POPULATION VS CONSUMPTION

Population Versus Consumption by Jordan Palmer

The debate between population and consumption is the Ali vs. Frazier matchup of sustainable development. It is a debate that will and has been going on for hundreds of years. This is one of the most important debates of modern time because quite frankly, the future of mankind depends on it. The Consumption of man causes more environmental degradation than the Population because of; The Demographic transition, wealth inequality, economic globalization and Waste Distancing.

While I may not agree with many of the thoughts this side makes, it's worth noting that population increases exponentially while food production increases linearly.(Malthus 1798) However, Malthus’ solution to this problem, increasing the death rate, is not going to solve the problem. Ehrlich coined it the doubling time. “The doubling time at present seems to be about 35 years. Quite a reduction in doubling times: 1,000,000 years, 1,000 years, 200 years, 80 years, 35 years.”(Ehrlich 1968) While some of this may be true he was off on his claims of 100s of millions starving to death, though people starving is a serious issue. Thankfully he didn’t factor in technological advances nor the demographic transition.

Demographic Transition is one factor for persuading my view point to the side of overconsumption. The "Demographic Transition" is a model that depicts population change over time. When you examine the transitions that numerous developed countries have made you can see that on average the fertility rate, or, number of children being born, has been on a steady decline for half a century. After peaking between 4 and 6 per woman, it is now down to around 2.5. This is because of proper health care, education, religious and political rights many of the developed countries have access to.(Hartmann 1995)

Another important factor is the uneven distribution of resources and the wealth inequality that is present in the U.S, India, China, and many others. “The main problem is not that there are too many people and too few resources, but rather that too few people monopolize too many resources.”(Hartmann 1989) With enough food being produced in the country for everyone to eat many still go hungry. If we could decrease the top 20% income from being 150 times that of the poor, we could decrease consumption rates of the wealthy to something more sustainable.(Hartmann 1995)

Waste distancing is the art the wealthy in America have created to strategically misplace their trash in impoverished areas like India or Michigan. A person in the U.S consumes more than a person in Ethiopia all the while putting off 250 percent more trash per person. This can and does happen on both a global and regional scale. It is a NIMBY syndrome for America.(Clapp 2002)
More population doesn't equal more consumption. Without waste distancing, the demographic transition, or economic inequality, population may be the bigger issue. A solution is to create a new economy with the triple bottom line being the metric for success, and implementing the Sustainable Development Goals only then will we end this cycle of consumption and be on our way to halting and possibly reversing the environmental degradation we've caused all the while ensuring that families no longer have foodless days.(Princen 2010)

Works Cited

Clapp, Jennifer. 2002. The Distancing of Waste: Over-consumption in a Global Economy.International Political Economy Centre Working Paper, pp. 1-24.

Ehrlich, Paul 1968. The Population Bomb.

Hartmann, Betsy. 1995. “Security and Survival” and “The Malthusian Orthodoxy” In Reproductive Rights & Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control, 3–40. Boston: South End Press.

Kates, Robert. 2000. Population and Consumption: What we know, what we need to know.Environment 42(23): 10-19

Malthus, Thomas. 1798. Essay on the Principle of Population.

Princen, Thomas. 2010. “To the Heart of the Beast”. In Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order, 29-47. Cambridge: MIT Press.