Optimum Population, the Central Feature of a Life-Sustaining Civilization Design

(Illustration by Brad Marshall, copyright c 2007)

“The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation.” (Albert Einstein)

“Central to the things that we must do is to understand that in the intricate web of crises, population growth - too many human - is the immediate cause of all our social and environmental crises.” (adapted from Dr. Albert Bartlett in Arithmetic, Population and Energy)

“We are like rats in an overcrowded maze, trying to painstakingly survive and adapt by learning more clever ways to negotiate the complex and full-of-competition pathways, not realizing that overcrowding is the real problem.” (adapted from M. Boyd Wilcox of the Minnesotans For Sustainability)

“Conventional economic ‘laws’ such as that of supply and demand, are ill-equipped to deal with the biggest of all environmental problems - no level of demand can bring another Earth into being . . . Perpetual total economic growth - in production, consumption, and ofcourse, resource depletion, waste and pollution it entails - alongside constant population growth is ecologically, mathematically and logically impossible.” (adapted from reports by The Optimum Population Trust)

“Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned, and the last fish been caught, will we realise we cannot eat money.” (a Cree Indian saying)

“Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive overpopulation. Convenience and decency cannot survive overpopulation. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one person matters.” (Adapted from Isaac Asimov)

“An ethic of human rights, of sharing, and of equity without a practically expressed awareness of ecological limits is a setup for disaster . . . If we want peace, democracy, and human rights, we must work to create the ecological condition essential for these things to exist: i.e., a stable human population at-or slightly less than-the environment’s long-term carrying capacity.” (Richard Heinberg in Population, Resources, and Human Idealism)

“Looking past the near-term concerns that have plagued population policy at the political level, it is increasingly apparent that the long-term sustainability of civilization will require not just a leveling-off of human numbers as projected over the coming half-century, but a colossal reduction in both population and consumption.” (J. Kenneth Smail in an article from Worldwatch Magazine Sept-Oct 2004 issue)

“Live simply so others may simply live.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

“The biggest cause of climate change is climate changers: human beings. Deciding to stop at two children, or at least to have one child less, is the simplest, quickest and most significant thing any of us could do to leave a sustainable and habitable planet for our children and grandchildren . . . Thus, in both developed and developing worlds, the condom, the Pill, and the intrauterine device ought to be as powerful symbols for the green movement as the bicycle.” (John Guillebaud of the Optimum Population Trust)

“Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race.” (James Grant, UNICEF Annual Report 1992)

THE TICKING TIME BOMB OF TOO MANY PEOPLE

IUCN/WWF Living Planet Report 2006 warns that, based on what it terms a “moderate” business-as-usual scenario, with demographic growth leading to a population of 9.1 billion people by 2050, relatively slow increases in carbon dioxide emissions, and the continuation of current trends in biological resource consumption, humanity will be using the biological capacity of two Earths in 2050. If that’s not frightening enough, a recent study suggests that if every person alive today consumed at the rate of an average person in the United States, three more planets would be required to fulfill these demands.

The global consumer class - around 1.7 billion people, or more than a quarter of humanity - is growing rapidly. These people are collectively responsible for the vast majority of meat-eating, paper use, car driving, pollution, and energy consumption on the planet, as well as the resulting impact of these activities on its natural resources.

As bleak as it may already appeared, the projected requirement in the Living Planet Report 2006 for more than two Earths in 2050 does not take into account the need to raise the world’s least ‘affluent’ out of poverty, meaning that, as populations surge in developing countries and the world becomes increasingly globalized, more and more people have access to, and the means to acquire, a greater diversity of products and services than ever before. If the impact of this development to the environment goes unchecked like they are now in many developing nations, we’d end up in a much bleaker situation than we are now.

At the same time, the planet faces the biggest generation of adolescents and teenagers in its history - a ‘youthquake’ of some 1.2 billion people between the ages of 10 and 19, or three billion under the age of 25 - many living in the new mega-city slums of the developing world, with major social, political and demographic implications, not least the creation of a huge cohort of young urban males who, through frustration and unemployment, even now seek an outlet in violence. They are the engine of future world population growth - tomorrow’s parents already born, and in unprecedented numbers. The ‘demographic momentum’ they generate means global population will continue to grow for decades, even if replacement fertility is achieved. Their access to family planning services is thus crucial to achieving a sustainable population for the planet.

Decisions about sexuality and lifestyle are among the most deeply personal and political decisions societies and their citizens can make, and the fate of the human presence on the Earth will be shaped in large part by those decisions and how their implications unfold in the coming years.

Even worse, just slowing the pace of population growth will not enough. If we don’t reduce our numbers purposely, catastrophe may do it for us. If we don’t learn how to shrink our polities elegantly, it will occur inelegantly. This population story’s ending still hasn’t been written. The time bomb of too many human ticks surely towards the moment of explotion, the consequences of which may prove too harsh for us to even only think about, let alone face.

TOO MANY PEOPLE . . . SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

We know that poverty is increased by population growth and vice versa, the evidence of which is the fact that countries with rapidly growing populations are among the poorest economies in the world. Why ? because it is difficult for a resource-poor country with rapid population growth to increase its per person economic ‘cake’, because even if the national economic cake is increasing, it has to be divided between ever more individuals.

The fact now is that the 50 poorest countries in the world will more than double in size, from 0.8 billion in 2007 to 1.7 billion in 2050, according to UN projections published in March 2007. Increases in population of this scale and rapidity will wipe out gains faster than they can be made, whether in agriculture, education, literacy or healthcare. For example, a recent Minister of Health in Morocco maintained that every year his country needed to build nine hospitals, 8,500 classrooms and 150,000 houses - and create 280,000 jobs - just to keep up with population growth. Remember the phrase “there just aren’t enough jobs to go around” ? Learn this if you haven’t: not enough jobs is one of the flip side of too many people.

Another fact: in 2007, 53% of the world’s people - some 3.5 billion - existed on less than $2 per day. For them a rise in living standards along with inevitable increased consumption is absolutely essential. The result, however, will be additional climate change, habitat destruction and the extinction of tens of thousands of plant and animal species.

Bill Moyers interviewed Isaac Asimov in 1989 asking “What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species if this population growth continues at its present rate?”. To which Asimov replied:

“It will be completely destroyed. I like to use what I call my bathroom metaphor: if two people live in an apartment and there are two bathrooms, then both have ‘freedom of the bathroom’. You can go to the bathroom anytime you want to stay as long as you want for whatever you need. And everyone believes in freedom of the bathroom; it should be right there in the Constitution. But if you have twenty people in the apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang on the door, Aren’t you through yet? and so on. In the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive [overpopulation]. Convenience and decency cannot survive [overpopulation]. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one person matters.”

And so, central to the things that we must do is to understand that in the intricate web of crises, population growth - too many human - is the immediate cause of all our social and environmental crises .

