Thomas Malthus (1798)

“An Essay on the Principle of Population”

• Populations grow geometrically while supporting resources grow arithmetically.• Population, if not purposefully checked (with “preventative checks”), will outpace resources and lead to ”undesired, unplanned consequences”, a population crash, that will return the population to sustainable levels.

HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH

Earth's 2005 population: ~6.4 billion

Every second, five people are born and two people die, a net gain of three people.

Every day, +250,000 = 2 x Irvine

This year, +74,000,000 = More than U.K., more than 2x California

This decade +1,000,000,000 = China

                                                                                                                                                                                

                           

Human dominance or alteration of several major components of

the Earth system

• We’ve transformed or degraded 39-50% of the Earth's land surface. • We’ve increased the atmospheric CO2 concentration by >30%.• We’ve used more than half of the accessible surface fresh water. • Over 50% of terrestrial nitrogen fixation is caused by humans.• On many islands, more than half of plant species have been introduced by man; on continental areas the fraction is >20%.• About 20% of bird species have become extinct in the past 200 years, almost all of them because of human activities. • >33% of marine fisheries are overexploited, depleted or defunct. 44% more are at the limit of exploitation.

Regional population patterns:Population density

Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network.

POPULATION DENSITY AND GROWTH RATE

RegionInhabitants

/sq.km. agricultural land

% annual growth

rateAsia 423 1.8Europe 213 0.2Africa 80 3.0Former Soviet Union 69 0.7Latin America 58 1.9North America 55 0.7Oceania 15 1.4

Iraq Iran

S.A.

Births

Deaths

Population

DDT used against mosquitoes that transmit malaria Childhood immunization used against cholera, diphtheria, etc. Antibiotics used against bacterial infections

Reduction in death rates mainly due to reduced childhood deaths:

Growth

Population “pyramids”

Year Share to Richest 20% Share to Poorest 20% Ratio of Richest to Poorest

1960 70.2% 2.3% 30 to 1

1970 73.9% 2.3% 32 to 1

1980 76.3% 1.7% 45 to 1

1989 82.7% 1.4% 59 to 1

Source: United Nations, Human Development Report, 1992.

 The “Income Gap”: Share of Global Income Going to Richest 20% and Poorest 20% of World Population

Different impacts

…creates 40% of the world’s trash

The U.S. model cannot work for China (or for the world)

• Oil Consumption would be 80 million barrels a day -- more than the 60 million barrels daily the world now produces, or is ever projected to produce. Already, China has gone from exporting 500,000 barrels of oil in 1990 to importing 300,000 barrels of oil in 1995.

• Beef consumption would be an additional 49 million tons each year. This would take 343 million tons of grain – equal to the entire U.S. grain harvest.

• Seafood consumption would be 100 million tons of seafood, the entire world fish catch.

Countries Exceeding their Carrying Capacity• True of many industrialized nations• Example: Japan, economically very successful

and with a very high population density (331/sq.km.) – Has only 1/7 the world average of cropland

per capita. – So it imports 3/4 of its grain and 2/3 of its

wood. It is now the world's largest net importer of forest products. South Korea and Taiwan also import about 70% of their grain.

• Another example: The Netherlands, relies on importing the products of about 10 times its own area of cropland, pasture and forest.

China(20% of world’s population)

"one-child-per-couple" policy since 1979:

•Rewards for having only one child: grants, additional maternity leave, increased land allocations. Children get preferential treatment in education, housing, and employment.

•Couples punished for refusing to terminate unapproved pregnancies, for giving birth when under the legal marriage age, and having an approved second child too soon. Penalties include fines, loss of land grants, food, loans, farming supplies, benefits, jobs and discharge from the Communist Party.

•In many provinces IUDs are automatically implanted after the first child (with penalties for removal) , and sterilization is required after the second child.

China’s Population PolicyChildren per woman:

1970: 5.011995: 1.84

Population still growing!Goal was to limit population to 1.2 billion by the year 2000

Population in 2000: 1.3 billion Projected for 2025: 1.5 billion

Use of abortion Forced abortions and sterilizationInfanticide

Criticisms:

Mexico: A Demonstration of Positive Population Policy

• 1947: General Population Law prohibited sale and use of contraceptives and criminalized abortion. Population nearly doubled in 20 years, from 28 million people in 1950 to 51 million in 1970.

