Debunking Common Myths About Overpopulation
Overpopulation is currently one of the most controversial and critical topics of debate. With a sharp rise in food prices, lack of fresh water and food, ecosystems that are literally collapsing, and concrete suburbs that replace wild nature, the problem of unlimited human expansion is one of the biggest problems humanity today has to face. Like with many other sensitive topics, there are those who remain critical and even deny that overpopulation is a problem. In this document we will address the most popular and wide-spread myths about overpopulation and related issues.
The Passive Argument
The world population is not growing anymore, so we don't have to worry about overpopulation
This is incorrect. Currently we're nearing 6,7 billion people and according to UN official statistics, we'll have reached 9+ billion people already by year 2045 1.
The world population is stabilizing and the problem of overpopulation will therefore solve itself
It's true that the world population growth is estimated to slowly stabilize after year 2050 and onward 2, but it doesn't change the fact that it is still growing. Even if we, through a miracle, managed to stop the world population growth tomorrow, we're still nearly 6,7 billion people living on this planet, and this situation in itself is critical:
Measuring consumption as the use of biologically productive land and sea, their [Global Footprint Network] data shows a global maximum sustainable footprint, at today's population, of just under 1.8 global hectares (gha) per person. Currently, by drawing down nonrenewable resources, we're a bit over 2.2gha, overshooting Earth's limits by about 25%. 3
Overpopulation in itself is not a problem. There can be even more people on the planet and nothing bad will happen to our environment
This argument is faulty for two reasons:
1) It assumes there's no relationship between consumption and the number of consumers available. This doesn't make sense, if you take into account that all human beings need food, fresh water, and a home to survive. All individuals are therefore by definition consumers, whether they live in a tiny village in Uganda or a vasty city in America. The difference in consumption and what they consume (calories, water, products) varies of course, but we cannot escape this basic equation: total consumption = population size x per capita consumption 4.
2) Of course we could, in theory, populate the planet even further. The question is however not just how many people that are able to exist simultaneously on the planet, but under what conditions these people live and what impact they have on the environment. We've already exceeded that limit 5.
The Economic Argument
The problem is unequal distribution of resources between rich and poor countries. We should therefore focus on social and economic inequalities, not on world population growth
Even if we did manage to create worldwide social and economic equality, we'd still be too many people. What would for instance happen if we converged on Mexico's level of per capita consumption?
Resource use would plummet in developed countries while rising in many of the poorest. (Surely we could not deprive the latter of the chance to raise their standards of living?) But it wouldn't get us to 1.8gha. At 2.6gha, Mexico's footprint is 32% too high. A drop to the level of Botswana or Uzbekistan would put us in the right range.
But that's not low enough. We'd next have to compensate for UN projections of 40% more humans by the middle of the century. That would mean shrinking the global footprint to under 1.3gha, roughly the level of Guatemala or Nigeria.
There's more. The GFN authors point out their data is conservative, underestimating problems such as aquifer depletion and our impacts on other species. In response, the Redefining Progress group publishes an alternative footprint measure which has humanity not at 25%, but at 39% overshoot. But that too, the authors concede, is an underestimate. 6
We have to industrialize the third world so that the people living there will migrate to a model with smaller families, like in the West
Aside from the ideological questions (do we, as Westerners, have the right to force our technological, social and political systems upon other people?) and the practical difficulties tied in with this suggestion, we'd still be maintaining a total consumption that's too high. As the answer above reveals, we'd currently have to drop to the level of Botswana or Uzbekistan - and that is based on highly moderate figures 7.
If we let people from the third world migrate to the first world, we'll save the third world from their environmental, social and economic problems with overpopulation
Let's use America as an example to demonstrate why this will never work. America takes in about 1 million immigrants each year 8. Right now around 1,1 billion people in the world are living in extreme poverty 9. Immigration is therefore not the solution to solve the socio-economic problems in the third world. The overpopulation problem in the third world remains, no matter how insanely high levels of immigration we allow:
[B]y 2050 the world is expected to have 8.9 billion people, an increase of nearly half over the 2000 population. By 2050, the share of Asia will be at nearly 60 per cent, that of Africa will have more than doubled, to 20 per cent, and that of Latin America nearly doubled, to 9 per cent. Meanwhile the share of Europe will decline to 7 per cent, less than one third its peak level achieved at the beginning of the twentieth century. While in 1900 the population of Europe was three times that of Africa, in 2050 the population of Africa will be nearly three times that of Europe. 10
These figures hint at the useless method of immigration as a tool to try and distribute the world population. On the contrary, immigration is destructive to the environment in that it increases the total consumption in a country of limited space and resources. High levels of immigration for a long period of time will therefore destroy the social fabric and deplete the resources available 11.
The Moral Argument
Each individual is sacred and carries an intrinsic value. For this reason we should not attempt to reduce the overpopulation
We don't necessarily need to take any human life. Effective methods of reducing overpopulation include family planning, which is 100 % harmless to already existing individuals.
We have no moral right to limit the reproduction of individuals, as this violates basic human rights
All human individuals are part of the world in which we live, and if we deplete the resources of this planet, many people will find themselves born into poverty. If we make the individual sacred, we defend a careless attitude towards the larger life, including other species that also have the right to exist. We're not the only living creates on this planet; if we care about ourselves, we must also care about the environment that sustains our very existence.
We have more important problems to focus on, like social and economic inequalities
Aside from the anthropocentric perspective that seems to place the human species above its environment, social and economic problems are closely linked to the problem of overpopulation 7.
References
1 United Nations, "The 2006 Revision Population Database"
2 United Nations Data Report (2004)
3 John Feeney, "Return of the population timebomb"
4 Mancur Olson, Hans H. Landsberg, "The No-growth Society: No Growth Society"
5 Chris Rapley, "Earth is too crowded for Utopia"
6 John Feeney, "Return of the population timebomb"
7 All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, "Population Hearing 2007"
8 Steven A. Camarota (Center for Immigration Studies), "Immigrants at Mid-Decade"
9 Sachs, Jeffrey D. (Time Magazine), "The End of Poverty"
10 United Nations Data Report (2004)
11 Video: "Immigration Gumballs"
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