Underestimating Overpopulation
A video short by Jack Alpert, Stanford Knowledge Integration Laboratory
For this and other videos in the order Jack would have them viewed, click for a list.
Transcript
0:11
We live on a beautiful planet with lots of happy loving people. However, everything is not perfect. Some people die because there are too many of us. You work to prevent your kids from being in this group. However, how do you know if you will be successful?
Maybe this biologist can help you measure your potential for success.
0:39
By observing rabbits on an island, he found the rabbits expand their population until the grass can feed no more, then each bunny that is born makes one too many to feed. It, or another rabbit, dies of starvation. The population oscillates at this limit. Expanded, it looks like this.
For each year bursts equal starvation deaths.
1:05
Since the oldest rabbits are the weakest food gatherers, each dies of starvation when no rabbit on the island dies of old age, all die of overpopulation. If I plot these deaths and births on this axis, and estimate of the 84 years of overpopulation deaths, the brown columns is the sum of these birth columns.
1:29
Now, in theory, if the rabbits were just a little smarter, and a few years before reaching the grass support limit, say 2010, they changed their procreative behavior from having many births each year to having the same number of births as the annual old age deaths, then population would oscillate below the grass limit. Expanded, it would look like this.
1:57
During 2010, for example, births would equal old age deaths. Let me plot them on this axis. Because the maximum population never exceeds grass support, there would be zero overpopulation deaths for the year. Filling in future years, we noticed that if all the rabbits born die of old age, then the estimate for overpopulation deaths for this century is zero.
2:26
Now, if humans were as smart as smart rabbits, if civilization gave all women their rights, assisted each so she could have the children she wanted. And collectively, all of these decisions resulted in annual births being equal to old age deaths, would there be no deaths from overpopulation?
Not exactly. In our world, we already have deaths that result from overpopulation.
2:55
Let me quantify them. In the year 2016, the change in population equals the births minus old age deaths, minus overpopulation deaths, which is plotted here. If technology kept food production increasing, and population followed, and these overpopulation deaths remained constant over time, then we can estimate the overpopulation deaths for the century by summing these 84 columns.
3:30
If food production stopped growing, and we got as smart as smart rabbits, we stopped population growth, and the number of annual deaths from overpopulation remained constant than the sum of overpopulation deaths for the century, we’d be the same. However, if food production fails to increase as fast as population, and the two curves intersect, like rabbits on a full Island, annual human bursts would predict annual starvation deaths.
4:05
To estimate the number of overpopulation deaths for this century, sum the yearly births. Today, there are 127 million births per year; 84 times that number equals more than 10 billion overpopulation deaths. Of course, this estimate assumes food production holds constant, and no other processes beyond starvation cause premature deaths.
4:38
In human civilization, overpopulation deaths are also caused by violence. Also, human starvation deaths are not related to the amount of pasture grass. The deaths are related to food production and food distribution.
Food production depends on direct human activity, like agricultural processes. And indirect activities like civilization supports, as well as deliveries of energy and renewable resources.
5:08
The direct activities include labor, irrigation, fertilization, harvesting, storage, processing, and transport.
The indirect supports include economies of scale, specialization of labor, rule of law in place infrastructure, working technology, education, and advancement of science.
The rabbits rely on an inexhaustible source of energy, sunlight to produce their food. Humans use exhaustible energy sources like gas, oil, and coal.
5:45
When humans used only wood to fuel civilization, the global population struggled to exceed 600 million people. Only the use of fossil fuel allowed humans to grow food for 7.4 billion people.
Rabbits live inside the limits of the renewing resources to feed 7 billion humans among other renewable excesses overfish oceans, erode in the mineralized soil, and empty aquifers that took millennium to fill.
6:20
Rabbits caused no overpopulation deaths through food distribution; humans do. For example, humans divert food to waste, they throw food away. They use it for fighting wars. They use it for repairing things they broken wars, humans divert food to make transportation fuel. they divert food to feed animals and the rich divert food from the poor.
6:50
Finally, rabbits don’t kill each other when they suffer scarcity. Human inequity suffers well being losers, hierarchy creators kill each other to resolve scarcity. They also kill each other indirectly by disrupting food production, and altering food distribution.
All these processes contribute to overpopulation deaths. Let me demonstrate the deaths from just one process; the decline in energy deliveries.
7:22
What if Mother Nature serves up her biggest curse, a 92% drop in energy deliveries by the end of the century. If this means a 92% drop in food deliveries, then there could be a 92% drop in population. Only 8% of the globe 7.4 billion people could be fed, and only 600 million would survive after 2100. To make the calculations of overpopulation deaths for the century easier. Imagine the hypothetical case where no one was born, no one died of old age, no one died in conflict and all deaths were due to food shortfalls,.
8:04
Then, overpopulation deaths would total 7 billion people.
In the real world, children would be born. This would increase annual starvation deaths, then a conservative estimate of the number of people dying due to overpopulation and our world in the next 84 years, could be over 10 billion 10 billion would die even if we could stop deaths resulting from climate change, soil loss, water scarcity or pollution.
8:40
10 billion would die even if we prevented inequity, social conflict and civilization collapse.
Combined with too many people, just declining energy deliveries could kill all our children. Have we been under estimating overpopulation?
The End
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The people-falling-off-plate graphic may seem extremely tasteless and crude, but most who die a Malthusian (premature) death by conflict/starvation, will not be concerned about your feelings. Maybe you shouldn’t be either. Learn to read the tea-leaves of data and do the simple math. What if only 1 billion die a premature death? Or only 10 million/year, as are today? Premature deaths will increase. A 99.9% increase is the overshoot debt posterity, whether in 50 years or 500, will pay is the outcome of our Anthropocene enthusiasm for growth everlasting. In Growth We Trust (but for posterity’s sake, shouldn’t).