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Density

* The world’s population is 8.1 billion people as of 2024.[1]

* The total surface area of Earth is about 197 million square miles,[2] of which roughly:

  • 71% is covered by water.[3] [4] [5] [6]
  • 3% is glacier-covered land.[7]
  • 8% is desert or dry areas.[8]
  • 6% is mountains.[9]
  • 4% is cropland.[10]
  • 4% is pastureland.[11]
  • 2% is used for wood production.[12]
  • 5% (10 million square miles) is fit for human habitation and not used for the purposes above.[13] [14]

* If people were evenly distributed across the 10 million square miles of land available for human habitation, there would be 808 people per square mile, or 0.8 acres per person.[15]

* People are not distributed evenly but tend to live in areas that are warm, have fertile soil, and are accessible to oceans.[16]

Population Density

[17]

* Macau—a country with less than one-sixth the area of Washington, DC—has the highest population density of all nations in the world at 57,777 people per square mile. Greenland has the lowest at less than one person per square mile.[18] [19]

* The state of Texas contains 0.46% of the world’s total land area and has a population density of about 117 people per square mile.[20] If everyone in the world moved to Texas, the population density would be 31,079 people per square mile. This is 3% below the population density of Brooklyn, New York (31,982 people per square mile).[21]

Growth

History

* From 1 A.D. to 2024, global population increased by 27 times, largely from about 1800 onward:

Total World Population Since 1 A.D.

[22]

* Global population grew at an accelerating rate in the early- to mid-1900s and has risen linearly since then:

Total World Population Since 1800 A.D.

[23]

* In 1998, the Census Bureau reported that 96% of the world’s population increase was occurring in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.[24] In 2022, the United Nations projected that Africa would account for most population increases through 2050.[25]


Drivers

* Over the course of human history, various factors have affected global and local population sizes, either boosting or restraining their growth. Examples include:

  • environmental conditions like climate, land availability, plants, and animal populations.
  • mankind’s transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture.
  • sexual ethics.
  • marriage trends.
  • breast-feeding durations.
  • abortion and infanticide.
  • the ages when people have children.
  • migration.
  • disease.
  • wars.
  • technological advances and other forms of human ingenuity.[26] [27]

* Population increases since the 1950s have been unprecedented. The primary cause of this is longer life expectancy due to improvements in:

  • healthcare technologies and availability.
  • living standards.
  • sanitation.
  • nutrition.[28] [29] [30] [31] [32]

* During the modern era, certain factors have restrained population growth, such as:

  • deaths caused by the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.
  • a decline in the average birth rate per woman.[33] [34]
  •  

* Fertility (the average number of children per woman) is affected by:

  • biological factors, such as the length of time a woman breastfeeds, the frequency of sexual relations, and fetal mortality.
  • marital patterns, such as how old people are when they get married and the portion of the population that is unmarried.
  • the availability and acceptability of birth control.
  • abortion.
  • educational and occupational opportunities for women.
  • whether couples want to have children or not, which can be affected by:
    • values of preservation and survival—that fertility must “compensate for mortality.”
    • the cost of raising children.
    • compulsory schooling, which keeps children from working and contributing financially to the family.
    • the availability of old-age care from “institutional mechanisms” so that a person does not need to rely on children later in life.[35]

Demographic Transition

* Throughout human history, population changes in various areas and nations have generally followed an observable pattern called “demographic transition.” This involves five progressive stages of change:

  1. High birth rates, high death rates, and stable or slow population increases.
  2. High birth rates, rapidly falling death rates, and rapid population increases.
  3. Falling birth rates, falling death rates (but more slowly than stage two), and slowing population increases.
  4. Low birth rates, low death rates, and falling and then stable population.
  5. Birth rates possibly falling further or rising again, low death rates, and small-to-no changes in population.[36]

* Because the final two stages of demographic transition have little-to-no growth, population does not necessarily rise endlessly. Evidence that demographic transition is occurring all over the world includes the following:

  • The portion of the world’s population living in high-fertility countries has declined.
  • The portion of the world’s population living in countries with fertility at or above the replacement level—2.1 births per woman—has fallen.
  • The United Nations projects that “in 2025–2030, only a third of the world’s population will live in countries with fertility levels of at least 2.1 births per woman.”[37] [38] [39]

* In accord with the phenomenon of demographic transition, the average global life expectancy has risen from 51 years in 1960 to 71 years in 2021, a 40% increase:

Global Life Expectancy

[40]

* In accord with the phenomenon of demographic transition, the average global fertility rate fell from 4.7 births per woman in 1960 to 2.3 in 2021, a 52% decline:

Global Fertility Rate

[41]

* Demographic transition has consistently occurred in countries regardless of the culture or religion of the population.[42]

* The Arab world’s average fertility rate fell from 6.9 births per woman in 1960 to 3.1 in 2021, a 55% decline:

Arab World and Global Fertility Rates

[43]

* Per a 2018 paper in Brown Journal of World Affairs, the fertility rate decline in the Arab world has occurred:

  • without major economic development.
  • without major family planning programs.
  • without increased contraceptive usage as “the key factor.”
  • despite assumptions that religion and “men’s patriarchal control over women’s bodies” would keep the fertility rate high.
  • partly because both men and women in the Arab world have come to want less children due to “the belief that having fewer children to cherish, love, and support is beneficial to the married couple on the financial and affective levels and psychologically beneficial to the children themselves.”
  • partly because of the male-controlled family planning method of withdrawal, which:
    • is supported by Islamic scriptures “as a viable means of male-enacted contraception.”
    • is viewed as a safe and more natural method than female-controlled methods.
    • does not involve the use of condoms, which are viewed unfavorably “in a variety of Arab countries.”[44]

Population Momentum

* Despite demographic transition, the United Nations projects that global population will grow for a time due to “population momentum.” This occurs because the portion of the population comprised of childbearing women is large enough to cause population growth, even if they are having fewer babies.[45] [46] [47]

* In accord with the phenomenon of population momentum, global population has grown during recent decades. In accord with the phenomenon of demographic transition, the rate of population growth has declined over this period:

Global Growth Rate

[48] [49]

Effects of Growth

General

* In 1798, English economist Thomas Malthus proposed the theory that human population growth tends to outrun the production of goods needed to sustain people because population grows geometrically, while production grows arithmetically. According to Malthus, this would create never-ending cycles of human “misery” marked by famines, material scarcity, disease, and wars.[50] [51]

* Between 1820 and 2000, the populations of Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States grew by a factor of 5.6, while production per person increased by 19 times.[52]

* Per the Encyclopedia Britannica, Malthus failed:

to anticipate the agricultural revolution, which caused food production to meet or exceed population growth and made prosperity possible for a larger number of people. For example, the price of wheat in the United States, adjusted for inflation, has fallen by about two-thirds in the last 200 years. Since 1950, the world’s per capita food production has increased by about one percent per year. The incidence of famine has diminished, with famines in the modern era typically caused by war or by destructive government policies, such as price controls on food. Malthus also failed to anticipate the widespread use of contraceptives that brought about a decline in the fertility rate.[53] [54]

* Per the academic book A Concise History of World Population:

  • “during the past 10,000 years the human race has managed to multiply by a factor of 1,000 and at the same time increase the per capita availability of resources.”
  • some people argue that if population continues to increase, the availability of resources will eventually decline and lead to widespread poverty.
  • others argue that the availability of resources will continue to rise indefinitely because of the “increasing returns of human ingenuity” and “the ever more favorable conditions created by demographic growth.”[55]

* Per the textbook Introduction to Environmental Economics, “prices are well established in conventional microeconomics as indicators of scarcity. For natural resources, a rising real price has been argued by many to be a potentially good measure of increasing scarcity….”[56]

* Since 1900, the inflation-adjusted prices of major resources have varied as follows:

Inflation-Adjusted Commodity Prices Three Categories

[57]

* Since 1960, the inflation-adjusted prices of various major commodities have varied as follows:

Inflation-Adjusted Commodity Prices Four Categories

[58]


Food Supplies

* In 2013, David Attenborough—a famous “broadcaster, writer, and naturalist”—referred to humans as “a plague on the Earth” and an “enormous horde” using up space needed to grow food. He said “either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us….”[59] [60]

* In the 1960s, Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich wrote a book titled The Population Bomb which sold millions of copies and made Ehrlich into an award-winning celebrity.[61] [62] Described by Smithsonian magazine as “one of the most influential books of the 20th century,” it claimed that:[63]

  • “the battle to feed all of humanity is over.”
  • “in the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
  • “nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate, although many lives could be saved” through “dramatic programs” to increase “food production.”
  • such programs “will only provide a stay of execution unless they are accompanied by determined and successful efforts at population control.”
  • the United States must achieve population control—by compulsion if necessary—and pressure other countries to do the same.[64]

* Per a 2003 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, between the mid-1960s and late 1990s, food consumption per person increased by 19% worldwide and 31% in developing countries. During the same period, world population increased by 77%.[65]

* From 2001 to 2021, while global population increased by 27%,[66] the portion of the world population that was undernourished decreased from 13% to 9%:

Global Prevalence of Undernourishment

[67] [68]

* From 1992 to 2016 (latest data[69]), while global population increased by 37%,[70] the average number of daily calories needed to lift all the undernourished people of the world out of that condition decreased from 172 to 88 calories per person:

Global Depth of Undernourishment for the Undernourished

[71]

* In 2017, the United Nations reported:

With the increases in food supply in recent decades, the world now produces more than enough food to satisfy the dietary needs of the entire global population.[72]

* From 2000 to 2021, while global population increased by 27%,[73] global average daily food supply per person increased by 10%—with gains of 6% in Africa, and 14% in Asia:

Available Daily Food Supply Per Person

[74]


Trees & Wilderness

* In 2011, Population Action International stated that deforestation is occurring “at alarmingly high rates, especially in areas of the world that have high levels of population growth … although there are indications of it slowing down at the global level.”[75]

* Per reports published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization from 2018 through 2020:

  • the annual net loss of global forest area slowed by 68% between the periods of 1990–2000 and 2010–2020.[76]
  • the mass of above-ground organic plant materials in forests “has remained stable since the 1990s.”[77] [78] [79]
  • most regions of the world are experiencing either positive or small-to-no changes in forest area or above-ground biomass.[80]

* “Tree cover” is a measure of greenery that includes forests plus land covered by trees in:

  • small wooded areas.
  • agricultural settings like apple orchards and orange groves.
  • urban parks.[81] [82]

* From 1982 to 2016, global population increased by 62%.[83] In 2018, the journal Nature published a study that:

  • analyzed satellite data to obtain “a comprehensive record of global land-change dynamics” from 1982 to 2016.
  • found that tree cover increased by 7.1% during this period.
  • calculated that this best estimate of 7.1% varies from a 2.9% to 10.8% rise with 90% confidence.
  • determined that forest area losses in the tropics were outweighed by gains elsewhere.[84]

Species Extinction

* In 2012, Eileen Crist, professor in the Department of Science and Technology in Society at Virginia Tech,[85] and Philip Cafaro, former president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics,[86] wrote that “the explosion of humanity” has caused worldwide animal exterminations “at an unprecedented pace.”[87]

* In 2012, Dave Foreman, cofounder of “Earth First!” and The Wildlands Project,[88] [89] wrote that population growth has caused “wholesale extinction” and that there is “really no choice but to sharply lower the population of Man” to two billion people within 200 years or face “utter ruin.”[90]

* In 1977, Democratic President Jimmy Carter tasked the EPA, State Department, National Science Foundation, and several other federal agencies to produce a “study of the probable changes” to the “world’s population, natural resources, and environment” up through the year 2000. This effort involved hundreds of people, including “informal advisors” to the study representing the world’s leading environmental institutions.[91]

* In 1980, Carter’s team of scientists and other experts stated in their report that under current polices, population trends, and continuing technological progress, “at least 500,000–600,000” species “will be extinguished during the next two decades.”[92] In and around the era covered by this projection:

  • the International Union for Conservation of Nature recorded 27 confirmed species extinctions during 1984–2004.[93]
  • a 2011 paper in the journal Diversity and Distributions reported there had been six confirmed extinctions of continental birds and three confirmed extinctions of continental mammals since the year 1500.[94]
  • a 2015 paper in the journal Science reported there had been “15 global extinctions of marine animal species in the past 514 years … and none in the past five decades.”[95]

Fossil Fuels

* In 1974, Stanford University professor and bestselling author Paul Ehrlich predicted that:[96]

  • by 1999 “mankind will be looking elsewhere than in oil wells for its main source of energy.”
  • in the early 2000s the use of oil “to fuel industrial societies will be coming to an end.” [97]

* From 1974 to 2022, annual global production of crude oil rose by 60%:

Global Crude Oil Production Since 1974

[98] [99] [100]

* As of 2013, the world had 3.7 to 4.5 trillion barrels of known, recoverable petroleum resources. This is equivalent to 126 to 153 years of worldwide petroleum production at the 2022 production rate.[101]

* As of 2013, the world had 22,882 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas. This is equivalent to 159 years of worldwide natural gas production at the 2021 production rate.[102]

* Based on U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates from 2021, there were roughly 1.2 trillion short tons of worldwide recoverable coal reserves. This is equivalent to 123 years of coal production at the 2022 production rate.[103]


Minerals

* The Club of Rome is an organization of scientists, economists, business people, civil servants, and former heads of state from around the world. They believe that human existence is threatened by “exponential growth in both population and consumption” and seek “to promote understanding of the global challenges facing humanity and to propose solutions….”[104] In 1972, the Club warned in their book The Limits to Growth that:

  • current supplies of platinum, gold, zinc, and lead are “not sufficient to meet demands.”
  • silver, tin, and uranium “may be in short supply even at higher prices” by the end of the 20th century.
  • the current consumption rate of several other minerals could drain their supply by 2050.
  • people should not rely on finding “large, new, rich ore deposits” in the long term.
  • most nonrenewable resources will be “extremely costly” by 2072.[105] [106]

* A 2017 article in the journal Geochemical Perspectives documents that “despite ever-increasing production and consumption” of metals, their:

  • supplies continue to meet the needs.
  • lifetimes of reserves are about the same today as they were 30–40 years ago.
  • long-term inflation-adjusted prices have gone down in most cases.
  • lower-grade ores are now affordable to mine because of “improved technologies, economies of scale and increased efficiency.”[107]

* Mineral “reserves” are those minerals considered economically feasible to extract or produce.[108] Per Ph.D. scientist Lawrence Meinert of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS):

  • neither “reserves” nor “resources” are the same as “all there is.”
  • some mines have had 20 years’ worth of “reserves” for more than a century.
  • world reserves of almost all commodities are greater now than they were 50 or 100 years ago.[109] [110]

* Estimates of world cobalt reserves almost tripled from 1973 to 2015, despite more than two million metric tons of cobalt (80% of the 1973 estimate) being mined during that period.[111]

* Per a 2017 U.S. Geological Survey report, there are “sufficient amounts” of most mineral commodities to supply needs “for many years to come,” and “fears of resource depletion … anytime soon are unwarranted.”[112] The report explains that increasing mineral reserves have come from:

  • exploration that discovers new deposits and additional information about existing deposits.
  • new technologies that make mining, processing, and use of minerals cheaper.
  • other factors such as changes in laws, environmental regulations, land restrictions, economics, and infrastructure.[113]

Ehrlich–Simon Wager

* In 1980, economist Julian Simon publically challenged biologist and bestselling author Paul Ehrlich to a wager “that directly tested their competing visions of the future.” Ehrlich believed population growth would lead to resource depletion and rising prices, while Simon argued that market forces and human resourcefulness would drive prices down.[114] [115] [116]

* Ehrlich accepted Simon’s offer. He chose five metals (chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten), set a 10-year time limit, and then compared the opening and closing prices of the metals to see if they rose or fell.[117] In that period, global population rose by 20%,[118] and the prices of all five metals declined:

Inflation-Adjusted Metal Prices During Ehrlich–Simon Wager

[119]

* Before, during, and after the wager period, the metal prices varied as follows:

Inflation-Adjusted Metal Prices Since 1960

[120]

* Per a paper in the journal Demography that analyzed the Simon–Ehrlich wager:

  • there is “a lot” of speculation and short-term volatility in commodity prices.
  • “the big picture is that these important nonrenewable resources cost about the same today as they did 50 years ago, despite the addition of 4 billion people.”[121]

Pollution

* In 1970, the Sierra Club adopted a resolution from the organization “Zero Population Growth” calling for measures to stabilize the population of the United States. It said that:

the protection of the quality of our environment is impossible in the face of the present rate of population growth, including that in the United States, despite the advanced state of technology.[122]

* The U.S. population has been growing at a relatively steady pace since 1960 and has risen by 63% since 1970:

United States Population Growth

[123]

* The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitors the outdoor (ambient) concentrations of six major air pollutants on a nationwide basis. These are called “criteria air pollutants.”[124] [125] [126] Under federal law, criteria pollutants are those that are deemed by the administrator of the EPA to be widespread and to “cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare….”[127] [128] [129]

* According to primary EPA measures of criteria pollutants, the average U.S. ambient levels of:

* A scientific, nationally representative survey commissioned in 2019 by Just Facts found that 40% of voters believe the air in the United States is now more polluted than it was in the 1980s.[137] [138] [139]

* The EPA is also required by law to regulate the emissions of substances that “present, or may present” a “threat of adverse human health effects” or “adverse environmental effects….”[140] [141] These substances are called “hazardous or “toxic” air pollutants.[142]

* Between a baseline period of 1990–1993 and 2014,[143] EPA’s annual emission estimates for the seven hazardous air pollutants believed to account for the greatest health risks changed by the following amounts:

Hazardous Air Pollutant

Change

Acetaldehyde

40%

Acrolein

–7%

Benzene

–58%

1,3-butadiene

–45%

Carbon Tetrachloride

–98%

Formaldehyde

6%

Tetrachloroethylene

–97%

[144] [145]


Poverty

NOTE: When interpreting the facts in this section, it is important to realize that association does not prove causation, and it is often difficult to determine causation in economics and other social sciences. This is because numerous variables might affect a certain outcome, and there is frequently no objective way to identify all of these factors and determine which is causing the others and to what degree.

* The following organizations and people have claimed that population growth causes poverty:

  • The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs says that “the concentration of global population growth in the poorest countries presents a considerable challenge to governments” that seek to “end poverty.”[146]
  • James K. Gasana, former government minister of Rwanda, says that “rapid population growth is the major driving force behind the vicious circle of environmental scarcities and rural poverty.”[147]
  • Babatunde Osotimehin, United Nations under-secretary general, says that “population growth patterns are linked to nearly every challenge confronting humanity, including poverty reduction….”[148]
  • Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, United Nations Population Fund executive director, says that “we cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty … unless we address issues of population and reproductive health.”[149]

* From 1981 to 2019, global population increased from 4.5 billion to 7.8 billion, or by 72%. Adjusted for inflation over this same period:

  • the number of people living below the World Bank’s “extreme poverty” line of $2.15 per day declined from 2.0 billion to 699 million.
  • the portion of people living below the World Bank’s “extreme poverty” line of $2.15 per day declined from 44% to 9%.
  • the number of people living below the World Bank’s “poverty” line of $3.65 per day declined from 2.6 billion to 1.9 billion.
  • the portion of people living below the World Bank’s “poverty” line of $3.65 per day declined from 58% to 24%.[150]
Global Population and Inflation-Adjusted Poverty

[151]

* Per capita GDP—or gross domestic product divided by the population—is often used to measure a country’s standard of living. Per the textbook Macroeconomics for Today:

GDP per capita provides a general index of a country’s standard of living. Countries with low GDP per capita and slow growth in GDP per capita are less able to satisfy basic needs for food, shelter, clothing, education, and health.[152]

* From 1990 to 2020, population density and inflation-adjusted GDP per capita rose in all major regions of the world:

Real GDP and Population Density

[153]

* In 2021, Sub-Saharan Africa had:

  • the lowest GDP per person of all the regions of the world.
  • 49% less population density than East Asia and the Pacific.
  • 88% less population density than South Asia.[154]

* Per a 2012 paper in the journal Africa Development:

At independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were high hopes about the growth prospects of the new politically independent African states. Economic conditions, such as per capita real income, were comparable to other developing countries like South Korea and Taiwan. By the mid-1970s, the growth profile of most African countries had started to decline and by the mid-1980s, it became obvious that the African continent needed rescue packages…. However, countries like Taiwan and South Korea had made tremendous progress such that their per capita real incomes had grown more than tenfold….[155]

* Some of the primary factors associated with Africa’s economic difficulties are:

* Transparency International annually scores countries “on how corrupt” their “public sector is perceived to be….”[162] The scores range from zero (“highly corrupt”) to 100 (“very clean”).[163] Data from 2023 for African and Western nations shows that more corruption is generally associated with lower GDP per capita:

GDP and Public Sector Transparency & Accountability

[164]

* After World War II, Korea, China, and Germany were each divided into two countries. Each division resulted in a capitalist country (South Korea, Taiwan, and West Germany) and a communist country (North Korea, China, and East Germany).[165] [166] [167] [168] [169] When they were originally divided, each pair had:

  • lower population densities in the communist countries than in their capitalist counterparts.
  • “the same culture and history.”
  • “much the same standard of living.”
  • “much the same birthrates.”[170]

* By the early 1980s, all the capitalist countries had outperformed their communist counterparts in economic growth:

Inflation-Adjusted Production Per Person

[171]

Responses to Growth

Abortion

* Per the book The Brethren Inside the Supreme Court by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart considered abortion to be “one reasonable solution to population control” when he ruled with the majority in Roe v. Wade. That ruling struck down the laws of 30 states that generally prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother.[172] [173] [174]

* The Sierra Club, an environmental organization, promotes abortion as a means of population control.[175] [176] [177] Its executive director stated they support abortion because “it helps to address the number of people that we have on this planet.”[178] [179]


Promote Freedom and Population Growth

* Ph.D. economist Julian Simon suggested that human beings are the “ultimate resource” and that population growth continually leads to better standards of living as long as governments do not restrict their “freedom to exercise their talents and to take advantage of opportunities.”[180] [181] [182] [183] [184] He noted that despite unprecedented population growth in the 20th century:[185]

  • people are living longer, healthier, better lives today than in the past.[186] [187]
  • due to human ingenuity, the more natural resources we use, the more we have of them.[188] [189] [190] [191] [192]
  • people in countries with “free enterprise” systems have much higher standards of living than people in nations with “planned” economies.[193] [194] [195] [196]

* Ph.D. economist Walter E. Williams submitted that “human beings are valuable resources, and the more we have of them the better.”[197] He wrote that:

  • predictions of disaster due to overpopulation have not materialized.[198] [199]
  • nations with low population densities are often poor, and nations with high population densities are often wealthy.[200] [201]
  • “the most commonly held characteristics of non-poor countries are greater personal liberty, private property rights, the rule of law, and an economic system closer to capitalism than to communism.”[202] [203]

Government Restriction of Births

* Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, said there was “an overproduction of babies, or, at least, an improper distribution of them.”[204] [205] [206] To address this situation, she proposed that:

  • bearing children should be illegal without a permit.
  • couples should have “the qualifications needed for proper rearing of the child” before receiving a parenthood permit.
  • only one child should be permitted per couple.
  • anyone deemed “biologically unfit by authorities” should be sterilized.[207]

* In a 1972 book, Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich and his wife Anne, who later became a senior research scientist at Stanford, wrote that “compulsory population control laws, even including those requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under our existing Constitution….”[208] [209] [210] [211] [212]

* In 1980, the government of China instituted a “one-child policy,” requiring families to have only one child each. They did this to restrain China’s rising population, which the government viewed as being too high.[213] This reduced China’s birth rates and led to these other consequences:

  • Since the Chinese people preferred male babies over females, abortion, infanticide, abandonment, and orphanage placement of female babies increased.
  • By 2010 there were 19% more boys than girls under the age of five. Such imbalances caused a lack of available women for men seeking girlfriends or wives.
  • Millions experienced “strict enforcement methods of the policy, including forced sterilization and forced abortions.”
  • After the policy’s end in 2016, “China’s birth and fertility rates remained low, leaving the country” with a rapidly aging population and “shrinking workforce.”[214] [215] [216] [217]

Footnotes

[1] Dataset: “Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Median 1950–2100.” United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <population.un.org>

“Tab: Data”: “World … Population … Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Total, Median … 2024 [=] 8,118,835,999”

[2] Webpage: “Earth: By the Numbers.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <mobile.arc.nasa.gov>

“Surface Area [=] 196,936,994 square miles”

[3] Webpage: “How Much Water Is There on Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, November 13, 2019. <www.usgs.gov>

“About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth’s water.”