• 1974 the government reversed its population policy. Instituted a media campaign to educate Mexicans about family planning. Contraceptives became available free or at low cost through government- sponsored health institutions.

• Use of birth control went from 30% in 1976 to 70% in 2000. • Birth rate showed one of the quickest declines in history. • Population still expected to grow by >40 million by 2050.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

       

India will outgrow China

U.N. Conference on Population (Cairo, 1994)"Program of Action" (182 nations)

Goal: to stabilize human population at 7.8 billion by 2050.

1. Provide universal access to family-planning and reproductive health programs.2. Recognize that environmental protection and economic development are not necessarily antagonistic. Promote free trade, private investment and development assistance.3. Make women equal participants in all aspects of society - by increasing women's health, education, and employment.4. Increase access to education. Provide information and services for adolescents to prevent unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortion, and the spread of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.5. Ensure that men fulfill their responsibility to ensure healthy pregnancies, proper child care, promotion of women's worth and dignity, prevention of unwanted pregnancies, and prevention of the spread of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

Programs to improve: •pre- and post-natal mother's health •access to voluntary family planning programs, contraception and teen-pregnancy prevention•STD and HIV education and prevention

• U.S. funding withheld for many years because of UNFPA’s support of China’s policies

• 2002: President George W. Bush decided to withhold the $34 million that both houses of Congress had agreed to give to UNFPA.

• 2003,4,5: No funds for UNFPA in President’s budget

• UNFPA estimates that the loss of funding from the U. S. could result in 2 million unwanted pregnancies, nearly 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths.

• The Bush Administration accepted allegations that UNFPA gives tacit support to China's one-child policy just by working in China.

• But: (From Executive Director of UNFPA)– UNFPA does not support coercive activities of any kind, anywhere. – UNFPA has been and remains steadfast as a leading voice for human

rights and for the principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the Programme of Action agreed at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994, all of which condemn coercion in all forms.

– The Fund's program in China observes the highest standards of human rights and participation is voluntary.

– As with the other 60 delegations that have visited UNFPA's program in China, the three-person official U.S. government investigating team found no evidence of UNFPA involvement in coercive practices

• The United States is the only country ever to deny funding to UNFPA for non-budgetary reasons.

The global gag rule

• Two days after his inauguration (Jan 22, 2001), President George W. Bush issued an executive memorandum reinstating the global gag rule on international family planning assistance (first imposed by President Reagan in 1984, then revoked by President Clinton in 1993).

• Under the global gag rule, foreign family planning agencies may not receive U.S. assistance if they provide abortion services, including counseling or referrals on abortion, or lobby to make or keep abortion legal in their own country.

• >500 million couples would like to plan their families but lack the tools to do so.

• >75,000 women die each year due to complications related to unsafe abortion, which WHO defines as "a procedure for terminating an unwanted pregnancy either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment lacking the minimal medical standards or both.".

• Under the global gag rule, providers cannot even discuss the availability of abortion, with clients facing an unplanned pregnancy.

U.S. Isolated on International Women's Health (3/15/2004)

• U.N. conference on Latin America, Santiago• Reaffirmed support for the 1994 agreement of the

International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). - An agreement among 179 UN members that meeting women's individual needs for reproductive and sexual health information and services was the best way to speed any nation's economic development and slow its population growth.

• Declaration linked poverty eradication to greater access to services for family planning, safe motherhood and HIV/AIDS prevention.

• 38 nations in favor, U.S. against

Education Programs supported by U.S.

Administration• U.S. Office of Population Affairs began administering

the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA) in 1981 - designed to prevent teen pregnancy by promoting chastity and self-discipline.

• $100 million per year in our tax dollars are spent on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, proven to be ineffective in reducing HIV transmission and pregnancy rates.

• Bush Administration: increased funding for abstinence-only education by $273 million for fiscal year 2005.

• Abstinence-until-marriage programs are at the core of the Administration's foreign assistance programs related to HIV/AIDS.

Life Expectancy at Birth in the Seven Countries Hardest Hit by AIDS

Thomas Malthus (1798)

“An Essay on the Principle of Population”

• Populations grow geometrically while supporting resources grow arithmetically• Population, if not purposefully checked (by “preventative checks”), would outpace resources and lead to unplanned “positive checks” that would involve tremendous human suffering. These of necessity, would return the population to sustainable levels.