The Population Explosion

Summary of Selection 36

Our population is rapidly growing. The impact this has on our environment is the most important issue regarding population growth. The environmental impact of a society can be measured by the I = PAT formula, where P = amount of people, A = per capita affluence or consumption, T = an index representing the technologies used to provide the consumption, and I = the environmental impact. Almost all of a societies most environmentally damaging activities involve transport and use of energy at high levels. For example, the manufacture and powering of vehicles. This can be represented by A x T which gives us per capita energy consumption, Epc. As we can see this equation shows overpopulation in a much different way than we are used to thinking about it. Typically we might think poorer nations are overpopulated because of their sheer numbers. But using this equation we can see that the US (and other developed nations) can be called the most populated in terms of energy consumption since each person uses 10-200X more energy than people in developing countries. This is causing depletion and degredation on a planetwide scale.

We must make it our goal to move to optimum population size. We would prefer "quality over quantity;" that is, we would prefer an optimal sustainable population (less people with more resources to share among them bringing a higher quality of life) VS. the largest sustainable population (lots of people with a very poor quality of life.) Some scientists estimate around 2 billion would be the best, and the Holdren scenario illustrates how such a change might occur. Industrialized nations would need to decrease their energy use, and developing nations increase until they are equal at around 3 kW/person. We should try for a slow (humane) population reduction.

For this to be feasible we also need a redevelopment of the North American lifestyle and infrastructure. The regulation of birth rates and use of contraception should be promoted. Most industrial countries already have birth rates below replacement, but developing countries need better living conditions, healthcare, education for women, and support from their governments to help make this happen. The key concept is that we must focus on all 3 factors of the I = PAT equation and bring our population down, AND reduce our consumption and dependance on the technology required to provide it.