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Old 05-11-2006, 08:51 AM
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...and baby makes three

Partial article from Wilson Quarterly about population sustainability and so forth. As usual per that magazine, thought-provoking.

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Doom and Demography
by Nicholas Eberstadt

For decades, the world has been haunted by ominous and recurrent reports of impending demographic doom. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich’s neo-Malthusian manifesto, The Population Bomb, predicted mass starvation in the 1970s and ’80s. The Limits to Growth, published by the global think tank Club of Rome in 1972, portrayed a computer-model apocalypse of overpopulation. The demographic doom-saying in authoritative and influential circles has steadily continued: from the Carter administration’s grim Global 2000 study in 1980 to the 1992 vision of eco-disaster in Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance to practically any recent publication or pronouncement by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

What is perhaps most remarkable about the incessant stream of dire—and consistently wrong—predictions of global demographic overshoot is the public’s apparently insatiable demand for it. Unlike the villagers in the fable about the boy who cried wolf, educated American consumers always seem to have the time, the money, and the credulity to pay to hear one more time that we are just about to run out of everything, thanks to population growth. The Population Bomb and the Club of Rome’s disaster tale both sold millions of copies. More recently, journalist Robert D. Kaplan created a stir by trumpeting “the coming anarchy” in a 2000 book of the same name, warning that a combination of demographic and environmental crises was creating world-threatening political maelstroms in a variety of developing countries. Why, of all people, do Americans—who fancy themselves the world’s pragmatic problems-solvers—seem to betray a predilection for such obviously dramatic and unproved visions of the future?

Perhaps this American fascination is just a cultural foible—a penchant for a certain type of vicarious entertainment, no different in kind from, say, the famous British love of the murder mystery, and every bit as harmless. On the other hand, Miss Marple’s British devotees did not actually believe that Britain was in the grip of a crime wave being stymied by little blue-haired ladies, whereas many Americans appear to take quite seriously each new warning about imminent and catastrophic fallout from a global population explosion.

But maybe the obsession has to do, rather, with America’s hunger for—at times, near worship of—numbers. After all, the United States was a country of statistical pioneers. One of the very first acts of the newly formed U.S. government was a national population count. Yet this fondness for figures can veer from the pragmatic to the preposterous. Pitirim A. Sorokin, the Russian émigré who became the first chairman of Harvard University’s newly formed sociology department in the early 1930s, had a term for the problem. He called it “quantophrenia,” a psychological compulsion to grasp for the numeric. Victims of quantophrenia, in Sorokin’s wry diagnosis, obsess over numbers as descriptors, no matter how dubious their basis or questionable their provenance.

Perhaps we should chalk up America’s fixation on Malthusian menace to the public’s underdiscussed and still unacknowledged quantophrenia problem. Even in the land of the free, all numbers (and their interpretations) are not created equal. We can see this quite clearly if we reflect on the number-laden predictions about the purportedly devastating toll of the “population explosion” in the century that has just concluded.

Alarmist assessments of the portending impact of the tremendous surge in humanity’s numbers have been issued from all sorts of authoritative quarters: the United Nations, the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, even the Central Intelligence Agency. Differing mainly in their presentation of details, the members of this grim chorus commonly asserted that the burgeoning number of mouths on the planet meant that more scarcity, poverty, and hunger were just around the corner—with the most severe suffering predicted for the rapidly reproducing Third World. In these predictions, in tandem with the ascending schedule of total human numbers, the human condition (at least in material terms) was always envisioned to decline. Food and everything else would become more dear, malnutrition more acute, desperate poverty more difficult to escape.

Yet these data-brandishing studies not only got their own numerical projections wrong, they even missed the basic direction of change. Troubled as the world may be today, it is incontestably less poor, less unhealthy, and less hungry than it was 30 years ago. And this positive association between world population growth and material advance goes back at least as far as the beginning of the 20th century.

Let us consider—or rather, reconsider—what took place in the 20th century’s “population explosion.” The basic story is well known. A precise count is impossible, but between 1900 and 2000 human numbers almost quadrupled, from around 1.6 billion to more than six billion; in pace or magnitude, nothing like that surge had ever occurred. But why exactly did we experience a world population explosion in the 20th century?

