Message-ID: <s486cf33.057@crs.loc.gov> Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 15:35:44 -0500 From: Jonathan Sanford <mailto:JSANFORD@CRS.LOC.GOV> Subject: Re: Megadeath -Reply To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Dear John,Thanks very much for your very useful calculation. I had been looking for a reference to the idea that world population would soon be pushed to the point where it would exceed the carrying capacity of earth and billions would perish. What you are pointing to, I think, is the problem of persistent low-visibility megadeath. I must say that your calculations are sobering.
I looked through the World Develoment Report and World Development Indicators for a percentage of the population below 14 years of age. Couldn't find it. I did find a figure for workforce between 15 and 64, which shows that 62% of the world's current population is between those ages. I presume that most of the remainder (maybe 35%??) are below 14. That's approximately 2 billion people. In a few years, they will start forming families of their own. That will push the world population up significantly. Even with prudent efforts at population control, I think the world should expect a major increase in the number of people very soon. In other words, I think the population genie is out of the bottle. The question is what we do about it.
I tend toward the view that we need to make a major effort to promote growth, in order to generate the resources and opportunities necessary to feed, house, employ, and educate all our neighbors. Your figures tend towards a similar conclusion, that persistent low-visibility megadeath could be reduced if income levels etc were raised in poor countries.
Some of our friends question whether the world can sustain so much economic growth without pushing the environment into serious degredation, perhaps with major negative effects on health and human prospects for life. Presumably, some of the pressure could be relieved if all the rich countries agreed to reduce their living standards and draw fewer resources from nature. Presumably, the people in these countries could also pay from their abundance enough money to facilitate an easy transition.
Lots of people talk about a simpler lifestyle. However, I haven't seen very many who really want one or who are prepared to take the major cuts in living standards necessary to get there. Anyway, a simple lifestyle costs a lot of money. Imagine how much it will cost to redesign our cities so we don't need automobiles! I don't see how an effective political majority in favor of mutual impoverishment is going to arise in the rich countries. Maybe I'm wrong.
So where does this leave us? I guess we have a choice between persistent low-visibility megadeaths, as you describe, or a population crash, as I describe, or environmental collapse, as some of our friends describe. Maybe we get to realize two of these conditions simultaneously. Most likely, in any case, the poor and the weak and the rural will be those will suffer the most. I doubt that as many people in the better zip code areas as in the poor areas will starve or suffer from chronic/endemic disease. Maybe God will do something to even things up a bit, but that hasn't been her style in the past.
I see some serious ethical dilemmas. Do we try to grow our way out of the problem and risk environmental consequences? Or do we try to preserve the environment and the resource base and risk massive human consequences? If we all try to be realistic, and we all focus on doing what we can and saving the people and things we believe are most important, we will doubtlessly face a hard future, since we all disagree about who and what are most important.
Jon Sanford