BREAKING OUT OR BREAKING DOWN
Chapter 10. Stabilizing Population by Reducing Fertility
Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth
(W.W. Norton & Co., NY: 2001).
Today we find ourselves in a demographically
divided world, one where national projections of population growth
vary more widely than at any time in history. In most European countries
and Japan, population has stabilized or is declining; but in others,
such as Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, population is projected
to double or even triple before stabilizing.
Demographers use a three-stage model to understand how population
growth rates change over time as modernization proceeds. In the
first stage, birth and death rates are both high, resulting in little
or no population growth. In the second stage, death rates fall while
birth rates remain high, leading to rapid growth. In the third stage,
birth rates fall to a low level, balancing low death rates and again
leading to population stability while offering greater possibilities
for comfort and dignity than in stage one. It is assumed that countries
will progress from stage one to stage three.3
Today there are no countries in stage one; all are either in stage
two or stage three. However, instead of progressing steadily forward
toward stage three as expected, some countries are falling back
toward stage one as the historical fall in death rates is reversed,
leading the world into a new demographic era. If countries do not
break out of the middle stage of the demographic transition in a
matter of decades, rapid population growth will eventually overwhelm
natural systems, leading to economic decline and forcing societies
back into stage one as mortality rises. Over the long term, there
is no middle ground. Countries either break out or break down. Unfortunately,
a number of countries, mostly in Africa, are showing signs of breaking
down.
For the first time since China's great famine claimed 30 million
lives in 1959-61, world population growth is being slowed by rising
death rates. (See Figure 10-1.) Although rapid population growth
continues in scores of countries, the world is beginning to divide
into two parts: one where population growth is slowing as fertility
falls, and another where population growth is slowing as mortality
rises. One way or the other, population growth will slow. That rising
death rates from AIDS have already reduced the projected population
for 2050 by more than 150 million represents a failure of our political
institutions unmatched since the outbreak of World War II.4
The world is starting to reap the consequences of past neglect of
the population issue. The two regions where death rates either are
already rising or are likely to do so are sub-Saharan Africa and
the Indian subcontinent, which together contain 1.9 billion people--nearly
one third of humanity. Without clearly defined government strategies
in countries with rapid population growth to lower birth rates quickly
and a commitment by the international community to support them,
one third of humanity could slide into a demographic black hole.
After nearly half a century of continuous population growth, the
demand in many countries for food, water, and forest products is
simply outrunning the capacity of local life-support systems. In
addition, the ever growing number of young people who need health
care and education is exceeding the availability of these services.
If birth rates do not come down soon, these natural systems and
social services are likely to deteriorate to the point where death
rates will rise.
But what will cause death rates to go up in individual countries?
Will it be starvation? An outbreak of disease? War? Social disintegration?
At some point as population pressures build, governments are simply
overwhelmed and are not able to respond to new threats. There are
now three clearly identifiable threats that either are already pushing
death rates up or have the potential to do sothe
HIV epidemic, aquifer depletion, and land hunger.
Of these three, the HIV epidemic is the first to spiral out of control
in developing countries. The epidemic should be seen for what it
is: an international emergency of epic proportions, one that could
claim more lives in the early part of this century than World War
II did in the last one. In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV infection rates
are soaring, already affecting one fifth to one third or more of
adults in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.5
Barring a medical miracle, many African countries will lose a fifth
or more of their adult populations to AIDS by the end of this decade.