[4] Webpage: “The Importance of Freshwater.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Accessed February 14, 2019 at <pmm.nasa.gov>

“About 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered in water. Of all the water on Earth 97 percent is in the oceans. That only leaves three percent as freshwater. Of that small amount of freshwater almost two percent is locked up in glaciers and ice at the North and South poles. The remaining one percent of freshwater is mostly groundwater, with a small fraction filling the world’s lakes and rivers.”

[5] Webpage: “Freshwater (Lakes and Rivers) and the Water Cycle.” U.S. Geological Survey, June 8, 2010. <water.usgs.gov>

You might be surprised at how little of Earth’s water supply is stored as freshwater on the land surface…. Freshwater represents only about three percent of all water on Earth and freshwater lakes and swamps account for a mere 0.29 percent of the Earth’s freshwater. Twenty percent of all fresh surface water is in one lake, Lake Baikal in Asia. Another twenty percent (about 5,500 cubic miles (about 23,000 cubic kilometers)) is stored in the Great Lakes. Rivers hold only about 0.006 percent of total freshwater reserves. You can see that life on Earth survives on what is essentially only a “drop in the bucket” of Earth’s total water supply! People have built systems, such as large reservoirs and small water towers … to store water for when they need it. These systems allow people to live in places where nature doesn’t always supply enough water or where water is not available at the time of year it is needed.

[6] Webpage: “Earth’s Freshwater.” National Geographic. Accessed April 17, 2019 at <www.nationalgeographic.org>

However, of all the water on Earth, more than 99 percent of Earth’s water is unusable by humans and many other living things—only about 0.3 percent of our fresh water is found in the surface water of lakes, rivers and swamps. …

In photographs taken from space, we can see that our planet has more water than land. It is unexpected and somewhat inconceivable that less than three percent of Earth’s water is fresh water. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, most of that three percent is inaccessible. Over 68 percent of the fresh water on Earth is found in icecaps and glaciers, and just over 30 percent is found in ground water. Only about 0.3 percent of our fresh water is found in the surface water of lakes, rivers, and swamps.

[7] Calculated with data from the webpage: “All About Glaciers.” National Snow & Ice Data Center. Accessed February 14, 2019 at <nsidc.org>

“Presently, 10 percent of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice, including glaciers, ice caps, and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Glacierized areas cover over 15 million square kilometers (5.8 million square miles).”

CALCULATION: 5,800,000 mi2 glaciers / 196,936,994 mi2 Earth = 2.9%

[8] Calculated with data from:

a) Textbook: Earth Science (13th edition). By Edward J. Tarbuck and Frederick K. Lutgens. Pearson Education, 2012.

Page 177: “The dry regions of the world encompass about 42 million square kilometers—a surprising 30 percent of Earth’s land surface….”

b) Book: Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices (2023 edition). Edited by Tina G. Butcher and others. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2022. <www.nist.gov>

Page C-25: “Units of Area … 1 square kilometer (km2) [=] 0.386 square mile”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 42,000,000 km2 dry regions × 0.386 mi2 per km2 = 16,202,000 mi2
  • 16,202,000 mi2 dry regions / 196,936,994 mi2 Earth = 8.2%

[9] Calculated with data from:

a) Webpage: “How Much Water Is There on Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, November 13, 2019. <www.usgs.gov>

“About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered….”

b) Textbook: Earth Science. By Charles R. Coble and others. Prentice-Hall, 1993.

Page 217: “Mountain landscapes cover about one-fifth of the earth’s surface.”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 100% Earth – 71% water covered = 29% land
  • 29% land × 20% mountains = 5.8% of Earth is mountains

[10] Calculated with data from:

a) Webpage: “How Much Water Is There on Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, November 13, 2019. <www.usgs.gov>

“About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered….”

b) Textbook: Physical Geography: Great Systems and Global Environments. By William M. Marsh and Martin M. Kaufman. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Page 225: “Cropland today occupies nearly 12 percent of the Earth’s total land area.”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 100% total surface of Earth – 71% water covered = 29% land
  • 29% land × 12% cropland = 3.5% of Earth is cropland

[11] Calculated with data from:

a) Textbook: Physical Geography: Great Systems and Global Environments. By William M. Marsh and Martin M. Kaufman. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Page 225: “Cropland today occupies nearly 12 percent of the Earth’s total land area … but when we consider that roughly half of Earth’s land area is fit for agriculture and human habitation, then it appears that crop farming takes up about 25 percent of Earth’s productive land area. Add to this the rangeland used for grazing, and it turns out that we are using around 50 percent of Earth’s total [productive] land area for some form of food production….”

b) Webpage: “How Much Water Is There on Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, November 13, 2019. <www.usgs.gov>

“About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered….”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 50% of productive land for food production – 25% of productive land for cropland = 25% of productive land for pastureland
  • 25% of productive land for pastureland × 50% of all land productive = 12.5% of all land for pastureland
  • 12.5% of all land for pastureland × (100% total surface of Earth – 71% water) = 3.6% of Earth is pastureland

[12] Calculated with data from:

a) Textbook: Physical Geography: Great Systems and Global Environments. By William M. Marsh and Martin M. Kaufman. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Page 225: “Cropland today occupies nearly 12 percent of the Earth’s total land area … but when we consider that roughly half of Earth’s land area is fit for agriculture and human habitation, then it appears that crop farming takes up about 25 percent of Earth’s productive land area. Add to this the rangeland used for grazing, and it turns out that we are using around 50 percent of Earth’s total [productive] land area for some form of food production…. But there is another component to be added: land used for wood production … and when added to food production, the combined land area used by humans in wood, food, and feed production now exceeds 65 percent of Earth’s total [productive] land area.”

b) Webpage: “How Much Water Is There on Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, November 13, 2019. <www.usgs.gov>

“About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered….”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 65% of productive land for wood and food – 50% of productive land for food = 15% of productive land for wood
  • 15% of productive land for wood × 50% of all land productive = 7.5% of all land for wood
  • 7.5% of all land for wood × (100% total surface of Earth – 71% water) = 2.2% of Earth is used for wood production

[13] Calculated with data from:

a) Textbook: Physical Geography: Great Systems and Global Environments. By William M. Marsh and Martin M. Kaufman. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Page 225: “Cropland today occupies nearly 12 percent of the Earth’s total land area … but when we consider that roughly half of Earth’s land area is fit for agriculture and human habitation, then it appears that crop farming takes up about 25 percent of Earth’s productive land area. Add to this the rangeland used for grazing, and it turns out that we are using around 50 percent of Earth’s total [productive] land area for some form of food production…. But there is another component to be added: land used for wood production … and when added to food production, the combined land area used by humans in wood, food, and feed production now exceeds 65 percent of Earth’s total [productive] land area.”

b) Webpage: “How Much Water Is There on Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, November 13, 2019. <www.usgs.gov>

“About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered….”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 100% of productive land – 65% of productive land for wood and food = 35% of productive land for human habitation
  • 35% of productive land for human habitation × 50% of all land productive = 17.5% of all land for human habitation
  • 17.5% of all land for human habitation × (100% total surface of Earth – 71% water) = 5.1% of Earth for human habitation
  • 5.1% of Earth for human habitation × 196,936,994 mi2 of Earth = ‭10,043,787 mi2 for human habitation

[14] NOTE: The above facts were obtained from various sources and rounded. Thus, the sum of their totals does not equal 100%.

[15] Calculated with data from:

a) Dataset: “Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Median 1950–2100.” United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <population.un.org>

“Tab: Data”: “World … Population … Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Total, Median … 2024 [=] 8,118,835,999”

b) Book: Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices (2023 edition). Edited by Tina G. Butcher and others. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2022. <www.nist.gov>

Page C-6: “Units of Area5 … 1 square mile (mi2) = 27,878,400 square feet = 640 acres”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 8,118,835,999 world population / 10,043,787 mi2 = 808 people per mi2
  • 640 acres per mi2 / 808 people per mi2 = 0.79 acres per person

[16] Textbook: The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography (12th edition). By James M. Rubenstein. Pearson Education, 2017.

Page 48:

Two-thirds of the world’s inhabitants are clustered in four regions…. The four population clusters occupy generally low-lying areas, with fertile soil and temperate climate. Most live near the ocean or near a river with easy access to an ocean, rather than in the interior of major landmasses. … The four major population clusters—East Asia, South Asia, Europe, and Southeast Asia—display differences in the pattern of occupancy of the land.

[17] Dataset: “UN WPP [United Nations World Population Prospects]-Adjusted Population Density, V4.11, 2020.” Columbia University and National Aeronautics and Space Administration Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center, Center for International Earth Science Information Network, 2018. <sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu>

Revision 11 consists of estimates of human population density based on counts consistent with national censuses and population registers with respect to relative spatial distribution, but adjusted to match the 2015 Revision of UN World Population Prospects country totals for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. A proportional allocation gridding algorithm, utilizing approximately 13.5 million national and sub-national administrative units, is used to assign adjusted population counts to 30 arc-second (approximately 1 km at the equator) pixels. The adjusted population count rasters are divided by the land area raster to produce adjusted population density rasters with pixel values representing persons per square kilometer.

[18] Calculated with data from:

a) Webpage: “The World Factbook: Explore All Countries—World.” Central Intelligence Agency. Last updated January 2, 2024. <www.cia.gov>

“People and Society: Population … ten most densely populated countries (population per sq km): Macau [=] 22,856.1 … ten least densely populated countries (population per sq km): Greenland [=] 0.03”

b) Webpage: “The World Factbook: Explore All Countries—Greenland: North America.” Central Intelligence Agency. Last updated December 19, 2023. <www.cia.gov>

“Area … total: 2,166,086 sq km … land: 2,166,086 sq km (approximately 1,710,000 sq km ice-covered) … Population 57,777 (July 2023 est.)”

c) Book: Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices (2023 edition). Edited by Tina G. Butcher and others. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2022. <www.nist.gov>

Page C-25: “Units of Area … 1 square kilometer (km2) [=] 0.386 square mile”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 22,856.1 people per km2 / 0.386 mi2 per km2 = 59,213 people per mi2 in Macau
  • 2,166,086 km2 total – 1,710,000 km2 ice-covered = 456,086 km2 not ice-covered in Greenland
  • 456,086 km2 not ice-covered × 0.386 mi2 per km2 = 176,049 mi2 not ice-covered
  • 57,777 people / 176,049 mi2 = 0.33 people per mi2 in Greenland

[19] Webpage: “Macau.” World Factbook. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Updated January 2, 2024. <www.cia.gov>

“Area – comparative … less than one-sixth the size of Washington, DC”

[20] Calculated with data from:

a) Webpage: “Earth: By the Numbers.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <mobile.arc.nasa.gov>

“Surface Area [=] 196,936,994 square miles”

b) Webpage: “How Much Water Is There on Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, November 13, 2019. <www.usgs.gov>

“About 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered….”

c) Webpage: “How Wet Is Your State? The Water Area of Each State.” U.S. Geological Survey, June 8, 2018. <www.usgs.gov>

“Land area and water area of each state … Texas … Land area square miles [=] 261,232”

d) Dataset: “Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for the United States, Regions, States, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2023.” U.S. Census Bureau, December 2023. <www2.census.gov>

“2023 … Texas [=] 30,503,301”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 100% – 71% water covered = 29% land
  • 29% land × 196,936,994 mi2 Earth surface area = 57,111,728 mi2 land area
  • 261,232 mi2 land in TX / 57,111,728 mi2 worldwide land area = 0.46%
  • 30,503,301 people in TX / 261,232 mi2 land in TX = 117

[21] Calculated with data from:

a) Webpage: “How Wet Is Your State? The Water Area of Each State.” U.S. Geological Survey, June 8, 2018. <www.usgs.gov>

“Land area and water area of each state … Texas … Land area square miles [=] 261,232”

b) Dataset: “Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Median 1950–2100.” United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <population.un.org>

“Tab: Data”: “World … Population … Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Total, Median … 2024 [=] 8,118,835,999”

c) Webpage: “QuickFacts: Kings County [Brooklyn Borough], New York; United States.” U.S. Census Bureau. Accessed January 23, 2024 at <www.census.gov>

“People … Population estimates, July 1, 2022, (V2022) … Kings County (Brooklyn Borough), New York [=] 2,590,516”

d) Article: “New York City.” By George Lankevich. Encyclopedia Britannica, July 20, 1998. Last modified 1/22/2024. <www.britannica.com>

“The most populous borough of New York, Brooklyn occupies 81 square miles (210 square km) to the east of Manhattan on the western fringe of Long Island.”

CALCULATIONS:

• 8,118,835,999 world population / 261,232 mi2 in Texas = 31,079 people per mi2

• 2,590,516 Brooklyn population / 81 mi2 in Brooklyn = 31,982 people per mi2

• (31,982 – 31,079) / 31,982 = 2.8%

[22] Chart constructed with data from:

a) Report: “The World at Six Billion.” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, October 12, 1999. <www.un.org>

Page 5: “Table 1. World Population, Year 0 to Near Stabilization”

b) Dataset: “Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Median 1950–2100.” United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <population.un.org>

“Tab: Data”

[23] Chart constructed with data from:

a) Report: “The World at Six Billion.” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, October 12, 1999. <www.un.org>

Page 5: “Table 1. World Population, Year 0 to Near Stabilization”

b) Dataset: “Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Median 1950–2100.” United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <population.un.org>

“Tab: Data”

[24] Report: “World Population Profile: 1998.” U.S. Census Bureau, February 1999. <www.census.gov>

Pages 10–11:

Ninety-six percent of world population increase occurs in the developing regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Population growth varies from one group of countries to another as a result of differences in initial population size and differences in growth rates. … [T]he world’s less developed countries (LDCs) constituted more than two-thirds of world population in 1950, and LDC growth rates have been much higher than those of the world’s more developed countries (MDCs) for the past 50 years. As a result, most of the net addition to growth over the past five decades has taken place in the world’s less affluent nations.

The population of LDCs has grown from about 1.7 billion persons in 1950 to 4.8 billion persons today, at growth rates that have been at or above two percent for much of this period. While the rate of population growth in the world’s less developed regions has fallen since the 1960s and is projected to continue to decline into the next century, LDC population growth rates are still likely to remain above one percent for at least the next 25 years.

More developed countries, in contrast, have contributed much smaller numbers to global population increase during the post-World War II period as a result of an initially smaller base and growth rates falling from about 1.2 percent per year in the 1950s to about 0.3 percent in the 1990s. The combined population of the world’s MDCs has grown about 50 percent over the past 50 years, from about 800 million persons in 1950 to about 1.2 billion persons in 1998….

These differentials in LDC and MDC growth patterns are expected to continue over the course of the next few decades.

Growth rates in the remaining countries of the world, a group that includes the United States, have been slowly declining since the early 1960s. These countries are generally considered to have completed their demographic transitions to low birth and death rates. The trend in growth rates in this group of countries reflects continuing decreases in mortality, at older ages in particular, and an offsetting general trend in favor of smaller family sizes.

[25] Report: “World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2022. <www.un.org>

Page 5:

Between 2022 and 2050, the population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to almost double, surpassing 2 billion inhabitants by the late 2040s. With average fertility levels remaining close to 3 births per woman in 2050, sub-Saharan Africa is projected to account for more than half of the growth of the world’s population between 2022 and 2050. In 2022, the size of the population in this region was growing at an annual rate of 2.5 per cent, the highest among all eight regions or more than three times the global average of 0.8 per cent per year.

Page 20:

In some parts of the world, international migration has become a major component of population change. During the period 1980–2000, population growth in high-income countries was mainly due to natural increase (104 million), that is, the difference between the total number of births and deaths, which was more than twice the contribution of net international migration to population growth (44 million), that is, the difference between immigration and emigration. For high-income countries between 2000 and 2020, the contribution of international migration to population growth (net inflow of 80.5 million) exceeded the balance of births over deaths (66.2 million). Over the next few decades, migration will be the sole driver of population growth in high-income countries, as the number of deaths will progressively exceed the number of births…. By contrast, for the foreseeable future, population increase in low-income and lower-middle-income countries will continue to be driven by an excess of births over deaths. At the country level, large variations in the relative contribution of natural change and net migration to overall population change are observed.

[26] Book: A Concise History of World Population (6th edition). By Massimo Livi-Bacci. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.

Pages 19–23:

It is this subordination to the natural environment and the resources it provides [plants and animals] that constituted a check to population increase.… [P]recipitation is the principal factor limiting both the resources available to hunters and gatherers and their numerical growth.

The Neolithic transition to stable cultivation of the land and the raising of livestock certainly … enormously increased the availability of food and energy.

The environmental limits to demographic expansion were again shattered by the enormous increase in available energy that resulted from the industrial and technological revolution … and the invention of efficient machines for the conversion of inanimate materials into energy.

Page 35: “The age of … marriage … and the proportion of individuals who enter into this state [has] for most of human history been the principal means of controlling growth. Prior to … the voluntary limitation of births … a number of other components had an influence … sexual taboos, duration of breast-feeding … the frequency of abortion and infanticide … and … migration….”

[27] Article: “Industrial Revolution.” Encyclopedia Britannica, July 20, 1998. Last updated 1/16/2024. <www.britannica.com>

Industrial Revolution, in modern history, the process of change from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing.

The main features … were technological, socioeconomic, and cultural. The technological changes included … (1) the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel, (2) the use of new energy sources … (3) the invention of new machines … that permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy, (4) a new organization of work known as the factory system, which entailed increased division of labour and specialization of function, (5) important developments in transportation and communication … and (6) the increasing application of science to industry. These technological changes made possible a tremendously increased use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods.

There were also many new developments in nonindustrial spheres, including the following: (1) agricultural improvements that made possible the provision of food for a larger nonagricultural population, (2) economic changes that resulted in a wider distribution of wealth, the decline of land as a source of wealth in the face of rising industrial production, and increased international trade, (3) political changes … as well as new state policies … (4) sweeping social changes, including the growth of cities … and (5) cultural transformations of a broad order. Workers acquired new and distinctive skills, and their relation to their tasks shifted…. Finally, there was a psychological change: confidence in the ability to use resources and to master nature was heightened.

[28] Report: “World Population Profile: 1998.” U.S. Census Bureau, February 1999. <www.census.gov>

Page 3:

During this century we have witnessed a surge in human population unmatched in sheer magnitude during any previous period in human history. Since mid-century, mortality levels have plummeted in every world region, driving up rates of natural increase. In the early 1950s, over 150 of every 1,000 infants died before reaching their first birthdays.1 In 1998, over 60 percent of these children survive: Infant mortality has been reduced to 58 infant deaths per 1,000 live births worldwide.2 As a result of improvements in child survival, and of parallel but typically smaller decreases in adult mortality, global life expectancy at birth has increased from about 47 years in the early 1950s to 63 years in 1998.3

People are not only dying less frequently at younger ages but are living longer, on average, after reaching the end of their economically productive years. Men and women are living about 2 years longer, on average, after reaching age 65 today than they did in the early 1950s.4 This increased longevity has added to global population growth and is now contributing to a shifting global age structure characterized by higher proportions of the elderly and higher ratios of elderly dependent to working-age populations.

Page 25:

Most national populations are enjoying a general reduction in mortality levels, continuing a trend in the post-World War II period linked to improvements in public health services, greater availability of drugs and the development of new vaccines and, in many countries, to improvements in standards of living. In the less developed countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the importance of infectious and parasitic diseases as principal causes of death has lessened, which has markedly cut the overall risk of dying in infancy and early childhood while also reducing mortality at all but the oldest adult ages.

In a number of less developed countries, concerted efforts to improve maternal health have been successful in reducing the risk of maternal death associated with childbearing and in improving women’s survivorship to the end of their reproductive years to levels comparable to or higher than those of men. At the same time, national mortality profiles have been affected by increased deaths attributable to cardiovascular disease and other degenerative diseases and, frequently, to greater incidence of accidents and violence.

[29] Report: “World Population Prospects.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2017. <population.un.org>

Page 9:

Significant gains in reducing mortality have been achieved in recent years. Globally, life expectancy at birth rose by about 4 years between 2000–2005 and 2010–2015, from 67 to 71 years. Despite these gains, large inequalities in life expectancy persist between poorer and richer areas of the world. Life expectancy in Africa stood at 60 years in 2010–2015, compared to 79 years in Northern America. Life expectancy now exceeds 80 years in some high‐income countries, whereas for several African countries it remains below 60 years. Globally, life expectancy is projected to rise to 77 years in 2045–2050, and eventually to 83 years in 2095–2100.

In some parts of the world, the gains in life expectancy at birth are primarily driven by improved survival at young ages, particularly between birth and age 5. Between 2000–2005 and 2010–2015, deaths among children under age 5 fell from an estimated 70 to 48 per 1,000 live births, or about 30 per cent in one decade. Absolute declines were especially large in Sub-Saharan Africa (from 141 to 95 per 1,000) and in the least developed countries (from 123 to 83 per 1,000).

Although differences in life expectancy and child mortality across regions are projected to persist in the future, such differences are expected to diminish somewhat in the coming decades.

[30] Report: “World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2022. <www.un.org>

Page 16:

Global life expectancy at birth reached 72.8 years in 2019, an improvement of almost 9 years since 1990. According to current projections, further improvements in survival are expected to result in an average length of life globally of around 77.2 years in 2050. Because the global population is growing and also ageing rapidly … the number of deaths worldwide is expected to increase over the next decades, from 67 million in 2022 to 92 million in 2050….

While considerable progress has been made in closing the difference in life expectancy at birth between countries, the gaps remain wide. In 2021, life expectancy in the least developed countries lagged 7.0 years behind the global average, due largely to persistently high levels of child and maternal mortality and, in some countries, to violence and conflicts or the continuing impact of the HIV epidemic. Progress in life expectancy at birth has slowed down in 2020 and 2021 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic….

[31] Article: “The Rapid Slowdown of Population Growth.” By Wolfgang Fengler. World Bank, September 9, 2014. <www.worldbank.org>

The neo-Malthusian assumption is that bigger populations will translate into greater disempowerment and deeper poverty. But that’s partly a “reverse causality fallacy,” because most humans have been disempowered and poor all along. In most of the world’s history, high rates of fertility coincided with widespread misery, but the causality probably ran the other way. People had many children because they were so poor. Moreover, the world population didn’t grow much until the early 20th century because mortality remained high. Only once people became better off, when improvements in health, sanitation and nutrition were made available to a larger part of society, did world’s population start to rise rapidly. This was the beginning of our journey from 1 billion to 10 billion people, a threshold we are expected to reach by 2060.

[32] Report: “Global Population Profile: 2002.” U.S. Census Bureau, March 2004. <www.census.gov>

Page 3:

A little more than 4 years ago, in 1999, global population surpassed 6 billion. At midyear 2002, it stood at 6.2 billion and just over two people were being added each second. As rapid as this may seem, the pace at which global population was growing had already peaked more than a decade earlier. In absolute terms, approximately 74 million people were added to the world’s population in 2002 compared to a high of 87 million in 1989–90. Similarly, the annual average growth rate was approximately 1.2 percent in 2002, down from a high of 2.2 percent in 1963–64. It is expected that this slowdown in population growth will continue into the foreseeable future.

The slowdown in the growth of the world’s population can be traced primarily to declines in fertility. In 2002, the world’s women, on average, were giving birth to 2.6 children over their lifetime. This was less than one-half of a child more than the level needed to assure the replacement of the population. Although fertility rates in some parts of the world are expected to remain above replacement level for quite some time (e.g., in Sub-Saharan Africa), Census Bureau projections suggest that the level of fertility for the world as a whole will drop below replacement level before 2050.

Page 7:

During 2002, the globe experienced a net increase of approximately 74 million people. This growth is due, in part, to an average level of global fertility that has couples producing more children than are needed to replace them despite precipitous fertility declines in recent years. A more important determinant of this growth, however, is the age–sex composition of the population that has a large number of women in their childbearing years relative to the size of the rest of the population. Finally, although mortality on a global level has also fallen, the anticipated effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic are of serious concern to the populations of numerous countries. Together, these trends create a composite profile of global population that is worthy of consideration.

