Today's Boston Globe has a column from someone named Sarah Conly, who is identified as an associate professor of philosophy at Bowdoin. Her column, however, has nothing to do with her area of expertise. Instead, she writes about the "success" of China's just cancelled one child policy. According to Conly, that limitation on children is needed to prevent overpopulation, ecological disaster and the usual Malthusian nightmarish future. Here's the essence of her argument:
The sad truth is that trying to support this many people will bring about environmental disaster. We can see the damage that is already being done by our present population of “just” 7.3 billion. We all know about climate change with its droughts, storms, rising sea levels, and heat. But it’s also soil depletion, lack of fresh water, overfishing, species extinction, and overcrowding in cities.
We are using resources unsustainably, and despite the frequent cries for a cutback in the use of resources and release in greenhouse gases, nothing much has happened. Today we release more greenhouse gases than we did before the Kyoto accords. More people will mean more unsustainable resource use, worse climate change, and, eventually, wars over scarce goods or massive population displacement and migrations to places with remaining resources.
There's nothing new in Conly's screed. There is, however, much that is wrong. For example, she points to higher carbon dioxide release in recent years. The truth according to the EPA is that American carbon dioxide emissions are down nearly 10% since 2000. On the other hand, the country with the biggest increase in such emissions during recent years is China with its one child policy. Conly talks about climate change and its droughts, storms, rising sea levels and heat. The reality, however, is that during the last two decades, atmospheric temperatures precisely measured by satellite have stayed steady. The number of severe storms has declined. There are no more droughts than there were 20 years ago, although the location has changed. In short, nothing much has happened. The polar ice which they told us 20 years ago would be gone by now has instead grown larger. Conly also mentions lack of fresh water. Over the last two decades, desalinization of sea water has moved from the fringe to the commonplace. Since the bulk of the world's population lives near the coast, desalinization is actually the biggest increase imaginable in fresh water supply for the world population.
Fifty years ago, Paul Erlich warned the world that we were sitting on a "population bomb". By the end of the 1970s, Earth would see hundreds of millions of people starve to death and there was nothing that could be done about it. Erlich's prediction was taken to heart by people like Conly who bemoaned the coming disaster and preached forced population control. It seems that the Chinese government took a variation of that argument to heart and China's one child policy was born. It used forced sterilization and forced abortion to achieve its goals. But Erlich's prediction was not only wrong, it was so far off base that it was laughable. Over the last 50 years, the level of world hunger has declined dramatically. The number of people living in abject poverty has also dropped greatly. Meanwhile, the growth of the population has slowed naturally.
Conly also talks about running out of resources. Remember "peak oil". That was the maximum annual production of oil that would ever be reached. The "experts" like Conly told us about it over and over again less than a decade ago. Just four years ago, president Obama was telling us that America could never drill its way out of the long term oil shortage and high oil prices because the USA had less than 2% of the world's oil reserves. Today, the world is awash in a glut of oil because production has risen so much. The biggest area of increase in production is the USA itself which is now the largest producer of natural gas and the number two producer of oil (and growing). Peak oil was just another bogus prediction.
The truth is that all of those like Conly who predict doom due to population ignore the great advances that can be produced by human ingenuity. Fifty years ago, there was a World's Fair in New York City. The fair was filled with pavilions that demonstrated visions of the future. None of them predicted the world in which we now live, however. Things do change, and often those changes are for the better. The purveyors of doom who posit disaster based upon current conditions continuing unchanged are always wrong. So called philosophers like Conly who write drivel like her column in the Globe should know better.
The sad truth is that trying to support this many people will bring about environmental disaster. We can see the damage that is already being done by our present population of “just” 7.3 billion. We all know about climate change with its droughts, storms, rising sea levels, and heat. But it’s also soil depletion, lack of fresh water, overfishing, species extinction, and overcrowding in cities.
We are using resources unsustainably, and despite the frequent cries for a cutback in the use of resources and release in greenhouse gases, nothing much has happened. Today we release more greenhouse gases than we did before the Kyoto accords. More people will mean more unsustainable resource use, worse climate change, and, eventually, wars over scarce goods or massive population displacement and migrations to places with remaining resources.
There's nothing new in Conly's screed. There is, however, much that is wrong. For example, she points to higher carbon dioxide release in recent years. The truth according to the EPA is that American carbon dioxide emissions are down nearly 10% since 2000. On the other hand, the country with the biggest increase in such emissions during recent years is China with its one child policy. Conly talks about climate change and its droughts, storms, rising sea levels and heat. The reality, however, is that during the last two decades, atmospheric temperatures precisely measured by satellite have stayed steady. The number of severe storms has declined. There are no more droughts than there were 20 years ago, although the location has changed. In short, nothing much has happened. The polar ice which they told us 20 years ago would be gone by now has instead grown larger. Conly also mentions lack of fresh water. Over the last two decades, desalinization of sea water has moved from the fringe to the commonplace. Since the bulk of the world's population lives near the coast, desalinization is actually the biggest increase imaginable in fresh water supply for the world population.
Fifty years ago, Paul Erlich warned the world that we were sitting on a "population bomb". By the end of the 1970s, Earth would see hundreds of millions of people starve to death and there was nothing that could be done about it. Erlich's prediction was taken to heart by people like Conly who bemoaned the coming disaster and preached forced population control. It seems that the Chinese government took a variation of that argument to heart and China's one child policy was born. It used forced sterilization and forced abortion to achieve its goals. But Erlich's prediction was not only wrong, it was so far off base that it was laughable. Over the last 50 years, the level of world hunger has declined dramatically. The number of people living in abject poverty has also dropped greatly. Meanwhile, the growth of the population has slowed naturally.
Conly also talks about running out of resources. Remember "peak oil". That was the maximum annual production of oil that would ever be reached. The "experts" like Conly told us about it over and over again less than a decade ago. Just four years ago, president Obama was telling us that America could never drill its way out of the long term oil shortage and high oil prices because the USA had less than 2% of the world's oil reserves. Today, the world is awash in a glut of oil because production has risen so much. The biggest area of increase in production is the USA itself which is now the largest producer of natural gas and the number two producer of oil (and growing). Peak oil was just another bogus prediction.
The truth is that all of those like Conly who predict doom due to population ignore the great advances that can be produced by human ingenuity. Fifty years ago, there was a World's Fair in New York City. The fair was filled with pavilions that demonstrated visions of the future. None of them predicted the world in which we now live, however. Things do change, and often those changes are for the better. The purveyors of doom who posit disaster based upon current conditions continuing unchanged are always wrong. So called philosophers like Conly who write drivel like her column in the Globe should know better.
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