Confronting the Twenty-First Century’s Hidden Crisis:

Reducing Human Numbers by 80%

by J. Kenneth Smail

from Balanced View, 2007-08

The following are several lightly edited excerpts from a longer article of the same title. If you would like an electronic copy of the original article, please e-mail your request to our Office Manager, Carolyn VandenDolder, at Carolyn@WorldPopulationBalance.org

My position is simply stated. Within the next half-century, it will be essential for the human species to have fully operational a flexibly designed, broadly equitable and internationally coordinated set of initiatives focused on reducing the then-current world population by at least 80%. Given that even with the best of intentions it will take considerable time and exceptional diplomatic skill to develop and implement such an undertaking, perhaps on the order of 25 to 50 years, it is important that the process of consensus building - local, national and global - begin now. The mathematical inevitability that human numbers will continue their dramatic increase over the next two generations, to perhaps 9 billion by the year 2050, and the high probability that this numerical increase will exacerbate still further the systemic problems that already plague humanity (economic, political, environmental, social, moral, etc.), only reinforces this sense of urgency. There are, however, hopeful signs. In recent years, we have finally begun to come to terms with the fact that the consequences of the 20th century’s rapid and seemingly uncontrolled population growth will soon place us - if it hasn’t already done so - in the midst of the greatest crisis our species has yet encountered.

I therefore argue that over the next several generations, and beginning as soon as possible, humanity must not only take significant steps to arrest the rapid growth of human population but also begin to reduce it dramatically. However, it will be very difficult if not impossible to stop current growth short of 9 to 10 billion. This is due not only to demographic momentum but also to the great difficulties, both diplomatic and temporal, in developing and implementing the necessary political, economic, scientific and moral consensus about both ends and means.

Because there is no clear-cut evidence to support assertions to the contrary, and precious little margin for error, it is only prudent to work from the increasingly legitimate assumption that the earth’s long-term carrying capacity is no greater than two billion people, at what might be characterized as an “adequate” first world standard of living, perhaps on the level of Spain, Italy, or Taiwan. It is therefore necessary to confront the inescapable fact that human numbers will have to be reduced by 80% or more, from the allbut- inevitable 9-plus billion in the mid- 21st century to something approaching 2 billion by the end of the 22nd century, some 200 years from now. Obviously, a numerical dislocation of this magnitude will require a massive reorientation of human thought, expectations, values, and lifestyles.

Just as obviously, time is short, with an implementation window that will last no more than the next 50 to 75 years, and perhaps considerably less. This process of population stabilization and reduction should have begun a generation or more ago - say in 1960 when human numbers were “only” three billion and demographic momentum more easily arrested - and certainly cannot be delayed much longer. For it is abundantly clear that if we do not choose to address and resolve this problem ourselves, “nature” will almost certainly solve it for us, with consequences that would be at best unpredictable and at worst unimaginable.

The problem of establishing rational and defensible population “optimums” deserves further comment. Perhaps most surprising is how unusual it is to find individuals - or organizations - who are willing to state publicly and emphatically that just reaching a point of “population stability” during the next century will not be enough, either to solve our near-term demographic difficulties or to stave off a future demographic catastrophe. For the latter scenario will almost surely come to pass if humanity naively and/or unquestioningly accepts global population levels that are set so high - in the 10 to 12 billion range - that they are clearly unsustainable over the longer term. One only has to consider the stresses already evident at the current level of almost 6.7 billion to recognize that any sort of longterm stability at figures nearly double that number will be impossible to accomplish. Put most simply, there seems to be no credible alternative to the premise that a very significant population reduction must necessarily follow population stabilization.

Actually, this two billion estimate may be somewhat on the generous side, particularly in light of the fact that some recent projections for the earth’s longterm carrying capacity have been set much lower, in the one-half to one billion range, particularly if the normative lifestyle (level of consumption) aspired to is anywhere close to that of the United States.

On the other hand, even if future research shows that this global carrying capacity figure has been underestimated by at least l/2 - that is, if further analysis demonstrates that an optimum population estimate of two billion is “off-target” by a factor of two or more - the argument put forth here loses little if any of its validity or persuasive power. For example, even a population optimum in the four billion range would still require a significant decrease in global human numbers, roughly on the order of 60%.

