"In 2011 the top demographic experts of the United Nations suggested that by 2100 there would be 10.1 billion of us. Moreover, they implied that the global human population might still be growing a century from now. So what can we do? Are there too many people on the planet? Is this the end of life as we know it?"
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| Population 10 Billion: the coming demographic crisis and how to survive it - Danny Dorling |
First things first:
- The underlying foundations of this book are the UN demographic predictions from 2011, which suggested that by 2025 there would be 8 billion of us, by 2045, 9 billion of us, and by 2100, there would be a grand total of 10.1 billion of us - with 'our numbers still rising in a century's time'.
- Dorling himself does not think that the world population will reach 10.1 billion people.
- He in fact ends the book suggesting that we 'worry' less about population and more about other pressing matters, notably Climate Change.
- Dorling is also 'a possibilist', not a pessimist nor an optimist (though much of his book is very optimistic about our demographic future).
- I so enjoyed this book - would recommend it.
Population has long fascinated me, and, I would argue, it is something that captures much of the world too; the rise in popularity of dystopian series such as 'The Hunger Games' by Suzanne Collins or 'Divergent' by Veronica Roth (if you haven't thus far, I seriously recommend reading both), as well as sci-fi movies like 'Interstellar' exploring the idea of finding another world to inhabit, evidence this ongoing fascination. It's so compelling how what we watch, read, and generally create reflects our fears and dreams, the things that concern us as they are being created. As I write these words, there are 7.28 billion of us, and our population continues to grow. Were you to watch the 'world population clock' I linked (click on 7.28 billion), you would find that more than double the amount of people who have died today have been born, just as the number of people born this year is more than twice the number of those who have died; hence you may conclude that we are experiencing high natural increase, and that our population is growing - fast. However, the rate of increase has in fact slowed, and continues to slow. The global acceleration that began in the 1850's ended in the 1970's, and we are now, very gradually, experiencing slower annual changes in population. The factors combining to slowly brake our population include decelerations in birth rates, death rates and total fertility rates, and there are many factors that combine to slow these themselves.
"As life expectancy rises, as female emancipation increases, as marriage rates reduce, as the expectation to have children young falls - and as contraception is made more easily available and its use is more attractive than becoming a parent more early and often - then we will all have fewer children."
- page 237
I think that the greatest factor contributing to falls in total fertility rates (TFRs) and hence birth rates is female emancipation. As women experience greater freedom and more equal rights, their 'purpose' is no longer merely to have children and live a domestic life in support of the husband; increasingly, women are putting their careers before having families or indeed even getting married, and there is no longer an expectation for women to marry early and have as many children as possible. Equally, as female education (and education in general) increases alongside increased accessibility to contraception (which is supported by social/cultural changes in the expectation of women and the conception of having children), children are planned and people have greater control over when and if they have them. In a similar light, the incentives to have children contribute hugely to TFRs; as the quality of life increases for the elderly/general population, families no longer require so many children to support them in old age/economically by working, hence there is less of an economic incentive to have children. Equally, as economic stability increases, people may choose to have fewer children in preference of owning material possessions. Falls in infant mortality rates also lead to fewer births as more children are surviving past the first year of life. Two additional factors I had not before encountered in great detail are changes to social structure in terms of marriage, and the role of immigrants. It is increasingly common for people not to be married; that's basically it. If fewer people get married and start a family, it is on the whole true that fewer children are born. A decline in marriage rates arises due to a range of things, including changes in social culture, urbanisation, and increased education and emancipation. Dorling doesn't take into account, however, children born outside of wedlock - something increasingly common. His main focus is on married couples, and compared to the 1960s when just over 50% of people were married by their 20's, almost half this number of people are married in their 20's today.
