Oct
13
2009
The Malthusians Strike Back
It’s hard to decide if this is silly or sinister, or both. But if you want to see where radical environmentalism–the kind that honors the planet by wishing a lot of people would get off it–can lead us, check out the Optimum Population Trust (OPT). The OPT is a British group concerned about “the effects of overpopulation on a plundered planet.” They argue that the United Kingdom’s optimum population is less than 30 million (not even half its current size) and possibly lower than 17 million. Likewise, good old planet earth could possibly sustain five billion people, but a safer number is around three billion, also less than half our current population.
The “leading think tank in the UK concerned with the impact of population growth on the evironment” is not a fringe group. It boasts well-known “patrons” like Sir David Attenborough of the British Museum and the BBC (he narrated Planet Earth), Jane Goodall of chimpanzee fame, James Lovelock who pioneered the Gaia theory that earth functions as an organism, and Paul Ehrlich whose 1968 book The Population Bomb predicted that the earth would soon be ravaged by the worst mass starvation in history. The OPT puts out regular news releases which range from the obvious (“Sex Drives Population Growth”), to the predictable (“Contraception is Greenest Climate Change Strategy”), to the Orwellian (“No ‘Unlimited’ Right to Have Children”).
The goal of the Trust is to see a smaller, more sustainable population on our planet. If we don’t limit the size of our families (see their “Stop at Two Pledge”), then Nature, through famine, disease, and war, will wipe out our families for us. If only the planet could shed a few billion people and reach its optimum population, we would see a better future for the environment, the nations of the world, and our children (all 0-2 of them).
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
The OPT represents the reincarnation of Thomas Malthus’ failed theories from two hundred years ago. Malthus was a British scholar who argued that as societies prospered they would, at first, be able to support more people. Thus, families would expand. But as the population grew, it would rather quickly overrun a country’s ability to sustain itself. Population would grow exponentially, but food supply would only grow linearly. As a result, population growth would have to be checked by massive pestilence and famine.
Enter doomsday scenarios, government-sponsored population inquiries (or worse), and pontificating from the OPT.
Besides the inherent dark side of population control (increased number of abortions, decreased personal liberties, huge imbalances in male-female populations), there are two fundamental problems with the OPT’s Malthusian predictions.
First, the rate of population growth is not constant. It is true that world population is expected to swell to over 9 billion by 2050, but what the OPT doesn’t mention is that many experts think the world population may start to shrink shortly thereafter. This is because the overall global fertility rate, though still well above the replacement rate, continues to decline. Consequently, the 2050 population prediction was less in 2008 than it was in 2006 because the growth rate is slowing down. Many countries in the industrialized world, like Russia and Japan, faced with aging, declining populations, are struggling to find ways bring their fertility rates up, closer to the replacement rate of 2.1. In other words, when the OPT warns that at the current growth rate the world population will be 134 trillion by 2300, they are guilty of freezing a fertility rate which will not remain constant. They also look silly.
The second problem with the dire predictions of the neo-Malthusians is that humans, creating in the image of God, have an incredible knack for, well, creating. Despite the hysterics of the chattering humanophobes, human beings don’t just create problems on the planet, they also solve them. The worst scenarios of Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich have not come to pass because humans develop new ways to farm and harness new technologies so that the planet’s resources can sustain more life.
For all the good that environmentalism can do–and who isn’t glad for cleaner rivers and fewer polluting smokestacks?–the Achilles heel of the environmental movement has always been a tendency to see humans as only consumers, not also creators, as more parasite than producers. The average human doesn’t wake up hoping to despoil pristine wilderness or ravage scarce resources, but he may wake up with an idea to turn worthless sand into silicon chips and explore for vast new oil reserves.
That’s why Paul Ehrlich lost his famous bet with economist Julian Simon. In 1980, after Simon allowed Ehrlich to pick any five “scarce” raw materials, they both wagered whether the prices for the materials would increase or decrease in the ensuing decade. Simon won the bet easily as all five chosen metals decreased in value (some without even adjusting for inflation). Even though the metals were valuable, technological advances in discovery and refinement, not to mention unrelated advances that led other to pursue alternate commodities, drove the prices downward. In a market economy, demand spurs innovation, innovation spurs increased productivity, and increased productivity means more sustainability.
Who knows? The Duggars’ 18 children may just possibly do more on the planet than knock over trees and buy Hummers. They may, to paraphrase from your graduation speech, actually make the planet a better place for having been on it. As one author puts it, “man, not matter, is the ultimate resource.”
As another Author once said, “Fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28).
13 Comments
I just happened to be reading about the Duggers last night (who are now working on their 19th kid). Some say they are part of the “Quiverfull” movement, who is against contraception of any kind, believing that God should control the size of your family.
I would argue for a happy medium somewhere between population control and the Duggers, where we are fruitful but are good stewards of the resources we’ve been given.
That’s interesting you wrote this, as I have been looking at population control theory (Malthusianism in particular) over the past several months as it relates to environmentalism. It is so interesting to me how many parallels there are to our day and a hundred or more years ago. Same battles, but “new”/different thoughts. Instead of modernism, it’s postmodernism; instead of liberalism and the downgrade controversy, it’s emergent theology and the same type of theological adaptation to culture; and as it relates to your article, instead of eugenics, now it’s environmentalism.
From the perspective of history, if the 21st century shapes up to fall into the same sort of radical excesses as eugenics did (which culminated in “over-the-cliff” effect with the rise of Nazi Germany, who initially obtained eugenics theory from American eugenicists), things could turn out to be very interesting in the next few decades.