[33] Report: “World Population Profile: 1998.” U.S. Census Bureau, February 1999. <www.census.gov>

Page 3:

Two demographic events have occurred in the second half of the twentieth century that have softened the surge in human numbers. The first is the progressive decline in fertility levels that has occurred, particularly in the world’s developing regions, since the early 1960s. Over 6 children, on average, were born to a woman living in a less developed country in the early 1950s.5 As we near the end of the present decade, this figure has been cut nearly in half. A typical woman living in a developing nation today has just over 3 births, on average.6 The second event is the emergence of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has raised mortality and slowed growth in every world region, but with the greatest impacts in a number of Sub-Saharan African, Asian and Latin American nations.

[34] Report: “World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2022. <www.un.org>

Page 13:

Trends in population size and age structure are shaped mostly by levels of fertility and mortality, which have declined almost universally around the globe. In some countries, international migration also has become an important determinant of population change.

The fertility level, or the average number of births per woman over a lifetime, has fallen markedly over recent decades in many countries. Two-thirds of all people globally live in a country or area where fertility is below 2.1 births per woman, which is roughly the level required for populations with low mortality to stabilize in the long run. In 2021, the average global fertility rate stood at 2.3 births per woman, falling from about 5 births per woman in the mid-twentieth century…. According to the assumptions about future fertility made in the United Nations projections … by 2050, the average global fertility rate is expected to have declined to 2.1. To be more precise, with a probability of 95 per cent, global total fertility in 2050 is expected to lie between 1.88 and 2.42 births per woman….

[35] Book: A Concise History of World Population (6th edition). By Massimo Livi-Bacci. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.

Page 35: “The age of … marriage … and the proportion of individuals who enter into this state [has] for most of human history been the principal means of controlling growth. Prior to the diffusion … of … the voluntary limitation of births … a number of other components had an influence … sexual taboos, duration of breast-feeding … the frequency of abortion and infanticide … and … migration….”

Pages 181–186:

[T]he average number of children per woman … is determined by a combination of factors, predominantly biological … birth intervals linked to the duration of breast-feeding, waiting time linked primarily to the frequency of sexual relations, fetal mortality … age at marriage and percentage unmarried … and by the level of birth control.

[T]he age of women at first union is increasing rapidly whenever women’s prerogatives are reinforced in terms of education, wages and income, less discrimination, and less inequality within and outside the family.

The decisive check to fertility … is its voluntary control.

[I]ncreased age at marriage and, above all, the spread of birth control are the instruments of fertility decline. However, in order for decline to occur, a change in the reproductive plans of couples is necessary. We must therefore understand what determines these plans….

[P]reservation and survival … are innate values of the human species…. Fertility therefore must compensate for mortality … [M]ortality decline is a necessary prerequisite to fertility decline.

The increasing “relative cost” of child rearing also appears to be a factor in fertility decline. … Other factors might include compulsory childhood schooling, which delays the beginning of a child’s work life…. The creation of institutional mechanisms of social protection reduces the need of aging parents for support from their children…. Other elements … include the elimination of legislative obstacles to birth control, a policy actively supporting family planning, the spread of contraceptive knowledge and techniques, and the fact they are affordable and psychologically acceptable.

[36] Article: “World Population Growth.” By Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie, and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina. Our World In Data, 2013. Revised May 2019. <bit.ly>

The model that explains why rapid population growth happens is called the “demographic transition.” It is shown in the schematic figure below. It is a beautifully simple model that describes the observed pattern in countries around the world and is one of the great insights of demography.6

The demographic transition is a sequence of five stages:

Stage 1: high mortality and high birth rates. In the long time before rapid population growth the birth rate in a population is high, but since the death rate is also high we observe no or only very small population growth. This describes the reality through most of our history. Societies around the world remained in stage 1 for many millennia as the long-run perspective on extremely slow population growth highlighted. At this stage the population pyramid is broad at the base but since the mortality rate is high across all ages—and the risk of death is particularly high for children—the pyramid gets much narrower towards the top.

Stage 2: mortality falls but birth rates still high. In the second phase the health of the population slowly starts to improve and the death rate starts to fall. Since the health of the population has already improved, but fertility still remains as high as before, this is the stage of the transition at which the size of the population starts to grow rapidly. Historically it is the exceptional time at which the extended family with many (surviving) children is common.

Stage 3: mortality low and birth rates fall. Later the birth rate starts to fall and consequentially the rate at which the population grows begins to decline as well. … When the mortality of children is not as high as it once was parents adapt to the healthier environment and choose to have fewer children; the economy is undergoing structural changes that makes children less economically valuable; and women are empowered socially and within partnerships and have fewer children than before.

Stage 4: mortality low and birth rates low. Rapid population growth comes to an end in stage 4 as the birth rate falls to a similar level as the already low mortality rate. The population pyramid is now box shaped; as the mortality rate at young ages is now very low the younger cohorts are now very similar in size and only at an old age the cohorts get smaller very rapidly.

Stage 5: mortality low and some evidence of rising fertility. The demographic transition describes changes over the course of socio-economic modernization. What happens at a very high level of development is not a question we can answer with certainty since only few societies have reached this stage. But we do have some good evidence … that at very high levels of development fertility is rising again. Not to the very high levels of pre-modern times, but to a fertility rate that gets close to 2 children per woman. What level exactly the fertility rate will reach is crucial for the question of what happens to population growth in the long run. If the fertility rate stays below 2 children per woman then we will see a decline of the population size in the long run. If indeed the fertility rate will rise above 2 children per woman we will see a slow long-run increase of the population size.

Demographic Transition Stages

[37] Report: “Population Facts: The End of High Fertility Is Near.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, October 2017. <population.un.org>

Page 1:

In recent decades, developing countries around the world have been undergoing a demographic transition, characterized by increasing levels of life expectancy at birth and declining levels of lifetime fertility. Many of these countries are now reaching levels of mortality and fertility that are similar to those seen in the more developed countries.

The total fertility rate for the world as a whole fell from around 5 live births per woman in 1950–1955 to 2.5 births in 2010–2015. As a result of this global transition, an increasing share of the world’s population now lives in countries where total fertility has fallen below the replacement level of approximately 2.1 live births per woman over a lifetime; at this level of fertility, each generation of parents exactly replaces itself with an equivalent number of children who survive to adulthood, ensuring a long-term growth rate of zero.1

Conversely, a relatively small proportion of the world’s population now lives in countries with high levels of fertility—conventionally defined as more than 5 live births per woman. Given the projected future course of fertility, it is expected that this proportion will continue to decrease. Thus, the end of high fertility is near and should become a reality within the next decade or so, according to the results of the 2017 Revision of the World Population Prospects.2

In 1975–1980, close to a quarter of the world’s population lived in countries with high levels of fertility…. Twenty years later, in 1995–2000, the share of the global population that lived in high-fertility countries had fallen to 11 percent. In 2010–2015, 8 percent of the global population lived in countries where women were having, on average, more than 5 births over a lifetime. Starting in 2025–2030, it is expected that less than 1 percent of the world’s population will live in countries with such high levels of fertility.

Page 2:

In the period after 1975–1980, … there were also a number of countries where fertility fell from intermediate levels to below the replacement level. As a result, between 1975–1980 and 1995–2000, the share of the global population living in countries with intermediate levels of fertility declined from 56 to 45 percent….

Between 1995–2000 and 2010–2015, the overall decline of fertility was slower, and therefore the distribution of countries in each fertility group changed only slightly. In 2010–2015, the share of the global population living in countries with intermediate levels of fertility was equivalent, at 46 percent, to the share living in countries where fertility was below the replacement level…. It is projected that in 2025–2030, only a third of the world’s population will live in countries with fertility levels of at least 2.1 births per woman.

In 1975–1980, only 21 percent of the global population was living in countries where fertility was below the replacement level. In 2010–2015, 46 percent lived in countries where women had, on average, fewer than 2.1 births over a lifetime. With the continuation of fertility decline, as projected, for countries with fertility still above the replacement level, and with India, in particular, expected to move below the threshold of 2.1 births per woman between 2025 and 2030, it is anticipated that by 2030 around two thirds of the world’s population will live in countries where fertility lies below the replacement level.

Fertility trajectories as projected by the United Nations are based on the assumption that future changes in fertility will resemble past changes in both form and magnitude, taking into account any available data for each national population. Thus, the end of high fertility is in sight and will arrive soon, unless several countries follow unusual pathways and maintain higher levels of fertility in future decades compared to what is expected based on historical patterns of change.

[38] Report: “World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2022. <www.un.org>

Page 13:

Trends in population size and age structure are shaped mostly by levels of fertility and mortality, which have declined almost universally around the globe. In some countries, international migration also has become an important determinant of population change.

The fertility level, or the average number of births per woman over a lifetime, has fallen markedly over recent decades in many countries. Two-thirds of all people globally live in a country or area where fertility is below 2.1 births per woman, which is roughly the level required for populations with low mortality to stabilize in the long run. In 2021, the average global fertility rate stood at 2.3 births per woman, falling from about 5 births per woman in the mid-twentieth century…. According to the assumptions about future fertility made in the United Nations projections … by 2050, the average global fertility rate is expected to have declined to 2.1. To be more precise, with a probability of 95 per cent, global total fertility in 2050 is expected to lie between 1.88 and 2.42 births per woman….

[39] Article: “World Population Growth.” By Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie, and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina. Our World In Data, 2013. Revised May 2019. <bit.ly>

If fertility fell in lockstep with mortality we would not have seen an increase in the population at all. The demographic transition works through the asynchronous timing of the two fundamental demographic changes: the decline of the death rate is followed by the decline of birth rates.

This decline of the death rate followed by a decline of the birth rate is something we observe with great regularity and independent of the culture or religion of the population.

The chart below presents the empirical evidence for the demographic transition for five very different countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In all countries we observed the pattern of the demographic transition, first a decline of mortality that starts the population boom and then a decline of fertility which brings the population boom to an end. The population boom is a temporary event.

In the past the size of the population was stagnant because of high mortality, now country after country is moving into a world in which the population is stagnant because of low fertility.

Demographic Transition in Five Countries

[40] Calculated with the dataset: “Life Expectancy at Birth, Total (Years).” World Bank, December 18, 2023. Accessed January 26, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

Life expectancy at birth indicates the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life….

Development Relevance: Mortality rates for different age groups (infants, children, and adults) and overall mortality indicators (life expectancy at birth or survival to a given age) are important indicators of health status in a country. Because data on the incidence and prevalence of diseases are frequently unavailable, mortality rates are often used to identify vulnerable populations. And they are among the indicators most frequently used to compare socioeconomic development across countries.

Limitations and Exceptions: Annual data series from United Nations Population Division’s World Population Prospects are interpolated data from 5-year period data. Therefore they may not reflect real events as much as observed data. …

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Life expectancy at birth used here is the average number of years a newborn is expected to live if mortality patterns at the time of its birth remain constant in the future. It reflects the overall mortality level of a population, and summarizes the mortality pattern that prevails across all age groups in a given year. It is calculated in a period life table which provides a snapshot of a population’s mortality pattern at a given time. It therefore does not reflect the mortality pattern that a person actually experiences during his/her life, which can be calculated in a cohort life table. High mortality in young age groups significantly lowers the life expectancy at birth. But if a person survives his/her childhood of high mortality, he/she may live much longer. For example, in a population with a life expectancy at birth of 50, there may be few people dying at age 50. The life expectancy at birth may be low due to the high childhood mortality so that once a person survives his/her childhood, he/she may live much longer than 50 years.

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[41] Dataset: “Fertility Rate, Total (Births Per Woman).” World Bank, December 18, 2023. Accessed January 27, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>
 

Total fertility rate represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with age-specific fertility rates of the specified year. …

Development Relevance: Reproductive health is a state of physical and mental well-being in relation to the reproductive system and its functions and processes. Means of achieving reproductive health include education and services during pregnancy and childbirth, safe and effective contraception, and prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death and disability among women of reproductive age in developing countries. …

Limitations and Exceptions: Annual data series from United Nations Population Division’s World Population Prospects are interpolated data from 5-year period data. Therefore they may not reflect real events as much as observed data. …

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Total fertility rates are based on data on registered live births from vital registration systems or, in the absence of such systems, from censuses or sample surveys. The estimated rates are generally considered reliable measures of fertility in the recent past. Where no empirical information on age-specific fertility rates is available, a model is used to estimate the share of births to adolescents. For countries without vital registration systems fertility rates are generally based on extrapolations from trends observed in censuses or surveys from earlier years.

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[42] Article: “World Population Growth.” By Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie, and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina. Our World In Data, 2013. Revised May 2019. <bit.ly>

If fertility fell in lockstep with mortality we would not have seen an increase in the population at all. The demographic transition works through the asynchronous timing of the two fundamental demographic changes: the decline of the death rate is followed by the decline of birth rates.

This decline of the death rate followed by a decline of the birth rate is something we observe with great regularity and independent of the culture or religion of the population.

[43] Dataset: “Fertility Rate, Total (Births Per Woman).” World Bank, December 18, 2023. Accessed January 27, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>
 

Total fertility rate represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with age-specific fertility rates of the specified year. …

Development Relevance: Reproductive health is a state of physical and mental well-being in relation to the reproductive system and its functions and processes. Means of achieving reproductive health include education and services during pregnancy and childbirth, safe and effective contraception, and prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death and disability among women of reproductive age in developing countries. …

Limitations and Exceptions: Annual data series from United Nations Population Division’s World Population Prospects are interpolated data from 5-year period data. Therefore they may not reflect real events as much as observed data. …

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Total fertility rates are based on data on registered live births from vital registration systems or, in the absence of such systems, from censuses or sample surveys. The estimated rates are generally considered reliable measures of fertility in the recent past. Where no empirical information on age-specific fertility rates is available, a model is used to estimate the share of births to adolescents. For countries without vital registration systems fertility rates are generally based on extrapolations from trends observed in censuses or surveys from earlier years.

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[44] Paper: “The Arab World’s ‘Quiet’ Reproductive Revolution.” By Marcia C. Inhorn. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 2018. Pages 147–159. <marciainhorn.com>

Pages 147–148:

Indeed, the Arab world is in the midst of one of the most dramatic fertility declines in world history, one that has occurred without major economic development or strong family planning programs. Through changing reproductive norms and behaviors, Arab couples have brought down the region’s fertility levels from among the highest to among the lowest in the world.

To Western observers, this massive fertility decline may seem counterintuitive. The Arab world is often portrayed in popular media, academic circles, and policy reports as a region of high fertility, attributable to men’s patriarchal control over women’s bodies and religiously fueled pronatalism.3 However, this portrayal of male oppression as the source of hyper-fertility is both outdated and inaccurate. … This Arab demographic transition is part of a much wider Muslim fertility decline, which has been described as a “quiet revolution … hiding in plain sight.”6

Pages 150–151:

In the absence of widespread female contraception, how did the Arab world achieve the dramatic fertility declines that began in the 1980s? Part of that answer lies in men’s and women’s changing notions of the “ideal” Arab family—namely, a small nuclear family—and hence the family planning support offered by Arab husbands to their wives, particularly in the form of male-controlled methods.

Studies conducted in a variety of Arab countries demonstrated men’s strong advocacy of male-controlled birth control—not with condoms, which were shown to be negatively perceived in a variety of Arab countries, but rather through the time-tested method of ‘azl (withdrawal, or coitus interruptus).24 ‘Azl has played an important role in the history of Islamic societies.25 Not only does ‘azl receive support within the Islamic scriptures as a viable means of male-enacted contraception, but Arab men also tend to prefer withdrawal as a “safe” method of family planning that is more “natural” than most female-controlled methods.26

Between the contraceptive efforts of both Arab men and women, Arab couples have brought the new Arab family into being—a small nuclear family with two to three children on average.27 A variety of anthropological studies conducted in the Arab world since the 1980s have explored the emerging norms and practices supporting this smaller family size.28 As these studies show, economic considerations, changing household configurations, and increased contraceptive acceptance have all played major roles in the emergence of the new small Arab family. But so has ideational change, or the belief that having fewer children to cherish, love, and support is beneficial to the married couple on the financial and affective levels and psychologically beneficial to the children themselves.

Page 153:

What is most impressive about this Arab fertility decline is that it has occurred even in resource-poor Arab nations. As noted by demographers, most Arab countries have fewer resources (including income, education, urbanization, and modern contraception) than “more developed regions,” such as North America, with which Arab fertility levels today correspond.37 Put another way, the Arab world has achieved its reproductive revolution with far fewer preexisting resources than a country such as the United States. Instead, the Arab fertility decline has occurred largely through human agency—namely, the decision of Arab couples to have fewer children to love and support.

[45] Report: “World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2022. <www.un.org>

Page 8:

The current age distribution of a population has a major impact on future population trends due to a phenomenon known as “population momentum”. The relative youthfulness of today’s global population ensures that the number of women of reproductive age will continue to increase for years and even decades. Nearly two-thirds of the anticipated increase in world population between 2022 and 2050 will be driven by the current age distribution of the global population….

Page 27:

As fertility will be the most important determinant of global population trends in the coming decades, uncertainty around the number of children to be born in populous, high-fertility countries is a major source of the uncertainty in global population projections. Because of the momentum of growth embedded in current age structures, reductions in fertility over the next several years will have only a limited effect on the growth of the world population between now and 2050. However, a fertility decline in the near term can have important consequences for growth in the last decades of the century as the impact of fertility decline on population size cumulates from one generation to the next.

[46] Article: “The Impact of Population Momentum on Future Population Growth.” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, October 2017. <population.un.org>

Page 1:

Thanks to a phenomenon known as population momentum, a youthful population with constant levels of mortality and a net migration1 of zero continues to grow even when fertility remains constant at the replacement level.2 In this situation, a relatively youthful age structure promotes a more rapid growth, because the births being produced by the relatively large number of women of reproductive age outnumber the deaths occurring in the total population, even if the fertility of the average woman stands at the replacement level.

Population momentum can be conducive to positive or negative population growth. A relatively older age structure contributes to a slower rate of growth or, in more extreme cases, to population decline.3

Page 2:

The relative impact of population momentum on future population growth varies by country, especially in comparison to the impact of current and future levels of fertility.

In summary, the momentum variant of the population projections published by the United Nations highlights that, irrespective of trends in the global fertility level over the next few decades, much of the population growth anticipated during this period is inscribed already in the current youthful age structure of the global population.

1 Net migration is defined as the balance of migrant inflows minus outflows.

2 When fertility is at the replacement level, each generation of parents exactly replaces itself with an equivalent number of children who survive to adulthood, ensuring a long-term growth rate of zero. Given a normal sex ratio at birth (around 105 male newborns per 100 female newborns) and relatively low levels of mortality among children and young adults, replacement-level fertility is close to 2.1 live births per woman (it is higher in a population with an elevated sex ratio at birth or relatively high levels of mortality at younger ages).

3 For a more detailed explanation of population momentum, please refer to the following technical paper published by the Population Division: Andreev, K., Kantorová, V., and Bongaarts, J. (2013). “Demographic Components of Future Population Growth.” Technical Paper No. 2013/3. New York: United Nations.

[47] Article: “Can Rapid Population Growth Be Good for Economic Development?” By Wolfgang Fengler. World Bank, April 15, 2010. <blogs.worldbank.org>

[W]hile the speed of population growth remains unchanged, its sources are different. In the past, population growth was driven by increasing numbers of children. Today, and in the future, it is driven by longer life expectance and the “base effect” of the previous population boom. There are just many more young families which have children. However, they have fewer of them. In Kenya, the number of children per family has fallen sharply, from 8.1 children in 1978 to 4.6 children in 2008, and by 2050 it may reach 2.4. As a result, the fastest growing group in Kenya’s population is not anymore young children—but adults which will almost triple in size from 21 million today to about 60 million in 2050.

[48] Calculated with the dataset: “Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Median 1950–2100.” United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <population.un.org>

“Tab: Data”

NOTES:

  • Credit for noting the correlation of China’s “Great Leap Forward” with an abrupt decline in population growth belongs to Barry Brownstein [“The Myth That Our Planet Faces an Overpopulation Crisis.” Foundation for Economic Education, September 5, 2019. <fee.org>].
  • An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[49] Book: Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962. By Frank Dikotter. Bloomsbury, 2010.

Pages xi–xii:

Between 1958 and 1962, China descended into hell. Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake Britain in less than fifteen years. By unleashing China’s greatest asset, a labour force that was counted in the hundreds of millions, Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors. … The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives. …

This book is based on well over a thousand archival documents, collected over several years in dozens of party archives….

What comes out this massive and detailed dossier transforms our understanding of the Great Leap Forward. When it comes to the overall death toll, for instance, researchers so far have had to extrapolate from official population statistics, including the census figures of 1953, 1964 and 1982. Their estimates range from 15 to 32 million excess deaths. But the public security reports compiled at the time, as well as the voluminous secret reports collated by party committees in the last months of the Great Leap Forward, show how inadequate these calculations are, pointing instead at a catastrophe of a much greater magnitude: this book shows that at least 45 million people died unnecessarily between 1958 and 1962.

[50] Article: “Thomas Malthus.” By Donald Gunn MacRae. Encyclopedia Britannica, July 20, 1998. Last modified 12/25/2023. <www.britannica.com>

English Economist and Demographer

In 1798 Malthus published anonymously the first edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers. The work received wide notice. Briefly, crudely, yet strikingly, Malthus argued that infinite human hopes for social happiness must be vain, for population will always tend to outrun the growth of production. The increase of population will take place, if unchecked, in a geometric progression, while the means of subsistence will increase in only an arithmetic progression. Population will always expand to the limit of subsistence. Only “vice” (including “the commission of war”), “misery” (including famine or want of food and ill health), and “moral restraint” (i.e., abstinence) could check this excessive growth.

[51] Book: A Concise History of World Population (6th edition). By Massimo Livi-Bacci. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.

Pages 86–87:

In 1798, Malthus described … the incompatibility of the growth potential of population … and that of the resources necessary for survival…. [F]amine, disease, or war reduce population size … and reestablish a more suitable balance with resources. Reachieved equilibrium, however, will only last until another negative cycle begins, unless population can find some other way to limit its reproductive capacity.

[52] Book: A Concise History of World Population (6th edition). By Massimo Livi-Bacci. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.

Page 147: “[B]etween 1820 and 2000 the population of the four leading western nations (Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States) grew by a factor of 5.6 while their combined GDP [gross domestic product] (in constant prices) multiplied by about 107. Per capita production, then, increased 19-fold….”

[53] Article: “Thomas Malthus.” By Donald Gunn MacRae. Encyclopedia Britannica, July 20, 1998. Revised 12/15/2020. <bit.ly>

English Economist and Demographer

[A] fundamental criticism of Malthus was his failure to anticipate the agricultural revolution, which caused food production to meet or exceed population growth and made prosperity possible for a larger number of people. For example, the price of wheat in the United States, adjusted for inflation, has fallen by about two-thirds in the last 200 years. Since 1950, the world’s per capita food production has increased by about 1 percent per year. The incidence of famine has diminished, with famines in the modern era typically caused by war or by destructive government policies, such as price controls on food. Malthus also failed to anticipate the widespread use of contraceptives that brought about a decline in the fertility rate.

[54] Webpage: “Norman Borlaug.” The Nobel Prize. Accessed March 16, 2021 at <www.nobelprize.org>

The Nobel Peace Prize 1970 …

A central figure in the “green revolution,” Norman Ernest Borlaug … [f]or the past twenty-seven years … has collaborated with Mexican scientists on problems of wheat improvement; for the last ten or so of those years he has also collaborated with scientists from other parts of the world, especially from India and Pakistan, in adapting the new wheats to new lands and in gaining acceptance for their production.

In 1944 he accepted an appointment as geneticist and plant pathologist assigned the task of organizing and directing the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program in Mexico. This program … involved scientific research in genetics, plant breeding, plant pathology, entomology, agronomy, soil science, and cereal technology. Within twenty years he was spectacularly successful in finding a high-yielding short-strawed, disease-resistant wheat.