Compassion is a luxury available to people enjoying peace and plenty, who are confident of their place in society. They apply it to the hungry, needy, or oppressed. It makes them feel virtuous - until the needy try to take advantage of the givers. Human ‘rights’ often conflict with each other. For example, if a couple insists on their ‘right’ to have lots of babies, the family that results may lose its ‘right’ to enjoy a comfortable standard of living.

And thus, an ethic of human rights, of sharing, and of equity without a practically expressed awareness of ecological limits is a setup for disaster. If we want peace, democracy, and human rights, we must work to create the ecological condition essential for these things to exist: i.e., a stable human population at-or slightly less than-the environment’s long-term carrying capacity. To do otherwise-to think that we can advocate for human rights, peace, and social justice while ignoring their necessary ecological basis-is both intellectually dishonest and ultimately self-defeating.

So, now you may ask: “Why do we let ourselves end up in this terrible situation? How do we get out?”

THE EQUATION OF LIFE AND DEATH

The reason why end up in this terrible situation is by skipping class when an equation of crucial importance was taught. And a proper understanding of it will help us get out of it.

Pherologists - those who study carrying capacity - called it the ‘impact equation’,

I = T x A x P

For those unfamiliar with the term, carrying capacity is defined as the largest human population a country can support with a specified lifestyle without (a) causing damage to its own or other countries’ supporting environment; (b) depleting natural resources for future generations; and (c) causing further extinction of non-human species (biodiversity). And of course, carrying capacity can be seen in a planetary sense, meaning the largest human population planet earth can support under those criterions.

I is impact on the environment, T is the effect of the technologies used in production, distribution, consumption and post-consumption processing of waste, A is affluence (or per capita consumption), and P is population.

Considering the intricate relationship between environmental justice and social justice forementioned, we could expand I to also cover the impact of T x A x P to human society. And thus we have a simple equation of which result could mean life or death for our civilization and planet as a whole, depending on the conditions of the factors being multiplied.

For memorization sake, let’s read the equation in english as “I tap” with ‘tap’ defined in dictionary as “a light touch or stroke”, and hope that each of us can interpret the equation in the real world as follow: “I touch life and earth lightly and kindly.”

To do that, we have to understand in what way each of these factors affects I and which has the most decisive and immediate impact on life and earth.

That P will be the one, we shall see in a moment. Now, let’s first have a look at T.

Factor T(echnology) - necessary but insufficient . . . at least for now and the near future

To this day, ‘dirty’ technologies, such as those of soil impoverishing agriculture, air-polluting fossil-fuel-burning machines, CFC refrigerants (remember the hole in the sky?), environment-poisoning chemicals (would you drink water straight from the river now?), waste producing production techniques, have had damaging effects on the environment, human and non-human life forms.

These supposedly ‘advances’ in technology have indeed gave the impression of expanding the planet’s carrying capacity. This effect is achieved, for example, through the use of fossil fuels for clearing land, pumping irrigation water, fueling tractors and other farm equipment, fertilizing soils, killing pests, and transporting produce ever further distances to support people in remote urban centers who would otherwise be unable to sustain themselves. The green revolution, forest clear cutting, overfishing, are all expression of the same mindset.

And thus, people who fear that population and consumption will not be reduced sufficiently to protect the environment place faith in the introduction of ‘clean’ technologies - such as clean-burning fuels, nuclear energy, fuel-efficient vehicles, better systems of agriculture and irrigation, GM crops requiring less fertiliser, pesticide and water, more efficient use and recycling of materials, better public transport, and the building of energy-saving houses.

This radical reform of the technologies employed to turn natural resources into goods and services would, it is claimed, give the same ‘benefit’ to individuals with far less damage to the resource base and far fewer waste products and emissions to be absorbed.

So, you could say that as technology was largely responsible for getting us into the present mess, it had better help to get us out of it… and surely, reversing the damage will need a great deal of ecologically sound technological innovation. The best of which would probably be what is called cradle-to-cradle technology. In the words of it’s conceptors and practitioners, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, “the 4Rs: ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and regulate’ is only postponing the inevitable stockpiling of unusable and unsafe debris on the land, in the sea, and in the air, it only delays our inevitable degradation of the planet’s systems and resources.” Because of the cradle-to-grave technology employed, eventually the whole Earth will be one massive grave. That’s why they called the requlation part of the 4Rs “a license to harm: a permit issued by a government to an industry so that it may dispense sickness, destruction, and death at an acceptable rate”. The message of regulation is simply only, “Be less bad.”

Good design, the authors argue, says, “Be good.” Instead of the 4Rs, they shows us the way to “rethink and redesign” the products of industry. Products can and should be designed from the outset so that after useful lives, they will provide “nourishment” for something new. They can be planned as “biological nutrients” that will easily and safely re-enter the water or soil, or they can be “technical nutrients” that will continually circulate as valuable materials within closed-loop industrial cycles.

Although ‘less dirty’ and ‘cradle-to-cradle’ technology have found practical implementations here and there, experience suggests that further scientific and technological R&D is a long, expensive, difficult and uncertain endeavour. And even if we can find for every industrial sector these kinds of technological breakthrough, it’s global-wide implementation is unlikely to be possible within the next few decades while there are still adequate supplies of cheap fossil fuels. It’s beneficial effects thus will likely be outpaced considerably by the destructive effects of population growth.

So, although factor T is necessary, it is still insufficient, at least in the near future. Factor P simply is more decisive than factor T in the impact equation.

Factor A(ffluence) - perpetual economic growth? or a steady-state economy ?

Economics, with its focus on the behaviour of capital, labour and enterprises, is a knowledge system that operates almost independently of the laws of physics, biology and climate science, and economic growth - so many percent per year, indefinitely - is of course the sacred basis of all modern economies. History tells us that in the last century and before, the industrial world has been greatly assisted by and possibly has relied upon the fact that its markets were ever increasing by way of the growing population numbers and the growing affluence of those populations. Affluence here of course means the ability to consume more goods and services produced by the economy.

We need to realize that with advanced yet ‘dirty’ technologies we currently use, our day-to-day activities in sanitizing ourselves (taking a bath, brushing our teeth, washing our clothes), obtaining our food, clothing (it’s chemicals-ladden production techniques), housing, energy, means of travel and other comforts are liable to damage the biological, climatic and physical systems of the environment, and thus the ability of the environment to support the population. Increasing consumption simply translates to more resource depletion, waste, pollution and suffering to human and non-human life forms. And these impact on the environment and life as a whole simply reflect the product of the average consumption of food, goods, services and energy per person multiplied by the number of people. Increasing GDP (production, consumption and pollution) combined with increasing population is a recipe for destruction.

Let’s use fish as our example.

