Population Growth Must Be Stopped Or There Won't Be Any Population

L.W. Nicholson

1997

Published in:

Technocracy Digest, 4th quarter 1997, No. 326

Science and Population Growth

The human race has a long history of ignorance, superstition, violence, and unwarranted self-esteem, based almost entirely on the beliefs, opinions, habits, and traditions in vogue. It is only in recent history that humans have been able to replace a very limited number of these concepts by using scientific methods of factual investigations. Even with these new concepts being allowed in only limited areas, science has revolutionized the means whereby people live; science has done more transformation than all the politicians, economists, and philosophers in past history, combined. This revolution has been so successful that the industrialization of the production process has been almost completely transformed from a hand-tool, low-energy operation, to a highly mechanized, computer-controlled, mass-production process. This should have been of great benefit to the population. Unfortunately, it has been a process that has depleted the natural resources and habitat on an unprecedented scale.

This new industrial capacity has allowed the human population to grow from one billion to six billion in the past 200 years, with a present growth rate projection of another billion per decade. At the same time, on average, living standards have been higher than ever before -- until the past three decades. This exponential growth has been made possible only by a similar exponential growth in the use of the earth's natural resources, using far more efficient production methods. Can this type of growth be continued?

The business man says yes; he needs more customers.

The politician says yes; he needs more voters, and money from business.

The philosopher says yes; it's morally wrong to limit population.

The scientists have said little -- until years of study provided factual information from which to reach a conclusion. How can the most accurate conclusion be reached? Consider the following:

Few people are prepared to face up to the population growth causing environmental, economic, and political problems for modern society on this, or any other, continent. The earth's population reached its first billion about the year 1800, after slowly growing from the beginning of the species. In the space of the 200 years, from 1800 to 2000, the population will have increased to six billion. By the use of technological methods, powered by fossil fuels, the ability to produce the requirements of life has made this increase possible. As the population grows, so must the ability to supply the necessities of life. Without the exponential growth in the use of the earth's resources, the exponential growth of the population could never have occurred.

We do not eat, wear, or live on ideals -- in spite of their influence on the behavior patterns of the past. We eat food grown in the earth's arable soil, fish grown in the earth's waters, and we wear clothes and live in dwellings made from the earth's resources. Even the air we breathe is an earth-resource, necessary for life. Without these things we couldn't live at all. Therefore, these are the most important components in existence -- far more important than any political or economic ideals.

Throughout human history, humans have been chiefly concerned with their personal problems: those of their families, and the local operations of their society. This was sufficient, perhaps, for a hand- tool, low-energy society without modern population densities or resource-depletion.

However, the time has arrived when the exponential growth in the use of the earth's resources, to support such a population growth, is rapidly reaching heights impossible to maintain, and is adding to the fields of interest about which we must be concerned.

For example, consider oil; oil is a non-renewable resource. When it has all been used, there will be no more. At present, we are using oil by the cubic mile, and this rate can not be continued into the distant future. If the human species is to survive, these things must be considered.

Not only oil and population need consideration. Many other things are involved with human life and must occupy our thoughts, as well. Further, only factual information should be considered, as this subject is entirely too important to rely on beliefs and opinions or political rhetoric. In order to demonstrate what we mean, let us examine a factual method by which we can most accurately determine the earth's ability to feed the increasing population:

The earth has some 57.6 million square miles of land area, including Antarctica and all significant islands, as well as the continents. At 640 acres per square mile, that would be almost 37 billion acres. Of this total, only three-to-three-and-one-half billion acres are arable soil to provide the food crops for the earth's present six billion people. This means that there are only five-tenths to six-tenths of an acre per capita. Since, on average, one to 1.1 acres is required to adequately sustain one person, it is obvious that the earth is already over-populated. This, plus the unequal distribution of purchasing power, explains why some 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty, are ill-nourished, with many actually starving.

Now, after absorbing the above, consider that, presently, the population is increasing by 88 million per year, and that the earth's supply of arable soil is being damaged by erosion and mismanagement at an annual rate equal in size to the State of Wyoming, and that 2.471 acres) of this are being severely damaged. Five million hectares is equal in size to the States of New Hampshire and Vermont combined. (For further information see Worldwatch #131)

Under such conditions, how long can the population continue to double each 46 years? Can anyone be so nave as to believe that the earth's resources can support one person per square foot of arable soil? It should be obvious to any normal person that these trends can't be continued.

Unfortunately, even the United States is not immune from the physical limits of growth. From August 1995 to August 1996, the U.S. population grew by 2,413,000. Further urban sprawl, new golf courses, and erosion have been continued -- with little thought about the future needs for agriculture. The amount of arable soil per capita in the U.S. has dropped from 4.15 acres in 1933 to less than 1.9 acres in 1996, chiefly due to population increases.

