"Empty Planet"? Nope - One with Far Too Many Humans - Beyond Carrying Capacity

Once again, we have the Neoliberal  and reactionary financial media trying to gloss over the population crisis.  The latest manifestation arrived in the guise of a  WSJ book review by one Lyman Stone )'A Drop In Numbers') in terms of reviewing a book 'Empty Planet' - by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson. (Both from the American Enterprise Institute).

Stone writes:

“Their book is a vital warning to the world that the risks associated with population have been catastrophically misread: Governments and activists have spent decades fighting the specter of overpopulation but now face the looming demographic calamity of global population collapse.”

Adding:

“Fewer people participating in the economy will mean slower economic growth, less entrepreneurship, rising inequality and calamitous government debt.”

To which I say ‘Hogwash!’  Because the solution of more people born to support those already alive is merely a Ponzi scheme.  Since the libertarians in this country get their panties in snits  over "Ponzi schemes" they ought to pay especial attention to this one. Because if 50 million additional workers are needed to support the existing 45 (retired) million people, how many more will be needed to support those 50 million and the tail end of the earlier 45 million? Can't these imbeciles see that the base of population support is a never-ending growth proposition? 

There are more than sufficient unemployed or underemployed people in the developed world to make up for the deficits anywhere.  At last reporting the OECD estimated 230 m in Europe alone.  Even the authors at least conceded there is merit to allowing foreign workers in to fill the bill but with "selective standards. As Steon puts it (ibid.):

"Of course there are plenty of immigrants today to prop up growth and the authors sensibly suggest the U.S. should adopt a Canadian -style, merit based system Buyt then they worry that by giving in to anti-immigrant, nativist sentiments the UNitied States will "throw away the very tool that hs been the secret to its greatness."

Well, those libertarian authors do have a point and more  to support their arguments than the reviewer, Stone, i.e. "if we admit more immigrants our demographic bubble bursting will only be postponed."

Not really!  Africa, for example, is on a tear to sport the world's largest population increase by 2050 - nearly 2.5 billion. Surely many millions of African immigrants can help with our demographic issues (and less population of whities). That is, if we can ever rid ourselves of Trump's dismissive  epithet of "shithole countries".

Indeed, in yesterday's WSJ there was a further wake up call piece ('Employers Push For More Seasonal Visas', p. A6)  on why we desperately need more lower wage immigrants, especially to do the jobs Americans refuse to do - from carcass butchering at meat plants, to landscaping, to farming to fish and crab cleaning in Maryland.  

The article noted that employers who rely on seasonal (temporary) H-2B visas are renewing their fight to lift limits.  The situation with too few needed workers became so desperate that the Labor Dept. website crashed "after a scramble by employers chasing 33,000 available permits."  This is absolute nonsense.

The piece added:

"The Jan. 1 meltdown stemmed from high demand and a move to make the process first come, first served."

We also learned:

"Industries ranging from tourism to agriculture to landscaping to amusements say they are reliant on foreign workers and the H-2B program"

Note that congress can allow up to 69,000 such permits if the administration agrees, but up to now the Trumpie dolts - lead by Nazi wannabe Stephen Miller - have not. Hell, these nincompoops are even trying to cut back on the H-1B visas for more professionally qualified workers.

My point here is that all the hand wringing about too few people to support growth and we need more babies is plain hogwash. 

Stone also babbles, re: why the population is supposedly crashing:

"The authors pin the blame on faulty assumptions by the population establishment as represented by the UN Population Division. They don’t use the U.S. as an example but I will. The UN’s most recent population forecasts suggest the average U.S.  total fertility rate from 2015 to 2020 shold be 1.9 children per woman. In reality, CDC data shows U.S. fertility has averaged about 1.8 children per woman from 2015-2018,”

Not taking into account the Earth overshoot phenomenon, e.g. as illustrated below:


At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population. The interpretation of the graph (upward) is simple. By June, 2030 TWO full Earths - that is the resources therein - will be needed to support the then population. Already we are at 1.5 Earths. Every year Global Footprint Network raises awareness about global ecological overshoot with its Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Earth Overshoot Day is the day on the calendar when humanity has used up the resources that it takes the planet the full year to regenerate

Even Terry Spahr, Executive Director of Earth Overshoot, was compelled to send a letter to the WSJ to contradict the Stone review and many of the claims made by the book's authors. Spahr emphasized the clear benefits of a less populated world, including: "Fewer workers will command higher wages, the environment will improve,  the risk of famine will wane and falling birthrates in the developing world will bring greater affluence."   

