Earth's carrying capacity is a function of available technology and social organization. The first factor seems to monotonically increase with time. The second factor … uh ….
Not sure what pro-natalists you're reading, but the ones in America are very clear that the color of the babies is the critical problem. The blood and soil crowd is not quite in the mainstream, but it's the next step after purging the nation of inferior beings. Yes, its physically impossible and yes they're incompetent on top of that, but Reality hasn't slowed them down yet.
The global average fertility rate is set to dip below replacement level (2.1 births per woman) by the mid-2040s, but due to demographic momentum the global population will continue to increase until it reaches a peak estimated by the UN at 10.3 billion in 2084 before declining to 10.2 billion by 2100.
It is the nearest thing to an Iron Law of Demography that a country's fertility rate will fall below replacement level once it reaches a high level of human development as measured by the UN Human Development Index. Given a choice, we would prefer to live in a country with below replacement fertility than one with high replacement fertility.
The fertility rate is not like the rate of GST (which can be dialed up or down by Parliament amending the Taxation Act) or the base interest rate (which can be dialed up or down by a meeting of the Reserve Bank board). It is the expression in aggregate of the personal decisions of millions of individuals, and those personal decisions are in turn path-dependent on multiple previous decisions by those millions of people (cf. Julia Gillard's "decision-creep). The failure of attempts by governments to engineer reversals in fertility decline, and the range of unintended consequences of such attempts (which are often undesirable, not least from the perspective of "family values" conservatives) shows the radical incompleteness of governments' understandings of the relationships between their policies and the life choices of those they govern (particularly younger women).
The most promising and constructive application of human ingenuity in coming decades in relation to this issue will be devising economic models that can work with stable or slowly declining populations.
Obviously rapid and radical imbalances in different age groups - such as South Korea - can be a genuine problem, particularly as collapsing societies are probably less likely to be ecologically non-destructive. But the kind of moderate and relatively gradual decline outlined here might just thread this needle.
There are, of course, people who argue that declining populations represent the beginning of extinction as they will somehow inevitably continue to decline until they reach zero. I trust these people never walk downstairs or dig holes, lest they end up in the very hot centre of the planet...
The challenge posed by a plateauing/declining population in coming decades is to our growth-oriented economic theories. If we can retool our economics the population dynamics will be much less of a problem.
The only good thing about the kind of thoughtless pro-natalism you're describing is that I find it useful for writing people off as serious thinkers.
Earnest articles about the "problems" presented by declining populations are a sign of an inability to imagine the world other than as it is. Deciding to have a picnic also presents lots of problems - where to go, what to eat, who to invite, how to keep the drinks cold - but that hardly makes it a possibility to be strenuously avoided.
Once it begins, every human life is precious and valuable, but an enormous number of lives lived today are characterised by drudgery, oppression, ill health, malnutrition, struggle and deprivation. I wouldn't argue this is inevitable with our population of the current size, but surely if we acknowledge the material element of existence, fewer people are easier to provide with the necessities of a good life.
The wonderful thing is the solution to overpopulation is in itself a good thing: liberate and educate women, and ensure everyone is materially secure.
Thank you for saying these things. I sometimes feel like I'm the only one in my social media circles who thinks that we do not have any sort of "crisis" just because some countries have low reproduction rates. The answer is better immigration and education policies. (You noted the first; I think the second is key in several ways; e.g., for immigrants: learning the native tongue of the country, learning some of the social, civic, and cultural mores; and for those already in place: learning tolerance.)
I would have thought at capacity now, we just can’t keep breeding. Earth a finite resource that we keep abusing. We will wipe ourselves out or Mother Nature will, I suspect we will first.
Mother Nature has a plan. It's called Global Warming. It will set the populations in motion and Mankind will handle the rest. Don't worry, overpopulation will not even rise to the level of an annoyance.
Thanks John – this is the kind of calm, data-backed demolition job I wish more columnists would attempt before frothing about “demographic collapse.” The way pro-natalism is framed, especially in Anglo media, often feels like cultural anxiety in a lab coat.
Your point about baked-in population growth is especially useful. Much of the rhetoric overlooks the fundamental shape of demographic momentum, opting for moral panic over mathematics.
Also, given the ungrateful attitude of the two teenagers currently occupying my house, I’m beginning to feel an uncomfortable sympathy with the anti-children crowd.
I often think a lot of the communication problems we have in the world are related to money illusion. People really think, more population = more production, everybody will be richer. But you can't offset a shortage of basic resources (like food) with a massive expansion of computer games. Price is not the same thing as value. People just think in too few dimensions, money shrinks everything to a single dimension and so leads to error.
Whilst this post is welcome, the key takeaway for me is evidence. We live in a world where not enough ask why, or where's the evidence to back up a claim and it somewhat "does my head in".
Anyway, rant complete. How many more months have we got of Trump?
Contrary to some comments, this isn't just about racism. The "sensible centrists" pushing the abundance agenda are just as concerned.
I don’t know what Planet Capitalism is like but Earth has, as you note, a carrying capacity.
