Complacency and global population growth

An editorial in the Irish Times today (Saturday 24th Sept 2011) notes that, this month, a birth somewhere in the world was responsible for “…tipping the global population over the seven billion mark. Up from a paltry billion in 1804, a mere two billion in 1927, and five billion in 1987”. The piece then goes on to remark, in effect, that Robert Malthus was wrong. This Anglican clergyman postulated that, as population growth is exponential and food production increases only according to an arithmetic progression, the growth in numbers of humans would eventually outstrip the ability of the planet to feed everyone. The Irish Times’s conclusion is based on the assertion that “The world population may have quadrupled in the 20th century, but the calories available per person went up, not down”.

There’s a lot that is wrong with this analysis. Claiming only that the number of people has quadrupled in the 20th century is to totally ignore, or be ignorant of the fact, that growth even as described in the article is indeed exponential. Therefore Malthus got that part of his calculation right. As for the rest, his failure to foresee certain advances in science, agriculture and food technology may only mean that he got his timing wrong, not that the basic thesis was incorrect. The world is after all, as it was in his day, a finite entity.

Something else that Malthus could not have foreseen is the development and growth of birth control. In the Western world this has achieved such as state of acceptance and practice that population rise due to live births hardly exists at all. One interesting exception is here in Ireland. However, we can afford the highest birthrate in the EU because our population density is way below the average. In the USA, growth is almost entirely due to immigration, much of it illegal. China has taken drastic steps to control its population, such as attempting to limit families to a single child and making abortion a government promoted means of supplementing other forms of birth control.

So the population growth that is taking place is in underdeveloped regions – the very areas that can least accommodate it. For this reason, as also noted, life expectancy is low. Most importantly, for the memory of Malthus, this is all too often due to famine or the effects of malnutrition, which is obviously much the same thing.

It does not become us to be too complacent about population growth.

Green agenda in decline

The Greens are gone and the scientific advisor to Fine Gael, according to the Irish Times, is a global warming sceptic. For those of us that have become weary of causes that rely more on moral persuasion than on clearly explicable scientific evidence, this is neither a surprise nor a tragedy. It is now time to recall the Hole In The Ozone Layer, which not too long ago was supposed to presage pretty much the end of life as we know it, but which is currently not on anyone's radar. In previous generations people worried about nuclear weapons wiping us all out but, again, nothing is talked of that at all in the present time.

My own attitude to global warming has been mixed. I found it hard to give credence to the Jeremiahs that foretold Armageddon but, at the same time, I felt that anything that tended to reduce the consumption of petrol and other fossil fuel derivitives was a good thing because they are being depleted, and the price at the pumps is a solid, deterministic piece of evidence of that which is apparent to all.

Is global warming caused by human intervention? Again, I simply don't know. However, I am convinced that the world is overpopulated with humans and anything that will bring attention to bear on this fact is also to be welcomed.

As for the policies that were put in place by the Green Party when it had some power in Ireland: these had nuisance value at best. None of the measures were such as would not have come about as a result of EU directives in due course. At the same time the Department of Finance was never going to be in the looking-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth business when it found itself to be the beneficiary of windfall carbon taxes.

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