A huge additional benefit is there will be fewer abortions in the developed world (cf. 'Fewer Births, Fewer Abortions', WSJ, Feb. 23-24, by Jo Craven McGinty).  As the author observed, "At 1.8 total fertility the number of children women are expected to have in their lifetime is near the 1976 low of 1.7."  "And "for the first time since 1975 the number of abortions in the U.S. dropped."  

The basis here is not mystifying and doesn't require one pass a Mensa admissions test.  Essentially, when women can choose the size of their families (for economic and other reasons) then they will be less likely to hit the abortion switch in the case of children not wanted.   The point is there are multifold benefits to keep our numbers lower.


Further, it is preposterous for those like the AEI authors to chirp about Americans needing to increase baby production when there is no incentive from the gov't to do so.  I refer to those like an ER nurse featured in a spot this a.m. on CBS Early Show. She took her allotted 12 unpaid weeks to care for her newborn, then found her family on the ropes financially.  By the end she was deep in debt and had to cash out a portion of her 401(k) to make ends meet.  Even then, she was left with barely $500 in the bank to pay her bills.

That contrasts with another new mom (Marquita Staples-Green)  - also presented in the segment- who was able to get 26 weeks of fully paid leave- compliments of her company, software firm Adobe. As she put it:

"By the time I went back to work, I was ready, I was prepared. I had some time off, I could think about my new goals as a working mom.  I am completely grateful but I just wish this was the norm."

Well, sadly it isn't the norm, given only 16 percent of American new moms are the enviable position of Ms. Staples- Green, i.e. having access to paid leave via their employers. That is not even 1 in 6 women!  It also explains, as presenter Alex Wagner noted, why so many women in this country need to secure infant care within weeks of giving birth.

So why should these Neolib knuckleheads, ensconced in capitalist outposts like the AEI,  incessantly express surprise that fewer American women are having kids in this "lotto" environment? (And we won't even get into how much it takes to even raise 1 kid to high school graduation level now, far less through university.)

To be sure, the Democrats' "Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act"  would give workers twelve weeks of partially paid leave funded by a payroll tax.  That is, workers would be able to draw on their Social Security early to get the needed leave.  I don't believe I need to explain why this is dead in the water, given the basis is  almost as bad as the ER nurse taking out part of her 401(k).  In other words, if enacted (which odds I place at slim to none) it would just add to the nation's retirement crisis. 

In  many respects this latest AEI- based effort reminded me of the book, 'The Birth Dearth' by Ben Wattenberg. He was also then a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. This association no doubt accounts for the thesis expounded in his book that the "Western industrialized nations are flirting with economic disaster and marginalization by maintaining too low birth rates."

 By Wattenberg's analysis from over 30 years back, the resulting missing babies would be translated into "missing producers and consumer, soldiers and sailors, mothers and fathers".

Again, nonsense not too different from the latest AEI iteration.  Then as now, in terms of the impact on non-renewable resources, each child in a Western-developed nation consumes a disproportionate share of limited resources.   The U.S. offers the worst example: 6% of the world's population gobbling up some 25- 30% of the available resources in a given year. What Wattenberg and now Ibbitson & Bricker are proposing (and largely for purely economic gains) is nothing short of lunacy in this light.

A far more rational take is afforded by Herman Daly, University of Maryland Professor of Ecological Economics, in his book 'Steady State Economics'. The problem is the concept of "growth" is bogus on its face. Only a congenital moron would continue to pander to unchecked growth (and the increased population that feeds it) in a finite, zero-sum environment or planet. Especially one in which artificial wealth is created by extracting resources  that necessarily diminshes and degrades the remaining resource base. By "artificial wealth" I mean materials or converted resources (other than food) that cannot sustain your life. They may window-dress it, like the latest X-box game, but they won't sustain it.

Another sane alternative is offered by Aurelio Peccei's `One Hundred Pages for the Future' . Peccei makes a passionate plea for humans to notch their numbers down to replacement levels or lower since they've exceeded the Earth's ability to support them. (Part 1: `The Ascent and Decline of Humankind'). Peccei refers to an enormous supplemental population - one that exists beyond the ability of additional resources to support humans, hence  existing as a "human bomb threatening the planet".

Meanwhile, the late, noted science writer and biochemist Isaac Asimov- in various essays written over decades- has also warned of similar constraints on humanity's use of resources, particularly in terms of how population growth impinges on finite resources and sets limits to growth. Asimov was probably also the first to use the term "carrying capacity" * which he estimated to be 3 billion humans for this limited world.

