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Overpopulation isn't an actual problem. The rate of new births has been steady for decades now, and will remain steady into the foreseeable future. There are ab

by beat 8y ago

Overpopulation isn't an actual problem. The rate of new births has been steady for decades now, and will remain steady into the foreseeable future. There are about 2 billion children in the world now; the UN expects there will be about 2 billion children in 2100. The population growth we're seeing today is a result of increased life expectancy, not increased birth rate, and it will flatten out in a few decades. High birth rates are a product of extreme poverty, where child mortality is a problem. It doesn't take a lot of wealth for a country to solve most of the basic child killers (sanitation and access to clean water, vaccination, and most importantly, mothers who can read). And the extreme poverty rate is plummeting - from 29% in the 1990s to just 9% today. Fertility treatments are a luxury, something that only the wealthiest tenth or so of the world can even afford. It's for people who are struggling to have one child, not trying to get their fifth.

dudul 8y ago
Aren't studies predicting that Africa is gonna double in population size over the next 50 years? Are they anticipating massive depopulation of some countries/continents to even it out then?
- pitaj 8y ago
  It wouldn't be overpopulated, even if that happened. It would take orders of magnitude of population growth to overpopulate the Earth.
  - dudul 8y ago
    I wasn't talking about the idea of overpopulation. I was surprised to see that the total count of kids was predicted to be so stable, while at the same time we're expecting ~1 billion more people in Africa.
    - beat 8y ago
      You have to think about the math in terms of generations. It takes a couple of generations for the processes that reduce child mortality rates and increase adult lifespans to take hold. So there's a boom generation that will be much larger and live much longer than originally expected. As the life expectancy changes from 50 to 70, that's a lot more people - people born a half-century earlier.
  - EGreg 8y ago
    Just because the rate of growth is declining doesn’t mean the absolute numbers - when extrapolated out - won’t exceed some given threshold. You need to be more specific with your numbers.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    I guess that depends on how one defines "overpopulated". As it is, total biomass of livestock exceeds that of all wild mammals. Certainly, if we were clever enough, we could have a world with very little biodiversity. Basically, just humans, livestock, pets, managed trees and food crops, and associated pests. But that would arguably be a tragedy. And it would be extremely fragile, and prone to disasterous collapse.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      > Certainly, if we were clever enough, we could have a world with very little biodiversity. Basically, just humans, livestock, pets, managed trees and food crops, and associated pests. But that would arguably be a tragedy. And it would be extremely fragile, and prone to disasterous collapse. Also probably unavoidable. Biology is pretty clear about things: the population of a species grows to consume all available resources.
      - overkalix 8y ago
        For a site where the average user is familiarized with Big O notation, the HN hive sure has issues accepting that overconsumption and overpopulation are a fact.
        beat 8y ago
        Are they, though? Let's consider some facts. Per World Bank data, the percentage of the global population living in extreme poverty (less than $1.90/day) has dropped from 44% to just 9% since 1980. In that time, the population has grown from 4.4B to 7.6B. Speaking of population growth, it's down to 1.09%, the lowest since the numbers I'm looking at started being kept, in 1951. That's down about 50% from a high of 2.09% in 1968. So two facts here. First, the population is leveling off. Second, even with the population growth over the past almost 40 years, billions of people have been lifted out of poverty. So the idea that overpopulation is making things worse is demonstrably, factually untrue. The next stage of this argument would be one of overconsumption - that we are "destroying the planet", and this cannot be sustained. But what does that mean? Well, what if we run out of fossil fuels? (This is the one that worries me the most.) Currently, we are shifting rapidly to renewable sources. Even if they don't dominate, the curve is heading that way at logarithmic speed. Already, solar/wind are cheaper per kwh than coal or currently-cheap natural gas. As storage mechanisms become widespread, it seems like the grid will likely adapt from the current baseload + peak model to a wind/solar + storage model. That's clean decentralized, and (for now) limitless power. Well, what about global warming? Yeah, it sucks, but. We can and will adjust. Even as oceans rise, they rise slowly enough to abandon unworkable structures and replace them with new ones on higher ground. Farming will adjust crops and techniques to changing climate. It's not impossible, just difficult. What about habitat distruction and loss of biodiversity? Yeah, so? Again, this sucks... but it's mostly just unaesthetic. It doesn't truly harm the human population. It's not going to kill billions. And remember what's driving this population growth - a massive increase in our odds of surviving as individuals, due to vaccination, sanitation, and education. Birth rates drop within a generation when a region develops modern sanitation and education. What we're seeing isn't an increase in birthrate, but rather an increase in survival rate. Birth rates are under control in most of the world today, but it will take half a century or more for the baby boom from the transition periods to die of old age. So no, I'm not convinced that overconsumption and overpopulation are a fact.
- beat 8y ago
  I accounted for that. The cause of population growth at this point is increased lifespans, not birth rates. And birth rates demonstrably drop as income rises and child mortality rates fall. This pattern has happened in other countries that climbed from poverty to wealth (including most of Europe), and there's no reason to believe Africa will be any different. Get clean water and vaccinations, and the mortality rate drops. Get educations for young girls so they are literate as adults, and the birth rate drops. It's as simple as that.