There are already some arguments out there that a sustainable world population number is 500 million. How does a society accomplish that if accepted? Radical policies, such as forced abortions and sterilants in drinking water, which oddly enough, our science czar, John Holdren, was in favor of at one point (he helped write a book on it actually, entitled, “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment”), proving himself to be the very radical neo-Malthusian you speak of. To my knowledge, he has yet to recant any of these views. Fox had a good article on him as well: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/21/obamas-science-czar-considered-forced-abortions-sterilization-population-growth/
But you never know how the Lord will work things out in history. It is His history after all. It’s just unfortunate we have to repeat so many of the same mistakes with different ideas and will yet never learn from any of them. The ideas just morph and change and explode into excesses and extremes. So goes the nature of man. Praise God for a wonderful Savior!
I recently read “the theory of population” by thomas malthus, an english clergyman who published several editions of his work from 1790 to about 1820. He wrote before the introduction of effective birth control and the idea of family planning apart from god.
His warning is rather important, still, as he points out that the POWER of population growth is greater than the power of growing the “means of sustenance”. You cannot but be struck by the haunting images of famine, pestilence and famine so recent in memory in 1790. He only issued a warning and was as against “unnatural” means of birth control as any catholic priest today.
What we can do as individuals is really very simple: control our family size and use resouces wisely. Limit your offspring to 2 or 3, drive the right sized car, but not an over-sized car. Simple stuff really.
where it is really important is in developing nations that do not have the knowldege or means of controlling their family size. That is where famine, violence, grinding poverty and disease are most likely to stike. It is sad that those in the west who do practise family planning are so dead set against giving that know-how to those who really need it most. “Do as I say and not as I do” seems so true in this, doesn’t it?
By the way, great article. :]
Bruce, I believe you are failing to see the point. The reason peoples predictions did not come true is because of human ingenuity. We have discovered ways of producing food with less land. And this trend, we should expect, and invest in, to continue. For instance whose not to say that in another 50 years our farms are in sky scapers. thus using less ground but still producing lots of food.
I do agree with you on the issue of being responsible concerning our vehicles,and not being wasteful. but on the issue of number of Children our command from God, which I believe is still in effect, is to be fruitful and multiply. I dont think two is gonna cut it.
[...] now under the Gospel Coalition domain. Anyway, as I went to check out the new location I read his latest addition to the blog. The article is about a reincarnation of failed theories by Thomas Malthus resurfacing [...]
What? I thought the zero-population folks had died off (pun intended).
Everyone knows that it is home schoolers who will inherit the earth
Part of the issue is who is having more children. Currently, many lands which are better suited to sustain large populations are seeing their populations shrink or about to shrink (population loss staved off temporarily by longer life spans). Meanwhile, many places like the Middle East and South / Central Asia are seeing rapid growth which will only accelerate, places which are not well-suited for large populations. The country in which I live has a very high birth rate and very inadequate water to sustain the coming population boom when all these children have children of their own. It’s not that people don’t have the means or knowledge to keep their families small; they don’t want to. Honor and community standing comes from having many children, particularly sons. That in itself is not the problem. The problem is they don’t give them adequate attention, so they become a bane on society.
Another problem is that even in some areas, the populations that are growing are people who aren’t integrating in the society and don’t share a love for freedom with their host society. I’m talking about Europe and its Muslim populations. It is quite possible that they could someday outnumber / outvote the native European population. They know it too.
So we really need to encourage Christians to have more children and invest time, attention and resources in them so they will make a blessing on their world.
Abu Tulip
Kevin-This whole notion is one of the weirdest non-sequiturs in the history of thought, at least to me. I mean, their argument basically boils down to: let’s save the planet for our grandchildren, but let’s all agree now not to have any. If not for our children and grandchildren, then who, pray tell, are we to save the planet for? Are we to save it so that endangered mountain gorillas might enjoy the Congolese jungle unencumbered by African tribesmen? Speaking of which, a great deal of this line of thinking seems to me at least implicitly racist, since it is among the black, brown, and yellow parts of the world where these people are hoping for the greatest reductions. And how to achieve them? Nothing short of neo-Stalinism will make that happen. If they are serious they are either silly or deeply sick.
We are actually not, on a planetary scale, running out of food. Companies like Monsanto, who are patenting seeds and other life (that God holds the patent on), are aiming to seize a monopoly on the food supply, which will give them power and control over the masses. Eventually, only these few patented seeds will get planted. Without variety in breeding, these seeds will become victims of disease or parasites and die out. No more bananas. Oh and they’re looking to do the same with livestock, too.
For something more bizarre on population control, google “georgia guide stones.”
Please, any population ecologist knows that the human population of the world is still in a phase of rapid exponential growth (logistic growth). In fact, the human reproduction rate is increasing in third-world countries where resources are scarcest! Only when demand outstrips the available resources (food, space, water, etc.) will the human population reach its “carrying capacity.” Whoever said the world functions best at 3 billion doesn’t know his population dynamics. They’re simply playing a guessing game.
What we need is not Chinese style child-control, but people who are willing to reach out a helping hand to the third-world countries where resources are scarce. And if we keep producing fewer and fewer people in the West, where we have the knowledge and skills and resources to develop innovate technologies for food production, water sanitation, and disease control, THEN we might have a real crisis on our hands.
Well, they are trumpeting population control now at the conference … Headlines from the Drudgereport: “CHINA: Population control called key to deal”: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/10/content_9151129.htm … “The Real Inconvenient Truth”: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2314438
[...] This is a great explanation of Malthusianism and population control theories in light of environmentalism by Kevin DeYoung: The Malthusians Strike Back [...]