It was not because people suddenly started breeding like rabbits—rather, it was because they finally stopped dying like flies. Between 1900 and the end of the 20th century, the human life span likely doubled, from a planetary life expectancy at birth of perhaps 30 years to one of more than 60. By this measure, the overwhelming preponderance of the health progress in all of human history took place during the past 100 years.

Over the past half-century, the reduction of death rates worldwide was especially dramatic. Between the early 1950s and the first half of the current decade, according to estimates by the United Nations Population Division (UNPD—not to be confused with UNFPA), the planetary expectation of life at birth jumped by almost 19 years, or about two-fifths, from under 47 years to more than 65 years. For the low-income regions, the leap was even more dramatic. Average life expectancy in these areas, taken together, surged upward by well over two decades, a rise of more than 50 percent. Even troubled sub-Saharan Africa—despite its protracted post-independence political and economic turmoil and the advent of a catastrophic HIV/AIDS epidemic—is thought to have enjoyed an increase in local life expectancy of more than one-fifth. (Practically the only countries to register no appreciable improvements in life expectancy over this period were the handful of “European” territories within what was once the Soviet Union; in the Russian Federation in particular, gains over these four and a half decades were almost negligible.)

Among the most important proximate reasons for the global stride forward in life expectancy was the worldwide drop in infant mortality rates. In the early 1950s, again according to UNPD estimates, 156 out of every 1,000 children born around the world did not survive their first year; by the beginning of the 21st century, that toll was down to 57 per 1,000. In “developed” countries, the infant mortality rate is thought to have fallen by more than 85 percent during those same decades, and by nearly 70 percent in the collectivity of “developing” countries. Even in troubled regions, great advances in infant survival were achieved. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the infant mortality rate is thought to have declined by nearly half, and Russia’s infant mortality rate probably fell by more than 80 percent.

This worldwide drop in mortality literally transformed the life chances of the human species. So profound are these changes that life expectancy and infant mortality rates in the Third World today now approximate the levels prevailing in the rich countries shortly after World War II. The plunge in worldwide mortality, furthermore, is entirely responsible for the increase in human numbers over the course of the 20th century. This is a simple arithmetic fact. The “population explosion,” in other words, was really a “health explosion.”

The implications of a health explosion—of any health explosion—for economic development and poverty alleviation are, on their face, hardly negative. Healthier people are able to learn better, work harder, engage in gainful employment longer, and contribute more to economic activity than their unhealthy, short-lived counterparts. Whether that potential translates into tangible economic results naturally depends on other factors, such as social and legal institutions, or the business and policy climate. Nevertheless, the health explosion that propelled the 20th century’s population explosion was an economically auspicious phenomenon rather than a troubling trend.

All other things being equal, the health explosion could be expected to contribute to the acceleration of economic growth, the increase of incomes, and the spread of wealth. And, as it happens, the 20th century witnessed not only a population explosion and a health explosion, but also a “prosperity explosion.” Estimates by the economic historian Angus Maddison, who has produced perhaps the most authoritative reconstruction of long-term global economic trends currently available, demonstrate just that.



More at Wilson Quarterly

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Old 05-11-2006, 10:27 AM
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How ironic that the folks who engage in the doomsday mindset, as the author points out, are frequently American. Yet, in general (and in particular on this board at times), these same people have a majority anti-American point of view.

Makes you wonder...
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Old 05-12-2006, 02:51 PM
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Of course population growth has a lot to do with reduced mortality. This in no way renders the problem null and void. Just as predators keep the numbers of deer and rabbits at sustainable levels, disease and predators used to keep in human numbers in check.

You might want to tell border officials in Morocco and Spain that the problem is diminishing:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/jan-june06/immigration_5-11.html

Puh - lenty of Africans dying (literally) to go to Paris so they can burn autos and complain of substandard housing and no jobs.

