Major food shortages and starvation in 1980’s, even in developed countries Limits to Growth: • Estimated exhaustion dates for: Aluminum: 2003 Coal: 2083 Copper: 1993 Lead: 1993 • Peak year for global: Population: 2040 Food per capita: 2000 Industrial output per capita: 2000 • Natural Gas: 1994 • Oil 1992 • Tin: 1987 • Zinc: 1990

Food Source: UN Food & Agriculture Organization database, http://faostat.fao.org/

Food – What’s Going On? • There are different kinds of resource/environmental issues: • Traded goods • Externalities • Traded goods • Examples: food, energy, water, minerals • Demand increases, perhaps due to rising population • Higher demand increases price • Higher price has two effects: • Consumers find ways to conserve/switch to alternatives • Producers have incentive and $ to produce more • We’ll never “run out” of these, as long as people • are willing to pay for them • Forms may change (switch from oil to wind as last • oil becomes too expensive to extract)

Food – What’s Going On? When the number of wolves increases, there are fewer chickens: Think of a population of chickens (a traded good!):

Food – What’s Going On? When the number of humans increases, there are more chickens:

Stuff We Should Actually Worry About • 2) Externalities • I enjoy the full benefit from some activity, • but only pay part of the cost! • Other people who share my road/river/atmosphere also • pay a cost b/c of my action • Examples: traffic, traditional air/water pollution, • global warming, collapse of ecological systems • When the decision-maker doesn’t bear the full cost of • decisions, wrong decisions get made • Unlike providing food & energy, nobody gets money from reducing greenhouse gasses. So global warming might be a huge problem. • Medium-term solution solution beloved by economists: raise gasoline tax!! Reduce global warming and the Federal deficit simultaneously 

Population Source: UN Population Division, World Population Prosects: The 2004 Revision Population Database, http://esa.un.org/unpp/

Population Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators Database, http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline/

Resources UN Population Division • World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision Population Database • http://esa.un.org/unpp/ UN Food and Agriculture Organization • http://faostat.fao.org/ World Bank Group • World Development Indicators • http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline/ Bjorn Lomborg, “The Skeptical Environmentalist” 2001 • Written by a former Greenpeace activist, who set out to challeng Julian Simon (below), but was startled by the facts • Comprehensively de-bunks many claims of the modern environmental movement • Argues that non-problems are emphasized while real problems are ignored • Was the target of a smear campaign by European environmental groups Julian Simon, “The Ultimate Resource II” 1998 • Shows that virtually every resource of interest to humans is infinitely renewable • Argues that human beings are “the ultimate resource” • Less discussion of externalities like global warming

Overpopulation: Myth and Reality