Are there too many people in the world?
Posted by Dave on March 1, 2010 | 9 Comments
We’re in a carbon emergency, we’re told. The world is producing too much carbon, and more every year, resulting in possibly irreversible global warming. But take a look at this graph (via Google):
If we’re in an emergency, why hasn’t carbon output gone up appreciably since 1970? The answer, of course, is that this graph measures per capita carbon output. While the average output per individual hasn’t risen in the last 40 years, the population has increased drastically:
The total world population has nearly doubled in just 40 years. The graph of total carbon emissions over the same period looks just about the same as the population graph. Here’s a quick graph I made comparing the two (data sources: US Census bureau and EarthTrends):
Is our increasing economic activity causing the problem, or is it our increasing population?
But controlling population is not an easy thing to do. Maybe it’s easier to control our carbon output. Maybe increasing numbers of people can be managed through technology. Maybe as people become more affluent, they naturally have fewer offspring and the population problem will take care of itself. Maybe some other factor will limit population growth before we destroy the planet.
I honestly don’t know the answer to the question posed in the title of this post, but I think it’s an important one, and its ramifications will be the subject of the next month’s postings here.
Comments
9 Responses to “Are there too many people in the world?”
Leave a Reply
Additional comments powered by BackType
About
The Daily Monthly is Dave Munger's multi-layered exploration of ideas and issues affecting all of us today.
One post per day, one topic per month
Subscribe (RSS)
March 1st, 2010 @ 4:44 pm
Interesting comment about affluence and number of offspring. Between my wife and I and our respective siblings and their spouses (12 people) we have a combined total of 7 children (and we’re all pretty much done having kids). But those 12 people come from families with a total of 20 siblings. So our generation totals 20, while our childrens’ generation totals only 7 (plus future spouses). So our family is downsizing with each generation, though that’s obviously not the global trend.
March 1st, 2010 @ 5:01 pm
Of course, even though first world families are getting ever smaller, their carbon use is increasing hugely. Poor families with huge families probably (I’m guessing here) use FAR less carbon than those in the first world. It seems the question here isn’t as simple as ‘are there too many people’ (although I would say that yes, there are).
March 1st, 2010 @ 5:10 pm
Aimee,
Not as much as you’d think. Play around a bit with the Google tool I link to above. Here’s a graph populated with a few developed nations. Most of them haven’t increased much since 1970. But the US population has nearly doubled since then, so we’ve doubled our emissions as well.
March 2nd, 2010 @ 12:15 pm
Great topic! I’ll be watching this with interest.
March 3rd, 2010 @ 6:48 am
Just come across your blog through Research Blogging. Interesting post and I love the google graphing tool. On the subject of population growth against emissions, here’s (http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi#met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:USA:ZAR:GNB:LBR:NER:AFG:AGO:BDI:MWI:UGA:SLE) a graph showing the per capita CO2 emissions of the 10 countries with fastest growing populations. And America. As you can see, the worst offender is Angola with 500 kilos per person per year – which is probably within the limits which you get if you divide sustainable CO2 emissions equally across the planet.
March 1st, 2010 @ 4:14 pm
Are there too many people in the world? http://goo.gl/fb/7tz7
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 1st, 2010 @ 4:51 pm
New @dailymonthly topic for March: Are there too many people in the world? http://is.gd/9tKXv #population
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 1st, 2010 @ 5:01 pm
I can see this being fascinating RT @davemunger: @dailymonthly topic for March: Are there 2 many people in the world? http://is.gd/9tKXv
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
March 1st, 2010 @ 5:11 pm
shld b interesting! RT @davemunger New @dailymonthly topic for March: Are there too many people in the world? http://is.gd/9tKXv #population
This comment was originally posted on Twitter