A pro-growth free market approach to resource use suggest that if fish is priced out of existence, the price mechanism will ensure that other forms of food materialise to satisfy demand. So citizens of the world have been exhorted to eat different types of fish, each and everyone until it’s too expensive to buy - in other words, too difficult to catch - as is already happening with blue-fin tuna. As more of us eat, more of us deplete. Result, no fish.

The collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery is a case in point. For centuries it was one of the world’s most productive fisheries, yielding 800,000 tons of fish and employing 40,000 people at its peak ‘production’ in 1968. Then its stocks plummeted as a result of overfishing and habitat damage. In 1992, the fishery was closed in an effort to save it. But it may have been too late: a decade has passed, but stocks have not recovered.

Another example, the air we breathe.

Increasing GDP entails increasing use of energy, which currently are dominated by fossil fuels. This in the end entais the increase of greenhouse gases emission. So, emission trading was invented. A tonne of greenhouse gas emissions traded in an emissions permits market, which may be worth $6 or $30 dollars, and the price mechanism acts to reduce emissions. However market price does not necessarily move in line with the environmental targets that must be met to ensure survival - a market value for carbon dioxide emissions is of no use to mankind once an irreversible global warming threshold has been crossed. And the increasing trends of emissions world wide haven’t slowed down or stopped just yet. The effect of which in the present is alarming: longaged drought seasons the world over, more frequent and powerful storms and hurricanes, deadly heatwaves, melting polar icecaps, etc.

Viewed this way, increased GDP due to population increase, or increased population needed to increase GDP, has been and will still be a fundamental cause of air pollution and global warming.

Perpetual economic growth has a big question mark behind it now.

Nevertheless, despite all frightening signals such as the fish and air example above, and numerous others, every segment of our society, our business leaders, government leaders, political leaders, at the local level, state level, national level, global level, every one - still aspires to maintain a society in which all measures of material production and consumption continue to grow steadily, year after year after year, world without end.

Maybe it’s because business leaders and politicians are unlikely to support a regime which could lead to a reduction in commercial activity, with the prospect of failing businesses and of unemployment, which equals less profits from commerce and fewer votes for the politicians. And the like, citizens, also as workers, are reluctant to live in a less affluent way, and to loose their jobs.

We seem to forget, or refuse to acknowledge that without solutions to fundamental ecological problems there will be no economies and politics at all, no affluence and no jobs, only chaos.

Perpetual total economic growth - in production, consumption, and ofcourse, resource depletion, waste and pollution - alongside constant population growth is ecologically, mathematically and logically impossible. The goal of perpetual total economic growth can only lead to the destruction of all that supports human populations. And thus, perpetual or ’sustainable’ economic growth is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.

And clearly, conventional economic ‘laws’ such as that of supply and demand are ill-equipped to deal with the biggest of all environmental problems - no level of demand can bring another Earth into being. We only have one Earth with which to experiment, it would undoubtedly be better for our species to err on the side of prudence, exercising, whenever and wherever possible, a cautious and careful stewardship.

Now, if we agree that in it’s total environmental effect, perpetual economic growth is like a cancer to the earth and all life in it, including ours, the next time you pick up a newspaper and see headlines such as this: “State forecasts ‘robust’ growth” . . . imagine you’re sick and your physician diagnosed a cancer in your body and said, “Well done! You have a robust cancer, I hope it grows ever more”.

At this point, you may begin to ask: “If perpetual economic growth is eventually a losing cause, then what?”

Logically, the answer would be a gradual shift to less growth, to zero growth, to minus growth until we can achieve a global economy that is in line with earth’s carrying capacity. We would then have what alternative economics theorist call the ’steady state economics’.

The contrast between the two is clear.

In conventional economics, the economy is expanded to encompass the entire ecology, so that all energy and matter flows are regulated through price mechanisms. However, in reality, the economy is a subsystem of the entire planetary ecology. The ecosystem is a source of the economy’s resources, and a sink for its wastes. Energy and matter enter the economy as inputs, are transformed into goods and services, and leave as wastes, this flow of energy and matter being known as “throughput.” Economic growth increases this throughput resulting in the increasing depletion of resources in the entrance of the economy and increasing pollution in the exit - our environmental crisis.

A steady-state economy (SSE) on the other hand, is one in which the stock of manmade goods and services, and the population, are fixed, and the throughput supporting them is minimized. In other words, throughput should be “within the regenerative and absorptive capacities of the ecosystem.” Renewable resources should not be taken faster than the ecosystem can replace them. Nonrenewable resources should be taken no faster than renewable substitutes can be developed. Waste and pollution quantities should not exceed a sustainable level of absorption.

SSE advocates believes that the world economy has already exceeded optimal size. It is now so large that it is overloading the ecosystem’s ability to serve as a source and a sink. Therefore, economic growth (quantitative enlargement) should be forsaken in favor of development (qualitative improvement) through the application of a SSE.

In opposition, some identifies a SSE with a failed growth economy. But we must know that a condition of nongrowth can come about in two ways: as the failure of a growth economy, or as the success of a steady-state economy. The two cases are as different as night and day. No one denies that the failure of a growth economy to grow brings unemployment and suffering. It is precisely to avoid the suffering of a failed growth economy (because we know growth cannot continue) that alternative economists advocate a SSE. The fact that an airplane falls to the ground if it tries to remain stationary in the air simply reflects the fact that airplanes are designed for forward motion. It certainly does not imply that a helicopter cannot remain stationary. A growth economy and a SSE are as different as an airplane and a helicopter.

In reframing our mindset around perpetual economic growth and steady state economics, Donella H. Meadows, co-author of Limits to Growth, said the following:

“The first commandment of economics is: Grow. Grow forever. Companies must get bigger. National economies need to swell by a certain percent each year. People should want more, make more, earn more, spend more - ever more. The first commandment of the Earth is: Enough. Just so much and no more. Just so much soil. Just so much water. Just so much sunshine. Everything born of the Earth grows to its appropriate size and then stops. The planet does not get bigger, it gets better. Its creatures learn, mature, diversify, evolve, create amazing beauty and novelty and complexity, but live within absolute limits.”

Or in the words of the great historian Arnold Toynbee: “Nature is going to compel posterity to revert to a stable state on the material plane and to turn to the realm of the spirit for satisfying man’s hunger for infinity.”

While the spiritual plane is beyond the scope of this discourse, in that point of a SSE, on the material plane civilization will thrive off renewable biological and physical resources - in economic terms, to live off the interest on those natural capital rather than to deplete it - and humanity will truly be living a one planet life.

However, difficulties lie in the fact that human beings have never figured out how to operate a thriving society whose economy and population don’t grow by a percent or so each year, we’re going to have to learn. The transition towards a SSE would possibly be facilitated by the logic that if a country’s population is declining but its GDP remains the same or declines more slowly, per capita economic growth (income) can in fact increase. This would be necessary to lift out those living in extreme poverty, and to lessen the eco-sociological impact of the affluent living in advanced countries. It could be a goal which both developing and developed countries can embrace.