Future Prospects

I am cautiously optimistic that this crisis can be averted, if only because all humans - despite our many differences - share a deep-rooted “investment in immortality”, an individual and collective concern for posterity. This powerful commitment to the future manifests itself biologically (through the children we beget), socioculturally (through our relationships with others) and morally (through our religious and/or ethical systems).

As an essential first step, our species will soon have to establish a difficult but very necessary balance between individual reproductive rights and collective reproductive responsibilities. That is, all of the world’s peoples must come fully to terms with the fact that a person’s (biological) right to have children must be mediated by his or her (social) responsibility not to have too many.

Certainly, any hope for success in this massive reorientation of basic biological propensities and strongly-held sociocultural expectations will require attention not only to quantitative but also to qualitative issues and concerns. In fact, it will likely be easier to elicit broad-scale agreement on the pressing need for a significant reduction in human numbers - the “quantitative dimension” - than it will be to foster a broad scale consensus on the “qualitative” restructuring of individual, political, economic, social and ethical perceptions that will also be necessary.

In pragmatic terms, the initial stabilization and subsequent 80% reduction in human numbers suggested earlier could be brought about with relative ease by establishing a worldwide average fertility rate of approximately 1.5 to 1.7 over the next several generations (lasting well into the 22nd century at least). Essentially, all that would be necessary is for couples to “stop at two”; because some women have no children, and others only one, this would rather quickly result in an overall (sub-replacement) fertility rate in the desired range. Once an optimum population size is within reach - perhaps toward the end of the 22nd century when global numbers begin to come into balance with carrying capacity as then understood - fertility rates could then be increased to the previously mentioned ZPG replacement level (ca. 2.1).

However, it is also abundantly clear, to judge by the agenda and controversies emanating from the 1994 United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Population and Development, that implementation of these greatly reduced fertility rates is inextricably intertwined with a number of very sensitive political and ideological concerns. Chief among these are matters pertaining to: the enhancement of gender equity; the educational and economic empowerment of women; ongoing controversies surrounding family planning, birth control and abortion; problems of development and modernization; differential access to resources and/or inequities in their distribution; various forms of pollution and environmental degradation; endemic poverty and implementation of effective public health measures; the growth of nationalism and ethnic/religious tensions; human migration and political/ecological refugees; etc.

These are all very important issues, and there is little doubt that they are frequently interconnected in complex cause-and-effect relationships with population growth. However, it is even more important not to confuse shortterm means with longer-term ends. More specifically, it is essential that humanity does not lose sight of the over-arching and exploding demographic “forest” in the midst of legitimate and deeply-felt concerns about particular political/ideological “trees”.

For the stark reality is this. Population reduction is the primary issue facing humanity; all other matters are subordinate. Proponents of the above-mentioned agenda items, at the United Nations and elsewhere, must become fully cognizant of the fact that solutions to the problems that deeply concern them will be far more likely (and lasting) in a world that is moving rapidly and effectively toward population stabilization and eventual population reduction. For it must be obvious that the alternative - a world inexorably expanding toward 10 to 12 billion people by the end of the current century - offers much less hope for successful resolution of these matters. Quite simply, hard-won gains would almost certainly be overwhelmed by continuing and uncontrolled numerical growth, similar to what can be observed even now in those regions of the world where population doubling times of 25 to 35 years are the norm.

In fact, to judge by the available evidence, it is entirely possible that the conventional wisdom of the past 50 years - particularly to the extent that this “wisdom” has been characterized by large-scale economic aid (transfers of wealth) and liberal immigration policies (transfers of people) - has done more to stimulate rapid population growth than inhibit it. It’s almost as if a demographic Parkinson’s Law were in effect, to wit: “Births tend to expand to fill the perceived socioeconomic space.” In other words, when the true limits of this “perceived space” are obscured at the local level by overly generous international aid and relatively easy opportunities for emigration, the unfortunate demographic result has all too often been “counterproductive” incentive structures, creating reproductive contexts in which local fertility rates have generally tended to increase rather than diminish.