… Statistics on the vast acreage planted with the new wheat and on the revolutionary yields harvested in Mexico, India, and Pakistan are given in the presentation speech by Mrs. Lionaes and in the Nobel lecture by Dr. Borlaug. Well advanced, also, is the use of the new wheat in six Latin American countries, six in the Near and Middle East, several in Africa.

[55] Book: A Concise History of World Population (6th edition). By Massimo Livi-Bacci. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.

Page 112:

During the past 10,000 years the human race has managed to multiply by a factor of 1,000 and at the same time increase the per capita availability of resources. Those who argue for the inevitability of decreasing returns maintain that this has come about because the limits of fixed resources have never been reached, either because these limits have been repeatedly pushed back as new land is cultivated and sparsely populated continents inhabited or because resources have been used more productively thanks to innovations and discoveries. Nonetheless, for long historical periods the bite of diminishing returns has severely tested the ability of population to react. Moreover, certain resources would seem to be not only limited but nonsubstitutable and so in the long term neither innovation nor invention can avert the onset of diminishing returns and impoverishment.

According to the opposing view, there is no reason to believe that the onset of diminishing returns is inevitable. Kuznets expresses this position well in historical terms, asking:

Why, if it is man who was the architect of economic and social growth in the past and responsible for the vast contributions to knowledge and technological and social power, a larger number of human beings need result in a lower rate of increase in per capita product? More population means more creators and producers, both of goods along established production patterns and of new knowledge and inventions. Why shouldn’t the larger numbers achieve what the smaller numbers accomplished in the modern past—raise total output to provide not only for the current population increase but also for a rapidly rising supply per capita?62

In other words, diminishing returns from fixed resources are more than compensated for by the increasing returns of human ingenuity and by the ever more favorable conditions created by demographic growth.

62 S. Kuznets, Population, Capital and Growth (Norton, New York, 1973), p. 3.

[56] Book: Introduction to Environmental Economics (2nd edition). By Nick Hanley, Jason Shogren, and Ben White. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Page 272:

13.3.3 Real prices

Prices are well established in conventional microeconomics as indicators of scarcity. For natural resources, a rising real price has been argued by many to be a potentially good measure of increasing scarcity (e.g. Fisher, 1981). This will be so when prices signal all future and current opportunity costs of using up a unit of a non-renewable resource today. In basic versions of the Hotelling model, the price of a resource rises at the rate of interest along an Optimal depletion time path, until it is equal to the price of the “backstop resource”—its closest substitute.

Several empirical studies have looked at real price data. The earliest comprehensive study was by Barnett and Morse (1963), who found that for most primary products, real prices had remained approximately constant from 1870 to 1957. Slade (1982) suggested that the time path of prices might follow a U-shape, as an initial decline in prices due to technological progress was eventually overcome by the tendency for increasing cumulative production to increase costs, and by the desire of resource extractors to see user rents rising at the real rate of interest. Slade found that a U-shape fitted the price series of twelve materials better than a linear form, indicating that for aluminium, for example, real prices started to rise in the 1960s. Finally, Moazzami and Anderson (1994) repeated Slade’s analysis, using a somewhat different statistical technique. They found strong evidence of increasing scarcity for some materials (such as coal and copper), but only weak evidence of increasing scarcity for others (such as aluminium and iron).

But many criticisms can be levelled at the use of real prices as scarcity measures. First, the influence of producer cartels on prices of primary products can be significant, and yet not reflect scarcity changes. For example, the large oil price increases produced by OPEC [Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] in 1974 and 1979 were more to do with a voluntary reduction in supply to increase oil revenues than an increase in scarcity. Other commodities (such as tin) have been similarly affected. Second, governments intervene in resource markets, imposing price controls that distort price signals. An example here is the action taken by the United Kingdom government in the 1970s and 1980s to keep gas prices high, to reduce a loss in sales by the nationalized electricity companies (gas is a substitute for electricity in domestic heating and cooking). Tietenberg (1992) documents distortions caused by the imposition of maximum prices (price ceilings) by the US government for natural gas.

Third, natural resource prices do not measure social opportunity costs, partly because producers are not forced to pay for the environmental damage caused by the extraction and processing of these resources. For example, oil prices could be argued to be too low since not all of the external costs associated with oil-drilling and refining are imposed on producers; whilst a similar statement could be made for aluminium extraction (via bauxite-mining) and processing. Natural resource prices do not measure one element of social opportunity costs; namely, the environmental benefits forgone in their production.

[57] Dataset: “Real Commodity Prices, 1850–Present.” By David S. Jacks. National University of Singapore, Center for Economic and Policy Research, and National Bureau for Economic Research, February 2023. <davidjacks.org>

Tab: “Sub-indices”

NOTE: This dataset is an update of the working paper: “From Boom to Bust: A Typology of Real Commodity Prices in the Long Run.” By David S. Jacks. National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2018. <www.nber.org>. Page 1: “This paper considers the evidence on real commodity prices from 1900 to 2015 for 40 commodities, representing 8.72 trillion US dollars of production in 2011.”

[58] Dataset: “World Bank Commodity Price Data 1960 to Present, Real 2010 US Dollars.” World Bank, January 3, 2024. Accessed January 30, 2024 at <thedocs.worldbank.org>

[59] Article: “David Attenborough: ‘Humans Are a Plague on Earth.’ ” Radio Times, January 22, 2013.

<www.radiotimes.com>

“We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so,” warns David Attenborough in an interview…. “It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde,” says the natural history broadcaster…. “Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,” he says.

[60] Article: “David Attenborough.” Encyclopedia Britannica, July 20, 1998. <www.britannica.com>

“David Attenborough, in full Sir David Frederick Attenborough, (born May 8, 1926, London, England), English broadcaster, writer, and naturalist noted for his innovative educational television programs, especially the nine-part Life series … wrote (and narrated) a succession of award-winning television programs on anthropology and natural history….”

[61] Webpage: “Paul R. Ehrlich.” Stanford University. Accessed March 15, 2019 at <ccb.stanford.edu>

Emeritus Faculty, Acad Council, Biology Professor, Biology Senior Fellow, Emeritus, by Courtesy, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment …

Professor Ehrlich has received several honorary degrees, the John Muir Award of the Sierra Club, the Gold Medal Award of the World Wildlife Fund International, a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (given in lieu of a Nobel Prize in areas where the Nobel is not given), in 1993 the Volvo Environmental Prize, in 1994 the United Nations’ Sasakawa Environment Prize, in 1995 the Heinz Award for the Environment, in 1998 the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and the Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, in 1999 the Blue Planet Prize, in 2001 the Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America and the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and in 2009 the Margalef Prize in Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

[62] Curriculum Vitae: “Paul R. Ehrlich.” Stanford University, November 2018. <bit.ly>

“Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, 1966–2015 (emeritus 2016) … Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University, 1977–2015 (emeritus 2016) … President—Center for Conservation Biology, 1984–present”

[63] Article: “The Book That Incited a Worldwide Fear of Overpopulation.” By Charles C. Mann. Smithsonian, January 2018. <www.smithsonianmag.com>

As 1968 began, Paul Ehrlich was an entomologist at Stanford University, known to his peers for his groundbreaking studies of the co-evolution of flowering plants and butterflies but almost unknown to the average person. That was about to change. In May, Ehrlich released a quickly written, cheaply bound paperback, The Population Bomb. Initially it was ignored. But over time Ehrlich’s tract would sell millions of copies and turn its author into a celebrity. It would become one of the most influential books of the 20th century—and one of the most heatedly attacked.

[64] Book: The Population Bomb. By Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich. Ballantine Books, 1968.

Page xi:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate, although many lives could be saved through dramatic programs to “stretch” the carrying capacity of the earth by increasing food production. But these programs will only provide a stay of execution unless they are accompanied by determined and successful efforts at population control. Population control is the conscious regulation of the numbers of human beings to meet the needs, not just of individual families, but of society as a whole.

As the most powerful nation in the world today, and its largest consumer, the United States cannot stand isolated. … Our position requires that we take immediate action at home and promote effective action worldwide. We must have population control at home, hopefully through a system of incentives and penalties, but by compulsion if voluntary methods fail. We must use our political power to push other countries into programs which combine agricultural development and population control.

[65] Report: “World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030 – An FAO Perspective.” Edited by Jelle Bruinsma. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, 2003. <www.fao.org>

Page 29:

Food consumption, in terms of kcal/person/day,† is the key variable used for measuring and evaluating the evolution of the world food situation.1 The world has made significant progress in raising food consumption per person. It increased from an average of 2,360 kcal/person/day in the mid-1960s to 2,800 kcal/person/day currently (Table 2.1). This growth was accompanied by significant structural change. Diets shifted towards more livestock products, vegetable oils, etc. and away from staples such as roots and tubers (Tables 2.7, 2.8). The increase in world average kcal/person/ day would have been even higher but for the declines in the transition economies in the 1990s.

1 The more correct term for this variable would be “national average apparent food consumption,” since the data come from the national food balance sheets rather than from consumption surveys. The term “food consumption” is used in this sense here and in other chapters.

Data extracted from pages 30–31:

Table 2.1. Per capita food consumption (kcal/person/day) …

Table 2.2. Population living in countries with given per capita food consumption

Year

Food Consumption (kcal/person/day)

Population (millions)

World

Developing Countries

World

1964/66

2,358

2,054

3,325

1997/99

2,803

2,681

5,878

Increase‡

19%

31%

77%

NOTES:

  • † What people commonly call a “calorie” is actually 1,000 calories or a kilocalorie (kcal).
  • ‡ Calculated by Just Facts

[66] Calculated with the dataset: “Population, Total.” World Bank, December 18, 2023. Accessed January 30, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

“World … 2001 [=] 6,226,348,086 … 2021 [=] 7,888,305,693”

CALCULATION: (7,888,305,693 – 6,226,348,086) / 6,226,348,086 = 27%

[67] Dataset: “Prevalence of Undernourishment (% of Population).” World Bank, December 18, 2023. Accessed January 30, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

Prevalence of undernourishments is the percentage of the population whose habitual food consumption is insufficient to provide the dietary energy levels that are required to maintain a normal active and healthy life. Data showing as 2.5 may signify a prevalence of undernourishment below 2.5% …

Limitations and Exceptions: From a policy and program standpoint, this measure has its limits. First, food insecurity exists even where food availability is not a problem because of inadequate access of poor households to food. Second, food insecurity is an individual or household phenomenon, and the average food available to each person, even corrected for possible effects of low income, is not a good predictor of food insecurity among the population. And third, nutrition security is determined not only by food security but also by the quality of care of mothers and children and the quality of the household’s health environment (Smith and Haddad 2000). …

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Data on undernourishment are from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and measure food deprivation based on average food available for human consumption per person, the level of inequality in access to food, and the minimum calories required for an average person.

[68] Report: “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World: Urbanization, Agrifood Systems Transformation and Healthy Diets Across the Rural–Urban Continuum.” United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2023. <www.fao.org>

Page 180:

The entire series of PoU [prevalence of undernourishment] values is revised with each new edition of this report to reflect new data and information that FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] has obtained since the release of the previous edition. As this process usually implies backward revisions of the entire PoU series, readers are advised to refrain from comparing series across different editions of this report and should always refer to the current edition of the report, including for values in past years.

[69] This dataset, previously available at <data.worldbank.org>, was discontinued. Just Facts conducted a search of World Bank’s and the Food and Agriculture Organization’s databases on February 1, 2024 and was unable to find the same or similar data for later years.

[70] Calculated with the dataset: “Population, Total.” World Bank, December 18, 2023. Accessed January 30, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

“World … 1992 [=] 5,470,164,577 … 2016 [=] 7,490,415,449”

CALCULATION: (7,490,415,449 – 5,470,164,577) / 5,470,164,577 = 37%

[71] Dataset: “Depth of the Food Deficit (Kilocalories Per Person Per Day).” World Bank, June 28, 2018. <data.worldbank.org>

The depth of the food deficit indicates how many calories would be needed to lift the undernourished from their status, everything else being constant. The average intensity of food deprivation of the undernourished, estimated as the difference between the average dietary energy requirement and the average dietary energy consumption of the undernourished population (food-deprived), is multiplied by the number of undernourished to provide an estimate of the total food deficit in the country, which is then normalized by the total population.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization, Food Security Statistics. …

Aggregation Method: Weighted average

Development Relevance: The prevalence of undernourishment indicator provides only a partial picture of the food security situation. Recognizing this, FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] has compiled a preliminary set of food security indicators, available for most countries and years, to contribute to a more comprehensive assessment of the multiple dimensions and manifestations of food insecurity and to effective policies for more effective interventions and responses.

Long Definition: The depth of the food deficit indicates how many calories would be needed to lift the undernourished from their status, everything else being constant. The average intensity of food deprivation of the undernourished, estimated as the difference between the average dietary energy requirement and the average dietary energy consumption of the undernourished population (food-deprived), is multiplied by the number of undernourished to provide an estimate of the total food deficit in the country, which is then normalized by the total population.

Periodicity: Annual

Statistical Concept and Methodology: The indicator is calculated as an average over 3 years.

NOTES: As of February 2024, this is the latest available data from the World Bank or the Food and Agriculture Organization.

[72] Report: “The Future of Food and Agriculture—Trends and Challenges.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2017. <www.fao.org>

Page 85:

With the increases in food supply in recent decades, the world now produces more than enough food to satisfy the dietary needs of the entire global population. The average DES [dietary energy supply] per person per day in low- and middle-income countries is around 2750 kilocalories and in high-income countries it is around 3350 kilocalories. Both these figures exceed the minimum requirement of around 1950 kilocalories per person per day….6 The same applies to protein requirements.7

However, adequate food availability does not automatically imply adequate food intake by all. First, inequality in incomes and other means of subsistence explain large differences in access to food and why still hundreds of millions of people are undernourished. Second, poorer households tend to face impediments to the adequate utilization of food owing to lack of access to facilities, such as food storage, cooking equipment and clean water, and to services, such as health care and basic nutrition education. Third, the dietary transition is partially reflected in improved access to more nutritious foods, including meat, dairy products, fruits and vegetables, but not necessary in the right balance. Analyses based on household surveys, as well as the trends shown above based on the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] food balance sheets, suggest accelerated growth in consumption of meat and slower growth in consumption of fruits and vegetables.8 This trend, together with rapidly growing consumption of processed foods, often with excessive quantities of salt, sugar, and preservatives, has given rise to concerns over the shift towards less healthy diets and the increasing prevalence of micronutrient deficiency and overweight.

[73] Calculated with the dataset: “Population, Total.” World Bank, December 18, 2023. Accessed January 30, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

“World … 2001 [=] 6,226,348,086 … 2021 [=] 7,888,305,693”

CALCULATION: (7,888,305,693 – 6,226,348,086) / 6,226,348,086 = 27%

[74] Calculated with data from:

a) Report: “Statistical Yearbook: World Food and Agriculture 2022.” Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 2022. <www.fao.org>

Pages 275–279: “Table 42. Average Dietary Energy Supply (kcal per capita per day)”

b) Report: “Statistical Yearbook: World Food and Agriculture 2023.” Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 2023. <www.fao.org>

Pages 277–281: “Table 42. Average Dietary Energy Supply (kcal per capita per day)”

[75] Article: “Why Population Matters to Forests.” Population Action International, 2011. <bit.ly>

Deforestation threatens the well-being and livelihoods of millions of people who heavily depend on forest resources. It is particularly devastating for women and children in poor rural communities. Yet deforestation is occurring at alarmingly high rates, especially in areas of the world that have high levels of population growth.

Deforestation continues at high rates especially in developing countries, although there are indications of it slowing down at the global level. This loss is mainly occurring through the conversion of forests into agricultural land.

Demographic factors including population growth, density, distribution, migration, and urbanization are important drivers of deforestation. The top 10 countries experiencing the greatest forest loss have large populations, many of which continue to grow rapidly…. In general, areas of high population growth overlap with those that have experienced high forest loss over the years.

[76] Calculated with data from the report: “The State of the World’s Forests 2020: Forests, Biodiversity and People.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2020. <www.fao.org>

Page 11: “Table 1: Annual Rate of Forest Area Change … Net change rate (%/year) … 1990–2000 [=] –0.19 … 2010–2020 [=] –0.06”

CALCULATION: (0.19% – 0.06%) / 0.19% = 68%

[77] Report: “The State of the World’s Forests 2018—Forest Pathways to Sustainable Development.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2018. <www.fao.org>

Page 60: “2. The above-ground biomass stock in forests, comprising stems, stumps, branches, bark, seeds and foliage: biomass stock has remained stable since the 1990s.”

[78] Webpage: “Biomass Explained.” U.S. Energy Information Administration. Last updated June 21, 2018. <www.eia.gov>

“Biomass is organic material that comes from plants and animals, and it is a renewable source of energy. Biomass contains stored energy from the sun. Plants absorb the sun’s energy in a process called photosynthesis. When biomass is burned, the chemical energy in biomass is released as heat. Biomass can be burned directly or converted to liquid biofuels or biogas that can be burned as fuels.”

[79] Report: “Forests and Climate Change Working Paper 5—Definitional Issues Related to Reducing Emissions From Deforestation in Developing Countries.” By Dieter Schoene and others. United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2007. <www.fao.org>

Page 19:

Appendix 1: Glossary of Supporting Terms

Term … Above-ground biomass … Definition … All living biomass above the soil including stem, stump, branches, bark, seeds and foliage.

[80] Report: “The State of the World’s Forests 2018—Forest Pathways to Sustainable Development.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2018. <www.fao.org>

Page 61:

Forest Management Progress

[81] Report: “The State of the World’s Forests 2022: Forest Pathways for Green Recovery and Building Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable Economies.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2022. <www.fao.org>

Page 7:

According to the definition used in FAO’s [United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization] Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA), deforestation is “the conversion of forest to other land use independently of whether human-induced or not”.2 That is, deforestation is essentially referring to a change in land use, not in tree cover. Defining deforestation thus implies a definition of forest, which, in the FRA, combines physical criteria (minimum thresholds of 10 percent canopy cover, 0.5 [1.2 acres] ha in area and 5 m [16.4 feet] in height) and a notion of the predominant land use, excluding tree-covered areas where the predominant use is agriculture or urban; hence, the definition excludes plantations of agricultural tree crops (such as oil-palm plantations and orchards) as well as urban parks but includes various types of planted forests (including rubber plantations).3 Nevertheless, many technical and scientific studies do not use FAO’s definition but rather equate deforestation with tree-cover loss without taking land-use criteria into account. This approximation is used in remote-sensing-based methodologies for two reasons – it considers all tree cover (including tree-covered areas not meeting FAO’s forest definition); and it counts instances of non-permanent tree-cover loss (e.g. the clearfelling of a natural or planted forest that will later regrow, and the temporary consequences of a forest fire) as deforestation. When interpreting deforestation figures in different studies, therefore, users should be aware of the impacts of the definitions and tools used. …

Other wooded land. Worldwide, the area of other wooded land was estimated at 977 million ha in 2020, which was 7 percent of the total land area (and about one-quarter the area of the global forest area). …

Recent estimates based on FAO’s latest remote sensing survey suggest that the global area of other wooded land may be significantly higher than reported to FRA 2020.5

Other land with tree cover. Other land with tree cover has four subcategories: 1) trees in urban settings; 2) tree orchards; 3) palms; and 4) agroforestry (Figure 2). The area of palms more than doubled between 1990 and 2020, from 4.2 million ha to 9.3 million ha, based on the 83 countries that reported. Seventy-one countries and territories worldwide reported a total area of 45.4 million ha of agroforestry in 2020, mostly in Asia (31.2 million ha) and Africa (12.8 million ha) (there was also an estimated 1.28 million ha of agroforestry in North and Central America). In the 54 countries and territories that reported trend data on agroforestry, the area of land subject to this use increased by 4.21 million ha between 1990 and 2020, to 43.3 million ha. Most of the increase was in Asia and Africa.6 Note, however, that estimates based on FAO’s latest remote sensing survey suggest that the global area of other land with tree cover may be significantly higher than reported to FRA 2020.

[82] Report: “Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020: Terms and Definitions.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, February 14, 2018. <www.fao.org>

Page 4:

Forest

Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ [situated in the original place]. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.

Explanatory notes

1. Forest is determined both by the presence of trees and the absence of other predominant land uses. The trees should be able to reach a minimum height of 5 meters in situ.

2. Includes areas with young trees that have not yet reached but which are expected to reach a canopy cover of 10 percent and tree height of 5 meters. It also includes areas that are temporarily unstocked due to clear-cutting as part of a forest management practice or natural disasters, and which are expected to be regenerated within 5 years. Local conditions may, in exceptional cases, justify that a longer time frame is used.

3. Includes forest roads, firebreaks and other small open areas; forest in national parks, nature reserves and other protected areas such as those of specific environmental, scientific, historical, cultural or spiritual interest.

4. Includes windbreaks, shelterbelts and corridors of trees with an area of more than 0.5 hectares and width of more than 20 meters.

5. Includes abandoned shifting cultivation land with a regeneration of trees that have, or are expected to reach, a canopy cover of 10 percent and tree height of 5 meters.

6. Includes areas with mangroves in tidal zones, regardless whether this area is classified as land area or not.

7. Includes rubber-wood, cork oak and Christmas tree plantations.

8. Includes areas with bamboo and palms provided that land use, height and canopy cover criteria are met.

9. Includes areas outside the legally designated forest land which meet the definition of “forest”.

10. Excludes tree stands in agricultural production systems, such as fruit tree plantations, oil palm plantations, olive orchards and agroforestry systems when crops are grown under tree cover. Note: Some agroforestry systems such as the “Taungya” system where crops are grown only during the first years of the forest rotation should be classified as forest.

[83] Calculated with the dataset: “Population, Total.” World Bank. Last updated April 24, 2019. <data.worldbank.org>

“1982 [=] 4,599,238,699 … 2016 [=] 7,443,810,911”

CALCULATION: (7,443,810,911 – 4,599,238,699) / 4,599,238,699 = 62%

[84] Calculated with data from the paper: “Global Land Change From 1982 to 2016.” By Xiao-Peng Song and others. Nature, August 30, 2018. Pages 639–651. <www.nature.com>

Page 639:

Land change is a cause and consequence of global environmental change.1,2 Changes in land use and land cover considerably alter the Earth’s energy balance and biogeochemical cycles, which contributes to climate change and—in turn—affects land surface properties and the provision of ecosystem services.1–4 However, quantification of global land change is lacking. Here we analyse 35 years’ worth of satellite data and provide a comprehensive record of global land-change dynamics during the period 1982–2016. We show that—contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally5—tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2 (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics.

The total area of tree cover increased by 2.24 million km2 from 1982 to 2016 (90% confidence interval (CI): 0.93, 3.42 million km2), which represents a +7.1% change relative to 1982 tree cover….

Page 650: “Extended Data Table 1. Estimates of 1982 Land-Cover Area and 1982–2016 Land-Cover Change at Continental and Global Scales … Tree Canopy Cover … Area 1982 (103 km2) … Global [=] 31,628”

CALCULATIONS:

  • 0.93 million km2 increase / 31.63 million km2 tree cover in 1982 = 2.9%
  • 3.42 million km2 increase / 31.63 million km2 tree cover in 1982 = 10.8%

[85] Webpage: “Eileen Crist … About.” April 25, 2019. <eileencrist.com>

Eileen received her Bachelor’s from Haverford College in sociology in 1982 and her doctoral degree from Boston University in 1994, also in sociology, with a specialization in life sciences and society. Between 1989 and 1991 … she studied environmental evolution (Gaia theory)…. Following two post docs after graduating from Boston University (at University of California, San Diego and Cornell), she accepted a position at Virginia Tech in the Department of Science and Technology in Society where she has been teaching since 1997.

[86] Webpage: “Philip Cafaro … Biography.” Accessed July 22, 2019 at <www.philipcafaro.com>

I’m a philosophy professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. My scholarly work centers on environmental ethics, with particular interests in preserving wild nature, ending population growth and reducing excessive consumption. … I am an affiliated faculty member of CSU’s [Colorado State University] School of Global Environmental Sustainability and immediate past president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics.

[87] Book: Life on the Brink. Edited by Philip Cafaro and Eileen Crist. University of Georgia Press, 2012.