To find a precedent for such a potentially devastating loss of life
from an infectious disease, we have to go back to the decimation
of New World Indian communities by the introduction of smallpox
in the sixteenth century or to the Bubonic plague that claimed roughly
a third of Europe's population during the fourteenth century.6
Ominously, the virus has also established a foothold in the Indian
subcontinent. With 3.7 million adults now HIV-positive, India is
home to more infected individuals than any other nation except South
Africa. And with the infection rate among India's adults at roughly
1 percenta
critical threshold for potentially rapid spread--the epidemic threatens
to engulf the country if the government does not move quickly to
check it. The virus is also spreading rapidly in Myanmar, Cambodia,
and China.7
One consequence of continuing population growth is potentially life-threatening
water shortages. If rapid population growth continues indefinitely,
the demand for water eventually exceeds the sustainable yield of
aquifers. The result is excessive water withdrawals and falling
water tables. (See Chapter 2.) Since 40 percent of the world's food
comes from irrigated land, water shortages can quickly translate
into food shortages.8
Dozens of developing countries face acute water shortages, but none
illustrate the threat better than India, whose populationexpanding
by 18 million a yearhas
already surpassed 1 billion. New estimates for India indicate that
in some areas water withdrawals are now double the rate of aquifer
recharge. As a result, water tables are falling by 1 meter or more
per year over parts of the country. Overpumping today means water
supply cutbacks tomorrow, a serious matter where half of the harvest
comes from irrigated land.9
The International Water Management Institute estimates that aquifer
depletion and the resulting cutbacks in irrigation water could override
technology gains, reducing the grain harvest in water-short regions
of India. In a country where 53 percent of all children are already
malnourished and underweight, a shrinking harvest could increase
hunger-related deaths, adding to the 6 million worldwide who die
each year from hunger and malnutrition. In contrast to AIDS, which
takes a heavy toll among young adults, hunger claims mostly infants
and children.10
The third threat hanging over the future of countries with rapid
population growth is land hunger. Once cropland per person shrinks
to a certain point, people can no longer feed themselves and they
either turn to imported food or go hungry. The risk is that countries
will not be able to afford the imported food or that food simply
will not be available if world import needs exceed exportable supplies.
Among the larger countries where shrinking cropland per person threatens
future food security are Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Pakistan, all countries
with weak family planning programs. As Nigeria's population goes
from 114 million today to a projected 278 million in 2050, its grainland
per person will shrink from 0.16 hectares to 0.06 hectares. Pakistan's
projected growth from 141 million today to 344 million by 2050 will
reduce its grainland per person from 0.09 hectares at present to
0.04 hectaresscarcely
the size of a tennis court. Countries where this number has shrunk
to 0.03 hectares, such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, import
70 percent or more of their grain.11
The threats from HIV, aquifer depletion, and shrinking cropland
are not new or unexpected. We have known for more than a decade
that AIDS could decimate human populations if it were not controlled.
In each of the last 18 years, the number of new HIV infections has
risen. Of the 58 million infected by the year 2000, 22 million people
have died. In the absence of a low-cost cure, nearly all the remaining
36 million will die by 2010. It is hard to believe, given our advanced
medical knowledge, that a controllable disease could devastate human
populations in so many countries.12
Similarly, it is hard to imagine that falling water tables, which
may prove an even greater threat to future economic progress and
political stability, could be so widely ignored. The arithmetic
of emerging water shortages is not difficult. A growing population
with a water supply that is essentially fixed by nature means that
the water per person will diminish over time, eventually dropping
below the level needed to meet basic needs for drinking water, food
production, and sanitation.
The same holds true for cropland per person. The mystery is not
in the arithmetic. That is straightforward. The mystery is in our
failure to respond to the threats associated with continuing population
growth.
ENDNOTES:
3.
Lester R. Brown, Gary Gardner, and Brian Halweil, Beyond Malthus
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), pp. 112-13.
4. Figure 10-1 from U.S. Bureau of the Census, International Data
Base, electronic database, Suitland, MD, updated 10 May 2000.
5. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Report on
the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic (Geneva: June 2000).
6. William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday,
1976).
7. UNAIDS, op. cit. note 5.
8. Sandra Postel, Pillar of Sand (New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
1999), p. 5.
9. David Seckler, David Molden, and Randolph Barker, Water Scarcity
in the 21st Century, IWMI Water Brief 1 (Colombo, Sri Lanka: International
Water Management Institute (IWMI), July 1998).
10. Irrigation cutbacks from ibid., and from Randolph Barker and
Barbara van Koppen, Water Scarcity and Poverty, IWMI Water Brief
3 (Colombo, Sri Lanka: IWMI, 1999), p. 3; estimates of child malnutrition
and underweight in United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination,
Sub-Committee on Nutrition (UN ACC/SCN) in collaboration with International
Food Policy Research Institute, Fourth Report on the World Nutrition
Situation (Geneva: January 2000), pp. 94-96; annual deaths worldwide
from Brown, Gardner, and Halweil, op. cit. note 3.
11. Cropland from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Production,
Supply, and Distribution, electronic database, Washington, DC, updated
May 2001.
12. UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update (Geneva: UNAIDS/WHO, December 2000),
p. 3.
Copyright
© 2001 Earth Policy Institute
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