New highways, parking lots, shopping malls, urban development, golf courses, and erosion, continue at a faster pace, as the population increases. At the present rate of growth, the earth's population will double in 46 years. (See Population Reference Bureau) And, at the present rate of deterioration, in the same 46 years, the world's arable soil will be reduced by an amount 46 times the annual rate shown above. SO -- without drastic improvements, a complete disaster should be expected during the next 46 years. The present rate of starvation indicates that this disaster has already started.

In this real world of matter and energy, it is a physical impossibility to maintain, endlessly, such an exponential rate of growth. Even a financial world, if somewhere based on physical reality, must have similar limitations. The federal debt in the U.S., since 1933, has grown by 222.2 times. The interest payments on that debt has grown by 339.2 times during this same period of time.

The debt itself is not based on any physical law; it has no reality in the physical world; therefore it is not subject to any physical limitations. The interest on this debt is in the same boat, except it must be paid from the purchasing power of the public. This reduces the living standard and the ability to purchase the goods and services which help to provide the jobs and the purchasing power, in the first place. When we add in the interest payments on all the total U.S. debt, including the federal debt, it now requires almost half of all working hours in order to make these payments.

The "social costs" of living, plus interest payments, is already beyond the ability to pay. As a result, we have a mountain range of debt that extends from shining sea to shining sea. The federal debt alone is $5.3 trillion, and increasing by almost a billion dollars per day. We are not only digging an ever-deeper environmental hole for ourselves, but also an equally devastating financial hole, as well.

If the environmental movement thought it would have any chance of achieving a sustainable physical environment for the human species, it would also have to think how to achieve a sustainable economic environment. An informed scientific evaluation would show that this is an impossibility.

Environmentalists often suggest that the costs of environmental degradation should be reflected in the GNP; should be paid as we go, so to speak. Some of this cost is added to the price of the products and services when business must pay for cleanups, along with all the other costs of doing business. When health problems result from environmental degradation, they are partially recovered by doctor and hospital bills. When a building must be repainted because acid rain has damaged the paint, some of the costs are "recovered" by painters and paint manufacturers. All this adds a bit to the number of jobs for people.

However, only a small fraction of the total costs of environmental deterioration is recovered in this manner. Much of the cost is postponed to some future date. For example, consider the time when the earth's oil is depleted to un-economic levels, what will the cost be to solve this problem? When there is no longer enough arable soil to support a continued expansion of population levels, and starvation increases accordingly, will there be a way to pay, in money, for this? Will it be paid by adding to the present debt? Or will it be paid for by the loss of life required to bring population levels into balance with the ability of the earth's resources to support them? Or will it be some combination of both?

There have been some important and successful efforts made on behalf of the environment. However, these successes have been rendered far less effective by the rapid population increase. Further, they have become less effective as some people find their bread better buttered with money if they work against such projects. Obviously, integrity and intestinal fortitude are both required to be an honest environmentalist.

Scientists are humans with the same desires, human needs, and ego problems as anyone else. The difference is that they have been trained to accept verifiable information, at least in their own field of expertise. Environmental scientists, for example, have carefully investigated the ecological conditions in which mankind must live. Much is yet to be learned, but much has already been learned. The book, "Road to Survival" by William Vogt, and "The Ecology of Man," by Wilton Ivie, both published in 1948, are proof that this field of science is at least 50 years old. Environmental scientists do not claim that they are always correct, but since their work is always subject to review by other scientists, the chance of their accuracy is far greater than that of any other group or individual.

We would do well to investigate the motives of lobbyists and politicians who try to lull the public into believing that environmental conditions are not approaching a danger point. We may find that such attempts may prove to be social treason.

What are the changes necessary for the survival of the human species?

Population growth must be reversed and become a negative growth.
A balance between population and the earth's ability to supply human needs on a long-range basis must be achieved.
The physical environment must be conserved for the benefit of future generations.
The citizens of this Continent (and elsewhere) MUST make a serious effort to learn to select a leadership which has some understanding of the physical requirements of life and how they can be provided.
The monetary motivation, which provides the incentive for an ever more rapid destruction of the environment, must be replaced by methods which provide the incentive for conservation.

Number 5 is, perhaps, the most difficult of all the necessary requirements for human survival. It will require the most widespread use of the greatest number of intelligent people of any social change in human history. At this point in history, it is quite uncertain that this human characteristic is present in sufficient quantities. It certainly wasn't during the 1930s depression when it was so obvious that something was seriously out of balance -- when food was destroyed while people were hungry. (We still do this).

To further complicate matters, a point-of no-return could be reached in environmental deterioration beyond which the condition could never be corrected. With present exponential growth in so many areas now reaching impossible heights, this could happen very quickly; and perhaps, without recognition until too late.

There can be no hope for the future of the human species if so many people continue to refuse to consider the environmental and economic deterioration now in progress. The world desperately needs some country, or continent, to solve its physical and economic problems in order to set an example for others to follow. To date, no such example exists.

Here we are, a species threatened with extinction, or very close to it, hurtling headlong, full steam ahead, with little purpose except to make money. How sad it is that future historians, if any, must record the breakdown of the nearest thing to a civilization yet to exist on this earth, because of a shortage of intestinal fortitude.