Population Growth and Sustainable Development

1. Population Growth and Sustainable Development

2. The term sustainability can be defined as a world in which human populations can continue to exist indefinitely with a high standard of living and health.  • To understand sustainability and how it impacts our environment, we need to recognize that there are three main factors that are interlinked: • the economy, • the environment, • and society.  • Sustainability is related to the quality of life in a community -- whether the economic, social, and environmental systems that make up the community are providing a healthy, productive, meaningful life for all community residents, present and future. • An "unsustainable situation" occurs when the sum total of nature's resources is used up faster than it can be replenished. Sustainability requires that human activity only uses nature's resources at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. Inherently, the concept of sustainable development is intertwined with the concept of carrying capacity(more on this later). The long-term result of environmental degradation is the inability to sustain human life. Such degradation on a global scale could imply extinction for humanity.

4. Sustainable Development Sustainable development “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission), 1987

5. How is Sustainable Development monitored in Canada? • In Canada, sustainable development is addressed through a number of different government ministries.  Thirty federal departments and agencies submit sustainable development strategies (SDS) to Parliament every three years.  • Natural Resources Canada (MNR) has some of the greatest impact on sustainable development.  Some of the goals of the MNR include: • 1. Responsible development and use of natural resources; • 2. Economic growth and employment, fuelled by innovative ideas and practices; • 3. High quality of life, supported in part by Canada's wealth in natural resources; • 4. Social progress, which balances the needs of all Canadians; • Effective protection of the environment.

6. How can You achieve Sustainability? • One of the ways that the average citizen can achieve sustainability is through the practice of sustainable consumption. Sustainable consumption asks us to not only consider our own individual needs when we buy products, but also the needs of others. We need to look at our ecological impact, equity, human rights, and the political dimensions of sustainability when we shop.

7. Achieving Sustainability? • The Just Shoppers Association puts out the following guidelines that should be considered when buying products: • 1. Do I really need this item? • 2. Can I produce it myself? • 3. If I buy it... what about production, transportation, lifespan, and disposal of the product?

8. Achieving Sustainability? • Thinking critically about consumption leads us to realize the importance that our everyday choices make.  Most definitions state that: • 1. satisfy your basic need (no 52” wide screen plasma HDTV with a built in microwave and ice cube dispenser) • 2. favourquality of life over standard of living • 3. minimize resource use, waste, and pollution • 4. sustain future generations

9. Population Growth and Sustainability • Only a small amount, 11 percent, of all the land in the world is arable (able to be farmed). The rest is built up into cities and towns or is too cold, wet, rocky, or dry to grow crops. • While the number of people continues to grow, the small portion of land which must support these people remains the same, or becomes smaller as cities expand. Already one billion people suffer from malnutrition because they do not have enough to eat.

10. There are two main theories about how population growth affects sustainability. • 1. The first theory proposed by Thomas Malthus states the following: • Food is necessary for human existence. • Human population tends to grow faster than the power in the earth to produce subsistence, and that • the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal. • Since humans tend not to limit their population size voluntarily ("preventive checks" in Malthus's terminology), population reduction tends to be accomplished through the "positive" checks of famine, disease, poverty, and war.

11. There are two main theories about how population growth affects sustainability. • 2. The counter theory to Malthus’ theory is the adaptation theory. Its principles state that: • Food is necessary for human existence. • Human population tends to grow faster than the power in the earth to produce subsistence, and that • these two unequal powers may be made equal through human efforts. • Since humans tend not to limit their population size, we must find ways to grow more food, and prevent disease in order to sustain the population.

12. Carrying Capacity • Carrying capacity is the number of individuals an environment can support without significant negative impacts to the given organism and its environment. • Humans have a more complex relationship with their environment than other species because they can alter the type and degree of their impact on their environment. For example, humans must consider increasing the productivity of land through more intensive farming techniques, leaving a defined local area, or scaling back their consumption.  Humans may also decrease the productivity of the environment or increase consumption (overconsumption).

13. Carrying Capacity • Humans, like every species, have a finite carrying capacity. Population size, living standards, and resource depletion vary, but the concept of carrying capacity still applies.  Paul R. Ehrlich developed the IPAT equation to explain human carrying capacity: • I = P x A x T • where: • I is the impact on the environment resulting from consumptionP is the population numberA is the consumption per capita (affluence)T is the technology factor

14. Carrying Capacity • As population growth continues, some believe that we will begin to reach the carrying capacity of the Earth. After an expansion of agricultural capability on the Earth in the last quarter of the 20th century, there are many projections of a continuation of the decline in world agricultural capability and carrying capacity that began in the 1990s.  China is forecast to decline in food production by 37 percent by the last half of the 21st century, placing a strain on the entire carrying capacity of the world as China's population will have expanded to about 1.5 billion people by the year 2050. • Others suggest though that technology and agricultural innovation will increase with population density, and then carrying capacity might also increase in some areas.

15. Population Growth and Development (Demographic Transition)

16. To understand how carrying capacity and population growth relate to the world’s nations, a demographic transition theory was developed. •  Copy the following stages of the transition model into your notebook.