There are also areas of economic growth that are ‘greener’ than others, and these need to be taken into account - for example, the output of ‘green energy’ rather than fossil-fuel energy. True cost accounting have also begun to emerge, for example, the costs of overpopulation and overconsumption are increasingly internalized with the introduction of measurable environmental costs such as recycling and landfill taxes, road-congestion charging and insurance premium re-pricing resulting from the effects of global warming. While these are positive steps towards a SSE, the road is long.

Whether or not you agree with steady-state economics, it is still clear that the present belief in perpetual economic growth produces not just goods and services, but also devastating effects to life, human or non-human, and the planet. And if you happen to agree with steady state economics, the shift towards it would likely be a difficult and trecherous endeavour with so many resistance and obstacles. SSE is a new experiment in the economic sphere of life. It is still in infancy, growing only in the maturation of it’s ideas, instruments and acceptance, and yet to be implemented wholeheartedly by any single country.

Just like factor T in the impact equation, the beneficial effects of an improved economic system will thus be likely outpaced considerably by the destructive effects of population growth.

So, although improvements in factor T and A is necessary, it is still insufficient, at least in the near future. Factor P simply is more decisive than factor T and A in the impact equation. And as we’re about to find out, is the one most easily modifiable.

Factor P(opulation) - what we all can and should do

We know now that population size is a multiplier of all social and environmental problems, and the pace of population growth will likely negate any advances in clean technologies, social welfare programs and people-planet friendly economic system.

Or to look at it the other way around, here’s a challenge. Can you think of any problem, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long term solution is in any demonstratable way, aided, assisted, or advanced by having larger populations in our local levels, state levels, national level, or global level? Can you think of anything that can get better if we crowd more people into our cities, our towns, into our state, our nation, or on this earth? If not, there’s only one option to take: the path towards optimum global population.

John Guillebaud of the Optimum Population Trust takes this conclusion on step further when he said, “The biggest cause of climate change is climate changers: human beings. Deciding to stop at two children, or at least to have one child less, is the simplest, quickest and most significant thing any of us could do to leave a sustainable and habitable planet for our children and grandchildren.” James Grant, in UNICEF’s Annual Report 1992, said the similar thing, “Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race.”

With the right mindset, and basic contraceptive devices and practices, stopping at two children, or to have one child less is not a very difficult enterprise. It’s been done in many countries, developed or developing, with China being the extreme example at mandating its citizen to have only one child per family due to it’s extreme overpopulation-induced problems.

Thus, in both developed and developing worlds, the condom, the Pill, and the intrauterine device ought to be as powerful symbols for the green movement as the bicycle.

And although balancing human numbers against natural resources would not instantly solve the world’s human and environmental problems, it would certainly make them solvable. Would not Ethiopia’s recurring famines be easier to overcome if its population were not doubling every 28 years?

Demographic shrinkage is no nightmare scenario, but an economic and political puzzle whose solution could be humanity’s only hope.

THE CASE FOR OPTIMUM POPULATION

The optimum population of a country is the one which is most likely to produce a good and sustainable quality of life for its inhabitants without adversely affecting the quality of life either of people who live in other countries, of people who will live in future times, of non-human species and without causing damage to its own or other countries’ life-supporting environment.

In relation to economics, an optimum population size might also be defined as that level which would permit the creation of a sustainable steady-state economy with an adequate standard of living for all.

This idea of balancing numbers and resources to ensure an acceptable quality of life is an ancient one. Possibly the oldest literary document extant - a Babylonian poem baked on a clay tablet, ‘Atra Hasis’ - calls for a large population reduction to improve the peoples’ lot. Similar ideas occur in ancient Hindu and Greek scholarship, (e.g. Plato & Aristotle), the Bible, JJ Rousseau, the folkways of traditional societies, and so forth. Nevertheless, the expression ‘optimum population’ was formulated - by the Swede, Kurt Wicksell - only in 1911 . This was taken up by economists, given a rather mechanistic definition - the population size at which income per capita is maximised - and commonly depicted by two intersecting lines on a graph allegedly indicating the best population size in those conditions.

However, an optimum population size is not meant to maximize per capita income, and is not the same as the maximum number of people that could be packed onto Earth at one time. Optimum population means best population. There are two reasons why we prefer the term ‘optimum population’ when considering target population levels for humans. First, it implies that the population concerned is smaller than the maximum. Second, it implies that the lifestyle concerned is more than one of bare subsistence. It is extremely unlikely that people would willingly reduce their standard of living by half, for example, but quite acceptable (and already suggested by falling birth rates) that people will voluntarily have smaller families to maintain their standard of living. Neither term has much real meaning when applied to humans unless it is accompanied by a specification of the lifestyle on which it is based.

One thing for certain is that until a balance is achieved between human numbers and natural resources, the major human and environmental problems can not be solved. Millions of people will continue to starve and/or live in squalor and/or die in resource wars and/or die from preventable illness and/or suffer from appalling poverty and/or suffer from abuse of human rights. More than 70 million people already die of starvation each year, and 42 million are suffering from AIDS. More people will die. More species will be lost. More carbon will build up in the atmosphere. More rainforests will be destroyed. More air, water and land will be polluted.

Perplexingly, although this is a well established fact, rarely does the public debate, or even consider, the question of what would be an optimum number of human beings to live on Earth at any given time and how to achieve this size of population. And questioning further on what is our optimum agriculture, or optimum use of water resources, our optimum industry, our optimum definition of a workable democracy is simply out of the question.

With this perspective, searching for the optimum becomes not an idle, luxurious academic concept full of ambiguities and uncertainties, but rather the unifying principle most likely to ensure a sustainable future. Struggling with the contentious debate that optimum will provoke should be viewed as a sign that an adolescent culture is approaching adulthood, and is therefore willing to confront issues too long ignored. We will finally be discussing what contributes, in a meaningful way, to national and global security. Isn’t this what we all want for ourselves and our descendants?

So, it is imperative for each community, state, and nation to examine where it resides in the continuum from optimum to apocalypse, and make plans to move in the direction of optimum. However, since human population sizes have never, and will never, automatically equilibrate at some level, the human species must develop and quickly implement a well-conceived, clearly articulated, flexible, equitable, and internationally coordinated program focused on bringing about a very significant reduction in human numbers over the next two or more centuries.

If we could establish a consensus about the optimum population for a country or a region, life would become much easier for everyone involved in planning and providing for a sustainable future - in many fields from housing, agriculture, energy and transport to reproductive health. By integrating optimum with the analysis of sustainable development criteria, we can more clearly define what is or what is more likely to be truly sustainable.

What should a society with optimum population look like?

