Geography 2412 Lecture Notes
Human Population Trends Chap. 7
A common concern among environmentalists is
that human pop growth is the root of most env
problems, and that its continuation (even at slightly slower rates) makes them
all worse (and that we already have too large a human pop). The logic seems
straightforward: more people and more consumption does impact the environment.
But we must examine the pop issue with more critical assessment in this class,
and you saw in Exercise 3 that some analysts believe that pop growth is not the
problem, is even a benefit.
We will look at just three parts of this
issue and in this text.
(1)
Why might population growth be slowing?
We’ll
focus ion the “Demographic Transition” (Fig. 7.7)
The basic theory, which has some logical and
empirical backing, is that development takes a developing country out of the
long-standing pattern of high birth rates and short lifespans,
first causing a reduction in deathrates (that is, a
increase in lifespan due to technology) but no, or only a slow decrease in
births (as life spans increase), so population growth becomes rapid (Phase II).
As development proceeds, and food security,
urbanization, and rights for women increase, fertility declines, and population
trends reach a new equilibrieum (Phase III).
There is some argument that cultural and
political factors sometimes slow the decline of birthrates in Phase II and thus
lock countries into rapid growth for longer period of time, with negative
effects on the economy and environment.
(2) Problems of rapid Pop Growth in
Developing Countries (Sec. 7.8)
Now, let’s take up the basic argument; human
pop growth causes environmental degradation. Start with section 7.8 on rapid
pop growth in dev. Counties.
The Poverty Cycle: problems like lack
of food security, high mortality rates, etc. give incentives for families to
have high fertility. But the resulting population growth that results when
these incentives create large natural pop growth rates make it more difficult
for the nation-state to develop economically.
A sort of "worst case" cycle is
illustrated in Fig. 7.13. You can ‘step into" this cycle at any part: land
degradation can cause more urban migration, that then causes more conflict, and
then yields food problems that then yields extensions of agriculture to
marginal areas, which then leads to land degradation.
Of course, the great question is how to
break out of this cycle (or how any naiton ever gets
out of it):
A general program to break the cycle is
simply referred to as "International Development"---various efforts
from the UN, World Bank, US AID, etc. to bring about international development.
The case of
177 m people, may increase by 50 million by
2050.
One area of growing pop is the Northeast,
where relatively arid lands are degrading from agricultural expansion, and pop
growth is causing the government to support out-migration to the nation’s
several very large mega-cities (e.g.,
The Neo-Malthusian Specter (p. 132)
The text rather briefly raises the
Malthusian idea: that human population can grow to outstrip resources like
food, leading to starvation and population crashes. They call it
"NEO" because Thomas Malthus, a British
economist, made dire predictions about growth of poverty and starvation at the
start of the industrial revolution in the 1700s. But the same technology that
was allowing European populations to row faster also increased food production
dramatically, and it stayed ahead of pop growth in all but a few cases, and
these were the least developed countries and even there most famines were
linked as much to civil war and other governance problems as they were to
natural limits and land degradation.
Still, the text authors want to keep the
potential for Malthusian population crashes in the least-developed nations, and
Travis mentioned at the start of class that in the 1970s a strong argument was
made by biologist Paul Ehrlich and others that humans were, once again,
approaching global carrying capacity and risking a major die-off in
environmental cataclysms (show his book: The Population Bomb, 1968).
Their argument, which some still offer today, also included the notion that the
coming human population crash would start in the "Third World" but
that it would take the rest of world down with it.
(3) Population Stabilization as an Policy
Goal (Sec. 7.6)
It is still widely argued that pop growth is
at the root of most environmental problems (pollution, species loss, etc.). And
it is the policy of many governments (e.g.,
The big question: How would you reduce human
pop growth?
The UN’s World Program of Action on
Population (sec. 7.6)
It is also the formal UN policy to try to
stabilize human population growth in the next two decades.
Agreed on at the 1994 International
Conference on Population and development in
The book suggests that
OK---but can this work in other countries?
What about governments and cultures that traditionally give women less
autonomy? The Taliban, for instance?
Do you think government should be even
pursuing certain popualiton policies?
Critics have accused some countries of
abusing human rights (especially rights of women) in an effort to reduce pop
growth.
What about pro-natalist
polices?