Geogr. 2412 Lecture Notes 11/4

Human Population Growth (Chapter 5)

Read this entire chapter, but we will not cover the material on migration nor the “Increasing food security: Political-Economic Options” in detail (pp. 207-210).

The main global pop points are:

•Human population grew slowly for millennia (fig.5.1) then entered a period of rapid growth (greatest in the history) in the modern era, and especially over the last two centuries.

• The causes are well known: agricultural innovation and industrialization increased productive capacity and thus made resources to extend human lifetimes, especially nutrition and medicines, more widely available. Simultaneously, in much o the world relatively high fertility (birth rates) did not decline. So, the net, or total human popualiton (people alive at a moment in time) increased dramatically.

•1 billion in 1800; now 6 billion

•1.4% annual growth rate; 35 yr doubling

•Projections for 2050: 7.3-11 b

•Cassandras/Malthusians: this is the underlying “big problem” of the env/soc relationships.

Will Human Population Growth Slow?

There is already hints in gthe 1990s that global pop growth is slowing, and certianly we know that it has slowed (even become negative) in some countries, especially the most developed ones. So, populaiton growth is not necessarily a permanent, inevitable outcome of development, in fact, there’s a theory, the DEMORAPHIC TRANSITION that suggests that pop growth will slow with development.

Be sure to understand the dynamics illustrated in Figure 5.2. From relatively high, but balanced, birth and death rates (Stage 1), to falling death rates but lagging birth rates (stage 2) which leads to significant pop growth, to relaitvely low but again balanced birth and death rates (stage 3).

Be ready to answer questions about what causes these changes: e.g., Why do birth rates decline in Stage 2, and why do they decline slower than death rates? Be especially

ready to describe why MDCs and LDCs appear to have experienced different versions of stage 2, and to have differed in their progress to stage 3 (p. 176-177).

(You can skip the material on migration, pp. 178-184).

Is Human Population Size a threat to Environment and Sustainability? (pp. 185-197)

Harper offers three contrasting arguments about the “problem”:

Neo-Malthusian arguments: too many people using too many resources, degrading the environment; inevitably over “carrying capacity”

Economistic arguments: Yes, some market failures, distribution problems, and lagging development, but economic development will spread and developed countries will innovate, substitute, and even protect the environment.

Inequity Argument: the pop/environment problem must be seen as wrapped in social structural inequities. LDC Pop growth caused by poverty, not vice versa.

Dependency theory: ag export economies suffer

Human Population Growth as a Policy Problem (pp. 192-194)

It is already UN, World Bank, and many national policies to try to limit pop growth (though a few countries have “pro-natal” policies that reward and encourage fertility, mostly industrial countries especially those like Italy, France and Japan who are worried that their fertility is near or below “replacement rate” and thus their resident pop is declining (often made up with immigration0.

The common policy recognizes the demographic transition and sees a tension (maybe a dilemma) b/w the need to limit pop growth to allow development and to speed development to encourage slower pop growth.

Here the Neo-malthusian vs. Inequality argument also comes in, and some countries have decided that they desperately need to lower pop growth in order to devleop (India and China are prime examples)

Harper also raises the argument as “birth control vs. wealth control” – do you manage development to help people who will then make different fertility choices, or do you try to change their fertility, thinking that will affect their economic well-being?

He also describes the LDC / MDC tensions over policy: LDCs see population programs as an attempt to keep them under control or somehow deprive them of development (they see the MDCs, who grew through land area expansion, and see that they cannot do the same).