Before we go into numbers, it would be wise to mention the following characteristics that a society with an optimum population should have:

• An optimum population size should be small enough to make it possible to provide the minimal physical ingredients of a decent life to everyone.
• Basic human rights in the social sphere (such as freedom from racism, sexism, religious persecution, and gross economic inequity) should be secure. Everyone should have access to education, health care, sanitary living conditions, and economic opportunities.
• An optimum population size should be large enough to sustain viable populations in geographically dispersed parts of the world to preserve and foster cultural diversity because cultural diversity is an important feature of our species in and of itself.
• An optimum population size would be sufficiently large to support a “critical mass” in each of a variety of densely populated areas where intellectual, artistic, and technological creativity would be stimulated. While creativity can also be sparked in sparsely populated areas, many cultural endeavors require a level of specialization, communication, and financial support that is facilitated by the social infrastructure characteristic of cities.
• An optimum population size would also be small enough to ensure the viability of biodiversity. This criterion is motivated by both selfish and ethical considerations. Humanity derives many important direct benefits from other species, including aesthetic and recreational pleasure, many pharmaceuticals, the basis and health of agriculture and other free services provided by healthy natural ecosystems, each of which has elements of biodiversity as key working parts. Most important of all, is to leave sufficient wilderness area for non-human species to thrive. We must have more protected natural reserves in the future, before those areas are converted into economic inputs.

In general, we would choose a population size that maximizes very broad environmental and social options for individuals.

The number of optimum population

Numerous claims have been made that Earth’s carrying capacity is much higher than today’s population size. A few years ago, for example, a group of Catholic bishops, misinterpreting a thought exercise by Roger Revelle, asserted that Earth could feed 40 billion people; various social scientists have made estimates running as high as 150 billion.

However, prudent and increasingly reliable scientific estimates, among which by the Optimum Population Trust and Gretchen C. Daily et.al., suggest that the Earth’s long-term sustainable human carrying capacity, at what might be defined as an ‘adequate’ to ‘moderately comfortable’ developed-world standard of living, may not be much greater than 2 to 3 billion .

The Optimum Population Trust (OPT) suggested and calculated possible optimum population levels according to the following criteria:

1. Possible optimum populations of countries based on a carbon dioxide world emission limit of 2.5 gigatonnes of carbon a year (calculated by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change)
2. Possible optimum populations of countries at present lifestyle based on per capita ecological footprint, allowing 12% of various ecosystems - for example, arable or crop land, pasture, forest, sea - to leave as a wilderness area for biodiversity.
3. Possible optimum populations of countries at ‘modest’ lifestyle per capita ecological footprint, allowing 12% of various ecosystems - for example, arable or crop land, pasture, forest, sea - to leave as a wilderness area for biodiversity. The “modest” footprint is based on a European lifestyle, but with much lower use of energy of 2 kW per capita (about two fifths of present European use).

These calculations results in the world population limit (maximum) of 2.8 billion based on the world emission limit of carbon dioxide, which is not too different from the 3.1 billion based on the “modest” footprint. In other words, whether we are planning to reduce carbon emissions, or planning for a time when we will have to rely on renewable energy, carrying capacity limits are much the same.

The world carrying capacity of 4.6 billion based on the present lifestyle, is much higher than the other two, but it needs always be borne in mind that the 4.6 billion takes no account of the fact that about half the world is suffering from some form of malnutrition, often combined with miserable living conditions and inadequate fuel even for cooking: because it is simply based on present lifestyles.

And since these numbers are a maximum, the optimum would naturally be lower than these.

A note on the calculation by the Optimum Population Trust must be mentioned here. The “12% for wilderness” they used in the calculation is based on the recommendation by the Brundtland Commission for the United Nations, a body of expert which still uses an human-centered approach to sustainable development, which they defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” and still ends up using the language “a new era of economic growth” as the way forward. So, scientifically and philosophically, the “12%” is still very much debatable. This is especially so when we stop and think about the fact that human are just one among the millions of species living together on earth. But for our discourse, here, let’s consider that it is adequate with a note that if we increase the percentage, the optimum population would be in the lower end of 2 to 3 billions, or maybe even lower.

Another calculation of optimum population were made by Gretchen C. Daily, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Paul R. Ehrlich. They perform the calculation using humanity’s energy consumption as a rough, indirect measure of the total impact civilization inflicts on Earth’s life-support systems. This is due to the fact that energy, especially that provided by fossil fuel and biomass combustion, is what drives the economy and civilization as a whole, and directly causes or underpins most of the global environmentally damaging activities that are recognized today: air and water pollution, acid precipitation, land degradation, emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and production of hazardous materials and wastes. In their own words:

“At present, world energy use amounts to about 13 terawatts (TW; 1012 watts), about 70 percent of which is being used to support somewhat over a billion people in rich countries and 30 percent to support more than four billion people in developing countries. This pattern is clearly unsustainable, not only because of the gross disparity between rich and poor societies, but because of the environmental damage that results. The consumption of 13 TW of energy with current technologies is leading not only to the serious environmental impacts indicated above but also to several forms of destabilizing global change, including a continuous deterioration of ecosystems and the essential services they render to civilization.”

“While convergence on an average consumption of 3 kW of energy by 10 billion people (the year 2050 population estimation) would close the rich-poor gap, it would still result in a total energy consumption of 30 TW, more than twice that of today. Whether the human enterprise can be sustained even temporarily on such a scale without devastating ecological consequences is unclear.”

“For our thought experiment, let us consider a 6 TW(Tera Watts) world. If we assume a convergence of all societies on 3 kW per capita consumption, that would imply an optimum population size of 2 billion people, roughly the number of human beings alive in 1930. Such a number seems at first glance to be reasonable and well above the minimum number required to take advantage of both social and technical economies of scale. In the first half of the twentieth century, there were many great cities, giant industrial operations, and thriving arts and letters. A great diversity of cultures existed, and members of many of them were not in contact with industrializing cultures. Large tracts of wilderness remained in many parts of the world. A world with 1.5 billion people using 4.5 TW of energy seems equally plausible and would carry a larger margin of safety. This is about the same number of people as existed at the turn of the century.”

“Determination of an “optimum” world population size involves social decisions about the lifestyles to be lived and the distribution of those lifestyles among individuals in the population. To us it seems reasonable to assume that, until cultures and technologies change radically, the optimum size of the human population lies in the vicinity of 1.5 to 2 billion people. That number also is our approximate best guess of the continuous standing crop of people, if achieved reasonably soon, that would permit the maximum number of Homo sapiens to live in the long run. But suppose we have underestimated the optimum and it actually is 4 billion? Since the present population is over 5.5 billion and growing rapidly, the initial policy implications of our conclusions are still clear. [Achieving a global population optimum of 4 to 6 billion would still necessitate a very substantial reduction from the 9-plus billion projected for mid-century]“

The following graph should give us an image of the difficult task ahead to reach the quasi-optimum (acceptable range of) world population.

(This graph is copied from the website of the Optimum Population Trust with permission)

SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING OPTIMUM POPULATION

We’re very close to reach a consensus on optimum population, but questions such as the following might still linger in the back of our minds. So, let’s try to answer them.