Chapter 1: “Human Population Growth as if the Rest of Life Mattered.” By Eileen Crist and Philip Cafaro. Pages 3–15.

Pages 3–4:

The explosion of humanity has decimated many animal and plant populations, extinguished species and subspecies, and caused collapsing ecologies, spreading bio-homogeneity, and the shrinking and fragmentation of wild places. The engine of this ruin has been the virtually unlimited appropriation of the natural world to serve a human project out of bounds. Ocean life has been reduced to food and bycatch; rainforests razed for meat, soybeans, palm oil, and timber; boreal and temperate forests cut down and exploited for their wood, pulp, and energy resources; mountains and underground shale detonated for coal and natural gas; deep-sea floor punctured for oil; grasslands overgrazed or converted into strictly human breadbaskets; and freshwaters channelized, dammed, dumped in, and overfished. Worldwide, animals are being exterminated at an unprecedented pace, either displaced or killed for their meat and lucrative body parts. Where natural areas and nonhuman beings do not suffer directly, they take indirect hits from climate change and pollution.

If humanity is to avoid committing interspecies genocide in the twenty-first century, we will have to make revolutionary changes in how we live on Earth—including limiting how many of us inhabit it.

[88] Webpage: “Dave Foreman.” Island Press. Accessed July 23, 2019 at <islandpress.org>

Dave Foreman … [has] had major [impact] on shaping the environmental and conservation movements of the last 30 years. Foreman began his environmental work with The Wilderness Society in the 1970s …. In the early 80s … he cofounded Earth First!. A decade later, he joined Michael Soule in forming The Wildlands Project…. Today, Foreman is Director of The Rewilding Institute, a non-profit conservation think tank … dedicated to developing and promoting the ideas, strategies, and vision of continental-scale conservation.

[89] Webpage: “Rewilding Board and Staff.” Rewilding Institute. Accessed July 23, 2019 at <rewilding.org>

“Dave Foreman, Founder”

[90] Book: Life on the Brink. Edited by Philip Cafaro and Eileen Crist. University of Georgia Press, 2012.

Chapter 5: “The Great Backtrack.” By Dave Foreman. Pages 56–71.

Pages 68–69:

The best beacons for the harm done by population growth are right before our noses: wholesale extinction, wrecked and plowed wildlands, and climate weirdness. But too many who are worried about such things do not see—or do not want to see—that it is the flood of new mouths that makes them happen.

And when we get right down to it, just freezing world and U.S. population is not nearly enough. … [T]here is really no choice but to sharply lower the population of Man over the next one or two hundred years. … [W]e must work to bring the population of Man down to about two billion, else we face utter ruin. … For the sake of wild things we must bring our population down to roughly two billion. For those of us now on Earth, we can begin to lay the groundwork for such a campaign. There is no better work before us.

[91] “The Global 2000 Report to the President: Entering the 21st Century (Volume II: The Technical Report).” Council on Environmental Quality and U.S. Department of State, 1980. <www.justfacts.com>

Page v:

On May 23, 1977, President Carter stated in his Environmental Message to the Congress:

Environmental problems do not stop at national boundaries. In the past decade, we and other nations have come to recognize the urgency of international efforts to protect our common environment.

As part of this process, I am directing the Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State, working in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other appropriate agencies, to make a one-year study of the probable changes in the world’s population, natural resources, and environment through the end of the century. This study will serve as the foundation of our longer-term planning.

Page x:

Literally hundreds of people contributed in one way or another to this Study, and at different points each contribution was vitally important. Initially, the members of the executive group (listed earlier) made the project possible by establishing guidelines and providing the necessary budget. …

The hardest work—the detailed preparation of the projections—was done by a group of experts, most of whom were already more than fully occupied with other work before this study came along, but somehow they managed to find time to complete their contributions to the study. These experts and their contributions are:

Pages xiii–xviii: “Informal Advisers to the Study”

[92] “The Global 2000 Report to the President: Entering the 21st Century (Volume II: The Technical Report).” Council on Environmental Quality and U.S. Department of State, 1980. <www.justfacts.com>

Page 331:

What then is a reasonable estimate of global extinctions by 2000? Given the amount of tropical forest already lost (which is important but often ignored), the extinctions can be estimated as shown in Table 13-30. In the low deforestation case, approximately 15 percent of the planet’s species can be expected to be lost. In the high deforestation case, perhaps as much as 20 percent will be lost. This means that of the 3–10 million species482 now present on the earth, at least 500,000–600,000 will be extinguished during the next two decades. The largest number of extinctions can be expected in the insect order—many of them beneficial species—simply because there are so very many species of insects. The next highest number of extinctions will be among plants. While the projected extinctions refer to all biota, they are much larger than the 1,000 bird and mammal species now recognized as endangered.483 Clearly the extinctions caused by human activities will rise to unprecedented rates by 2000.

[93] Book: 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: A Global Species Assessment. The World Conservation Union, 2004. <portals.iucn.org>

Page 46:

At least 27 species are recorded as having become Extinct or Extinct in the Wild during the last 20 years (1984–2004) (Tables 3.2 and 3.3). Inherent in identifying very recent extinctions is the problem of extinctions not being included because they are not yet confirmed. For example, eight species of birds are thought to have become Extinct or Extinct in the Wild over the past 20 years, but they are not included, as further research is needed prove the last individual has died (Box 3.2).

[94] Paper: “Historical Bird and Terrestrial Mammal Extinction Rates and Causes.” By Craig Loehle and Willis Eschenbach. Diversity and Distributions, October 13, 2011. Pages 84–91. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 84: “Only six continental birds and three continental mammals were recorded in standard databases as going extinct since 1500 compared to 123 bird species and 58 mammal species on islands.”

Page 87:

We can also evaluate continental extinction rates relative to the species pool. The three extinct mammals represent approximately 0.08% of the continental species pool. Even if we assume that all three went extinct in the past 100 years (vs. 500 year), it would take, at this rate, 1235 years for 1% of continental mammals to go extinct. Similarly for birds, the six species represent 0.062% of the 9672 species pool and it would take 1613 years to lose 1% of extant species at current rates even if the recorded extinctions all took place over the last 100 years.

Page 88:

Habitat loss has, of course, played a role in the extinction of some continental species. However, it is worth noting that to date, no continental mammal or bird in our databases has been documented to have gone extinct solely because of habitat reduction. …

Our results do not support statements or projections by others of grossly elevated extinction rates for continental bird and mammal fauna over the last 500 years compared with background rates.

[95] Paper: “Marine Defaunation: Animal Loss in the Global Ocean.” By Douglas J. McCauley and others. Science, January 16, 2015. Pages 1255641-1–7. <www.sciencemag.org>

Page 1255641-1: “The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) records only 15 global extinctions of marine animal species in the past 514 years (i.e., limit of IUCN temporal coverage) and none in the past five decades.8, 9

NOTE: The paper projects that mankind is going to cause “a major extinction” of marine animals. This article from Just Facts shows how that forecast is based on misleading claims and is inconsistent with the documented facts of this matter.

[96] Curriculum Vitae: “Paul R. Ehrlich.” Stanford University, November 2018. <bit.ly>

“Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, 1966–2015 (emeritus 2016) … Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University, 1977–2015 (emeritus 2016) … President—Center for Conservation Biology, 1984–present”

[97] Book: The End of Affluence: A Blueprint for Your Future. By Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. Ballantine Books, 1974.

Page 49:

What Will We Do When the Pumps Run Dry?

Assuming no serious attempt is made to reduce worldwide consumption, how long will mankind’s liquid petroleum supplies last?

The US is now using a third of all the world’s petroleum extracted each year. Our energy wastage is enormous…. Furthermore, some projections indicate that by shortly after the turn of the century, Americans alone will “demand” each year more than today’s annual world production. No reasonable supply–demand scenario can be created that will meet such demand. The figures presented in the previous section clearly show that by early in the twenty-first century, the era of pumping “black gold” out of the ground to fuel industrial societies will be coming to an end.

We can be reasonably sure, then, that within the next quarter of a century mankind will be looking elsewhere than in oil wells for its main source of energy.

[98] Calculated with the dataset: “Crude Oil Including Lease Condensate Production (Mb/D).” U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accessed February 1, 2024 at <www.eia.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[99] “WHO [World Health Organization] Director-General’s Opening Remarks at the Media Briefing on Covid-19.” World Health Organization, March 11, 2020. <www.who.int>

[Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus:] …

WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.

We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.

[100] Press release: “COVID-19 and Other Global Health Issues.” World Health Organization, May 5, 2023. <www.justfacts.com>

[Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus:] …

Yesterday, the Emergency Committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that advice. It’s therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency.

[101] See Just Facts’ in-depth research on petroleum.

[102] See Just Facts’ in-depth research on natural gas.

[103] See Just Facts’ in-depth research on coal.

[104] Webpage: “The Club of Rome.” Accessed March 27, 2019 at <www.clubofrome.org>

The Club of Rome … members are notable scientists, economists, businessmen and businesswomen, high level civil servants and former heads of state from around the world.

The Club … publishes a limited number of peer-reviewed “Reports to the Club of Rome,” the most famous of which is The Limits to Growth.

The Club of Rome’s mission is to promote understanding of the global challenges facing humanity and to propose solutions through scientific analysis, communication and advocacy.

Humanity faces an existential crisis. We face threats of systemic collapse on many fronts. … Decades of exponential growth in both population and consumption are now colliding with the limits of the Earth’s biosphere destabilizing the very foundations of intelligent life as we know it today.

[105] Webpage: “Publication of The Limits to Growth.” Club of Rome. Accessed March 27, 2019 at <www.clubofrome.org>

The Limits to Growth was the first study to question the viability of continued growth in the human ecological footprint. … Translated into over 30 languages, the book has sold more than 16 million copies.”

[106] Book: The Limits to Growth. By Donella H. Meadows and others. Universe Books, 1972. <www.donellameadows.org>

Pages 54–55:

Even taking into account such economic factors as increased prices with decreasing availability, it would appear at present that the quantities of platinum, gold, zinc, and lead are not sufficient to meet demands. At the present rate of expansion … silver, tin, and uranium may be in short supply even at higher prices by the turn of the century. By the year 2050, several more minerals may be exhausted if the current rate of consumption continues.

Despite spectacular recent discoveries, there are only a limited number of places left to search for most minerals. Geologists disagree about the prospects for finding large, new, rich ore deposits. Reliance on such discoveries would seem unwise in the long term.12

12 First Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1970), p. 158.†

Page 66: “Given present resource consumption rates and the projected increase in these rates, the great majority of the currently important nonrenewable resources will be extremely costly 100 years from now.”

† NOTE: This report is available at <www.slideshare.net>

[107] Article: “Future Global Mineral Resources.” By Nicholas T. Arndt and others. Geochemical Perspectives, April 2017. <www.geochemicalperspectives.org>

Page 1: “Some … have been led to believe that the world is rapidly running out of the metals on which our modern society is based. … Yet, despite ever-increasing production and consumption, supplies of minerals have continued to meet the needs of industry and society, and lifetimes of reserves remain similar to what they were 30–40 years ago.”

Page 2: “Over the last 150 years, improved technologies, economies of scale and increased efficiency have combined to reduce costs hence allowing lower-grade ore to be mined economically. The net result is that the long-term inflation-adjusted price of most metals has decreased more or less in parallel with increasing production….”

[108] Report: “Critical Mineral Resources of the United States—Economic and Environmental Geology and Prospects for Future Supply.” Edited by Klaus J. Schulz and others. U.S. Geological Survey, 2017. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Page A2: “Many of these studies, however, used estimates of mineral reserves (the economically extractable portion of resources at the time of determination) as a proxy for the Earth’s resources, including those that have been discovered (identified resources), which, in turn, include those that are economic to produce (reserves) (Meadows and others, 1972; Cohen, 2007).”

Page A4: “[R]eserves. Identified resources that meet specified minimum physical and chemical criteria related to current mining and production practices and that can be economically extracted or produced at the time of determination.”

[109] Webpage: “Lawrence D. Meinert, Ph.D.” U.S. Geological Survey. Accessed April 27, 2017 at <bit.ly>

“Acting Deputy Associate Director … Energy and Minerals Mission Area”

[110] Article: “Mined Into Extinction: Is the World Running Out of Critical Minerals?” By Julian Turner. Mining Technology, April 9, 2017. <www.mining-technology.com>

Meinert is quick to make the distinction between “reserves,” minerals identified in location and quantity therefore relatively easy to factor into supply chains and rates of consumption, and “resources,” which often cannot be quantified without long-term geologic and geophysical study.

It is very important to understand that neither ‘reserves’ nor ‘resources’ are the same as ‘all there is,’ ” says Meinhart, so just because a mineral … is no longer commercially available does not necessarily mean that it is terminally depleted, simply that greater effort may be required to find it.

“Minerals are not something we run out of,” he adds. “If you go to the kitchen and discover you have run out of salt, it does not mean that salt does not exist on planet Earth….”

“World reserves of almost all commodities are greater now than they were 50 or 100 years ago even though large amounts have been produced. This is because the time value of money leads most companies to only drill out 20 or 30 years’ worth of reserves even though much larger resources might be available. Some mines have had 20 years’ worth of ‘reserves’ for more than a century.”

[111] Report: “Critical Mineral Resources of the United States—Economic and Environmental Geology and Prospects for Future Supply.” Edited by Klaus J. Schulz and others. U.S. Geological Survey, 2017. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Pages A4–A5:

The development of mineral resources into the category of reserves requires the creation of facilities to extract the ore, process it into a mineral product, and transport that product to the user. Although the quantity of production is a flow measure (amount per unit time—for example, tons per month or tons per year), the estimates of the amount available in each resource category (a stock variable) also changes over time as production removes part of the resource; additional exploration results in the discovery of new deposits and provides new information about previously discovered deposits; advances in technology affect the costs and methods of mining, processing, and use; and changes in market conditions affect the economic viability of production. For example, in 1973, world reserves of cobalt were estimated to be 2.5 million metric tons of contained cobalt (U.S. Bureau of Mines, 1973, p. 39). Since then, more than 2.0 million metric tons of cobalt has been mined worldwide, yet world reserves of cobalt in 2015 were estimated to be 7.2 million metric tons of cobalt, which is almost triple the amount estimated in 1973, despite the depletion by mining of an amount equivalent to 80 percent of the 1973 reserve estimate (Shedd, 2015, 2016; U.S. Geological Survey, 2015a).

[112] Report: “Critical Mineral Resources of the United States—Economic and Environmental Geology and Prospects for Future Supply.” Edited by Klaus J. Schulz and others. U.S. Geological Survey, 2017. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Page A1: “Although most mineral commodities are present in sufficient amounts in the earth to provide adequate supplies for many years to come, their availability can be affected by such factors as social constraints, politics, laws, environmental regulations, land-use restrictions, economics, and infrastructure.”

Page A2:

In the 1970s, concerns regarding the adequacy of future supplies of minerals were raised owing to a perceived lack of world resources. Based on their finite occurrence, “limits to supply” of nonrenewable resources, such as minerals, was most famously predicted in a report by the Club of Rome (Meadows and others, 1972). The concerns raised in that report were based partly on results of previous studies. For example, the time-series analysis of metal production in mining districts of Europe by Hewett (1929) demonstrated cyclical patterns that were subsequently applied to the production histories of other nonfuel minerals and energy minerals (Lasky, 1951, 1955; Hubbert, 1956; Pazik, 1976). This type of analysis formed the basis of numerous studies that predicted that the highest level of production of some mineral commodities may soon be reached and that production is likely to decline from then on. This approach to studying future resource availability is often termed “peak minerals.” Many of these studies, however, used estimates of mineral reserves (the economically extractable portion of resources at the time of determination) as a proxy for the Earth’s resources, including those that have been discovered (identified resources), which, in turn, include those that are economic to produce (reserves) (Meadows and others, 1972; Cohen, 2007). This approach is flawed, because estimates of mineral reserves are a function of economic factors, such as metal prices and costs of recovery, which can vary considerably over time. New geologic knowledge can result in changes to estimates of identified resources, including those identified resources that are economic (reserves) changing as well (Rustad, 2012; Gold, 2014; Meinert and others, 2016). Likewise, both the development of new extractive technologies and increased metal prices have resulted in mineral deposits previously considered subeconomic or marginally economic becoming viable sources for mineral production. In addition, improved methodologies for estimating undiscovered mineral resources, the discovery of new mineral deposit types, improved recycling technologies, higher processing efficiency, and longer product life have all helped allay fears that we are near peak supply of most mineral commodities. Today, therefore, it is generally recognized that, although mineral commodities are mostly nonrenewable on human time scales and are inherently finite, fears of resource depletion for most mineral commodities anytime soon are unwarranted.

[113] Report: “Critical Mineral Resources of the United States—Economic and Environmental Geology and Prospects for Future Supply.” Edited by Klaus J. Schulz and others. U.S. Geological Survey, 2017. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Page A2: “[T]he availability of mineral commodities is not just a function of geologic accessibility but of such factors as social constraints, politics, laws, environmental regulations, land restrictions, economics, and infrastructure.”

Pages A4–A5:

The development of mineral resources into the category of reserves requires the creation of facilities to extract the ore, process it into a mineral product, and transport that product to the user. Although the quantity of production is a flow measure (amount per unit time—for example, tons per month or tons per year), the estimates of the amount available in each resource category (a stock variable) also changes over time as production removes part of the resource; additional exploration results in the discovery of new deposits and provides new information about previously discovered deposits; advances in technology affect the costs and methods of mining, processing, and use; and changes in market conditions affect the economic viability of production. For example, in 1973, world reserves of cobalt were estimated to be 2.5 million metric tons of contained cobalt (U.S. Bureau of Mines, 1973, p. 39). Since then, more than 2.0 million metric tons of cobalt has been mined worldwide, yet world reserves of cobalt in 2015 were estimated to be 7.2 million metric tons of cobalt, which is almost triple the amount estimated in 1973, despite the depletion by mining of an amount equivalent to 80 percent of the 1973 reserve estimate (Shedd, 2015, 2016; U.S. Geological Survey, 2015a).

[114] Book: The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble Over Earth’s Future. By Paul Sabin. Yale University Press, 2013.

Page xi: “The rancorous clash between the biologist Paul Ehrlich and the economist Julian Simon offers a window into this gaping political divide.”

Page 4:

In 1980, Simon challenged Ehrlich in Social Science Quarterly to a contest that directly tested their competing visions of the future, one apocalyptic and fearful of human excess, the other optimistic and bullish about human progress.

Ehrlich agreed to bet Simon that the cost of chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten would increase in the next decade. It was a simple thousand-dollar wager: five industrial metals, ten years, prices up or down. At the same time, the bet stood for much more. Ehrlich thought rising metal prices would prove that population growth caused resource scarcity, bolstering his call for government-led population control and for limits on resource consumption. Ehrlich’s conviction reflected a more general sense after the 1973 Arab oil embargo that the world risked running out of vital resources and faced hard limits to growth. Simon argued that markets and new technologies would drive prices down, proving that society did not face resource constraints and that human welfare was on a path of steady improvement. The outcome of the bet would either provide ammunition for Ehrlich’s campaign against population growth and environmental calamity or promote Simon’s optimism about human resourcefulness through new technologies and market forces.

[115] Article: “Beyond the Bet: Recollections of Julian Simon.” University of Maryland, August 12, 2015. <www.rhsmith.umd.edu>

U.S. oil prices fell to a six-year low on Aug. 11, 2015, and one person not surprised would be Julian L. Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business who died in 1998. When many scholars predicted ever-dwindling oil supplies, Simon argued that market forces would encourage innovation in extraction and energy alternatives.

[116] Article: “The Book That Incited a Worldwide Fear of Overpopulation.” By Charles C. Mann. Smithsonian, January 2018. <www.smithsonianmag.com>

As 1968 began, Paul Ehrlich was an entomologist at Stanford University, known to his peers for his groundbreaking studies of the co-evolution of flowering plants and butterflies but almost unknown to the average person. That was about to change. In May, Ehrlich released a quickly written, cheaply bound paperback, The Population Bomb. Initially it was ignored. But over time Ehrlich’s tract would sell millions of copies and turn its author into a celebrity. It would become one of the most influential books of the 20th century—and one of the most heatedly attacked.

[117] Paper: “How the World Survived the Population Bomb: Lessons From 50 Years of Extraordinary Demographic History.” By David Lam. Demography, November 2011. Pages 1231–1262. <link.springer.com>

Pages 1241–1242:

I now turn to the concern that rapid population growth would cause depletion of essential nonrenewable resources. To economists, the best place to look for evidence of increasing resource scarcity is in resource prices. Non-economists don’t always agree with this view, but to economists, it’s hard to develop a model in which a resource that is about to be depleted has a price that is declining, especially a resource owned by private individuals or governments.

[I]t is useful to bring up Julian Simon. … His 1981 book, The Ultimate Resource, was filled with graphs of things like the price of coal and copper over time. The overall pattern was of falling prices, although with lots of short-term volatility. … The “ultimate resource” of the book’s title is human ingenuity, which Simon argued is never in short supply and always generates solutions to the pressures created by population growth.

Simon offered to bet that the price of any mineral would decline in the future…. Ehrlich and some Stanford colleagues famously took Simon up on his bet, choosing five metals—chromium, nickel, copper, tin, and tungsten—and the future date of 1990…. Simon bet that the amount of the five metals that could be purchased for $1,000 in 1980 would cost less than $1,000 in 1990, adjusting for inflation. … The inflation-adjusted price of each metal declined between 1980 and 1990. The amount of tungsten one could buy for $200 in 1980 cost $86 in 1990, adjusted for inflation. The amount of tin, copper, nickel, and chromium that could be bought for $200 in 1980 fell to $56, $163, $193, and $120, respectively. The total cost of the five metals fell from $1,000 to $618, a 38% decline. Ehrlich wrote Simon a check for the difference.

[118] Calculated with the dataset: “Total Population (Both Sexes Combined) by Region, Subregion and Country, Annually for 1950–2100 (Thousands).” United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, June 2017. <population.un.org>

“World … 1980 [=] 4,458,412 … 1990 [=] 5,330,943”

CALCULATION: (5,330,943 – 4,458,412) / 4,458,412 = 20%

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[119] Calculated with data from:

a) Report: “Metal Prices in the United States Through 2010.” U.S. Geological Survey, March 5, 2013. Revised 1/27/2015. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Page 36: “Table 3. Chromium metal value (Values in dollars per metric ton, gross weight)”
Pages 50–51: “Table 1. Annual average U.S. producer copper price (Values in cents per pound)”

Pages 112–113: “Table 1. Annual average nickel price (Values in dollars per pound)”

Page 183: “Table 1. Annual average U.S. tin price (Values in dollars per pound)”

Page 193: “Table 1. Annual average tungsten price (Values in dollars per short ton unit)”

b) Dataset: “CPI—All Urban Consumers (Current Series).” U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Accessed February 1, 2019 at <www.bls.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[120] Calculated with data from:

a) Report: “Metal Prices in the United States Through 2010.” U.S. Geological Survey, March 5, 2013. Revised 1/27/2015. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Page 36: “Table 3. Chromium metal value (Values in dollars per metric ton, gross weight)”
Pages 50–51: “Table 1. Annual average U.S. producer copper price (Values in cents per pound)”

Pages 112–113: “Table 1. Annual average nickel price (Values in dollars per pound)”

Page 183: “Table 1. Annual average U.S. tin price (Values in dollars per pound)”

Page 193: “Table 1. Annual average tungsten price (Values in dollars per short ton unit)”

b) Dataset: “CPI—All Urban Consumers (Current Series).” U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Accessed February 1, 2019 at <www.bls.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[121] Paper: “How the World Survived the Population Bomb: Lessons From 50 Years of Extraordinary Demographic History.” By David Lam. Demography, November 2011. Pages 1231–1262. <link.springer.com>

Page 1242:

The big picture of commodity prices is a bit more complicated than this 10-year bet implies. … Prices rose in the 1960s and 1970s (the average almost doubled), perhaps the reason the Ehrlich team picked them. Prices fell in the 1980s (except for a spike around 1989), and fell still further in the 1990s. The bundle purchased for $1,000 in 1980 cost only $415 in 2000 (in 1980 prices). We also see a lot of volatility: these are traded in commodity markets with lots of speculation and short-term price movements. … Simon would have lost $200 if the bet had ended in 2007 (prices were about 20% higher than 1980), although evidence of the volatility is that he would have won $200 if the bet had ended in 2009 (prices were about 20% lower than 1980). The big picture is that these important nonrenewable resources cost about the same today as they did 50 years ago, despite the addition of 4 billion people.