By contrast, Wattenberg's book essentially tosses the very concept of carrying capacity out the window.

More recently, in an article appearing in `Physics Today' (July, 2004 issue): `Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie', Albert Bartlett pinpointed the failure to name human population growth as a major cause of our energy and resource problems.

Bartlett avers that "their (scientists') general reticence stems from the fact that it is politically incorrect or unpopular to argue for stabilization of population - at least in the U.S. Or perhaps scientists are uncomfortable stepping outside their specialized areas of expertise".

But Bartlett himself, in books and lectures, i.e.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA9Hnp3aV4

 Has perhaps given the best reason for this reticence of scientists to speak out: the realization that too few Americans understand the concept of exponential increase which lies at the heart of population increase.


But if Americans' math issues and  physicists (and other scientists')silence share blame, the corporate media also shares as much or more for having the facts and refusing to level with the public. For example, on the issue of overshoot of our finite resources.  

Indeed, I doubt any major newspaper (or corporate media website)  has published any relevant data on it since it became available. Why not? Because it would cut through all the propaganda, PR and 'feel good' economic bunkum (e.g. about needing more people to increase global GDP) to show we are unambiguously in a crisis with regard to resource sustainability.
 
 There is also no mention that every energy conversion pollutes and degrades the environment we depend upon.  Multiply those conversions - say via more and more people- and we quickly descend into a higher entropic, higher waste world.  

Are we there yet? Actually, we're way beyond it. As pointed out by Christopher Mims (WSJ, Exhange, Mar.2-3, p. B10):

"In 1950, the world produced about 4 billion pounds of plastic per year.  Today, we produce 600 billion pounds. Every year 20 billion pounds of it ends up in the ocean.  Over 90 percent of produced plastic has never been recycled, and it typically takes more than 400 years to break down naturally."

Think there's gotta be a techno fix? Dream on!  As Mims goes on to note, after citing the Chinese refusal to process any more foreign waste:

"It's a crisis so big that no amount of technology, innovation or policy can solve it in the near future ..."

In other words, we are converting the planet's oceans into massive crypts that will likely sustain no living things - maybe not even jellyfish - in another 100 years.

Sadly, too many of our citizens fail to appreciate that every energy conversion process features an accompanying entropy or increased disorder.  Thus, the combustion of fuel in an internal combustion engine releases carbon monoxide as well as CO2 and other pollutants. Further, the 2nd law of thermodynamics states that the expelled constituents can never be used again for positive energy.   


Turning resources into waste faster than even a fraction of waste can be recovered-recycled thereby sets the stage for global ecological overshoot which depletes the very resources on which human life and the natural environment depends.

The astute and aware citizen must be sentient enough to know more people is not in humanity's best interest. Isaac Asimov, as part of his February, 1976 Barbados lecture e.g.

warned that humans had two choices: decrease their population to the carrying capacity limit to live in an equilibrium with the Earth and its resources, or let nature “increase the human death rate” (e.g. by starvation, pestilence, wars over resources etc.)

He also remarked:

"It is now the willingly childless woman who is the heroine of our planet. She is the one who now deserves all the kudos and praise, for helping to do what is necessary to spare humanity from the ravages of over-population"

Empty planet? No. A perilously overpopulated one, and more than twice in excess of its carrying capacity. 

See also:

https://www.ft.com/content/c0a77b28-3c2c-11e9-b856-5404d3811663

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*  Carrying capacity = (usable land-water resource base providing water + food + fuel) / (individual food, fuel + water requirement)

Now, if the numerator is  11.4 x 10 ⁹   hectares of usable aggregate equivalent land-water resource base and if 6 hectares is the ideal mean individual requirement over a lifetime (e.g. meet all basic needs and have a few private luxuries) , that means:

 CC = (11.4 x 10  9 hectares) / 6 hectares/person   =  2 billion.

Obviously, this can be increased if the numerator can be increased or the denominator (each individual's ecological footprint) decreased.

Jonathan Last’s False Alarm About an American ‘Baby Bust’

In a recent Wall Street Journal piece (‘America’s Baby Bust’) conservative mouthpiece Jonathan Last, like others before him (Ben Wattenberg in ‘The Birth Dearth’) bellyaches about the fertility rate of the nation, and that it’s dangerously low, see e.g. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323375204578270053387770718.html

He begins by noting China’s one-child policy which led to an effective birth rate of 1.54 children per woman. Then he babbles:

“Here in America, white, college-educated women—a good proxy for the middle class—have a fertility rate of 1.6. America has its very own one-child policy. And we have chosen it for ourselves.”

