The word can be applied to any species which exceeds the carrying capacity of its habitat. Ultimately, the degraded habitat will no longer support such numbers and the population collapses. But people can modify environments to support more people.
They can use technology to get more goods and services from the same resources, and they can gather and trade resources over vast distances far from where they actually live. The answers depend on value judgements, such as what quality of life we want people to have and how much we value preserving wild places where other species can thrive; also on what technologies we might conceivably draw upon in the future. Maximum and optimum population sizes are likely to differ.
All of this creates a large grey area, with much room for disagreement about what constitutes overpopulation.
This definition assumes perfect substitutability between different biocapacities, as well as an entitlement for humans to consume it all. Grey areas aside, we believe there are limits beyond which human overpopulation becomes undeniable. Surely overpopulation exists where 1 people are displacing wild species so thoroughly, either locally, regionally, or globally, that they are helping create a global mass extinction event; and where 2 people are so thoroughly degrading ecosystems that provide essential environmental services, that future human generations likely will have a hard time living decent lives.
On this definition, most nations, and the world as a whole, are overpopulated right now, and getting more overpopulated with each passing year. So why are people uncomfortable using the term? First, some people deny overpopulation exists, referring to recent progress in human well-being around the world.
Second, the term may cause communication problems, if not explained well. Some colleagues and other conservationists, both in rich low-fertility countries and poor high-fertility countries, feel it gives the wrong impression about whose interests are being pursued. Regarding the first, we do not deny that the average living conditions for many people around the world have improved in recent decades.
But this general case is often taken too far, since in absolute numbers undernourishment, for instance, persists and has even increased compared to 60 or 70 years ago. But pointing to the fact that food and freshwater cannot increase indefinitely as the human population grows usually has little effect; many will argue that Malthus was proven wrong in the 19 th century, Paul Ehrlich in the 20 th , and smart Homo sapiens will solve new problems through clever management or new technology in the 21 st.
And the more people, the more brains to solve the problems! But note, this is a common response from political and intellectual elites whose privilege has allowed them to do well and feel confident about the future. The general public heading to work on crowded buses, low-paid workers fighting flooded labor markets, or poor farmers worried about droughts or subdividing their properties among their numerous children, may have more negative and realistic views about population increase.
You can see this contrast when the public responds to newspaper reports or opinion pieces focused on solving environmental problems through technical solutions; check the online comments after the article, where readers often recognize population growth or overpopulation as the missing piece in the texts, and express skepticism that solutions which ignore it will work.
Those who have any interest in wildlife are even less inclined to argue away overpopulation, since they are aware of current negative trends for wildlife numbers.
Overpopulation has obviously contributed to these negative effects on other species, so those who care about other species are less inclined to argue away its existence. It is NOT overpopulation that is sending millions of children to bed hungry each night. It is not overpopulation that is responsible for the massive ecological devastation in Africa today.
There is a lot to unpack in these words, but implicit is the idea that citing overpopulation means denying the inequities of colonial legacies and modern exploitation.
Even worse, that the person citing overpopulation wishes to impose some sort of penalty on poor, high-fertility countries, rather than identifying a crucial area in which they need help. Yet it is difficult to argue that population growth has played no role at all in driving deforestation, overgrazing, soil degradation and other environmental harms in Africa, not to mention shrinking land holdings, burgeoning urban slums and insufficient access to food, infrastructure and services.
And with all that is known about crowded labour markets leading to low wages and exploitative working conditions, can it really be argued that population growth plays no role in driving economic inequality?
No country outside OPEC has achieved middle-income status without first reducing its birth rate substantially through voluntary family planning, and every country which did so, regardless of their colonial legacy, has seen substantial betterment.
Such denial also ignores the fact that limiting future population growth is likely to be an important factor in whether African nations are able to preserve their spectacular wildlife heritages. Pointing all this out does not mean arguing against greater economic equity between nations, fairer trade relations, or increased foreign aid—all of which we support.
Nor does it mean acquiescing in overconsumption by wealthy people, or pretending that overpopulation is only an issue in the developing world. As we say on our web site: It is important to realize that overpopulation exists in many rich countries with too high rates of consumption as well as in many poor countries with too high fertility rates. Every effort should be made to reduce high consumption rates as well as high birth rates; in combination, these two measures would create a much better future for people on the planet.
On this view, each nation, each political leader, each citizen, can contribute to creating sustainable societies by addressing both consumption and population issues, and their interconnections.
But addressing overpopulation is important in creating societies that sustain good human lives and maintain the existence of other species. We ignore it at our peril. In recent decades, many environmental advocates have done just that. Their neglect or denial has made it much harder to deliver the reproductive freedoms that people in high-fertility countries want. The program FP , started in to revitalize languishing family planning efforts, has helped many women in many countries receive contraception.
But it has fallen well short of its targets due to weak political will in both donor and recipient countries. Still, the fight to address overpopulation continues. Several of our competent colleagues argued there that overpopulation is a major threat to climate stabilization and that there are solutions to help us deal with it. Watch video of the seminar here and send it on to others who may be wondering how to define overpopulation and what to do to deal with it.
Do you have a comment on this text? We are interested in hearing what you think — please write below, or send to frank. Overpopulation is a dirty word, because it begs the question: Who is overpopulation, and who is not? Plain and simple — however inconvenient it may be! A good article. Perhaps the most honest way of addressing the issue is to simply point out: Good modern research has shown that the greatest human population that can be sustained, resource-wise, over the long-term is 3.
And other studies have shown that, over the long-term, the optimum largest number of people who can reasonably live with the rest of nature on Earth is 2 billion humans. Get the public involved. Another excellent article, notable for the wisdom and common sense which seem to have eluded many of our present day activists and NGOs.
That the public at large do not agree with this magical thinking is dismissed as ignorance and bigotry. Thirdly, business and governments alike continue to promote the need for an increase in birthrates in an already crowded world, reliant as they are, on a pool of cheap labour in the flexible service economies which prevail. I see so much hand waving and ecobabble now: zero carbon, zero waste, rewilding, green energy, new technologies, automation, more people means more solutions, open borders, the promotion of nuclear energy, longevity research ,all enthusiastically embraced as leading to a brave new very crowded world.
I merely want to add my praise for your essay. Overpopulation is not a dirty word, but an inconvenient truth. Here is another bizarre article from the NYT, which I found by chance. Moreover, the cognitive dissonance in the NYT newsroom must be several feet deep by now, and difficult to wade through. This is a fascinating find: Professor Patricia MacCormack advocates an ahuman future; not achieved by culling but by a renouncement of reproduction.
That a British academic has had the courage to challenge the status quo gives hope for the future. Yet another pronatalist article; this idea is steadily gaining traction amongst our movers and shakers, as European leaders panic about the costs of an ageing society. Thank you Frank et al. Similarly, if somebody states that a region is overpopulated, I am entitled to be informed of 1 its actual population and 2 its sustainable population, otherwise the statement is meaningless.
I believe that the standards defined by the Global Footprint Network are the best we have achieved thus far. Caughley's model of animal overpopulation is applied here to prairie dogs to clarify the basis for a judgement of overpopulation in each of several cases. There are ecological components to all such cases, but a purely ecological judgement of overpopulation requires much more information than is currently available. However, defensible management of prairie dog systems is a goal, and time-honored but flawed assumptions are never an adequate substitute for results derived from thorough, scientific studies of prairie dog systems as a basis for management actions.
Environmental Health and Protection Commons. Advanced Search. Search Help. Privacy Copyright.
0コメント