[122] Resolution: “Population and Environment” Sierra Club Board of Directors, June 4, 1970. Amended July 8, 1995.

The Sierra Club endorses [the following] resolution from the organization Zero Population Growth concerning measures to inhibit population growth. In essence, the resolution parallels an earlier Sierra Club statement of policy:

Whereas, every human being and every American, present and future, has a right to a world with a healthy environment, clean air and water, uncluttered land, adequate food, sufficient open space, natural beauty, wilderness and wildlife in variety and abundance, and an opportunity to gain an appreciation of the natural world and our place in it through firsthand experience, and

Whereas, population growth is directly involved in the pollution and degradation of our environment—air, water and land—and intensifies physical, psychological, social, political, and economic problems to the extent that the well-being of individuals, the stability of society, and our very survival are threatened, and

Whereas, human populations are making ever increasing demands upon irreplaceable natural materials and energy sources, and

Whereas, the protection of the quality of our environment is impossible in the face of the present rate of population growth, including that in the United States, despite the advanced state of technology and the growing affluence of some segments of human society,

Be it resolved by the undersigned organizations—

That we must find, encourage, and implement at the earliest possible time the necessary policies, attitudes, social standards, and actions that will, by voluntary and humane means consistent with human rights and individual conscience, bring about the stabilization of the population first of the United States and then of the world;

That pursuant to this goal, families should not have more than two natural children and adoption should be encouraged;

That state and federal laws should be changed to encourage small families and to discourage large families;

That laws, policies, and attitudes that foster population growth or big families, or that restrict abortion and contraception, or that attempt to constrict the roles of men and women, should be abandoned;

That comprehensive and realistic birth-control programs should be available to every member of our society;

That environmental, population, and sex education should be readily available;

That there should be increased research into the sociology of population stabilization and into the improvement of contraceptive technology;

That private and governmental departments, commissions, and committees should be created to deal effectively with the population problem; and

That the foreign policy of the United States should reflect the urgent realities of the population-environment crisis.

[123] Calculated with the dataset: “Table 7.1. Selected Per Capita Product and Income Series in Current and Chained Dollars.” U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. Last revised January 25, 2024. <apps.bea.gov>

Line 18: “Population (Midperiod, Thousands)”

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[124] Report: “The Plain English Guide to the Clean Air Act.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, April 2007. <www.epa.gov>

Page 4:

Six common air pollutants (also known as “criteria pollutants”) are found all over the United States. They are particle pollution (often referred to as particulate matter), ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and lead. These pollutants can harm your health and the environment, and cause property damage. …

EPA calls these pollutants “criteria” air pollutants because it regulates them by developing human health-based and/or environmentally-based criteria (science-based guidelines) for setting permissible levels. The set of limits based on human health is called primary standards. Another set of limits intended to prevent environmental and property damage is called secondary standards. A geographic area with air quality that is cleaner than the primary standard is called an “attainment” area; areas that do not meet the primary standard are called “nonattainment” areas.

[125] Webpage: “What Are the Six Common Air Pollutants?” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last updated September 18, 2015. <www.epa.gov>

“For each of these [criteria] pollutants, EPA tracks two kinds of air pollution trends: air concentrations based on actual measurements of pollutant concentrations in the ambient (outside) air at selected monitoring sites throughout the country, and emissions based on engineering estimates of the total tons of pollutants released into the air each year.”

[126] U.S. Code, Title 42, Chapter 85, Subchapter I, Part A, Section 7403: “Research, Investigation, Training, and Other Activities.” Accessed February 6, 2024 at <www.law.cornell.edu>

(a) Research and Development Program for Prevention and Control of Air Pollution

The Administrator shall establish a national research and development program for the prevention and control of air pollution….

(c) Air Pollutant Monitoring, Analysis, Modeling, and Inventory Research

In carrying out subsection (a), the Administrator shall conduct a program of research, testing, and development of methods for sampling, measurement, monitoring, analysis, and modeling of air pollutants.

[127] U.S. Code, Title 42, Chapter 85, Subchapter I, Part A, Section 7408: “Air Quality Criteria and Control Techniques.” Accessed February 6, 2024 at <www.law.cornell.edu>

(a) Air Pollutant List; Publication and Revision by Administrator; Issuance of Air Quality Criteria for Air Pollutants

(1) For the purpose of establishing national primary and secondary ambient air quality standards, the Administrator shall within 30 days after December 31, 1970, publish, and shall from time to time thereafter revise, a list which includes each air pollutant—

(A) emissions of which, in his judgment, cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare;

(B) the presence of which in the ambient air results from numerous or diverse mobile or stationary sources; and

(C) for which air quality criteria had not been issued before December 31, 1970 but for which he plans to issue air quality criteria under this section.

[128] Report: “EPA’s Regulation of Coal-Fired Power: Is a ‘Train Wreck’ Coming?” By James E. McCarthy and Claudia Copeland. Congressional Research Service, August 8, 2011. <www3.epa.gov>

Pages 17–18:

In essence, NAAQS [National Ambient Air Quality Standards] are standards that define what EPA considers to be clean air. Their importance stems from the long and complicated implementation process that is set in motion by their establishment. Once NAAQS have been set, EPA, using monitoring data and other information submitted by the states to identify areas that exceed the standards and must, therefore, reduce pollutant concentrations to achieve them. State and local governments then have three years to produce State Implementation Plans which outline the measures they will implement to reduce the pollution levels in these “nonattainment” areas. Nonattainment areas are given anywhere from three to 20 years to attain the standards, depending on the pollutant and the severity of the area’s pollution problem.

EPA also acts to control many of the NAAQS pollutants wherever they are emitted through national standards for certain products that emit them (particularly mobile sources, such as automobiles) and emission standards for new stationary sources, such as power plants.

In the 1970s, EPA identified six pollutants or groups of pollutants for which it set NAAQS.41 But that was not the end of the process. When it gave EPA the authority to establish NAAQS, Congress anticipated that the understanding of air pollution’s effects on public health and welfare would change with time, and it required that EPA review the standards at five-year intervals and revise them, as appropriate.

[129] Report: “Primary National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Nitrogen Dioxide; Final Rule (Part III).” Federal Register (Vol. 75, No. 26), February 9, 2010. <www3.epa.gov>

Page 6478: “NAAQS decisions can have profound impacts on public health and welfare, and NAAQS decisions should be based on studies that have been rigorously assessed in an integrative manner not only by EPA but also by the statutorily mandated independent advisory committee, as well as the public review that accompanies this process.”

[130] Calculated with the dataset: “CO Air Quality, 1980–2022, National Trend Based on 32 Sites (Annual 2nd Maximum 8-hour Average).” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed February 7, 2024 at <www.epa.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[131] Calculated with the dataset: “Ozone Air Quality, 1980–2022, National Trend Based on 132 Sites (Annual 4th Maximum of Daily Max 8-Hour Average).” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed February 6, 2024 at <www.epa.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[132] Calculated with the dataset: “Lead Air Quality, 1980–2022, National Trend Based on 81 Sites (Annual Maximum 3-Month Average).” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed February 8, 2024 at <www.epa.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[133] Calculated with the dataset: “Nitrogen Dioxide Air Quality, 1980–2022, National Trend Based on 20 Sites (Annual 98th Percentile of Daily Max 1-Hour Average).” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed February 8, 2024 at <www.epa.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[134] Calculated with the dataset: “PM10 Air Quality, 1990–2022, National Trend based on 83 Sites (Annual 2nd Maximum 24-Hour Average).” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed February 8, 2024 at <www.epa.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[135] Calculated with the dataset: “PM2.5 Air Quality, 2000–2022, National Trend Based on 361 Sites (Seasonally-Weighted Annual Average).” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed February 8, 2024 at <www.epa.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[136] Calculated with the dataset: “SO2 Air Quality, 1980–2022, National Trend Based on 29 Sites (Annual 99th Percentile of Daily Max 1-Hour Average).” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Accessed February 9, 2024 at <www.epa.gov>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[137] Article: “Scientific Survey Shows Voters Widely Accept Misinformation Spread By the Media.” By James D. Agresti. Just Facts, January 2, 2020. <www.justfacts.com>

The findings are from a nationally representative annual survey commissioned by Just Facts, a non-profit research and educational institute. The survey was conducted by Triton Polling & Research, an academic research firm that used sound methodologies to assess U.S. residents who regularly vote. …

The survey was conducted by Triton Polling & Research, an academic research firm that serves scholars, corporations, and political campaigns. The responses were obtained through live telephone surveys of 700 likely voters across the U.S. during December 2–11, 2019. This sample size is large enough to accurately represent the U.S. population. Likely voters are people who say they vote “every time there is an opportunity” or in “most” elections.

The margin of sampling error for the total pool of respondents is ±4% with at least 95% confidence. The margins of error for the subsets are 6% for Democrat voters, 6% for Trump voters, 5% for males, 5% for females, 12% for 18 to 34 year olds, 5% for 35 to 64 year olds, and 6% for 65+ year olds.

The survey results presented in this article are slightly weighted to match the ages and genders of likely voters. The political parties and geographic locations of the survey respondents almost precisely match the population of likely voters. Thus, there is no need for weighting based upon these variables.
 

NOTE: For facts about what constitutes a scientific survey and the factors that impact their accuracy, visit Just Facts’ research on Deconstructing Polls & Surveys.

[138] Dataset: “Just Facts’ 2019 U.S. Nationwide Survey.” Just Facts, January 2020. <www.justfacts.com>

Page 4:

Q13: Now, just thinking about the United States, in your opinion, is the air generally more polluted than it was in the 1980s?

Yes [=] 39.5%

No [=] 56%

Unsure [=] 4.5%

[139] For facts about how surveys work and why some are accurate while others are not, click here.

[140] U.S. Code, Title 42, Chapter 85, Subchapter I, Part A, Section 7412: “Hazardous Air Pollutants.” Accessed February 9, 2024 at <www.law.cornell.edu>

(b) List of Pollutants

(1) Initial List

The Congress establishes for purposes of this section a list of hazardous air pollutants as follows: …

(2) Revision of the List

The Administrator shall periodically review the list established by this subsection and publish the results thereof and, where appropriate, revise such list by rule, adding pollutants which present, or may present, through inhalation or other routes of exposure, a threat of adverse human health effects (including, but not limited to, substances which are known to be, or may reasonably be anticipated to be, carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, neurotoxic, which cause reproductive dysfunction, or which are acutely or chronically toxic) or adverse environmental effects whether through ambient concentrations, bioaccumulation, deposition, or otherwise, but not including releases subject to regulation under subsection (r) as a result of emissions to the air. …

(3) Petitions to Modify the List

(A) Beginning at any time after 6 months after November 15, 1990, any person may petition the Administrator to modify the list of hazardous air pollutants under this subsection by adding or deleting a substance or, in case of listed pollutants without CAS numbers (other than coke oven emissions, mineral fibers, or polycyclic organic matter) removing certain unique substances. Within 18 months after receipt of a petition, the Administrator shall either grant or deny the petition by publishing a written explanation of the reasons for the Administrator’s decision. Any such petition shall include a showing by the petitioner that there is adequate data on the health or environmental defects [2] of the pollutant or other evidence adequate to support the petition. The Administrator may not deny a petition solely on the basis of inadequate resources or time for review. …

(d) Emission Standards

(1) In General

The Administrator shall promulgate regulations establishing emission standards for each category or subcategory of major sources and area sources of hazardous air pollutants listed for regulation pursuant to subsection (c) in accordance with the schedules provided in subsections (c) and (e).

[141] Website: “Health and Environmental Effects of Hazardous Air Pollutants.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last updated February 9, 2024. <www.epa.gov>

People exposed to toxic air pollutants at sufficient concentrations and durations may have an increased chance of getting cancer or experiencing other serious health effects. These health effects can include damage to the immune system, as well as neurological, reproductive (e.g., reduced fertility), developmental, respiratory and other health problems. In addition to exposure from breathing air toxics, some toxic air pollutants such as mercury can deposit onto soils or surface waters, where they are taken up by plants and ingested by animals and are eventually magnified up through the food chain. Like humans, animals may experience health problems if exposed to sufficient quantities of air toxics over time.

[142] “EPA’s Report on the Environment.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2008. <ofmpub.epa.gov>

Page 2-48: “Toxic air pollutants, also known as air toxics or hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), are those pollutants that are known or suspected to cause cancer or are associated with other serious health (e.g., reproductive problems, birth defects) or ecological effects.”

[143] “Report on the Environment: Air Toxics Emissions.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last updated August 23, 2022. <cfpub.epa.gov>

“1990–1993 is considered the baseline period for air toxics emissions. The baseline period spans multiple years due to the availability of emissions data for various source categories. The data presented for the baseline period are annual emissions (thousand tons per year) and are therefore comparable to the 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, and 2014 data.”

[144] Calculated with data from: “Report on the Environment: Air Toxics Emissions.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, June 2018. <cfpub.epa.gov>

“Exhibit 3. Emissions of selected air toxins in the U.S. by source category, 1990–2014.”

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[145] “EPA’s Report on the Environment: Air Toxics Emissions.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last updated June 26, 2018. <cfpub.epa.gov>

Page 2 (of PDF):

Exhibit 3 shows emissions trends for seven pollutants believed to be among the pollutants that contribute to the greatest cancer and noncancer risks that are attributed to air toxics, according to an EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] assessment (U.S. EPA, 2018c). … Estimated emissions decreased between the baseline period (1990–1993) and 2014 for five of the seven air toxics with data for this time frame: acrolein (7 percent), benzene (58 percent), 1,3-butadiene (45 percent), carbon tetrachloride (98 percent), and tetrachloroethylene (97 percent). Acetaldehyde increased by 40 percent and formaldehyde emissions increased by 6 percent during this time frame, and the increased emissions of both pollutants were driven both by methodological changes and contributions from forest wildfires and prescribed burns.

[146] Webpage: “World Population Projected to Reach 9.8 Billion in 2050, and 11.2 Billion in 2100.” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, June 21, 2017. <www.un.org>

“The concentration of global population growth in the poorest countries presents a considerable challenge to governments in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which seeks to end poverty and hunger, expand and update health and education systems, achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment, reduce inequality and ensure that no one is left behind.”

[147] Book: Conserving the Peace: Resources, Livelihoods and Security. Edited by Richard Matthew, Mark Halle, and Jason Switzer. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2002. Chapter: “Natural Resource Scarcity and Violence in Rwanda.” By James K. Gasana. Pages 199–246. <www.iisd.org>

Page 201: “Former minister in the government of Rwanda (resigned, 1993), he has extensive field experience in the planning and implementation of natural resource management and integrated rural development projects; in national planning of the rural sector; and in managing negotiation processes to settle socio-political conflicts.”

Page 230:

As regards lessons learned, four aspects seem to be relevant. First rapid population growth is the major driving force behind the vicious circle of environmental scarcities and rural poverty. The dynamics of this growth exerted an enormous pressure on natural resources and caused an imbalance between demand and supply, the rapid decline of agricultural productivity and the decrease of food availability. It induced the use of marginal lands on steep hillsides, shortening of fallow, conversion of pasturelands to crop production, deforestation and soil degradation.

[148] Article: “Population and Development.” By Babatunde Osotimehin. Science, July 29, 2011. <science.sciencemag.org>

Babatunde Osotimehin is Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

As the world’s population reaches 7 billion this year, we should reflect on the many ways in which population dynamics matter to the planet’s future. Population growth patterns are linked to nearly every challenge confronting humanity, including poverty reduction, urban pollution, energy production, food and water scarcity, and health. With world population projected to surpass 9 billion by 2050, these issues and the desire to raise living standards at the same time will create a huge challenge. What immediate actions can be taken to deal with growth while ensuring a sustainable future for all of the world’s inhabitants?

[149] Press release: “UNFPA and Rotary Renew Cooperation on Population and Development Issues.” United Nations Population Fund, February 5, 2003. <www.unfpa.org>

“We are most pleased to continue our working partnership with Rotary International to tackle the critical population issues facing our human family,” said UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund] Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid. “We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction unless we address issues of population and reproductive health.”

[150] Calculated with data from:

a) Dataset: “Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Median 1950–2100.” United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <population.un.org>

“Tab: Data”

b) Dataset: “Poverty Headcount Ratio at $2.15 a Day (2017 PPP) (% of Population).” World Bank, February 12, 2024. Accessed February 21, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

“Poverty headcount ratio at $2.15 a day is the percentage of the population living on less than $2.15 a day at 2017 purchasing power adjusted prices. As a result of revisions in PPP [purchasing power parity] exchange rates, poverty rates for individual countries cannot be compared with poverty rates reported in earlier editions. … The current extreme poverty line is set at $2.15 a day in 2017 PPP terms, which represents the mean of the poverty lines found in 15 of the poorest countries ranked by per capita consumption.”

c) Dataset: “Poverty Headcount Ratio at $3.65 a Day (2017 PPP) (% of Population).” World Bank, February 12, 2024. Accessed February 21, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

“Poverty headcount ratio at $3.65 a day is the percentage of the population living on less than $3.65 a day at 2017 international prices. … Poverty measures based on international poverty lines attempt to hold the real value of the poverty line constant across countries, as is done when making comparisons over time. The $3.65 poverty line is derived from typical national poverty lines in countries classified as Lower Middle Income. … As a result of revisions in PPP [purchasing power parity] exchange rates, poverty rates for individual countries cannot be compared with poverty rates reported in earlier editions.”

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[151] Calculated with data from:

a) Dataset: “Total Population by Sex, Both Sexes, Median 1950–2100.” United Nations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Accessed January 6, 2024 at <population.un.org>

“Tab: Data”

b) Dataset: “Poverty Headcount Ratio at $2.15 a Day (2017 PPP) (% of Population).” World Bank, February 12, 2024. Accessed February 21, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

“Poverty headcount ratio at $2.15 a day is the percentage of the population living on less than $2.15 a day at 2017 purchasing power adjusted prices. As a result of revisions in PPP [purchasing power parity] exchange rates, poverty rates for individual countries cannot be compared with poverty rates reported in earlier editions. … The current extreme poverty line is set at $2.15 a day in 2017 PPP terms, which represents the mean of the poverty lines found in 15 of the poorest countries ranked by per capita consumption.”

c) Dataset: “Poverty Headcount Ratio at $3.65 a Day (2017 PPP) (% of Population).” World Bank, February 12, 2024. Accessed February 21, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

“Poverty headcount ratio at $3.65 a day is the percentage of the population living on less than $3.65 a day at 2017 international prices. … Poverty measures based on international poverty lines attempt to hold the real value of the poverty line constant across countries, as is done when making comparisons over time. The $3.65 poverty line is derived from typical national poverty lines in countries classified as Lower Middle Income. … As a result of revisions in PPP [purchasing power parity] exchange rates, poverty rates for individual countries cannot be compared with poverty rates reported in earlier editions.”

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[152] Textbook: Macroeconomics for Today (6th edition). By Irvin B. Tucker. South-Western Cengage Learning, 2010.

Page 530: “GDP [gross domestic product] per capita provides a general index of a country’s standard of living. Countries with low GDP per capita and slow growth in GDP per capita are less able to satisfy basic needs for food, shelter, clothing, education, and health.”

[153] Calculated with data from:

a) Dataset: “GDP Per Capita, PPP (Current International $).” World Bank, September 16, 2022. <data.worldbank.org>

This indicator provides per capita values for gross domestic product (GDP) expressed in current international dollars converted by purchasing power parity (PPP) conversion factor. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the country plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. conversion factor is a spatial price deflator and currency converter that controls for price level differences between countries. Total population is a mid-year population based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship. …

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Typically, higher income countries have higher price levels, while lower income countries have lower price levels (Balassa-Samuelson effect). Market exchange rate-based cross-country comparisons of GDP at its expenditure components reflect both differences in economic outputs (volumes) and prices. Given the differences in price levels, the size of higher income countries is inflated, while the size of lower income countries is depressed in the comparison. PPP-based cross-country comparisons of GDP at its expenditure components only reflect differences in economic outputs (volume), as PPPs control for price level differences between the countries. Hence, the comparison reflects the real size of the countries.

b) Dataset: “Population Density (People Per Square Kilometer of Land Area).” World Bank, September 16, 2022. <data.worldbank.org>

Population density is midyear population divided by land area in square kilometers. Population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship--except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of their country of origin. Land area is a country’s total area, excluding area under inland water bodies, national claims to continental shelf, and exclusive economic zones. In most cases the definition of inland water bodies includes major rivers and lakes. …

Limitations and Exceptions: Current population estimates for developing countries that lack recent census data and pre- and post-census estimates for countries with census data are provided by the United Nations Population Division and other agencies. The cohort component method—a standard method for estimating and projecting population—requires fertility, mortality, and net migration data, often collected from sample surveys, which can be small or limited in coverage. Population estimates are from demographic modeling and so are susceptible to biases and errors from shortcomings in the model and in the data. Because the five-year age group is the cohort unit and five-year period data are used, interpolations to obtain annual data or single age structure may not reflect actual events or age composition. The quality and reliability of official demographic data are also affected by public trust in the government, government commitment to full and accurate enumeration, confidentiality and protection against misuse of census data, and census agencies’ independence from political influence. Moreover, comparability of population indicators is limited by differences in the concepts, definitions, collection procedures, and estimation methods used by national statistical agencies and other organizations that collect the data.

c) Dataset: “CPI—All Urban Consumers (Current Series).” U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Accessed February 5, 2022 at <www.bls.gov>

“Series Id: CUUR0000SA0; Series Title: All Items in U.S. City Average, All Urban Consumers, Not Seasonally Adjusted; Area: U.S. City Average; Item: All Items; Base Period: 1982–84=100”

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[154] Calculated with data from:

a) Dataset: “GDP Per Capita, PPP (Current International $).” World Bank, February 21, 2024. Accessed February 21, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

This indicator provides per capita values for gross domestic product (GDP) expressed in current international dollars converted by purchasing power parity (PPP) conversion factor. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the country plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. conversion factor is a spatial price deflator and currency converter that controls for price level differences between countries. Total population is a mid-year population based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship. …

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Typically, higher income countries have higher price levels, while lower income countries have lower price levels (Balassa-Samuelson effect). Market exchange rate-based cross-country comparisons of GDP at its expenditure components reflect both differences in economic outputs (volumes) and prices. Given the differences in price levels, the size of higher income countries is inflated, while the size of lower income countries is depressed in the comparison. PPP-based cross-country comparisons of GDP at its expenditure components only reflect differences in economic outputs (volume), as PPPs control for price level differences between the countries. Hence, the comparison reflects the real size of the countries.

b) Dataset: “Population Density (People Per Sq. Kilometer of Land Area).” World Bank, February 21, 2024. Accessed February 21, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

Population density is midyear population divided by land area in square kilometers. Population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship--except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of their country of origin. Land area is a country’s total area, excluding area under inland water bodies, national claims to continental shelf, and exclusive economic zones. In most cases the definition of inland water bodies includes major rivers and lakes. …

Limitations and Exceptions: Current population estimates for developing countries that lack recent census data and pre- and post-census estimates for countries with census data are provided by the United Nations Population Division and other agencies. The cohort component method—a standard method for estimating and projecting population—requires fertility, mortality, and net migration data, often collected from sample surveys, which can be small or limited in coverage. Population estimates are from demographic modeling and so are susceptible to biases and errors from shortcomings in the model and in the data. Because the five-year age group is the cohort unit and five-year period data are used, interpolations to obtain annual data or single age structure may not reflect actual events or age composition. The quality and reliability of official demographic data are also affected by public trust in the government, government commitment to full and accurate enumeration, confidentiality and protection against misuse of census data, and census agencies’ independence from political influence. Moreover, comparability of population indicators is limited by differences in the concepts, definitions, collection procedures, and estimation methods used by national statistical agencies and other organizations that collect the data.

c) Dataset: “CPI—All Urban Consumers (Current Series).” U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Accessed January 26, 2024 at <www.bls.gov>

“Series Id: CUUR0000SA0; Series Title: All Items in U.S. City Average, All Urban Consumers, Not Seasonally Adjusted; Area: U.S. City Average; Item: All Items; Base Period: 1982–84=100”

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[155] Paper: “Africa’s Growth and Development Strategies: A Critical Review.” By Musibau Adetunji Babatunde. Africa Development, 2012. Pages 141–178. <www.ajol.info>

Page 141:

At independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were high hopes about the growth prospects of the new politically independent African states. Economic conditions, such as per capita real income, were comparable to other developing countries like South Korea and Taiwan. By the mid-1970s, the growth profile of most African countries had started to decline and by the mid-1980s, it became obvious that the African continent needed rescue packages which came in the form of Structural Adjustment Programmes. However, countries like Taiwan and South Korea had made tremendous progress such that their per capita real incomes had grown more than tenfold while those of most African countries had declined considerably compared to the immediate post-independence era.

