Andrew Lack takes issue with Colin Tudge’s suggestion that we, humanity, should be aiming for a world population of one billion rather than the 10 billion that now seems liable to come about
Colin has suggested that a billion people on earth may be sustainable, requiring an eight-fold or even greater reduction from the situation at present. He is presenting this as a long-term solution over several generations. The problem with this, as I see it, is the shorter term: how to get there. You could argue that the long-term gain would be worth short-term pain, but firstly there would certainly be pain in the short term and secondly the differences that will almost certainly arise in the short term will affect the long-term profoundly.
The issue of human numbers raises totally different problems in different countries. In all the richer countries the current fertility rate is below replacement (usually seen as an average 2.1 children per woman), and for some it is well below, like Singapore at 0.72 per woman and South Korea, at 0.85 (actually a slight increase on recent years). The top 40 countries with highest fertility are all in Africa except for Afghanistan (no. 9) and Samoa (no. 32), and all with rates above 3.5 per woman. Britain stands at 1.4, USA 1.8.
Some countries have already seen a population decline, like Japan and most eastern European countries including Russia. This leads to problems of an increasing proportion of old people needing pensions or care; the decline of businesses — especially small businesses – because their owners do not have adequate successors; ghost towns, abandoned dwellings and a dwindling of skills. Any country whose workforce declines will lose some of its influence in the world through lower economic activity. Western European countries would be in a similar position if it were not for immigration, which is the only potential panacea. Immigration does indeed solve the immediate problem of a declining workforce but it has become a mass movement and entire cities and districts in Britain and other countries have undergone a total change in character. The result is that it has developed into a ‘hot potato’ issue. To some, anti-immigration is seen as racist though that is, at best, an oversimplification.
There has been what to me is a worrying trend in Europe of rejecting our values, based as they are solidly on Christianity (Tom Holland’s book, Dominion, lays this out brilliantly). Defending our values and our culture is not a race issue as such, it is what we have fought all our wars for, and most of us consider these values worth saving, from democracy to the welfare state and, yes, our anti-racist views. This, surely, is why several countries, like South Korea, Japan, Hungary, Russia and even France now have policies to try to increase the native birth rate, although this has had very limited success to date. This is one of the main reasons why immigration is such an issue. Overt Christianity has seen a huge decline in Europe over the last two centuries or more, and, with this, an inability to defend many of our values. This decline, coupled with the population decline and rapid immigration has markedly changed the nature of many European countries.
A high population always represented power and, to an extent, still does – think of the contrast between Russia and Ukraine at present. If two countries with similar economic output show pronounced differences in fertility rate, the one with greater fertility has growing economic power. China is a fascinating case. Its great recent economic success is largely down to the population almost doubling between 1951 and 1979 when the one-child policy was introduced. This meant that the huge work force had few dependants – and economic growth was the outcome. But that is rapidly changing; with those born in the population boom now aging, they become dependent for pensions and medical care on a much smaller workforce. It remains to be seen what effect this has on the economy — but decline looks inevitable.
Ideas about respect for the natural world are simply not shared by all cultures. Although the natural non-human world has been decimated almost everywhere since the Second World War, the rise in environmental and conservation organisations has been most encouraging. I see signs of a turn-around in the fortunes of the natural world in many places across Europe. If we want the world to be as Colin has described it these have got to remain in place and increase in strength. And like Colin and, I trust, like everyone reading this I would like the human species to thrive, and to thrive alongside the natural world, a world that not only feeds us directly but is also so desperately needed for our emotional and spiritual lives. To get anywhere near this position, as far as I can see, a further population reduction in the richer countries of the world, especially Europe and the Americas, could be counter-productive as these are based on the western, fundamentally Christian, values that most of us would want to maintain whether we regard ourselves as Christian or not. Culture is changing, and though slow cultural changes are always happening, change can be difficult, especially if fast, and usually with unforeseen consequences.
I understand fully that what Colin is suggesting is a slow realignment, over several generations, not a rapid population reduction. But he made me think of the American ecologist H.T. Odum who stated in 1980
“It is necessary that the United States cut its population by two-thirds in the next fifty years”.
He did not say how, as far as I know, and fifty years is nearly up! There have been various attempts at direct population reduction, especially by promoting infertility as happened in one-child China. A similar idea was attempted in India by using bribes for vasectomies — but there was much resistance. It also was perpetrated by the United States when dealing with Puerto Rico in the early twentieth century. The whole business gets totally mixed up with eugenics as well. This was rife in the early twentieth century with the likes of Margaret Sanger and her ideas about birth control:
“… Government should attempt to restrain, either by force or persuasion, the moron and the imbecile from producing his large family of feeble-minded offspring”
— presumably with Ms Sanger as the judge. To this day abortion clinics in the USA are, shall we say, ‘strategically positioned’. There are several conspiracy theories around now about the mythical ‘Big State’ trying to decrease fertility, and some of these may even turn out to be true.
Current projections are that by 2050 48 countries will see their populations shrink. As almost all projections about populations and the problems of populations from Malthus onwards have been wrong, this may of course not happen. But we are certainly heading for a different world, and I have a strong suspicion that we may not like what we end up with if we continue along the line that the western world has taken of reducing our fertility in the way that we are doing. We may end up with fewer people to feed overall but will we end up with a better world as a result? Lowering our own fertility to help the future of the world looks to me like a kind of opt-out of our responsibilities.
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