Immigration is a hot topic; it is a topic shrouded and clothed in debate; and it is an increasingly touchy subject, particularly in the UK (you need look no further than the news, and growing tensions politically amongst UKIP and other parties). The conventional argument is that 'immigrants come into the UK, do no work, take advantage of benefits, take up all the jobs and space and ruin British culture' - oh, and let's not forget, 'they come here and multiply like rabbits'. Dorling writes that David Cameron's campaign to stop every 1 in 4 migrants coming to the UK so as to cap the UK population at 70 million is 'stupid', and is merely the manifestation of him 'playing to the gallery'. The UK population is forecast to reach 72.3 million by 2045, without capping immigration so. Rather than maintaining the TFRs of their native countries (which is often higher than the country into which they immigrate), immigrants adopt the fertility rate of the area into which they migrate (generally speaking). Therefore, Dorling adds, we shouldn't discourage migration into Europe - not only will it reduce TFRs thereby reducing population growth globally, but it will also aid with our growing ageing population crisis.
Of course, fertility rates are also influenced by pro-natal or anti-natal policies heralded by countries, including most notably China's One Child policy. However, evidence shows that fertility rates had fallen from approximately 6 to 2 children per woman, a decade before this policy was introduced. Therefore, it is arguable that other factors less explicitly controlled have more of an influence upon reductions in TFRs.
"Without great increases in longevity, total population will fall faster than expected. Part of the reason that 10 billion is projected is that so many more of us are expected to live into extreme old age."
- page 340
If population growth is slowing, then how on earth are we to reach such a number as 10.1 billion by 2100? Quite simply, more of us are living for longer. As our understanding of diseases and the quality of our medical care increases, as our standard of living increases, life expectancy continues to grow. In most countries in the world, people can now expect to live well into their 80s and beyond.
"We don't have too many people, but we have too many people who want the latest phone, car or other toy."
- page 140
It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that what scares people demographically is not the sheer number of people walking the earth, but the implications of this number - the impact on quality of life, on the environment, on energy, on being able to feed everyone, on war... and so the list proceeds. It is what I like to call 'The Hunger Games Principle': Suzanne Collins's bestselling trilogy follows the experiences of 16 year old Katniss Everdeen of District 12, the coal-mining faction constituting and supporting the autocratic Capitol, a capitalist, dictatorship governing North America, alongside 11 (in reality, 13 in total) other districts. Each district produces a commodity that is exported to the Capitol, and those in the districts are enslaved in this hierarchal institution, guarded by 'peacekeepers' from the Capitol. Each year, to keep the memory of the rebellion of the dark ages alive (essentially to remind the citizens of the districts of their inferiority and keep them under control by dissuading further rebellion), two tributes from each district must fight to the death in the Hunger Games - a sadistic competition looked forward to by the citizens of the Capitol. The winner earns their place in the Victor's Village of their respective district, receiving a supply of food and money as well as monthly gifts of food for the others in their district. I won't spoil anything from the plot of the books, but these essential foundations that comprise the story reflect the fear held by many people in reality. As the population grows, with increasing inequality between people, multitudes, including noted resultant theories like that of Reverend Thomas Malthus, fear that we will be unable to support ourselves efficiently and sustainably; that out of this inefficiency will rise repression and dramatically reduced qualities of life for the rest of the population not included in this exclusive minority; that the population will become segregated and dominated due to our lack of enough food and energy. It's not hard to adopt a dystopian view of the world such as 'The Hunger Games Principle' (which could just as easily have been called 'The Divergent Principle', which, if you've read the trilogy, is perhaps more realistic in relation to demographic pressures than 'The Hunger Games'), and visualise such an existence materialising. If we are capable of visualising and conceptualising such a reality, who's to say such an existence can't become reality? More pessimistically, who's to say that it won't?
How to increase the sustainability of our existence and prevent the repression of the majority in a factionalised existence at the hands of an autocratic, greedy Capitol (i.e. a real life Hunger Games):
- A re-evaluation of consumerism: Dorling writes that 'fashion is dangerous', and I think he's right. The Western culture so dominant in the world exudes an attitude of constant upgrading in fear of us otherwise being discontinued and out-of-date (for further reference, see Leslie T. Chang's article, 'The Gilded Age' here). We spend so much on looking good - buying new unnecessary clothes, buying a new phone merely because a new model is out - not because our old one no longer works, throwing old things out because they aren't in fashion - in a lifestyle that is so very unnecessary! And it wastes energy.