Doesn’t a country need more young people to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship?

No. One of the arguments made for increasing population growth and the relative numbers of young people (whether by natural increase or immigration) is that a successful economy needs innovators and entrepreneurs to develop successfully. Even if successful innovation and entrepreneurship is the preserve only of those under 30 (not the case), a lack of business talent cannot be blamed on demographic factors. Think of the ‘youthquake’ at the beginning of this article.

If a country’s population stabilises or reduces, it becomes an ageing population. Don’t we need to raise birth rates and have more children to support an ageing population?

No. Falling birth rates are a solution, not a problem. This perception is in part because first-world social welfare architectures resemble Ponzi schemes: they work best when each generation outnumbers the last. When you stop and think about it, if you have more children to support today’s 70-year-olds, you’ll have more 70-year-olds in 70 years time. Then what? Have yet more children? Then even more 70-year-olds? Constantly increasing the total population by adding greater numbers of younger people may alleviate short-term problems but simply creates faster long-term population growth. If you accept that world population cannot go on growing indefinitely, this argument has no logic.

Global trade allows overpopulated countries to import what they need from other countries. What’s wrong with that?

Nothing, up to a point - the point at which resources begin to dry up. In the case of agriculture, rising global temperatures, falling water tables and soil erosion are already causing resources literally to dry up, and efforts to reduce the number of undernourished people in the world (estimated by the WHO at about 840 million) are having little success. Improved technology (for example, GM food) does not always offer a solution. In the case of non-renewable resources, and the point at which imports deprive the exporting community of essentials for themselves, in the case of renewable resources. Globalisation may hasten economic growth, but it masks underlying long-term resource problems by intensifying international competitive price pressures, which in turn increase supply and hasten exploitation and consumption of non-renewable resources. Live now, pay later. Oil is an example. New supplies from Russian fields have been providing competition with OPEC oil producers, causing downward pressure on prices, which, in the absence of war, lead to more rapid consumption of finite oil reserves.

The simplest way to reduce the size of an industrial country’s ecological footprint is to reduce its imports of natural resources until they match its exports of natural resources. On the other hand, we realise that it will be difficult for developing countries to prosper unless they have a fair market abroad for their processed goods. We recognise too that apparent concern about the environment can be protectionism in disguise. In any case, it would help to clarify the issues if environmental costs were gradually ‘internalised’ - i.e. incorporated into the price of products. If all countries were to achieve low sustainable population targets, there would be more room for international trade without resource depletion.

A better solution exist. Why not make the economic life of any country as self-sufficient as possible ? The belief in conventional economic’s catchword of ‘comparative advantage’ and ‘development as quantitative growth’ has proven to result in economic dependency (or even imperialism) and increased commodity mileage (the fossil fuel required to transport commodities, like fruits and vegetables, to foreign land), which end up making a country more vulnerable to inherent market fluctuations and environmental degradation. So while self-reliance can still meet a country’s need, we should advocate it. And when it can’t, we simply add the word ‘cooperative’ to ’self-reliance’, and we can have cross-border trade that is absolutely necessary, and aimed at meeting finite needs, not infinite wants.

Doesn’t a country need a large population to compete in a markets-driven global economy?

Not necessarily. If population size were crucial, both India and China would be more economically powerful than the USA. Finland produced one of the world’s largest companies - Nokia - and in October 2003 was rated highest for growth prospects by the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness report. (The USA ranked 50th.) Denmark has the largest wind-turbine manufacturing company in the world. The economies of the US (280 million people) and Japan (127 million people) performed less well than those of many smaller countries in 2002. Successful economic management, high productivity, good business strategy, innovation and specialisation are more important than underlying population size.

But then again, if we think about the kind of competition our world is obsessed with now, we will surely realise that it is a win-or-lose kind of competition. I win, you lose, or, you win, I lose. And consequently, the winner tend to take more than their fair share, and the loser must suffer. On this, again, Donella H. Meadows offers a very sober insight:

“Economics says: Compete. Only by pitting yourself against a worthy opponent will you perform efficiently. The reward for successful competition will be growth. You will eat up your opponents, one by one, and as you do, you will gain the resources to do it some more.”

“The Earth says: Compete, yes, but keep your competition in bounds. Don’t annihilate. Take only what you need. Leave your competitor enough to live. Wherever possible, don’t compete, cooperate. Pollinate each other, create shelter for each other, build firm structures that lift smaller species up to the light. Pass around the nutrients, share the territory. Some kinds of excellence rise out of competition; other kinds rise out of cooperation. You’re not in a war, you’re in a community.”

If we apply this more sober version of economic life mimicing the laws of the earth, the global economy may turn out to be very different from the way they are now. And gone are the need to compete mindlessly and cruelly. A more cooperative world economy would emerge and steady-state economics certainly would help much in this cause.

POPULATION REDUCTION: THE HARD WAY, OR THE NOT-SO-EASY WAY

It is clear now that a large-scale reduction in global human numbers over the next two or three centuries appears to be inevitable. The primary issue seems to be whether this process will be under conscious human control and (hopefully) relatively benign, or whether it will turn out to be unpredictably chaotic and (perhaps) catastrophic. We must begin our new manner of thinking about this critically important global issue now, so that human and civilizational survival into the 21st century and beyond may be addressed as rapidly, fully, and humanely as possible. And obviously, a demographic change of this magnitude will require a major reorientation of human thought, values, expectations, and lifestyles. There is no guarantee that such a program will be successful. But if humanity fails in this effort, nature will almost certainly impose an even harsher reality.

To illustrate the range of possibilities the following list adapted from Dr. Albert Bartlett in his “Arithmetic, Population and Energy” paper would prove to be useful.

Ways to Increase populations vs. Ways to Decrease Populations

• Accident Prevention vs. Accidents
• Procreation vs. Abstention/Celibacy
• Motherhood vs. Contraception/Abortion
• Large Families vs. Small families
• Immigration vs. Stopping Immigration
• Law and Order vs. Murder/Violence
• Peace vs. War
• Scientific Agriculture vs. Famine
• Medicine, Sanitation, Public Health vs. Disease
• Healthy Forest and Soil, Clean Air, Clean Water vs. Environmental Catastrophe

Well, here we can see the human dilemma: everything we regard as good makes the population problem worse, everything we regard as bad helps solve the problem!

All of this is dreary and distressing, and that’s why most people prefer simply to avoid the topic. Many of us refuse to choose anything from the latter choices. Even the most agreeable items (abstention/celibacy, abortion, contraception, and small families) are controversial, especially if proposed as anything other than individual, voluntary options. Stopping immigration is enormously controversial, as immigrants already often face discrimination in many forms. In each case, one or another group would object that ‘human rights’ are being sacrificed.