Page 143: “Between 1965 and 1995 Korea’s exports increased by a factor of 400…. Ghana’s increased only by factor of 4 and real earnings per capita fell to a fraction of their earlier value.”

[156] Article: “Corruption in African Politics.” By Tom Lodge. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford University Press, March 2019. <oxfordre.com>

Survey evidence indicates that political corruption is more prevalent in Africa than in any other global region, though there is also evidence of considerable variation between countries in degrees of corruption and where it is most likely to be located. Traditional explanations for the frequency of corrupt political behavior emphasized the effects of conflicting values that were a consequence of the imposition of modern forms of bureaucratic government upon societies in which authority rested upon personalized relationships. Contemporary African corruption’s historic roots and its variation across the continent may be the effect of the disjuncture or “incongruency” between colonial and successor postcolonial states and the precolonial political settings upon which they were imposed. Modern neo-patrimonialism is a coping response by rulers and citizens to conditions fostered by economic scarcity and institutional incapacity. Since the 1990s, democratization and liberalization have supplied fresh incentives and opportunities for venal politicians and officials. … Consequences of corruption certainly further impoverish poor people, and it is likely that corruption also limits economic growth and distorts government efforts to promote development. It is arguable that in the past, corruption may have helped to facilitate political stability but this is less likely in 2018, as evidence emerges of its corrosive effects on public trust in institutions. African anti-corruption efforts are constrained by the extent to which political power is exercised through patronage but there are instances of successful action, sometimes the byproduct of factional struggles within the political elite. As of 2018, there is no clear evidence of trends in success or failure in the work of African anti-corruption agencies.

[157] Article: “Communism, Marxist-Leninism, and Socialism in Africa.” By Edmond J. Keller. Oxford Bibliographies. Oxford University Press, October 25, 2017. <www.oxfordbibliographies.com>

Historically, communism on the continent was strongest in Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, and South Africa, which had significant European settlement, but such ideas remained foreign to the African masses until the principles of Marxism-Leninism became popular among intellectuals around the time of World War I (Drew 2014). … The emergence of nationalist movements on the continent coincided with the beginning of the Cold War, and the ideological and strategic competition involving the United States and the Soviet Union and China for client states in Africa. Thus, the superpowers were very much responsible for the emergence of communist orientations in some African nationalist movements. … It was evident from the very beginning of African independence that individual leaders accepted a form of socialism based on the humanistic aspects of that ideology. This meant, at least from the public pronouncement of leaders, their commitment to egalitarianism. At the same time, what they liked about Soviet-style socialism was not so much the notion of a proletarian revolution, but rather of the need for the role a disciplined vanguard party. Nationalist movements more closely aligned with the major Communist regimes, the USSR [Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union] and China, did not begin to surface until the 1970s, particularly in Lusophone Africa (Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea Bissau) and Ethiopia, where liberation revolutionary movements developed. Once these movements assumed power, they were termed Afro-Marxist regimes…. In other places, such as Madagascar, Benin, Congo-Brazzaville, and Zimbabwe, leaders of independent regimes merely claimed to be Marxist-Leninist, without usually developing policies consistent with a firm commitment to a particular ideological or institutional persuasion.

[158] Article: “Communism in Africa.” By Allison Drew. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism. Edited by Stephen A. Smith. Oxford University Press, May 2013. <www.oxfordhandbooks.com>

Communism in Africa can be analyzed along two dimensions: Communist movements that generally developed between the two world wars and were subjected to state repression and communism as a post-colonial state policy. During the colonial era communists built alliances with democratic and anti-colonial movements; any success reflected their ability to forge links with trade unions and nationalist organizations. Following independence, many new states adopted communist ideology and policies to facilitate international alliances and promote development. Those regimes form a subset of African one-party states that span the ideological spectrum. In post-colonial Africa communist and socialist movements have made episodic political gains during turbulent periods, but they have found it difficult to capitalize on such advances when faced with multiparty elections.

[159] Report: “Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?” World Bank, 2000. <documents.worldbank.org>

Page 53:

Military rule, dictatorships, and economic regress—mid-1970s to 1990s. After military takeovers in the early 1960s in Congo-Brazzaville, Dahomey (Benin), and Togo, the first gush of military coups in 1965–66 in Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo-Kinshasa, Ghana, Nigeria, and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) opened the way to autocratic military rule. External involvement played a major role in such cases. Many proved disastrous from an economic and institution-building point of view, as evidenced by Ethiopia (1974–91), Ghana (1966–69 and 1972–83), Mali (1968–91), Nigeria (1983–98), Somalia (1969–91), Uganda (1971–79), and Zaire (1965–97). By 1990 half of Africa’s states had military or quasi-military governments. In parallel with authoritarian military governments came a trend toward single-party rule under autocratic civilian leaders, largely pursuing interventionist economic policies, in some cases under the banners of socialism or Marxism. Especially when combined with external shocks, the resulting economic decline and politicization of the bureaucracy eroded much of what remained of institutional governance capacity and undermined many of the accomplishments of the 1960s.

[160] Paper: “Africa’s Growth and Development Strategies: A Critical Review.” By Musibau Adetunji Babatunde. Africa Development, 2012. Pages 141–178. <www.ajol.info>

Page 143: “From the 1960s to the 1990s, there was much political instability on the African continent….”

[161] Paper: “Africa’s Growth and Development Strategies: A Critical Review.” By Musibau Adetunji Babatunde. Africa Development, 2012. Pages 141–178. <www.ajol.info>

Pages 153–154: “African governments had failed woefully in economic management and there was the need to re-examine the role of the state in economic management.”

[162] “Corruption Perceptions Index Frequently Asked Questions.” Transparency International, January 27, 2022. <images.transparencycdn.org>

Page 1:

What is the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)?

The CPI scores and ranks countries/territories based on how corrupt a country’s public sector is perceived to be by experts and business executives. It is a composite index, a combination of 13 surveys and assessments of corruption, collected by a variety of reputable institutions. The CPI is the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide.

Which data sources are used for the CPI?

The CPI draws on 13 data sources from 12 independent institutions specialising in governance and business climate analysis. The sources of information used for the CPI are based on data published in the previous two years. The CPI includes only sources that provide a score for a set of countries/territories and that measure expert perceptions of corruption in the public sector.

[163] Webpage: “Corruption Perceptions Index: 2022.” Transparency International. Accessed on February 23, 2024 at <www.transparency.org>

“The CPI ranks 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, scoring on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).”

[164] Chart constructed with data from:

a) Webpage: “Regional Groups of Member States.” Accessed February 24, 2024 at <www.un.org>

b) Dataset: “Corruption Perceptions Index 2022: Global Scores.” Transparency International. Accessed February 23, 2024 at <images.transparencycdn.org>

Tab: “CPI 2022 (final)”

c) Dataset: “GDP Per Capita, PPP (Current International $).” World Bank, February 21, 2024. Accessed February 21, 2024 at <data.worldbank.org>

NOTES:

  • The chart is cropped to improve data visibility, and hence, it does not show some outliers. These outliers don’t materially impact the overall trend.
  • An Excel file containing the data is available upon request.

[165] Article: “Capitalism.” Encyclopedia Britannica, July 20, 1998. Last updated 12/29/2023. <www.britannica.com>

“Capitalism, economic system, dominant in the Western world since the breakup of feudalism, in which most means of production are privately owned and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets. Also Called: free market economy or free enterprise economy. ”

[166] Article: “Communism.” By Terence Ball and others. Encyclopedia Britannica, July 26, 1999. Last updated 2/12/2024. <www.britannica.com>

“Communism, political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society.”

[167] Article: “Korea.” By Jung Ha Lee and others. Encyclopedia Britannica, July 20, 1998. Last modified 12/21/2023. <www.britannica.com>

Division of Korea

The General Order No. 1, drafted on August 11 by the United States for Japanese surrender terms in Korea, provided for Japanese forces north of latitude 38° N (the 38th parallel) to surrender to the Soviets and those south of that line to the Americans. … There were now two zones—northern and southern—for the Soviets had already begun to seal off the 38th parallel. …

Unlike the U.S. forces in the south, the Soviet army marched into the north in 1945 accompanied by a band of expatriate Korean communists. By placing the latter in key positions of power, the Soviet Union easily set up a communist-controlled government in the north. …

The United States presented the question of Korean unification to the United Nations (UN) in September 1947. In November the UN General Assembly in New York City adopted a resolution, proposed by the United States, that called for general elections in Korea under the observation of a UN Temporary Commission on Korea. … The U.S.S.R. [Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union], however, barred the Temporary Commission from entering the northern zone. The south, however, held elections under the supervision of the Temporary Commission on May 10, 1948. The National Assembly convened on May 31 and elected Syngman Rhee as its speaker. Shortly afterward a constitution was adopted, and Rhee was elected president on July 20. Finally, on August 15, the Republic of Korea was inaugurated, with Seoul as the capital, and the military government came to an end.

[168] Article: “Taiwan.” By John C. Cooper. Encyclopedia Britannica, July 26, 1999. Last updated 2/26/2024. <www.britannica.com>

With the end of World War II, in 1945, Taiwan was again made part of China, but that arrangement lasted for only four years. In 1949, after the Chinese communists had defeated the Nationalist government on the mainland, the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek moved his government, party, and military to Taiwan. …

Taiwan’s 1947 constitution … created a republican system of government. The document ensured legislative supremacy and granted a considerable degree of autonomy to local governments. …

The Temporary Provisions of 1948 gave the president emergency powers, banned the formation of new political parties, and suspended the two-term limit for the president. The 1949 emergency decree granted the military, police, and intelligence bodies broad powers. The two measures truncated constitutional rights and effectively prevented the political system from operating democratically. However, local government was not much affected, nor were economic rights curtailed. The emergency decree was terminated in 1987, and the Temporary Provisions were canceled in 1991.

[169] Article: “Germany.” By William H. Berentsen and others. Encyclopedia Britannica, September 18, 1998. Last updated 2/27/2024. <www.britannica.com>

The Council completed its work in the spring of 1949, and the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland), commonly known as West Germany, came into being in May 1949 after all the Länder except Bavaria had ratified the Grundgesetz (Basic Law), as the constitution was called to underline the provisional nature of the new state. Indeed, this document specified that it was designed only for temporary use until a constitution had been freely adopted by the German people as a whole. …

By the terms of the Basic Law, the Federal Republic of Germany was established with its provisional capital in the small city of Bonn. The West German state took shape as a federal form of parliamentary democracy. An extensive bill of rights guaranteed the civil and political freedoms of the citizenry. …

In October 1949, following the formation of the Federal Republic, a constitution ratified by the People’s Congress went into effect in the Soviet zone, which became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), commonly known as East Germany, with its capital in the Soviet sector of Berlin. … Although the German Democratic Republic was constitutionally a parliamentary democracy, decisive power actually lay with the SED [Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany] and its boss, the veteran communist functionary Walter Ulbricht, who held only the obscure position of deputy premier in the government. In East Germany, as in the Soviet Union, the government served merely as the agent of an all-powerful communist-controlled party, which was in turn ruled from above by a self-selecting Politburo.

[170] Book: The Ultimate Resource 2. By Julian L. Simon. Princeton University Press, 1996.

Page 495:

Powerful evidence that the world’s problem is not too many people, but lack of political and economic freedom, comes from pairs of countries that have the same culture and history, and had much the same standard of living when they split apart after World War II—East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Taiwan and China. In each case the centrally planned economy began with less population “pressure,” as measured by density per square kilometer, than did the market-directed economy. And the Communist and non-Communist countries also started with much the same birthrates. But the market-directed economies have performed much better economically than the centrally planned economies….

[171] Calculated with data from the book: The Ultimate Resource 2. By Julian L. Simon. Princeton University Press, 1996.

Page 496: “Table 34-1b. Real Income Per Capita, Selected Countries, 1950–1982.”

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[172] Book: The Brethren Inside the Supreme Court. By Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong. Avon Books, 1979.

Page 196:

As Stewart saw it, abortion was becoming one reasonable solution to population control. Poor people, in particular, were consistently victims of archaic and artificially complicated laws. The public was ready for abortion reform.

Still, these were issues of the very sort that made Stewart uncomfortable. Precisely because of their political nature, the Court should avoid them. But the state legislatures were always so far behind. Few seemed likely to amend their abortion laws. Much as Stewart disliked the Court’s being involved in this kind of controversy, this was perhaps an instance where it had to be involved.

[173] Ruling: Doe v. Bolton. U.S. Supreme Court, January 22, 1973. Decided 7–2. Majority: Blackmun, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Powell. Concurring: Burger, Douglas. Dissenting: White, Rehnquist. <caselaw.findlaw.com>

Section IV: “[T]he medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.”

[174] Ruling: Roe v. Wade. U.S. Supreme Court, January 22, 1973. Decided 7–2. Majority: Blackmun, Burger, Brennan, Douglas, Stewart, Marshall, Powell. Concurring: Burger, Douglas, Stewart. Dissenting: White, Rehnquist. <caselaw.lp.findlaw.com>

Section I:

The Texas statutes that concern us here are Arts. 1191–1194 and 1196 of the State’s Penal Code.1 These make it a crime to “procure an abortion,” as therein [410 U.S. 113, 118] defined, or to attempt one, except with respect to “an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.” Similar statutes are in existence in a majority of the States.2 [410 U.S. 113, 119] …

1 Article 1191. Abortion

If any person shall designedly administer to a pregnant woman or knowingly procure to be administered with her consent any drug or medicine, or shall use towards her any violence or means whatever externally or internally applied, and thereby procure an abortion, he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than five years; if it be done without her consent, the punishment shall be doubled. By “abortion” is meant that the life of the fetus or embryo shall be destroyed in the woman’s womb or that a premature birth thereof be caused.

Art. 1192. Furnishing the means

Whoever furnishes the means for procuring an abortion knowing the purpose intended is guilty as an accomplice.

Art. 1193. Attempt at abortion

If the means used shall fail to produce an abortion, the offender is nevertheless guilty of an attempt to produce abortion, provided [410 U.S. 113, 118] it be shown that such means were calculated to produce that result, and shall be fined not less than one hundred nor more than one thousand dollars.

Art. 1194. Murder in producing abortion

If the death of the mother is occasioned by an abortion so produced or by an attempt to effect the same it is murder.

Art. 1196. By medical advice

Nothing in this chapter applies to an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.

The foregoing Articles, together with Art. 1195, compose Chapter 9 of Title 15 of the Penal Code. Article 1195, not attacked here, reads:

Art. 1195. Destroying unborn child

Whoever shall during parturition of the mother destroy the vitality or life in a child in a state of being born and before actual birth, which child would otherwise have been born alive, shall be confined in the penitentiary for life or for not less than five years.

2 Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. 13-211 (1956); Conn. Pub. Act No. 1 (May 1972 special session) (in 4 Conn. Leg. Serv. 677 (1972)), and Conn. Gen. Stat. Rev. 53-29, 53-30 (1968) (or unborn child); Idaho Code 18-601 (1948); Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 38, 23-1 (1971); Ind. Code 35-1–58-1 (1971); Iowa Code 701.1 (1971); Ky. Rev. Stat. 436.020 (1962); La. Rev. Stat. 37:1285 (6) (1964) (loss of medical license) (but see 14:87 (Supp. 1972) containing no exception for the life of the mother under the criminal statute); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 17, 51 (1964); Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., c. 272, 19 (1970) (using the term “unlawfully,” construed to exclude an abortion to save the mother’s life, Kudish v. Bd. of Registration, 356 Mass. 98, 248 N. E. 2d 264 (1969)); Mich. Comp. Laws 750.14 (1948); Minn. Stat. 617.18 (1971); Mo. Rev. Stat. 559.100 (1969); Mont. Rev. Codes Ann. 94-401 (1969); Neb. Rev. Stat. 28-405 (1964); Nev. Rev. Stat. 200.220 (1967); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. 585:13 (1955); N. J. Stat. Ann. 2A:87-1 (1969) (“without lawful justification”); N. D. Cent. Code 12-25-01, 12-25-02 (1960); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2901.16 (1953); Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 21, 861 (1972–1973 Supp.); Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 18, [410 U.S. 113, 119] 4718, 4719 (1963) (“unlawful”); R. I. Gen. Laws Ann. 11-3-1 (1969); S. D. Comp. Laws Ann. 22-17-1 (1967); Tenn. Code Ann. 39-301, 39-302 (1956); Utah Code Ann. 76-2-1, 76-2-2 (1953); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13, 101 (1958); W. Va. Code Ann. 61-2-8 (1966); Wis. Stat. 940.04 (1969); Wyo. Stat. Ann. 6-77, 6-78 (1957).

Section VIII:

Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider in consultation.

Section XI:

For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. …

In Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 179, procedural requirements contained in one of the modern abortion statutes are considered. That opinion and this one, of course, are to be read together.

[175] Article: “Sierra Club.” Encyclopedia Britannica. July 20, 1998. Revised 1/28/2019. <www.britannica.com>

“Sierra Club, American organization that promotes environmental conservation. Its headquarters are in Oakland, California. … The naturalist John Muir … very soon involved the club in political action to further nature conservation. … The club also mounted international campaigns related to overpopulation, international trade, and global climate change.”

[176] “Sierra Club, Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors, San Francisco, California, September 20–21, 1969.” Sierra Club. Accessed March 7, 2019 at <www.oac.cdlib.org>

Page 6:

On Population

(a) The Sierra Club urges that the United States … abandon all policies, projects or programs … designed to foster, subsidize or promote population growth.

(b) The Sierra Club urges that the United States … actively promote educational programs aimed at stabilizing the population within the earliest possible time.

(c) The Sierra Club urges that the United States condition the granting of all economic foreign aid on the actual implementation of birth control programs in each of the foreign countries receiving such aid and … economic foreign aid be given primarily for the purpose of funding such control programs and not for seemingly humanitarian purposes which actually compete with the fundamental need to limit population growth.

(d) The Sierra Club urges that each of the individual states of the United States legalize abortion.

[177] Webpage: “Sierra Club Global Population Policy.” By Board of Directors. Sierra Club. Revised May 21, 2017. <www.sierraclub.org>

The Sierra Club envisions a world where every person has … access to education, basic and reproductive health care, and economic and social opportunities.

Beyond the ICPD [International Conference on Population and Development] goals, the Sierra Club is a pro-choice organization. We endorse and work for comprehensive, voluntary reproductive health care for all. We encourage wider opportunity for women as well as men, particularly education. We help to educate people on the linkages between population growth and environmental stress. We advocate stronger policies and support increased domestic and international funding to meet these goals. We promote … improved maternal and child health care … and the education and empowerment of women.

The path to sustainability, outlined in the framework of actions, demands better leadership and greater innovation … to strengthen health systems to provide universal access to sexual and reproductive health, so that all women can thrive and children can grow in a nurturing environment….

[178] Webpage: “About Michael Brune.” Sierra Club. Accessed March 8, 2019 at <www.sierraclub.org>

Title: Executive director of the Sierra Club, America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization.”

[179] Video: “Tucker to Sierra Club Dir: Why Take on Abortion, Xenophobia?” Fox News, February 2, 2017. <www.youtube.com>

Time marker 2:17:

Carlson: “So last year … you all issued a press release saying that the Sierra Club stands in solidarity … with Planned Parenthood. … Why does legal abortion make the environment better?”

Brune: “Well, we believe in empowering women’s rights. We think that women who have rights and who have the ability to … make their own reproductive choices will help to produce strong families and will help to protect the environment at the same time. Sierra Club is pro-choice.”

Carlson: “But why? … What does that have to do with the environment? Like how specifically does more abortion or legal abortion help the environment?”

Brune: “Well, it helps to address the number of people that we have on this planet. We feel that one of the ways in which we can get to a sustainable population is to empower women to make choices about their own families.”

[180] Webpage: “Julian L. Simon—Curriculum Vitae.” Last updated June 4, 1998. <www.juliansimon.com>

“Ph.D., University of Chicago, business economics, 1961”

[181] Podcast 34: “Julian Simon.” Free to Choose Network. Accessed June 27, 2019 at <blog.freetochoosenetwork.org>

Time marker 0:00: “I’m Julian Simon. I’m an economist by trade, I teach Business Administration at the University of Maryland for a living, and I’ve spent most of my time the last 20 years writing about the economics of population, about the effects of more and fewer people on other people.”

[182] Article: “More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment.” By Julian L. Simon, February 28, 1994. <www.juliansimon.com>

Adding more people causes problems, but people are also the means to solve these problems. The main fuel to speed the world’s progress is our stock of knowledge, and the brakes are a) our lack of imagination, and b) unsound social regulations of these activities. The ultimate resource is people—especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty—who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit, and so inevitably they will benefit not only themselves but the rest of us as well.

[183] Book: The Ultimate Resource 2. By Julian L. Simon. Princeton University Press, 1996.

Pages 12–13:

In the short run, all resources are limited. … The longer run, however, is a different story. The standard of living has risen along with the size of the world’s population since the beginning of recorded time. There is no convincing economic reason why these trends toward a better life should not continue indefinitely.

The new theory … is this: Greater consumption due to an increase in population and growth of income heightens scarcity and induces price run-ups. A higher price represents an opportunity that leads inventors and business-people to seek new ways to satisfy the shortages. Some fail, at cost to themselves. A few succeed, and the final result is that we end up better off than if the original shortage problems had never arisen. That is, we need our problems, though this does not imply that we should purposely create additional problems for ourselves.

The most important benefit of population size and growth is the increase it brings to the stock of useful knowledge. Minds matter economically as much as, or more than, hands or mouths. Progress is limited largely by the availability of trained workers.

In the long run the basic forces influencing the state of humanity and its progress are (a) the number of people who are alive to consume, but also to produce goods and knowledge; and (b) the level of wealth. Those are the great variables which control the advance of civilization.

[184] Article: “Why Do We Still Think Babies Create Poverty?” By Julian L. Simon. Washington Post, October 13, 1985. <www.washingtonpost.com>

Check for yourself: fly over Hong Kong—just a few decades ago a place seemingly without prospects because of insoluble resource problems—and you will marvel at the astounding collection of modern high-rise apartments and office buildings. Take a ride on its excellent smooth-flowing highways for an hour, and you will realize that a very dense concentration of human beings—40 times the density of China—does not prevent comfortable existence and exciting economic expansion, as long as the economic system gives individuals the freedom to exercise their talents and to take advantage of opportunities.

[185] Report: “World Population Profile: 1998.” U.S. Census Bureau, February 1999. <www.census.gov>

Page 3:

During this century we have witnessed a surge in human population unmatched in sheer magnitude during any previous period in human history. Since mid-century, mortality levels have plummeted in every world region, driving up rates of natural increase. In the early 1950s, over 150 of every 1,000 infants died before reaching their first birthdays.1 In 1998, over 60 percent of these children survive: Infant mortality has been reduced to 58 infant deaths per 1,000 live births worldwide.2 As a result of improvements in child survival, and of parallel but typically smaller decreases in adult mortality, global life expectancy at birth has increased from about 47 years in the early 1950s to 63 years in 1998.3

[186] Podcast 34: “Julian Simon.” Free to Choose Network. Accessed June 27, 2019 at <blog.freetochoosenetwork.org>

Time marker 0:23:

[J]ust in the past 200 years … life expectancy at birth has gone up from under 30 to well over 70 in the rich countries in the world. And the poorer countries of the world … [i]n just the 30 or 40 years since World War II life expectancy has gone up 15 or 20 years throughout the whole poor part of the world. … This has meant that people have not only lived longer but they’re living healthier and they’re living better lives.