Yes, indeed, Mr. Last! But WHY? One can enumerate a host of reasons which are all totally rational in the context of a Neoliberal capitalist bastion which professes "family values" and seeking the welfare of women and their children but whose actual laws-actions shows a vile contempt. You dispute it? Then look at the facts:


- 1 in 4 children in hunger because of being unable to get affordable nutrition each day (see also the new documentary, ‘A Place At the Table’)

- Lack of child care centers such as exist in western Europe, which makes working mothers’ lives easier, especially when 2 incomes are needed.

- Lack of adequate child health resources for women, including affordable insurance.

- The cost of raising a child today through college, now estimated at $290,000 per child.

- Exploding costs of college and the ubiquitous college debt now nearly $1 trillion.


Given all these, any normal, rational and reasonably intelligent middle class woman would opt to not have kids, or at most one. The cost is simply too severe, and then….if she lives up to Last’s fertility standards and needs economic support later (e.g. food stamps, Obamacare Health Exchange) , what? The Repukes will tell her: “Too bad! We expect you to demonstrate self-reliance! You have kids, you're on your own! This ain't Europe! Besides we got austerity budgets now!”

Last then goes on to peddle the usual conservo codswallop:


“Forget the debt ceiling. Forget the fiscal cliff, the sequestration cliff and the entitlement cliff. Those are all just symptoms. What America really faces is a demographic cliff: The root cause of most of our problems is our declining fertility rate.”


Not quite! The root cause of most of our problems is, in fact, the ceaseless yen to start wars (actually occupations) of choice which suck up our surpluses and capital, even as we fail to raise the revenue (via taxes) to pay for the domestic needs such as infrastructure repair and energy diversification. The notion of conservative nabobs that we have “too many old people” and not enough young workers to support them is a hackneyed canard, long past its 'expire' date.

Even Alan Greenspan, Neolib icon that he is, noted as far back as 1983 (after the last payroll tax to cover the cost of the retiring Boomers) that the problem was inadequate revenue. And lo and behold, despite raising the payroll taxes to 6.2% (for employers and employees) to pay for the Boomers' onslaught – we now constantly read that “aren’t enough workers” (Last cites only 3 workers now to every retiree).


But this is bollocks! There would be absolutely NO problem at all, period, had congressional pirates not raided more than $1.7 trillion from Social Security since 1983 – mostly to fund defense spending, wanton occupations (in Iraq, Afghanistan) and tax cuts for the richest. But the lying supply -side conservos will never admit this, but merely do their hand waving to try to distract Americans from the real problem.

Why - in an era with proclaimed "higher efficiencies" do we need more people to support social insurance beneficiaries? The reason is that instead of using capital for job formation it has been used for war making, for speculation in risky markets using risky devices (derivatives) and sending the capital overseas to support foreign jobs instead! Thus, the claim we "need more workers" must be taken with a grain, because the actions of our pols and companies don't support or resonate with that contention.

The other part of the argument that falls apart, is the fact the "more young worker"  promoters don't grasp they are endorsing a Population Pyramid scheme. Because if we push American females to have 15 million more kids - then what will we need to do to support them in their old age? Obviously we will have to massively cut their benefits, or bring in millions of foreign workers. Then...who will support them...or do we just intend to tell them, 'Hasta la vista! You've been useful to helping us, now go home!"


Meanwhile, researchers at the Harvard Public Policy and Health Center have observed the demographic concerns of Last are muted by young workers not being distracted by parenthood – hence enhancing productivity. (Draper, Denver Post, Mar. 11, p1A) They might have mentioned having to care (and pay) for kids' needs and also paying off huge student loans!


In addition, while raising the retirement age is also touted as a demographic bomb "neutralizer", the REAL solution is older people being able to work as long as they want. It’s no use raising the retirement age via congressional legislation if employers won’t hire older workers. (I am reminded here of a corporate white paper, issued by Fortune 500 companies in 1996, asserting that at the age of 55 a worker’s status is one of “diminishing returns”. I.e. FIRE him before his benefits claw too many profits back!)

But too many dummies on the Right continue to harp on “raising the retirement age”, when in fact we need worker protection laws to ensure older workers aren’t laid off on account of age discrimination. Solve THAT and the retirement age emerges as a non-issue.