Yet nature does not negotiate: the Earth is a bounded sphere, and human population growth and consumption growth will be reined in. So it appears we must give up at least some ‘human rights’ if we are to avoid nature’s choices, examples of which are:

• Famine, which in the near future may be due to a sudden collapse in the resources needed to sustain life (declinig fisheries, impoverished soil, contaminated air and water, increasing temperature, etc). Ethiophia’s poor-soil induced famine would be an example.
• Disease. The “black death” and the imminent avian influenza illustrates this possibility.
• A sharp increase in the effects of global warming. The recent unusually-powerful hurricane Katrina which hits USA is still quite fresh in our mind. Prolonged drought in Australia and New Zealand decreases the number of green pasture to feed cattles, which end up in the decrease of milk supply.
• War for resources (such as oil and water). The recent war in Iraq has been seen by many to be an example of war for oil. The genocidal conflict in Darfur can also be partly seen as a resource war (for grazing and farming land). The Palestine-Israel war can be viewed as a resource war for land.
• Demographic competition by way of fascism, as a response to population-resource crises - though is an admission of failure and an expression of the ugly habits formed through the past few thousand civilized years of extreme inequality, hierarchy, and authoritarianism - is a possibility. Especially when remembering the fact that educational systems throughout the world is not geared for multicultural and intercultural understanding, and biased stereotyping between races is still a common feature of our civilization.

In our effort to achieve a benevolent economic life with optimum population, ancient humans have something to teach us. The real ‘cave men’ - our hunter-gatherer ancestors - lived by sharing and enjoyed a gift economy. Our modern ’sentimentality,’ in the form of concerns for equity and the welfare of those who would otherwise be left behind, is rooted in ancient sensibilities. Yet while hunter-gatherers embodied the egalitarian ideal, we must remember that their ethic also included the imperative to hew to ecological limits. Infanticide (as cruel as it may seem) was the last resort when contraception and the suppression of fertility through extended lactation and maintenance of low levels of body fat failed.

This is a lesson that ancient humans internalized, to one degree or another. But during the first half of the fossil-fuel era we seem to forget about it: we were creating new temporary carrying capacity left and right. We could dream of ‘freedom of the bathroom’-human rights to food, education, health care, housing, and so on-no matter how many of us there were. Now, as that phantom carrying capacity is set to disappear, and as the human population is overshooting the natural limits of topsoil, water, fish, and fuels, the ideals we have come to hold are being threatened.

It’s time stop demanding ceaselessly of our ‘human rights’, start to honor ‘nature rights’ and act on our ‘human obligations’ as a thinking species.

VOLUNTARY ROAD TOWARDS OPTIMUM WORLD POPULATION

Now, we’ve learned that ‘the hard-way’ towards optimum world population is simply unacceptable, that is ofcourse if we can afford to refuse them. That is why the option we have to take is ‘the not-so-easy path’: abstention/celibacy, abortion, contraception, and small families. With a note that since abortion is a form of humanitarian crime, it is not an acceptable way to reach optimum population. Because obviously, it is far from ‘voluntary’ since the infant did not willingly die. It was unwillingly murdered. We would deal with ways to stop this option from becoming a wide-spread practice. In the mean time, let’s deal with the most important thing we have to do.

Changing perceptions

We have to educate all of our people to an understanding of the arithmetic and the consequences of perpetual economic growth, especially in terms of populations and in terms of the earth’s finite resources. We must educate people to recognise the fact that growth of populations and growth in rates of resource consumption cannot be sustained.

The old slogan “development is the best contraceptive” is out-of-date - in reality “a contraceptive is the best contraceptive.”

Fertility regulation is often stigmatised as being ‘anti-life’ yet in reality it saves the lives of both mothers and children:

• An estimated 550,000 women die every year through unsafe induced abortion, pregnancy and childbirth. At least 35 per cent of these are killed by pregnancies they would have avoided if contraception had been available.
• About 350 million couples worldwide - a third of all couples of reproductive age - still lack access to a full range of family planning services, to enable them to space their children or limit the size of their families. This number is expected to grow by 40 per cent in the next 15 years.
• There is a vast unmet need for contraception and reproductive health services, evidenced by the fact that about 50 million of the roughly 190 million pregnancies worldwide each year end in abortions.

New guidelines should be introduced for the portrayal of fertility issues by the media, aimed at countering the glamorisation of sex and stressing the responsibilities and frequent “sheer drudgery” of motherhood, especially when it’s accidental and too-early in life. In fact, research suggests that teenage mothers suffer multiple disadvantages - teenage mother is more likely to drop out of school, to be unqualified, unemployed or low-paid, to live in poor housing and on welfare, and to suffer depression. The most powerful contraceptive for teenagers may therefore be ambition: the ambition to have a good quality of life.

The term ’sex education’ should be abandoned, because it omits the crucial word ‘relationships’, often leading opponents to interpret it as meaning ‘educating’ or encouraging young people to have sex. The term ’sex and relationships education’ (SRE) should always be used, as a matter of policy.

A major increase in the uptake of long-acting contraceptive methods, such as implants, injections and intrauterine devices should be encouraged. These should be more readily available to young people, since they have the virtue of “forgettability”, crucial when alcohol or other drugs are involved. All are more effective than the contraceptive pill.

We need to reshape people’s reproductive behaviour democratically through education towards voluntary decision for family planning for couples. A ’stop at two’ children or ‘one child less’ guideline for couples should be introduced by governments around the world, promoted in schools and in the media and backed by environmental groups. This should be promoted as part of a greener lifestyle and as an example to couples worldwide, encouraging them to limit their own family size to protect the environment.

Too repeat the point made by James Grant of UNICEF, “Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race.” And to quote the words of the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr when he said, “Unlike the plagues of the dark ages, or contemporary diseases which we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is solvable with means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution, but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and the education of the billions who are its victims.”

Planning for a family life of quality

Nations can choose between having a larger population with a poorer quality of life or having a smaller population with a better one. If the latter is chosen, every country needs a national population policy, that is geared towards achieving a national optimum population, and integrated throughout policies in other fields such as housing, agriculture, energy, education, health, transportation, manufacturing, etc.

A plan for widespread access to voluntary birth planning should be made and resourcing an effective supply chain for methods of family planning should be a priority in every country. This applies especially to long-acting methods such as injections, intrauterine devices and implants. As pioneered by Marie Stopes International, this supply chain should avoid medical barriers by primarily using so-called ’social marketing’, through small shops and pharmacies, with subsidies to bring down the price for the consumer. It should include not only condoms but provision of emergency pills, the regular Pill and injections.

The key to successful family planning is simply the removal of the barriers to women’s control over their own fertility.

For 40 years of surveys and one-on-one anthropological investigations in sub-Saharan Africa - whether parents used contraception or worried about the inability to control family size. The answers have been the same. The parents had not practised birth control because they had no access to services. They had never contemplated restricting family size because without the methods for doing so, it simply was unimaginable. Just remember the colourful Post-It sticky notes when you think of this - a product consumers did not know they wanted until they appeared.

