Even so, I was dismayed and disappointed to find that the recent report of the IPCC panel made no mention of the underlying problem of overpopulation.
Surely it is obvious that the more people there are, the greater will be the pressure on the environment. Before the industrial revolution the world's population was less than one billion. Now it is seven billion and counting. The majority of the the seven billion live in Asia and Africa either at a subsistence agricultural level or in conditions of Dickensian urban industrial squalor. If this impoverished majority were to aspire to European or North American lifestyles (which they almost certainly do) the pressure would be unsustainable.
Various estimates have been attempted of the level of human population that the planet can sustain at different levels of "affluence". One such estimate suggests that at American living standards the sustainable world population would be 1.2 billion, and that the UK sustainable population would need to be reduced from the current 65 million to between 17 and 27 millions (depending on various assumptions).
The conclusion is clear. In addition to the disagreeable measures advocated by the IPCC panel in order to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the world must reduce its population by at least two thirds - say, from 7 billion to 2 billion.
How could this possibly be achieved?
I think there are probably four options: famine, disease, war or voluntary reduction.
To some extent both the "famine" and the "war" options are already happening, as the former is often the consequence of the latter. However, the famines in Darfur, Biafra and Ethiopia in the 20th century and in Yemen today (all caused by civil or local wars) are as nothing compared with what will happen if current trends continue.
With the end of the Cold War it was widely assumed that the likelihood of a nuclear war had greatly reduced. However, recent events such as the belligerence of the USA and North Korea and the war-like actions of Russia in the Ukraine and of China in the South China Sea, not to mention the aspirations of minor players such as Iran and Israel, suggest that a major nuclear war - whether by accident or design - is not an impossibility. If it were to happen, the direct human casualties could be in billions, and the after effects on climate and agriculture could result in further depopulation.
Population reduction as a result of disease is also a significant possibility. At one time it was feared that the AIDS epidemic would spread and engulf most of the world, but medical science has come to the rescue and appears to have averted that threat - until now. More worrying is the growing resistance of harmful bacteria to antibiotics. The gloomiest predictions suggest that unless new antibiotics are developed, medicine will lose much of its efficacy and death rates will revert to levels not seen since the discovery of penicillin in the 1920s.
However, if these grisly outcomes are to be avoided there remains the theoretical option of voluntary restraint. To achieve the reduction suggested above would require a policy, sustained for two generations (say, 50 years), of limiting the birth rate (i.e family size) to about half the replacement level. Draconian measures, such as China's former one-child policy, or India's compulsory sterilisation would need to be repeated and enforced. Cultural preferences for large families (to demonstrate virility or fecundity, or to provide an insurance for care in old age) would need to be suppressed. The authorities and especially religious bodies would need to abandon their opposition to contraception and abortion.
It is difficult to see how these requirements could possibly be be met - but there is clearly no chance whatsoever if responsible scientific bodies are not prepared to point out the obvious. This is why I found the IPCC report so disappointing.
© 2018 Robin Paice
One point that I overlooked is that total population - i.e. the mumber of people living at any given moment - is a function not only of past birth rate but also of longevity. That is - if life expectancy increases by, say, 10%, and the birth rate or fertility rate remains constant then you would expect total population to increase by 10%. (I expect that is a slight oversimplification, but it is broadly correct).
ReplyDeleteIt follows from this that if modern medicine begins to lose its effectiveness (a possibility I referred to above) then some slowdown in the rate of population increase can be expected.
I hasten to add that this is not an argument for making madicine less effective, but the point needs to be made for completeness.