17. The transition involves four stages. • In stage one, pre-industrial society, death rates, and birth rates are high and roughly in balance. • In stage two, that of a developing country, the death rates drop rapidly due to improvements in food supply and sanitation, which increase life spans and reduce disease. These changes usually come about due to improvements in farming techniques, access to technology, basic healthcare, and education. Without a corresponding fall in birth rates this produces an imbalance, and the countries in this stage experience a large increase in population. • In stage three, birth rates fall due to access to contraception, increases in wages, urbanization, a reduction in subsistence agriculture, an increase in the status and education of women, a reduction in the value of children's work, an increase in parental investment in the education of children, and other social changes. Population growth begins to level off. • During stage four, there are both low birth rates and low death rates. Birth rates may drop to well below replacement level as has happened in countries like Germany, Italy, and Japan, leading to a shrinking population-- a threat to many industries that rely on population growth. As the large group born during stage two ages, it creates an economic burden on the shrinking working population. Death rates may remain consistently low or increase slightly due to increases in lifestyle diseases due to low exercise levels and high obesity and an aging population in developed countries.

18. Do your best to draw a sketch of each stage

19. Malthus states that people will start to die from lack of food, disease, and wars.  Wanting to avoid this, developed nations such as in Europe changed their ways. With the advent of technology, machines replaced the need for child workers and the changing role of women find women not just raising children but focused on career goals and social involvement.  • In developing nations, a lower level of technology means child labour is required.A lack of proper medical facilities has led to major health problems.  There is also a lack of education about birth control.  Population control policies in China and India are limiting the number of children per family.  Only at zero population growth will a population be stable.

20. Some Effects of Rapid Population Growth • Inadequate fresh water for drinking water use as well as sewage treatment and effluent discharge. • Depletion of natural resources, especially fossil fuels. • Increased levels of air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination, and noise pollution. • Deforestation and loss of ecosystems that sustain global atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide balance; about eight million hectares of forest are lost each year. • Changes in atmospheric composition and consequent global warming. • Irreversible loss of arable land and increases in desertification. • Mass species extinctions from reduced habitat in tropical forests due to slash-and-burn techniques that sometimes are practiced by shifting cultivators.

21. Some Effects of Rapid Population Growth CON’T • High infant and child mortality.  High rates of infant mortality are caused by poverty. Rich countries with high population densities have low rates of infant mortality. • Increased chance of the emergence of new epidemics and pandemics. Starvation, malnutrition, or poor diet with ill health and diet-deficiency diseases. Famine is aggravated by poverty. Rich countries with high population densities do not have famine. • Low life expectancy in countries with fastest growing populations. • Unhygienic living conditions for many based upon water resource depletion, discharge of raw sewage, and solid waste disposal. • Conflict over scarce resources and crowding, leading to increased levels of warfare.

22. Before continuing, please read the following notes on the Catholic Church’s views on contraception, as this will be discussed in this section. • In his encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI stated, "[W]e must once again declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as licit means of regulating birth. Equally to be excluded, as the teaching authority of the Church has frequently declared, is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman. Similarly excluded is every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (HV 14).

23. Before continuing, please read the following notes on the Catholic Church’s views on contraception, as this will be discussed in this section. CON’T • This teaching was reiterated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil" (CCC 2370). "Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means . . . for example, direct sterilization or contraception" (CCC 2399).

24. Before continuing, please read the following notes on the Catholic Church’s views on contraception, as this will be discussed in this section. CON’T • The Catholic Church also has affirmed that the illicitness of contraception is an important doctrine: "The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life" (Vademecum for Confessors 2:4, Feb. 12, 1997).

25. Achieving Population Sustainability • One of the most common methods of achieving sustainability and reducing population growth is birth control.  • Many nations are using policies of birth control through either offering contraceptives or using monetary incentives to lower their population growth.  China and India are two examples of countries where the government is attempting to slow their population growth rate.  In China, there are economic punishments for having more than one child.  Keeping the population growth rate at two per couple would stabilize the Earth’s population before we reach the carrying capacity. • There is another view we will look at by Hans Roslingin days to come.

26. Another view is that the world’s population does not need to be controlled. • One cannot deny the existence, especially in the southern hemisphere of a demographic problem which creates difficulties for development. One must immediately add that in the northern hemisphere the nature of this problem is reversed: here, the cause for concern is the drop in the birthrate with repercussions on the aging of the population, unable even to renew itself biologically. In itself, this is a phenomenon capable of hindering development ... • On the other hand, it is very alarming to see governments in many countries launching systematic campaigns against birth contrary not only to the cultural and religious identity of the countries themselves but also contrary to the nature of true development. It often happens that these campaigns are the result of pressure and financing coming from abroad and in some cases they are made a condition for the granting of financial and economic aid and assistance. In any event, there is an absolute lack of respect for the freedom of choice of the parties involved, men and women often subjected to intolerable pressures, including economic ones, in order to force them to submit to this new form of oppression. It is the poorest populations which suffer such mistreatment, and this sometimes leads to a tendency towards a form of racism, or the promotion of certain equally racist forms of eugenics. • This fact too, which deserves the most forceful condemnation, is a sign of an erroneous and perverse idea of true human development. • John Paul II from Sollicitudoreisocialis

27. Based on your readings, answer the following questions in complete sentences using examples where appropriate. • What is the driving force of rapid consumption levels? • What are the defining characteristics of sustainable consumption? • What can you do to achieve sustainable consumption? • What are the two main theory’s about how Population Growth affects sustainability? How are they different? • What is the message of the formula: I = C x T x P? • What are the main causes of rapid population growth? • What are the effects of rapid population growth? • What is the Catholic message in regards to overpopulation and sustainability?