And indeed, the evidence is that if birth planning services are supplied, they are taken up - for example in Thailand and Costa Rica, and in the State of Kerala in India. So, once again, development is not a contraceptive on its own - contraceptives are the best contraceptive. Whether overpopulation causes poverty or poverty causes overpopulation is a chicken-and-egg argument: sustainable development and contraception are joint solutions . By offering contraception, the vicious circle of population growth and poverty can be broken, without coercion. International aid, therefore, needs to be combined with comprehensive, affordable and holistic birth planning services, so that no woman (or man) who wishes to control her (or his) fertility is denied the means to do so.

On the other hand, the continued failure in resourcing of the voluntary approach [to population stabilisation] is arguably the best way to ensure that many more future governments will be forced to legislate for coercive birth control as a regrettable but lesser evil than unprecedented conflict and suffering.

In extreme situations, where states or regions may be almost uninhabitable through environmental damage, one-child policies may become unavoidable. However, such policies should only be introduced as a last resort and after full and democratic consultation. Generally one-child policies are unnecessary, counter-productive and liable to discount human rights.

We haven’t mentioned much about abstention/celibacy here. It is a form of mental training for self-restraint, which is a goal of many religious and spiritual traditions. And possibly could be the goal of democracies when we consider that the essence of democracy is self-governance. It is of course free, as in gratis, because you don’t even need to use any contraceptive device. But on the other hand, it is a very difficult, if not impossible, enterprise for many, or most. For our discourse, we only need to know that it is a possible voluntary path to take.

Back to the issue of human as climate changers, we know that with the addition of every person on the planet, the ecological burden on the planet increases. Thus, although we are aware that modern life makes it impossible to lead ecologically blameless lives, couples can decide to have small families - just one or two children - as well as leading more environmentally sensible lifestyles. We don’t have to wait for government to act.

And on the issue of lifestyle, we can define consumption as what we need and what we want. By carefully thinking about what we really need and focusing our life’s effort for it’s attainment will give us a life of quality. This way, we will not aggravate or suffer chasing for things we don’t really need, things we just want. Wise ones say “You can never have enough of what you don’t really need. Wants is the source of all suffering.” and “The best things in life are free.”

With this in mind, a reasonable aim for a sustainable lifestyle might be that everyone should be able to live in healthy conditions with an adequate diet, low child mortality and a life expectancy of around 70 years; live in a modest house, have access to electricity and basic communication services, have access to learning and education, be free from excessive noise, pollution, traffic congestion and crime; and have recreational access to the countryside.

One thing for sure, a family life of quality for all can only be achieved through the attainment of national and global optimum population. Towards which, our individual voluntary choices will be of crucial importance. The choice is ours to make.

TOWARDS THE TWO SIDES OF THE OPTIMUM POPULATION COIN: SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Now, although thinking is very upsetting because it tells us things we’d rather not know, you are important people because you think. If there’s anything that is in short supply in the world today, it’s people who are willing to think. We should remember the words of Galileo; he said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” If there is one message, it is this: “we cannot let other people do our thinking for us.”

We should put in our head that, many times, the chief source of problems is partial solutions. This is what we encounter every day: solutions to problems that just make the problems worse. Fortunately, optimum population is not one of those kind of solutions. It is a solution which will help solve all other problems, and a solution we could all cherish.

The longer we wait, the fewer our options. Time is increasingly precious, and our window of opportunity for effective remedial action may not be open much longer - assuming it has not already closed.

With optimum population, living in greater harmony with nature, our horizons may stretch far into the future.

Keywords : ecosocial crisis, poverty, climate change, overpopulation, perpetual economic growth, cradle-to-grave technology, collapse, impact equation, carrying capacity, steady-state economy, cradle-to-cradle technology, democracy, population reduction, family planning, contraception, optimum population, man-nature partnership, life-sustaining civilization design
(use search box on the top-right of this page to list entries with one of these keywords)

This article is a summary of the following articles:

1. “Too Many People” by Tom Flynn at the Council for Secular Humanism
2. “The Population Story . . . So Far” by Danielle Nierenberg from WorldWatch Magazine, Sept-Oct 2004 issue on “Population and It’s Discontents”
3. “Global Population Reduction: Confronting the Inevitable” by J. Kenneth Smail from WorldWatch Magazine, Sept-Oct 2004 issue on “Population and It’s Discontents”
4. “Population, Resources, and Human Idealism” by Richard Heinberg in his 169th edition of MuseLetter
5. “Arithmetic, Population and Energy”, a presentation by Dr. Albert Bartlett at Global Public Media (Watch or listen to the presentation here, and get the complete paper with figures here)
6. “Optimum Human Population Size” by Gretchen C. Daily, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Paul R. Ehrlich at UrbanHabitat.org
7. “Optimum Population and the Search for Sustainability” by M. Boyd Wilcox of the Minnesotans For Sustainability
8. “Other Fish in the Sea, But For How Long?” by Janet Larsen of the Earth Policy Institute
9. “Economics vs. Earth: Just So Much And No More” by the late Donella H. Meadows at YES! Magazine
10. “Cradle to Cradle - Remaking the Way We Make Things - a Case for Truly Sustainable Design by William McDonough and Michael Braungart”, a summary of book reviews, by Wibowo Sulistio at Nooventures
11. “Steady-State Economics by Herman E. Daly, a summary”
12. “Steady-State Economics” by Herman Daly at DieOff.org
13. “The Steady-State Economy: What It Is, Why We Need It” by John Attarian at NPG.org (Negative Population Growth)
14. “A No-Growth, Steady-State Economy Must Be Our Goal” by Donald Mann, NPG President
15. “What does sustainability mean for the developing world?” by Peter Martin of BattleOfIdeas.co.uk
16. “Sustainable Development” entry at Wikipedia
17. “Too many people: Earth’s population problem” by Rosamund McDougall and Prof. John Guillebaud of the Optimum Population Trust
18. “About Us” page at the website of the Optimum Population Trust
19. “Compulsory Limits on Births May Become Unavoidable” - Optimum Population Trust
20. “Optimum Population” , a paper by Hugh Thompson of the Optimum Population Trust
21. “Youthquake - Population, fertility and environment in the 21 st century” by John Guillebaud (July 2007), a report of the Optimum Population Trust
22. “The Case for an Optimum Population” by Professor James Duguid et. al. of the Optimum Population Trust
23. “Optimum Population FAQS - 1″ by the Optimum Population Trust
24. “Optimum Population FAQS 2″ by the Optimum Population Trust
25. “Economics - A few simple points” by the Optimum Population Trust
26. “Sustainable populations by country” by the Optimum Population Trust
27. “Optimum Population : A Graph” by the Optimum Population Trust