But Jonathan Last, not content to dissemble about the American fertility rate in relation to retirement support goes on to compound his nonsense by spewing further claptrap about overpopulation:


“For two generations we've been lectured about the dangers of overpopulation. But the conventional wisdom on this issue is wrong, twice. First, global population growth is slowing to a halt and will begin to shrink within 60 years. Second, as the work of economists Esther Boserups and Julian Simon demonstrated, growing populations lead to increased innovation and conservation. Think about it: Since 1970, commodity prices have continued to fall and America's environment has become much cleaner and more sustainable—even though our population has increased by more than 50%. Human ingenuity, it turns out, is the most precious resource.”


Well, let’s examine these claims in more detail! First, the dangers of overpopulation have not abated as Last and his think tankers seem to believe, see e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/10/world-of-7-billion-not-so-nice.html


Note also the direct link between population growth and water shortage. (The State of the World Report projects an increase in water stressed population from 470m to 3 billion by 2025). Last claims the world population will “begin to shrink in 60 years”, but in that interim some 4.5 billion more humans will be added – each of them generating more CO2 to add to global warming (likely tipping us into the runaway greenhouse) , drawing down more water, and crowding out the natural world – occupying or exploiting habitat and making more animals, plants extinct.

The citation of previous research to the effect that growing population "leads to more innovation and conservation" is also off. I mean, if  concerted conservation is not visibly evident now, with 7.1 billion, how is it going to be more evident with 4.5 billion more people? It’s nonsense! We are also seeing wholesale eradication of habitat such as in Madagascar and other remote places (Indonesia) to satisfy the global demand for palm oil. In the midst of this hundreds of species have been pushed to extinction. How will it get better with 4.5 billion more humans occupying territory, consuming finite resources etc.? Don't these propagandizers think before they write? Wait, I just answered my own question!

Another lie is that commodity prices have fallen when in fact they have spiked, largely owing to competing demand from China and India. Hence, corn prices have shot up – since the Chinese middle classes are now demanding more pork, corn- fed pork! (The Chinese now import more corn feed in a month than they used to in a year). Adding to the burden is corn being used to make ethanol fuel! Precious metals prices, e.g. silver have also soared. And oil is poised to soar much higher now nearly seven years past the global peak (see the book, ‘A Thousand Barrels A Second’, by Peter Tertzakian, who uses the term "break point" more than "Peak Oil"- but the implications are the same.)

Other lies include that America’s “environment has become cleaner and more sustainable”. Says WHO?

It has become befouled, especially by tens of thousands of fracking wells contaminating vast areas from Texas to Pennsylvania. What is this guy drinking? Monkey-Moonshine like Mikey? (Who can’t even get his facts on the national murder rates right.) Those wells are also adding pollutants to the water resources, on top of the 57% of watersheds already polluted with everything from benzene to PCBs and potassium perchlorate – otherwise known as rocket fuel. See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/10/america-toxic-1.html

and: http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-badly-did-colorado-springs-city.html

and:

http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-keystone-xl-pipeline-mustr-still-be.html



The salient fact is we don’t need any more people on this planet, and certainly NOT in the U.S. since every baby born here creates a carbon footprint three times the size of child born in the third world. Already, given the present world population we are consuming an amount of resources equivalent to 1.5 Earths. If we go the way Jonathan Last proposes, where are we going to find the other “Earths” by the end of the 60 -year time frame when his global population begins to shrink (or so he claims)?  There are certainly no plans to colonize any other planets!

Anyone with half a brain ought to be able to spot bullshit when he sees it, and Last’s prescription is full of it, including the implication (brought out in Electa Draper’s article in the Denver Post on him yesterday) that “entitlements have become a substitute for children because in the past, children looked after their elders".

Yeah, well those days are gone, sonny, and I doubt few kids today would display that mindset in any case.
Would Last want to pin his hopes on a kid taking care of him in his old age? A kid - now adult- more glued to the latest video fare or online attraction than his IV? Who knows? Maybe, as Draper insists, he really is dumb enough to believe it, given he believes a much larger population will spell bounty for Earth’s billions as opposed to more hell!

Perhaps the best take on Last's bollocks was in a letter published in today's Denver Post:

"I know of no studies, save for those proposed by crackbrained “scientists,” that suggest having billions of more people on Earth is a good thing. Rather, there are hundreds of studies showing the logistical impossibility of even maintaining our present numbers. Take into account the socio-political problems of an overburdened planet — the have-nots staging unending, violent revolutions to get their piece of the pie, for instance — and this turns into a nightmare for humanity.

If the author of this article thinks it would be much easier to adapt to all the ills associated with overpopulation instead of finding solutions to keep seniors supplied with Medicare drugs and Social Security checks, then I’ve got a box of Soylent Green I’d like to sell him."