Ditto for our hard-working bros. to the south. The line you hear over and over is: "We just want to feed our family." Well uhhh, I think that's a pretty universal urge. The question that needs to be pondered is: why weren't you able to feed you family back in Mexico? Wouldn't have anything to do with too many people and not enough land would it? That and NAFTA enabled US subsidized cheap agribiz making it virtually impossible for small farmers to make a living anymore.
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Old 05-12-2006, 05:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cmac2012
enabled US subsidized cheap agribiz making it virtually impossible for small farmers to make a living anymore.
MackSee, subsidized agribiz is generally the only way small farmers can make a living anymore. Unless you know another way to unload soybeans when the market is flooded.
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Old 05-12-2006, 07:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Botnst
...

"Among the most important proximate reasons for the global stride forward in life expectancy was the worldwide drop in infant mortality rates. In the early 1950s, again according to UNPD estimates, 156 out of every 1,000 children born around the world did not survive their first year; by the beginning of the 21st century, that toll was down to 57 per 1,000. In “developed” countries, the infant mortality rate is thought to have fallen by more than 85 percent during those same decades, and by nearly 70 percent in the collectivity of “developing” countries. Even in troubled regions, great advances in infant survival were achieved. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the infant mortality rate is thought to have declined by nearly half, and Russia’s infant mortality rate probably fell by more than 80 percent."
...
More at Wilson Quarterly
I would like to see a breakdown of his quantophia. {“developed” and “developing”} are terms that 'aren't well liked' by my anti-sorokinian side.
I sure would be interested in seeing whom amoung the devoloping is up to what. I have the impression that if you change the range of a population and it's availability of resources that things have the potential to get dodgy.
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Old 05-12-2006, 07:29 PM
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Originally Posted by A264172
I would like to see a breakdown of his quantophia. {“developed” and “developing”} are terms that 'aren't well liked' by my anti-sorokinian side.
I sure would be interested in seeing whom amoung the devoloping is up to what. I have the impression that if you change the range of a population and it's availability of resources that things have the potential to get dodgy.
Yep and you're riding the bleeding edge of ecological theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity).

There has been some excellent theoretical work from a biological perspective (reductionist science). Interestingly, some theoretical ecologists have recently (10 years or so) begun playing with econometrics. Originally they moved that way so that they could attach a commercial value to wild things, in hopes of convincing people of economical value if they don't believe in the intrinsic value of life. That is still in play but so are the tools and theories that economists have been working on for decades. To further complicate things, theoretical physicists who have had trouble getting jobs in pure physics have found applications in trading stocks and bonds, modeling extremely complex, sometimes chaotic trading is close enough to physics that they shift over rather well.
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Old 05-12-2006, 08:30 PM
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Originally Posted by Botnst
...To further complicate things, theoretical physicists who have had trouble getting jobs in pure physics have found applications in trading stocks and bonds, modeling extremely complex, sometimes chaotic trading is close enough to physics that they shift over rather well.
Ah yes the, highly secret and elusive, 'Wealth Star' project featureing the, axially mounted, 'Mass Cash Driver'.
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Old 05-12-2006, 10:06 PM
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Originally Posted by Botnst
Yep and you're riding the bleeding edge of ecological theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity).

There has been some excellent theoretical work from a biological perspective (reductionist science). Interestingly, some theoretical ecologists have recently (10 years or so) begun playing with econometrics. Originally they moved that way so that they could attach a commercial value to wild things, in hopes of convincing people of economical value if they don't believe in the intrinsic value of life. That is still in play but so are the tools and theories that economists have been working on for decades. To further complicate things, theoretical physicists who have had trouble getting jobs in pure physics have found applications in trading stocks and bonds, modeling extremely complex, sometimes chaotic trading is close enough to physics that they shift over rather well.
It seems that the proof for the theoretical physicists moving into stocks, bonds and economics would be the monetary success therein. Has anyone who has made this shift actually succeeded in making money? If so, that would lend some quantifiable proof to the complex theories which they are modeling.

My guess is that there are still too many variables to quantify and track when dealing with homo sapiens sapiens - not your standard ecological niche/predator population scenario in which carrying capacities can be accuratly determined.
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Old 05-12-2006, 11:40 PM
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It seems that the proof for the theoretical physicists moving into stocks, bonds and economics would be the monetary success therein. Has anyone who has made this shift actually succeeded in making money? If so, that would lend some quantifiable proof to the complex theories which they are modeling.

