[I've been working on this post for awhile, and have been holding off because the ideas weren't complete. But if I keep doing that, I'll never post it. So here's the first part:]
This stuff has been mulling around in my head awhile, and it’s good to get it coherent and organized. Last weekend I watched all seven of [Hans Rosling’s TED Talks] on statistics, population growth, child mortality, and poverty. The man is a doctor, researcher, and statistician and has some wondrous and uplifting insights that I think everyone should watch. I also went to a presentation last week regarding the release of Laurie Mazur’s new book A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge. The rest of this post is an amalgam of everything I’ve been watching and reading recently. My research deals heavily in making emission projections out until 2050 or 2100, and population growth introduces large and complicated sets of uncertainties into these projections. So I’m going to start first with the big picture of expected population growth and wealth distribution, delve into some of the causes and effects of this growth, and then finish up with some priorities and goals. Big Picture
First, I’d like to use Hans Rosling’s system for examining the current and future global population by splitting the people on this planet into 4 bins (Note: not the “developed” and “developing” world bins, which Rosling fights very hard to point out is a misnomer and is damaging to dialogue and understanding). The bins are categorized by the aspirations of different groups of people. The first deals with the bottom 1-2 billion people who are fighting for food and shoes. They are fighting for survival, and aren’t able to think much beyond that. The second bin deals with the poor countries and people that are no longer fighting for survival. Instead, they’re aspiring to get bicycles. They are more able to help themselves given the right tools and freedoms. The third bin is filled with the emerging economies, or the people that are striving for cars. These are countries like India and China that are showing tremendous growth. The final bin is the “developed” or “western” people, who strive for vacations in faraway places with the use of airplanes. These bins are, of course, broad-stroke characterizations. Each nation has a distribution of wealth within its boundaries, but for the global picture, we have to make some broad stroke generalizations.
The following figure summarizes the past, present, and projected future of our planet in regards to population. There are a range of projections, but it almost certain (“nothing but a nuclear war like we’ve never seen” will stop an additional 2 billion people by 2050” – Hans Rosling) that there will be around 9 billion people by 2050 (the ranges go from 7 – 11 billion, depending on the assumptions and sources) and it is quite possible that there will be 12 billion people by 2100. There are huge events or developments that can change these projections, but this is a good, robust, possible baseline to think about. I’ve broken the figure up into 5 time periods: 1850, 1950, 2010, 2050, and 2100. For the future projections, I’ve split the distributions into bad, average, and good scenarios. I’ve also split the populations into the four bins described above. I’ve used “1,000,000,000” as the bin sizes to represent 1 billion people, but another way to look at it is to imagine each “0” representing approximately one hundred million people. The red zeros are approximate numbers for the population of the United States. (Click on the picture to make it bigger, it seems to be having formatting problems).
Obviously, the best-case scenarios are the ones where no one is fighting for survival (food and shoes bin) and the worst-case scenarios have many people struggling for survival. I was born and live comfortably within the richest bin. My income as a graduate student puts me in the top 10% of global income. There are approximately 500,000,000 people that make more money than be, but 6,200,000,000 people that make less money than me. I have absolutely nothing to complain about, and the rest of my life promises to be quite cushy. The questions that bother me are: Does my lifestyle subjugate or detract from other peoples’ opportunities? How can I help the most people? Who can and should I help? What can I do? Where can I go? Should I move to Haiti and help there? Should I stay here at Cornell and work on big-picture ideas that could possibly impact a larger number of people? I have had tremendous opportunities, and I’d hate to squander them.
For now, I'll close with an excellent quote:
“We did not cause the crisis we face – unless you count us guilty at birth – but if the crisis is solved, it’ll have to be in large part through the leadership of people born in my generation [Generation X, 1960-1980]. Out historic call is to save the planet during peak population.
I am optimistic that we can do this. We have a rising network of brilliant and dedicated world-changing leaders. We live, despite the financial crisis, at a moment of great wealth. We have the motive, means, and opportunity.
None of this is to say that Generation X will do it along. In particular, if you’re young today, you have a huge choice to make: This transition will be unfolding during your entire career, and the role you choose to play in making it happen will be vitally important to your life, the planet, and the future. You too are called…
Contemplating the journey beyond peak population, and the duty we have to lead it – well, it can weigh on you. I find it useful to remember that by changing the world today, we’re building a better future beyond the crisis, that we work not only on our own behalf but for children who will not be born within our lifetimes, and their children, and theirs – that we’ll make great ancestors.
But I also find it helpful to remember that these are our lives, and this is our adventure; and though times are tough and the planet demands our hard work, it also needs people who are happy, healthy, and creatively energetic. The world needs our best-lived lives, not our martyrdom.” (Alex Steffen, excerpted from “A Pivotal Moment”)