Earth's carrying capacity is a function of available technology and social organization. The first factor seems to monotonically increase with time. The second factor … uh ….
Thank you. I now understand Planet Capitalism
Not sure what pro-natalists you're reading, but the ones in America are very clear that the color of the babies is the critical problem. The blood and soil crowd is not quite in the mainstream, but it's the next step after purging the nation of inferior beings. Yes, its physically impossible and yes they're incompetent on top of that, but Reality hasn't slowed them down yet.
The global average fertility rate is set to dip below replacement level (2.1 births per woman) by the mid-2040s, but due to demographic momentum the global population will continue to increase until it reaches a peak estimated by the UN at 10.3 billion in 2084 before declining to 10.2 billion by 2100.
It is the nearest thing to an Iron Law of Demography that a country's fertility rate will fall below replacement level once it reaches a high level of human development as measured by the UN Human Development Index. Given a choice, we would prefer to live in a country with below replacement fertility than one with high replacement fertility.
The fertility rate is not like the rate of GST (which can be dialed up or down by Parliament amending the Taxation Act) or the base interest rate (which can be dialed up or down by a meeting of the Reserve Bank board). It is the expression in aggregate of the personal decisions of millions of individuals, and those personal decisions are in turn path-dependent on multiple previous decisions by those millions of people (cf. Julia Gillard's "decision-creep). The failure of attempts by governments to engineer reversals in fertility decline, and the range of unintended consequences of such attempts (which are often undesirable, not least from the perspective of "family values" conservatives) shows the radical incompleteness of governments' understandings of the relationships between their policies and the life choices of those they govern (particularly younger women).
The most promising and constructive application of human ingenuity in coming decades in relation to this issue will be devising economic models that can work with stable or slowly declining populations.
Obviously rapid and radical imbalances in different age groups - such as South Korea - can be a genuine problem, particularly as collapsing societies are probably less likely to be ecologically non-destructive. But the kind of moderate and relatively gradual decline outlined here might just thread this needle.
There are, of course, people who argue that declining populations represent the beginning of extinction as they will somehow inevitably continue to decline until they reach zero. I trust these people never walk downstairs or dig holes, lest they end up in the very hot centre of the planet...
The challenge posed by a plateauing/declining population in coming decades is to our growth-oriented economic theories. If we can retool our economics the population dynamics will be much less of a problem.
The only good thing about the kind of thoughtless pro-natalism you're describing is that I find it useful for writing people off as serious thinkers.
Earnest articles about the "problems" presented by declining populations are a sign of an inability to imagine the world other than as it is. Deciding to have a picnic also presents lots of problems - where to go, what to eat, who to invite, how to keep the drinks cold - but that hardly makes it a possibility to be strenuously avoided.
Once it begins, every human life is precious and valuable, but an enormous number of lives lived today are characterised by drudgery, oppression, ill health, malnutrition, struggle and deprivation. I wouldn't argue this is inevitable with our population of the current size, but surely if we acknowledge the material element of existence, fewer people are easier to provide with the necessities of a good life.
The wonderful thing is the solution to overpopulation is in itself a good thing: liberate and educate women, and ensure everyone is materially secure.
Thank you for saying these things. I sometimes feel like I'm the only one in my social media circles who thinks that we do not have any sort of "crisis" just because some countries have low reproduction rates. The answer is better immigration and education policies. (You noted the first; I think the second is key in several ways; e.g., for immigrants: learning the native tongue of the country, learning some of the social, civic, and cultural mores; and for those already in place: learning tolerance.)
As someone else has commented, the pronatalist at least the ones in the US are interested in white babies.
I would have thought at capacity now, we just can’t keep breeding. Earth a finite resource that we keep abusing. We will wipe ourselves out or Mother Nature will, I suspect we will first.
Mother Nature has a plan. It's called Global Warming. It will set the populations in motion and Mankind will handle the rest. Don't worry, overpopulation will not even rise to the level of an annoyance.
Thanks John – this is the kind of calm, data-backed demolition job I wish more columnists would attempt before frothing about “demographic collapse.” The way pro-natalism is framed, especially in Anglo media, often feels like cultural anxiety in a lab coat.
Your point about baked-in population growth is especially useful. Much of the rhetoric overlooks the fundamental shape of demographic momentum, opting for moral panic over mathematics.
Also, given the ungrateful attitude of the two teenagers currently occupying my house, I’m beginning to feel an uncomfortable sympathy with the anti-children crowd.
I often think a lot of the communication problems we have in the world are related to money illusion. People really think, more population = more production, everybody will be richer. But you can't offset a shortage of basic resources (like food) with a massive expansion of computer games. Price is not the same thing as value. People just think in too few dimensions, money shrinks everything to a single dimension and so leads to error.
Whilst this post is welcome, the key takeaway for me is evidence. We live in a world where not enough ask why, or where's the evidence to back up a claim and it somewhat "does my head in".
Anyway, rant complete. How many more months have we got of Trump?
This is the same lot who hate migration.