The multiplication table

It's official. The 7 billionth human has just entered the race. And chances are you will find the talk centred around this arrival, whether in energy circles or environment. For, the 7 billion holds big consequences to the way ahead.

More than 200,000 people are added to the population each day, and we're expected to keep growing for years to come, reaching anywhere from 8 billion to 11 billion mid-century.

Now comes the important question: who or what is to blame for the world's problems - the total number of people, or the amount of water, food, mineral ores or clean air each demands?

An extra child born today in the United States, would, down the generations, produce an eventual carbon footprint seven times that of an extra child in China, 55 times that of an Indian child or 86 times that of a Nigerian child, said a Oregon university research.

Slowing population growth could provide 16 per cent to 19 per cent of the emissions reductions suggested to be necessary by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change.
In other words, it can make a contribution. But the other 81-84% will have to come from reducing consumption and changing technologies.

Across time and geography, countries that have reduced birth rates have got richer and so more consumptive. The CIA World Factbook data for countries' birthrates and average purchasing power of each person shows a pretty strong correlation between the two. At the same time, study after study shows environmental damage rises with income, and often more steeply as developing countries begin to industrialise.

Environmental degradation can be helped by reducing the number of people and equally by what they use.

Multiplying at a brisk pace

What's more scary than the dangers of terrorism spreading its tentacles around the globe? Population! Don't agree?

The population of the world, long expected to stabilize just above 9 billion in the middle of the century, will instead keep growing and may hit 10.1 billion by the year 2100, the United Nations projected in a report released Tuesday.

What's worse, most of this will be in under-developed Africa. Growth there remains so high that the population there could more than triple in this century, rising from today’s one billion to 3.6 billion, the report said.

The projections were made by the United Nations population division, which has a track record of fairly accurate forecasts. In the new report, the division raised its forecast for the year 2050, estimating that the world would most likely have 9.3 billion people then, an increase of 156 million over the previous estimate for that year, published in 2008.

As the UN population division director said, should the funding nations focus on programs that encourage family planning? Conservatives have attacked such programs as government meddling in private decisions, and in some countries, Catholic groups fought widespread availability of birth control.

But unless we do somehting fast, feeding 10 billion will be an impossible task!

The green myth

A green myth is on the march. It wants to blame the world's overbreeding poor people for the planet's peril. It stinks. And on World Population Day, I encourage fellow environmentalists not to be seduced. That is how noted author and journalist Fred Pearce puts it in a recent write-up.

Citing how the number of children per woman has come down by half in 40 years, Pearce notes that the ‘big story is that rich or poor, socialist or capitalist, Muslim or Catholic, secular or devout, with tough government birth-control policies or none, most countries tell the same story: Small families are the new norm. Rising consumption today is a far bigger threat to the environment than a rising head count. And most of that extra consumption is still happening in rich countries that have long since given up growing their populations.’

Virtually all of the remaining population growth is in the poor world, and the poor half of the planet is only responsible for 7 percent of carbon emissions.

The carbon emissions of one American today are equivalent to those of around four Chinese, 20 Indians, 40 Nigerians, or 250 Ethiopians. ‘How dare rich-world greens blame the poor world for the planet's perils?’

'The population bomb is being defused right now -- by the world's poor women. Sadly, the consumption bomb is still primed and ever more dangerous. Now that would be a proper target for environmentalists.'

One can't but agree wih Pearce. But that is not to say that population issue can be forgotten as being over. However, it is the rising consumption, both in rich and poor nations, as also the rising waste, that is the real problem. In sub-Saharan Africa, at least 265 million people are hungry, heightening the travesty of the food waste problem. More than a quarter of the food produced in Africa spoils before it is eaten. In the US, about 4-10% of food purchases become waste in restaurants before ever reaching the customer. Volunteers visiting farms after a harvest to glean, or pick up, the perfectly good produce left behind could save and distribute 15.7 million pounds of produce in 2009!

As to controlling consumption, not many takers will be found given how consumption is linked to growth in our capitalist society. Right?

The moral dilemma

Now it is the UN calling attention to the connection between population rise and climate change! “Slower population growth ... would help build social resilience to climate change’s impacts and would contribute to a reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in the future,” the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) says.

Today, the world’s population stands at around 6.8 billion. By mid-century, it will range between 7.959 billion to 10.461 billion, with a mid-estimate of 9.15 billion, according to U.N. calculations.

And, the difference between 8 billion and 9 billion is between one and two billion tons of carbon per year, according to research cited in the report.

That would be comparable to savings in emissions by 2050 if all new buildings were constructed to the highest energy-efficiency standards and if two million one-gigawatt wind turbines were built to replace today’s coal-fired power plants.

The report, the 2009 State of World Population, is seen as a rare departure from the UN's stand so far regarding population.

This is a key debate point to emerge at Copenhagen. Negotiators, including the European Union, have tentatively suggested that the question be considered in talks.
This has been a bone of contention between two sides. Is it population or overconsumption that has caused the problem?

Overconsumption is by far the bigger culprit, with Americans way out in the lead. The Washington, D.C., area, according to an expert, produces 25% more CO2 than all of Sweden, which has nearly twice as many people!

Population growth did not cause the climate crisis but yes, it can aggravate it. How does one stabilize the population at 8 billion instead of 9 billion? Pay people for not having children? Impose carbon tax on number of kids?! Who decides for everyone?

You bet, this is one helluva moral issue that calls for political rightness. Any bright ideas?