This leads to a crucial final point, the ineluctable fact that in our multinational world solutions cannot be imposed from without. Ultimately, the people of each sovereign state must come to terms with, and subsequently resolve, their own local and unique demographic problems (hopefully motivated by a full awareness of global realities). In this regard, given the limited time available and the excruciatingly difficult decisions that must be made, it is daunting to realize that population problems are often the most pronounced in areas of the world where national sovereignty - and the requisite political, economic and social stability - is most tenuous.

It remains to be seen whether humanity will be capable of mounting a unified and lasting effort toward population reduction. For surely this is an undertaking that has no quantitative nor qualitative precedent, an effort that must be conducted on a species-wide scale, and an endeavor that by its very nature must be sustained for a century or more. While posterity demands that we be successful, I am only cautiously optimistic that such success can be achieved by rational human forethought, or by means compatible with contemporary social, political and ethical norms.

J. Kenneth Smail is Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio 43022 (smail@kenyon.edu)

Ken Smail recently wrote the following to World Population Balance President David Paxson, about the population and related issues.

To add to what I have previously written, I want to give much greater emphasis to the critical issues of rapidly declining, non-renewable energy resources (i.e., fossil fuels) as well as the potentially deleterious consequences of what appears to be a measurable increase in climatic instability (or more popularly, “global warming”). And I also want to focus on the numerous and difficult problems that modern civilization – and a still-expanding human population – will soon encounter in the “post-carbon era,” as we enter what is likely to be a rather steep energy downslope following “peak oil” and “peak gas” production.

More specifically, the evidence seems increasingly to suggest that by mid-century humanity could well be faced with a global population of some 9 billion, trying to maintain – or in several instances still trying to acquire – some semblance of modern industrial technological civilization on but 1/4 to 1/3 of the oil and gas the world currently produces. Their situation will be exacerbated further by a notable deficit of “proven” or “environmentally benign” energy substitutes (renewable or otherwise) on anywhere near the scale that would be necessary. This is in addition to dealing with growing constraints due to other important “limiting factors:” the above-mentioned climatic instability (all too likely enhanced by increasingly heavy reliance on coal); availability of fresh water; adequate food supplies; ongoing topsoil degradation; shortages of various minerals and materials; continuing biodiversity and wilderness losses; increasing resource-induced geopolitical stress and the resultant sociocultural fragmentation; etc.

Admittedly, I may also have a “temporal problem” to resolve. It seems all too likely that the two centuries of time that I have been postulating for significant population reduction to a desired “global optimum” in the 1 to 3 billion range is clearly inconsistent (considerably “out of sync”) with the much more “restricted” time frame suggested by those who project significant fossil energy- production declines and rapidly growing problems associated with global climatic change within the next generation or so. I refer to the distinct possibility of an environmental “critical threshold,” or quasi-evolutionary “bottleneck,” or cascading political/economic/social “breakdown,” all emerging over the next several decades (by mid-century or before). In a word, a number of recent books, articles, essays, and governmental reports on these (and related) topics have been quite persuasive.

Given my usual audience (primarily academics and college undergraduates), I have generally tried to be cautiously optimistic that the human species will be able to successfully confront the complex and interrelated problems – ecological, economic, political, social, and moral – we have managed to create for ourselves. However, when I see how little traction various mitigating (or ameliorative) efforts have gained over the past 30 to 40 years, I have become increasingly pessimistic that humanity – likely some nine-plus billion of us within our children’s and grandchildren’s lifetimes – will be successful in staving off some very difficult times over the next several generations (throughout the 21st century and probably beyond).

Put bluntly, the synergistic combination of declining “post-peak” fossil energy supplies (and other essential resources), a still-rising population, increasingly apparent limits on food production, declining availability of fresh water, unpredictable climatic instability, potentially destabilizing challenges from various (Islamist and other) terrorist organizations, increasingly large (and largely uncontrolled) 3rd world to 1st world patterns of human migration is surely a toxic brew. And it certainly doesn't help that this deteriorating state of affairs – with a few notable exceptions – has been further exacerbated by a generalized lack of political, economic, social, and moral foresight and cooperation, on both a national and global level. Nevertheless, to the extent that we all have a powerful “investment in immortality” (however we might individually choose to define it), one must keep trying to bias the future in a positive direction. I commend you for your efforts along these lines.

J. Kenneth Smail Read more of Balanced View, 2007-08