by beat 8y ago

dudul 8y ago

Aren't studies predicting that Africa is gonna double in population size over the next 50 years? Are they anticipating massive depopulation of some countries/continents to even it out then?

pitaj 8y ago
It wouldn't be overpopulated, even if that happened. It would take orders of magnitude of population growth to overpopulate the Earth.
- dudul 8y ago
  I wasn't talking about the idea of overpopulation. I was surprised to see that the total count of kids was predicted to be so stable, while at the same time we're expecting ~1 billion more people in Africa.
  - beat 8y ago
    You have to think about the math in terms of generations. It takes a couple of generations for the processes that reduce child mortality rates and increase adult lifespans to take hold. So there's a boom generation that will be much larger and live much longer than originally expected. As the life expectancy changes from 50 to 70, that's a lot more people - people born a half-century earlier.
- EGreg 8y ago
  Just because the rate of growth is declining doesn’t mean the absolute numbers - when extrapolated out - won’t exceed some given threshold. You need to be more specific with your numbers.
- mirimir 8y ago
  I guess that depends on how one defines "overpopulated". As it is, total biomass of livestock exceeds that of all wild mammals. Certainly, if we were clever enough, we could have a world with very little biodiversity. Basically, just humans, livestock, pets, managed trees and food crops, and associated pests. But that would arguably be a tragedy. And it would be extremely fragile, and prone to disasterous collapse.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    > Certainly, if we were clever enough, we could have a world with very little biodiversity. Basically, just humans, livestock, pets, managed trees and food crops, and associated pests. But that would arguably be a tragedy. And it would be extremely fragile, and prone to disasterous collapse. Also probably unavoidable. Biology is pretty clear about things: the population of a species grows to consume all available resources.
    - overkalix 8y ago
      For a site where the average user is familiarized with Big O notation, the HN hive sure has issues accepting that overconsumption and overpopulation are a fact.
      - beat 8y ago
        Are they, though? Let's consider some facts. Per World Bank data, the percentage of the global population living in extreme poverty (less than $1.90/day) has dropped from 44% to just 9% since 1980. In that time, the population has grown from 4.4B to 7.6B. Speaking of population growth, it's down to 1.09%, the lowest since the numbers I'm looking at started being kept, in 1951. That's down about 50% from a high of 2.09% in 1968. So two facts here. First, the population is leveling off. Second, even with the population growth over the past almost 40 years, billions of people have been lifted out of poverty. So the idea that overpopulation is making things worse is demonstrably, factually untrue. The next stage of this argument would be one of overconsumption - that we are "destroying the planet", and this cannot be sustained. But what does that mean? Well, what if we run out of fossil fuels? (This is the one that worries me the most.) Currently, we are shifting rapidly to renewable sources. Even if they don't dominate, the curve is heading that way at logarithmic speed. Already, solar/wind are cheaper per kwh than coal or currently-cheap natural gas. As storage mechanisms become widespread, it seems like the grid will likely adapt from the current baseload + peak model to a wind/solar + storage model. That's clean decentralized, and (for now) limitless power. Well, what about global warming? Yeah, it sucks, but. We can and will adjust. Even as oceans rise, they rise slowly enough to abandon unworkable structures and replace them with new ones on higher ground. Farming will adjust crops and techniques to changing climate. It's not impossible, just difficult. What about habitat distruction and loss of biodiversity? Yeah, so? Again, this sucks... but it's mostly just unaesthetic. It doesn't truly harm the human population. It's not going to kill billions. And remember what's driving this population growth - a massive increase in our odds of surviving as individuals, due to vaccination, sanitation, and education. Birth rates drop within a generation when a region develops modern sanitation and education. What we're seeing isn't an increase in birthrate, but rather an increase in survival rate. Birth rates are under control in most of the world today, but it will take half a century or more for the baby boom from the transition periods to die of old age. So no, I'm not convinced that overconsumption and overpopulation are a fact.
beat 8y ago
I accounted for that. The cause of population growth at this point is increased lifespans, not birth rates. And birth rates demonstrably drop as income rises and child mortality rates fall. This pattern has happened in other countries that climbed from poverty to wealth (including most of Europe), and there's no reason to believe Africa will be any different. Get clean water and vaccinations, and the mortality rate drops. Get educations for young girls so they are literate as adults, and the birth rate drops. It's as simple as that.