[187] Report: “World Population Profile: 1998.” U.S. Census Bureau, February 1999. <www.census.gov>

Page 3:

During this century we have witnessed a surge in human population unmatched in sheer magnitude during any previous period in human history. Since mid-century, mortality levels have plummeted in every world region, driving up rates of natural increase. In the early 1950s, over 150 of every 1,000 infants died before reaching their first birthdays.1 In 1998, over 60 percent of these children survive: Infant mortality has been reduced to 58 infant deaths per 1,000 live births worldwide.2 As a result of improvements in child survival, and of parallel but typically smaller decreases in adult mortality, global life expectancy at birth has increased from about 47 years in the early 1950s to 63 years in 1998.3

People are not only dying less frequently at younger ages but are living longer, on average, after reaching the end of their economically productive years. Men and women are living about 2 years longer, on average, after reaching age 65 today than they did in the early 1950s.4 This increased longevity has added to global population growth and is now contributing to a shifting global age structure characterized by higher proportions of the elderly and higher ratios of elderly dependent to working-age populations.

Page 25:

Most national populations are enjoying a general reduction in mortality levels, continuing a trend in the post-World War II period linked to improvements in public health services, greater availability of drugs and the development of new vaccines and, in many countries, to improvements in standards of living. In the less developed countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the importance of infectious and parasitic diseases as principal causes of death has lessened, which has markedly cut the overall risk of dying in infancy and early childhood while also reducing mortality at all but the oldest adult ages.

In a number of less developed countries, concerted efforts to improve maternal health have been successful in reducing the risk of maternal death associated with childbearing and in improving women’s survivorship to the end of their reproductive years to levels comparable to or higher than those of men. At the same time, national mortality profiles have been affected by increased deaths attributable to cardiovascular disease and other degenerative diseases and, frequently, to greater incidence of accidents and violence.

[188] Podcast 34: “Julian Simon.” Free to Choose Network. Accessed June 27, 2019 at <blog.freetochoosenetwork.org>

Time marker 2:27:

[T]he whole history of humanity has shown us the extraordinary event, contrary to all common sense, that the more that we use of natural resources the more we have of them. … [N]atural resources … have been becoming more available … with the measure … how much do we have to pay to get these resources … [T]he price of natural resources has been going down rather than up throughout all of human history. … and it’s the same story with every single natural resource … and that includes all the foods … [A]ll of them have been becoming more available rather than more scarce contrary to all common sense, to all standard Malthusian thinking.”

Time marker 4:51:

When we use more of something … there is for a while a shortage…. But the process doesn’t end here.… In response to these shortages, some people look at the situation and say … “[H]ere’s opportunity. The price has gone up. If I can find some way to get my hands on some, I can sell some and make some money on it. So people begin to … say, How can I find some more copper, or how can I use the old copper mines … to get the copper out more cheaply, or how can I refine it more cheaply, or … how can we find something to replace the copper with?” So people look. Some succeed and some fail. And the people who succeed, sooner or later … find ways to do it and … at the end point of this process … we are left better off than if the problem had never arisen in the first place. … [W]e need our problems….

[189] Article: “Future Global Mineral Resources.” By Nicholas T. Arndt and others. Geochemical Perspectives, April 2017. <www.geochemicalperspectives.org>

Page 1: “Some … have been led to believe that the world is rapidly running out of the metals on which our modern society is based. … Yet, despite ever-increasing production and consumption, supplies of minerals have continued to meet the needs of industry and society, and lifetimes of reserves remain similar to what they were 30–40 years ago.”

Page 2: “Over the last 150 years, improved technologies, economies of scale and increased efficiency have combined to reduce costs hence allowing lower-grade ore to be mined economically. The net result is that the long-term inflation-adjusted price of most metals has decreased more or less in parallel with increasing production….”

[190] Article: “Mined Into Extinction: Is the World Running Out of Critical Minerals?” By Julian Turner. Mining Technology, April 9, 2017. <www.mining-technology.com>

Meinert is quick to make the distinction between “reserves,” minerals identified in location and quantity therefore relatively easy to factor into supply chains and rates of consumption, and ‘resources,’ which often cannot be quantified without long-term geologic and geophysical study.

It is very important to understand that neither ‘reserves’ nor ‘resources’ are the same as ‘all there is,’ ” says Meinhart, so just because a mineral … is no longer commercially available does not necessarily mean that it is terminally depleted, simply that greater effort may be required to find it.

“Minerals are not something we run out of,” he adds. “If you go to the kitchen and discover you have run out of salt, it does not mean that salt does not exist on planet Earth….”

“World reserves of almost all commodities are greater now than they were 50 or 100 years ago even though large amounts have been produced. This is because the time value of money leads most companies to only drill out 20 or 30 years’ worth of reserves even though much larger resources might be available. Some mines have had 20 years’ worth of ‘reserves’ for more than a century.”

[191] Report: “Critical Mineral Resources of the United States—Economic and Environmental Geology and Prospects for Future Supply.” Edited by Klaus J. Schulz and others. U.S. Geological Survey, 2017. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Pages A4–A5:

The development of mineral resources into the category of reserves requires the creation of facilities to extract the ore, process it into a mineral product, and transport that product to the user. Although the quantity of production is a flow measure (amount per unit time—for example, tons per month or tons per year), the estimates of the amount available in each resource category (a stock variable) also changes over time as production removes part of the resource; additional exploration results in the discovery of new deposits and provides new information about previously discovered deposits; advances in technology affect the costs and methods of mining, processing, and use; and changes in market conditions affect the economic viability of production. For example, in 1973, world reserves of cobalt were estimated to be 2.5 million metric tons of contained cobalt (U.S. Bureau of Mines, 1973, p. 39). Since then, more than 2.0 million metric tons of cobalt has been mined worldwide, yet world reserves of cobalt in 2015 were estimated to be 7.2 million metric tons of cobalt, which is almost triple the amount estimated in 1973, despite the depletion by mining of an amount equivalent to 80 percent of the 1973 reserve estimate (Shedd, 2015, 2016; U.S. Geological Survey, 2015a).

[192] Report: “Critical Mineral Resources of the United States—Economic and Environmental Geology and Prospects for Future Supply.” Edited by Klaus J. Schulz and others. U.S. Geological Survey, 2017. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Page A1: “Although most mineral commodities are present in sufficient amounts in the earth to provide adequate supplies for many years to come, their availability can be affected by such factors as social constraints, politics, laws, environmental regulations, land-use restrictions, economics, and infrastructure.”

Page A2:

In the 1970s, concerns regarding the adequacy of future supplies of minerals were raised owing to a perceived lack of world resources. Based on their finite occurrence, “limits to supply” of nonrenewable resources, such as minerals, was most famously predicted in a report by the Club of Rome (Meadows and others, 1972). The concerns raised in that report were based partly on results of previous studies. For example, the time-series analysis of metal production in mining districts of Europe by Hewett (1929) demonstrated cyclical patterns that were subsequently applied to the production histories of other nonfuel minerals and energy minerals (Lasky, 1951, 1955; Hubbert, 1956; Pazik, 1976). This type of analysis formed the basis of numerous studies that predicted that the highest level of production of some mineral commodities may soon be reached and that production is likely to decline from then on. This approach to studying future resource availability is often termed “peak minerals.” Many of these studies, however, used estimates of mineral reserves (the economically extractable portion of resources at the time of determination) as a proxy for the Earth’s resources, including those that have been discovered (identified resources), which, in turn, include those that are economic to produce (reserves) (Meadows and others, 1972; Cohen, 2007). This approach is flawed, because estimates of mineral reserves are a function of economic factors, such as metal prices and costs of recovery, which can vary considerably over time. New geologic knowledge can result in changes to estimates of identified resources, including those identified resources that are economic (reserves) changing as well (Rustad, 2012; Gold, 2014; Meinert and others, 2016). Likewise, both the development of new extractive technologies and increased metal prices have resulted in mineral deposits previously considered subeconomic or marginally economic becoming viable sources for mineral production. In addition, improved methodologies for estimating undiscovered mineral resources, the discovery of new mineral deposit types, improved recycling technologies, higher processing efficiency, and longer product life have all helped allay fears that we are near peak supply of most mineral commodities. Today, therefore, it is generally recognized that, although mineral commodities are mostly nonrenewable on human time scales and are inherently finite, fears of resource depletion for most mineral commodities anytime soon are unwarranted.

[193] Article: “Why Do We Still Think Babies Create Poverty?” By Julian L. Simon. Washington Post, October 13, 1985. <www.washingtonpost.com>

Nevertheless, by 1985 we know that … there is objective evidence that a free enterprise system works better than does a planned economy.

Moreover, population growth under an enterprise system poses less of a problem in the short run, and brings many more benefits in the long run, than under conditions of government planning of the economy.

[M]arket-directed economies have performed much better economically, no matter how you measure economic progress. Income per person is higher. Wages have grown faster.

Further, indexes such as telephones per person show a much higher level of development. And indicators of individual wealth and personal consumption, such as autos and newsprint, show enormous advantages for the market-directed enterprise economies compared to the centrally-planned, centrally- controlled economies.

Even the most skilled persons require a social and economic framework that rewards hard work and risks, enabling their talents to flower. The key elements of such a framework are economic liberty, respect for property, fair and sensible rules of the market that are enforced equally for all and the personal freedom that is particularly compatible with economic freedom.

[194] Podcast 34: “Julian Simon.” Free to Choose Network. Accessed June 27, 2019 at <blog.freetochoosenetwork.org>

Time marker 26:37: “[I]f you try to use the same kinds of … rational planning for an economy as a whole and for society as a whole you go completely off the rails because rational design and controlled planning on the part of an individual or of a bureau or of an organization is wholly incapable of dealing with the problems of a modern, complex society.”

Time marker 27:39:

[T]his large, complicated thing called an economy, it only works when individuals are left free to pursue their own projects, to plan for themselves, to seek opportunity, and to coordinate their plans, their lives, their needs, what they have to buy and what they have to sell, on a voluntary basis with everyone else.

So every person, every family, every firm pursuing their own plans separately, voluntarily, somehow in this incredible miracle, using what Adam Smith called the hidden hand, coordinates itself in a way that no central planning can possibly do.

Now this wasn’t obvious to people…. They thought that if we just got enough smart people together and enough computers together and enough clear thinking together that we could run an agriculture and other industries more efficiently than could all these uncoordinated individuals doing their own thing And in country after country, place after place, people have tried to rationalize agriculture and it is a disaster. It’s been a disaster in the Soviet Union, it’s a disaster in Africa, it was a disaster in Communist China until 1979. And the Chinese in 1979 suddenly got the word that it wasn’t gonna work, and in this extraordinary social experiment, the Chinese in three short years between 1979 and 1982 effectively turned over agriculture to 700 million people. That’s the largest private sector anything in the world, and this all happened in three short years. In three short years, Chinese agriculture turned itself around completely so that now you go to China you can’t move 10 feet without somebody wanting to sell you some chow. … Chinese agriculture is now overflowing because they have freed up people to do their own things voluntarily. The engineering planning, the business planning, the rational planning—it just doesn’t work.

Time marker 30: 52:

What we’re talking about here that makes the thing go is a framework of freedom. This can’t happen unless people are free to pursue their own projects, to run their own lives independently with the assurance that their government will provide a framework in which they will be protected in their projects, in which their property will be protected, in which the fruits of their imagination and effort and hard work will not be snatched from them. They need the framework of some stability to be able to rely on the fact that tomorrow will not suddenly, unpredictably be different than today, and it’s within that broad abstract framework of freedom that individuals’ decision making processes can take place. … [W]e’re talking about the decision-making process of individuals, of teams, of partnerships, of firms, but not a decision-making process of the economy at large except if you mean … the decision to give people freedom.

[195] Book: The Ultimate Resource 2. By Julian L. Simon. Princeton University Press, 1996.

Page 495:

Powerful evidence that the world’s problem is not too many people, but lack of political and economic freedom, comes from pairs of countries that have the same culture and history, and had much the same standard of living when they split apart after World War II—East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Taiwan and China. In each case the centrally planned economy began with less population “pressure,” as measured by density per square kilometer, than did the market-directed economy. And the Communist and non-Communist countries also started with much the same birthrates. But the market-directed economies have performed much better economically than the centrally planned economies….

[196] For facts about the characteristics of rich and poor nations, see the section of the research on poverty.

[197] Article: “ ‘Overpopulation’ Fears Are a Hoax. Here’s Why Higher Populations Are Actually a Good Thing.” By Walter E. Williams. Daily Signal, May 31, 2017. <www.dailysignal.com>

Walter E. Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and a professor of economics at George Mason University. …

Human beings are valuable resources, and the more we have of them the better.

[198] Article: “ ‘Overpopulation’ Fears Are a Hoax. Here’s Why Higher Populations Are Actually a Good Thing.” By Walter E. Williams. Daily Signal, May 31, 2017. <www.dailysignal.com>

In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” He predicted that mankind’s birthrate would outstrip our ability to grow food and would lead to mass starvation.

Malthus’ wrong predictions did not deter Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich from making a similar prediction.

In his 1968 best-seller, The Population Bomb, which has sold more than 2 million copies, Ehrlich warned: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

[199] For facts about such failed predictions, see the section of the research on the effects of growth.

[200] Article: “ ‘Overpopulation’ Fears Are a Hoax. Here’s Why Higher Populations Are Actually a Good Thing.” By Walter E. Williams. Daily Signal, May 31, 2017. <www.dailysignal.com>

Let’s put you, the reader, to a test. See whether you can tell which country is richer and which is poorer just by knowing two countries’ population density. …

Looking at the gross domestic products of these countries [North Korea and South Korea, Hong Kong and Somalia, and Congo and Singapore], one would have to be a lunatic to believe that smaller population density leads to greater riches.

[201] For facts about nations’ population densities and their economic status, see the section of the research on poverty.

[202] Article: “ ‘Overpopulation’ Fears Are a Hoax. Here’s Why Higher Populations Are Actually a Good Thing.” By Walter E. Williams. Daily Signal, May 31, 2017. <www.dailysignal.com>

There is only one answer for why cellphones, rocket launchers, and millions of other things are around today but were not around yesteryear. The growth in human knowledge, human ingenuity, job specialization, and trade led to industrialization, which, coupled with personal liberty and private property rights, made it possible. …

The greatest threat to mankind’s prosperity is government, not population growth. For example, Zimbabwe was agriculturally rich but, with government interference, was reduced to the brink of mass starvation.

Today’s poverty has little to do with overpopulation. The most commonly held characteristics of non-poor countries are greater personal liberty, private property rights, the rule of law, and an economic system closer to capitalism than to communism.

[203] For facts about the characteristics of rich and poor nations, see the section of the research on poverty.

[204] Article: “Margaret Sanger.” Encyclopedia Britannica. July 20, 1998. Last updated 2/2/2024. <www.britannica.com>

“In 1921 Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, and she served as its president until 1928. The league was one of the parent organizations of the Birth Control Federation of America, which in 1942 became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, with Sanger as honorary chairman.”

[205] Article: “Margaret Sanger—Our Founder.” Planned Parenthood, June 2016. <bit.ly>

“Our founder, Margaret Sanger, was a woman of heroic accomplishments….”

[206] Article: “America Needs a Code for Babies.” By Margaret Sanger. American Weekly, March 27, 1934. <bit.ly>

It has been officially reported that six million children in the United States are being supported by public relief funds. This tragic indictment of our social system indicates, among other things, that there has been an overproduction of babies, or, at least, an improper distribution of them, so that the couples who have the most babies are the very ones who are least able to take care of them.

[207] Article: “America Needs a Code for Babies.” By Margaret Sanger. American Weekly, March 27, 1934. <bit.ly>

Article 3. A marriage license shall in itself give husband and wife only the right to a common household and not the right to parenthood.

Article 4. No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, and no man shall have the right to become a father, without a permit for parenthood.

Article 5. Permits for parenthood shall be issued … to married couples, providing they are financially able to support the expected child, have the qualifications needed for proper rearing of the child….

Article 6. No permit for parenthood shall be valid for more than one birth.

Article 7. Every country shall be assisted administratively by the state in the effort to maintain a direct ratio between the county birth rate and its index of child welfare. Whenever the county records for any given year show an unfavorable variation from this ratio the county concerned shall be taxed by the state according to the degree of the variation. The revenues thus obtained shall be expended by the state within the given county either in giving financial support to birth control clinics or in other ways calculated to improve the situation involved.

Article 8. Feeble-minded persons, habitual congenital criminals, those afflicted with inheritable disease, and others found biologically unfit by authorities qualified judge should be sterilized or, in cases of doubt, should be so isolated as to prevent the perpetuation of their afflictions by breeding.

[208] Webpage: “Paul R. Ehrlich.” Stanford University. Accessed March 15, 2019 at <ccb.stanford.edu>

Emeritus Faculty, Acad Council, Biology Professor, Biology Senior Fellow, Emeritus, by Courtesy, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment …

Professor Ehrlich has received several honorary degrees, the John Muir Award of the Sierra Club, the Gold Medal Award of the World Wildlife Fund International, a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (given in lieu of a Nobel Prize in areas where the Nobel is not given), in 1993 the Volvo Environmental Prize, in 1994 the United Nations’ Sasakawa Environment Prize, in 1995 the Heinz Award for the Environment, in 1998 the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and the Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, in 1999 the Blue Planet Prize, in 2001 the Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America and the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, and in 2009 the Margalef Prize in Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

[209] Article: “The Book That Incited a Worldwide Fear of Overpopulation.” By Charles C. Mann. Smithsonian, January 2018. <www.smithsonianmag.com>

As 1968 began, Paul Ehrlich was an entomologist at Stanford University, known to his peers for his groundbreaking studies of the co-evolution of flowering plants and butterflies but almost unknown to the average person. That was about to change. In May, Ehrlich released a quickly written, cheaply bound paperback, The Population Bomb. Initially it was ignored. But over time Ehrlich’s tract would sell millions of copies and turn its author into a celebrity. It would become one of the most influential books of the 20th century—and one of the most heatedly attacked.

[210] Webpage: “Anne Ehrlich.” Stanford University. Accessed June 12, 2019 at <bit.ly>

“Academic Appointments—Senior Research Scientist, Biology … University—Emeritus staff … Department: Retiree”

[211] Webpage: “Anne Howland Ehrlich.” Stanford University. Accessed March 14, 2018 at <bit.ly>

Anne H. Ehrlich has carried out research and coauthored many technical articles in population biology. She also has written extensively on issues of public concern such as population control, environmental protection, and environmental consequences of nuclear war and is coauthor of ten books. From 1981 to 2000, she taught a course in environmental policy for Stanford’s Human Biology Program, and has co-taught a freshman seminar with Paul Ehrlich since 2000.

[212] Book: Population, Resources, Environment—Issues In Human Ecology (2nd edition). By Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. W. H. Freeman and Company, 1972.

About the author:

Paul Ehrlich, founder and first president of the Zero Population Growth organization … received a B.A. in zoology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1953 and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 1955 and 1957, respectively. He became a member of the faculty at Stanford University in 1959 and was named Bing Professor of Population Studies in 1976. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, and in 1990 he was awarded Sweden’s Crafoord Prize, created by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to honor researchers in those disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prize. An expert in population biology, ecology, evolution, and behavior, Ehrlich has published more than 600 articles and scientific papers. He is perhaps best known for his environmental classic The Population Bomb (1968). Paul Ehrlich and his wife Anne began working together shortly after their marriage in 1954. Anne Ehrlich received her B.S. in biology from the University of Kansas. As senior research associate in biology and associate director of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University, she has lectured widely and written on various environmental issues, including the environmental consequences of nuclear war. Together, the Ehrlichs have written six books and dozens of magazine articles.

Pages 368–369:

[U]nder the United States Constitution, effective population control programs could be enacted under the clauses that empower Congress to appropriate funds to provide for the general welfare and to regulate commerce, or under the last clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Such laws could constitutionally be very broad. Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population control laws, even including those requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under our existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently compelling to endanger the society. A few consider the situation already serious enough to justify some forms of compulsion.

Unfortunately, our legal system is seriously out of date relative to population policy. Our laws and customs, as embodied in our religious, social, and legal institutions, still reflect the desires of a nation seeking to fill a frontier. … These laws … have become foolish and dangerous in the light of changed circumstances. We no longer need more people. Laws encouraging the production of more people must be changed.

[213] Article: “The Effects of China’s One-Child Policy.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed April 5, 2019 at <www.britannica.com>

“The one-child policy … was implemented nationwide by the Chinese government in 1980 … to limit most Chinese families to one child each. The policy was enacted to address the growth rate of China’s population, which the government viewed as being too high.”

[214] Article: “The Effects of China’s One-Child Policy.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed April 5, 2019 at <www.britannica.com>

Here are some … consequences of the policy:

• As sons were generally preferred … the overall sex ratio … became skewed toward males. In 2016 there were 33.59 million more men than women.

• [T]here was a rise in the number of abortions of female fetuses.

• The number of female babies killed, abandoned, or placed in orphanages increased….

• Millions of Chinese parents had to endure strict enforcement methods of the policy, including forced sterilization and forced abortions.

• Even after the one-child policy was rescinded, China’s birth and fertility rates remained low, leaving the country with a population that was aging too rapidly as well as a shrinking workforce.

[215] Article: “China’s One-Child Policy Ends.” By Stephen Evans. BBC, January 1, 2016. <www.bbc.com>

“The first day of 2016 marks the end of China’s controversial, 40-year-old one-child policy. Although families will still require government-issued birth permits, or face the sanction of a forced abortion, couples in China can now request to have two children.”

[216] Article: “A Distorted Sex Ratio Is Playing Havoc with Marriage in China.” The Economist, November 23, 2017. <www.economist.com>

Without human intervention, about 105 boys will be born for every 100 girls…. But many Chinese couples have tipped the scales. Driven partly by China’s now-abandoned one-child policy, they have used ultrasound scans to determine the sex of fetuses and then aborted some of the girls. By 2010 there were 119 boys under five years old for every 100 girls. Two demographers, John Bongaarts and Christophe Guilmoto, estimate that China is missing more than 60m women and girls.

In the province of Shandong, in eastern China, the child sex ratio skewed early and drastically. It was highly unbalanced by 1990, and by 2010 had reached 123:100. Moreover, not all Shandong girls hang around awaiting marriage proposals from local boys. The province lies between Beijing and Shanghai, so it is easy for the province’s young women—said to be unusually tall and beautiful—to migrate to the great metropolises in search of work and boyfriends. The result is a severe shortage, and bride prices that are barmy even by Chinese standards.

A 47-year-old man, Deng Xinling, says that men are now considered shopworn if they are unmarried at 25. By contrast, no woman is thought too old to marry; even widows have no difficulty in finding husbands.

The unmarried male population is concentrated both geographically and socially. China’s women are taking advantage of their scarcity value to marry men from wealthier backgrounds, leaving many poor, illiterate rural men on the shelf….

[217] Article: “Why Millions of Chinese Men Are Staying Single.” By Rob Budden. BBC, February 14, 2017. <www.bbc.com>

In China, there is a name for unmarried men over 30. Shengnan, meaning “leftover men” have yet to find a wife—and in a country with a growing gender gap, that’s a big problem.

China has many millions more men than women, a hangover of the country’s one-child policy, which was overturned in 2015, though its effects will last decades more. The gender imbalance is making it hard for many men to find a partner—and the gap is likely to widen. By 2020, it’s estimated there will be 30 million more men than women looking for a partner. In his book, The Demographic Future, American political economist Nicholas Eberstadt cites projections that by 2030 more than a quarter of Chinese men in their 30s will not have married.

Now, with far fewer women than men, the race to find a suitable partner—and win her over before someone else does—has led some men to go to great lengths to find a wife. They’re spending vast sums on creative, sometimes unsuccessful, measures to win a woman over.

The myriad ways to connect coupled with the female majority have upended the way people meet and court in China.

The problems for men in finding a partner are most acute in poorer rural areas, made worse by long-held traditions that the husband must be able to offer a decent level of financial security before he can secure a wife.

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