- An alternative energy source: don't use the energy in the first place.
- Adaptation of our materialistic, hedonistic and excessive mode of existence: this needs to change. Rather than focusing on ourselves and having the greatest standard of living individually, it would be more sustainable to adopt a mode of existence which is comfortable (not excessively so) and can be mutually shared by a wider range of people. For instance, don't eat extra purely because it is available - Dorling suggests that obesity related to excessive eating reduces our ability to feed the world, having the same implications for food as an extra half a billion people. He further suggests that water could be our downfall, but this may be overcome through using less excessive amounts unneccessarily. Equally, greed and the aim of generating the greatest profit for a small cohort must be put aside.
- Reduce socio-economic inequalities: disparity is key to 'The Hunger Games'. We cannot effectively support 10.1 billion people if say 93% of wealth is locked up in a cohort comprising 9% of the population. People can live without 3 additional homes in foreign places and private jets; people cannot live without basic food and water and necessary infrastructural amenities.
- Stop modern colonisation: besides the Internet, Dorling suggests that the increasing presence of land investors and biofuel producers taking over land that could feed up to 1 billion people is a modern form of colonisation, which dramatically hinders our ability to sustainability support our population.
"This book is titled Population 10 Billion, but at its end, I have a confession to make. I very much doubt that there will ever be 10 billion people all alive at the same time on this planet, at least not within the coming hundred years."
- page 335
Outside of his exploration into the demographic crisis, Dorling's references to changes in the global demographic composition and our impact environmentally are of equal fascination. Essentially, he suggests that the US hegemony which began in 1948 started decelerating in 2008, and that we are increasingly living in 'the Asian Century'; neither North America nor Europe will continue to lead the way. Instead, the world will begin to look towards the East at rising superpowers in China, Japan and India amongst other countries. Demographically, for instance, Japan shows that 'low economic growth is sustainable, alongside very low fertility and very high life expectancy' (page 336). Two environmentally-concerned things I hadn't previously encountered: (a) Earth Overshoot Day - the day by which annually we have used our budget of the earth's resources and are in overdraft - 'techno-rupture' is expected to be reached on May 4th 2044 (b) The Anthropocene - this is the epoch (era) geologically marked of when humans first began to have a significant impact on the earth's ecosystems and environment globally. I recommend reading into both of these further - so interesting.
'Of course, there has to come a point, at some point, when it is too late. Hopefully precisely when that point will be is impossible to foretell. The 4 May 2044 date of the latest estimate for 'techno-rapture', mentioned in passing half-way through this book, will certainly inspire some to set that as the possible Armageddon point. For others, 2044 is simply too far away. There is always one group or another that needs to say the end is nigh, right here, right now. If I live to 4 May 2044, I'll be 76 years old. My oldest child will be almost as old as I am now. Hopefully I'll be a grandfather, but just as you can take nothing for granted (as it is not always rational to be an optimist), so too it makes little sense to be a pessimist all your life. Be practical, be a possibilist, but be aware that whatever we worry most about today is unlikely either to greatly diminish as a concern, or to still be our greatest concern in the future. We were made to worry; it keeps us safe. Here is one last thing to worry about. Better to worry about this now than later, and better to worry about the climate than about 10 billion people: "Our impact on the climate system will change an important part of Earth's basic appearance from even the distant perspective of space: most of the north polar region that is now white will be repainted in hues of dark blue (where sea ice melts back) and dark green (where snow-covered tundra gives way to boreal conifer forest). As satellite photos accumulated over many decades begin to show that we are repainting Earth's norther pole, the scale of our impact on climate will become obvious to all."'
- page 470
As the motto of The Hunger Games says, may the odds be ever in your favour.
C
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