My guess is that there are still too many variables to quantify and track when dealing with homo sapiens sapiens - not your standard ecological niche/predator population scenario in which carrying capacities can be accuratly determined.
I read about it in one of those gawd-awful airline magazines. I think there was some association with the Santa Fe Institute.
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Old 05-12-2006, 11:49 PM
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MackSee, subsidized agribiz is generally the only way small farmers can make a living anymore. Unless you know another way to unload soybeans when the market is flooded.
It's a tough one. Everyone's looking to stay above water but what worries me is the big boys -- ADM, Cargill, etc. -- virtually dumping GM corn in Mexico such that small, traditional, non-GMO farmers can't compete.

Word I've heard is that a good number of those end up in swelling Mexico City slums or banging on our borders. So ADM increases their market share by an amount that couldn't have been crucial to their survival and we end up with more illegal migrants.

Don't know how much solid evidence of this is to be had but from what I've heard there's plenty of anecdotal evidence on it.
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Old 05-12-2006, 11:54 PM
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I read about it in one of those gawd-awful airline magazines. I think there was some association with the Santa Fe Institute.
I've had my fill of airplane magazines in the last few weeks. Japan is a long long way away and Monday I have to fly to Maryland. Here and now I hate airplanes.
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Old 05-12-2006, 11:59 PM
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Originally Posted by Botnst
All other things being equal, the health explosion could be expected to contribute to the acceleration of economic growth, the increase of incomes, and the spread of wealth. And, as it happens, the 20th century witnessed not only a population explosion and a health explosion, but also a “prosperity explosion.” Estimates by the economic historian Angus Maddison, who has produced perhaps the most authoritative reconstruction of long-term global economic trends currently available, demonstrate just that.
Word I've heard is that initiatives like the Gates' Foundation health programs are the best bet for slowing pop. growth, because people who can count on 2 or 3 offspring surviving are less likely to want to have 8 or 10 and the subsequent perishing of half of them before age 5.

OTOH, the desire for a large family is an old one and new found prosperity makes it look attractive. One of the "roach coaches" that brought snacks and lunch to a former job site of mine (so called because they often have a horn that plays 'la Cucharacha [sp] to alert workers of their arrival) was run by a Vietnamese legal immigrant who had 8 kids.

As for the prosperity explosion of the 20th century, beginning to look like that boom is over. We're looking at generations now who will most likely be less prosperous than their parents.

This is a FINITE planet. Exponential growth is fun and exhilerating when you have lots of open space and untapped resources.
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Old 05-13-2006, 12:01 AM
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Originally Posted by cmac2012
It's a tough one. Everyone's looking to stay above water but what worries me is the big boys -- ADM, Cargill, etc. -- virtually dumping GM corn in Mexico such that small, traditional, non-GMO farmers can't compete.

Word I've heard is that a good number of those end up in swelling Mexico City slums or banging on our borders. So ADM increases their market share by an amount that couldn't have been crucial to their survival and we end up with more illegal migrants.

Don't know how much solid evidence of this is to be had but from what I've heard there's plenty of anecdotal evidence on it.
Same thing happened to the buggy whip industry when those industrial meanies started producing cars.

Why oh why can't we just always stay as we were?
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Old 05-13-2006, 12:02 AM
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I've had my fill of airplane magazines in the last few weeks. Japan is a long long way away and Monday I have to fly to Maryland. Here and now I hate airplanes.
Pergo-mon, you must embrace modernity. No whining. You want to go back to walking or riding in horse drawn wagons?
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Old 05-13-2006, 12:04 AM
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The best way to lower population growth rate is by educating women. There is a direct correspondence across racial, political, socioeconomic and political lines. In fact, the best way to maintain a high birthrate is to keep women ignorant. All that healthcare stuff is awful nice but unless the women have the power to improve their own lives, the people will continue high birthrates and living in squalor. They'll have vaccinations, clean teeth, and 9 siblings.

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