Comment and Analysis: population and environmental issues

This page is used to provide information and comment on a range of population and environmental issues. It is divided into two sections. The first is intended for brief comments, mainly on topical issues, the second for in-depth analyses. To go straight to the analysis section click on this button:

Comment

Global food crisis: A very inadequate response. Posted 26th April 2008.

The last three months has seen a spate of warnings by environmental organisations, government leaders, celebrities, the television, radio and newspapers, about the world food crisis Now we have one more warning, this time from the Head of the United Nations Food Programme, and it has received wide coverage in the media.

At present, biofuel production seems to be generally identified as the main culprit: Increasingly land has been appropriated for the growth of biofuels, reducing the area of land available for growing food for human consumption. We need therefore, we are told, to restrict the growth of biofuel production, or even to cut production back, and concomitantly, make every effort to increase food production.

Other causes of the crisis are variously mentioned, including climate change, rising oil prices and the burgeoning economies of some countries in the developing world, especially India and China. Of course, subsumed under burgeoning economies is population growth in the countries involved, and hence more mouths to feed, but population growth as a factor is sometimes not specifically mentioned. And nowhere in the articles we have read is population growth identified as the underlying driver of the whole food crisis. Of the articles we have read, a BBC article “the cost of food: facts and figures” comes closest to recognising the true significance of population growth since it draws attention to facts about that growth, but without recognising that this population growth is the fundamental driver of the problem.

And what should we do about the situation? Well we must restrict biofuel production, encourage peasant farmers (farmers of smallholdings) in the developing world to produce more food, end developed countries restrictive practices on food imports from, and exports to developing countries, improve the coordination between developed countries in responding to the situation, increase funding for agricultural research and, as an immediate emergency response increase food aid to the poor countries of the world. In our view the basket of proposed responses is seriously inadequate.

We pointed out quite a long time ago now (early November last year), what were the principal causes of the world food supply crisis and hence the food price crisis, in our essay “Population growth and environmental deterioration. Are things finally coming together for mankind's doom?” (Analysis section, Comment and Analysis page, but also directly accessed from the Home page) :
There are four basic reasons:

• continued global human population growth, hence more mouths to feed;
• dietary change in developing countries: the move towards eating more animal products, when animal food production requires greater land area than plant food production to produce a given quantity of protein;
• increased bio–fuel production (partly driven by rising oil prices), making use of land that could be used for human food production;
• extreme weather events (climate change, reducing agricultural productivity).

And we mentioned rising fuel costs and conflict as contributory problems.

In our view, any attempt to devise a rational and effective strategy to overcome the present world food price crisis must involve action over all four of the above causes. The most important omission in the proposed policy response to the situation is, in our view, the omission of the need to curb human population growth.

An article in the Economist magazine (“The new face of hunger”) illustrates the need to curb population growth. The article sees increasing food production by 'smallholders' in the developing world as a key factor in any strategy. Yet that same article acknowledges a fundamental problem with this proposal. It notes that smallholdings in many countries 'are fragmenting' (farmers dividing up the land amongst their offspring); this makes it more difficult, says the article, to do business with large retailers, and to get loans and new seed. We would emphasise that for millions of peasant farmers individual holdings have frequently become so small that farm area is too small to grow enough food to sustain the owners and their families. Now the article does say this fragmentation is partly due to population growth, and it also mentions that there is now in most countries very little fallow land left that could be converted to food production. But the article does not propose any action to curb population growth. The article also mentions the need to maintain or increase the use of fertilisers in developing countries and the need for better irrigation.

Well let us look for a moment at population growth, fertiliser production and irrigation.

For some decades now, the greater part of human population growth has been taking place in the developing world, not the industrialised or developed world. And this growth in the developing world has been greatest in the poorer countries — just the countries where we most need to have an increase in food production, whether by smallholders or not. Furthermore, it is in the developing world that most future population growth is projected to take place!

Fertilser production requires energy, and this comes mainly from oil or gas. So in a situation where oil stocks are dwindling, the need for these supplies is increasing (and of course not only increasing to produce fertilisers). And fertilisers, while improving production in the short term can damage soils structure and reduce long–term production.

And what about irrigation? Widely in the world now, water reserves are falling and have reached crisis levels in some areas. This is not only because of increased irrigation, but, perhaps more importantly, because of increased demand from growing cities (caused by population growth in cities). So while irrigation can be made more efficient, it will be difficult to increase substantially the area of irrigated land.

It is vital that human population growth is recognized for what it has been and will continue to be: the fundamental driver of global food shortages and hence global food price rises. And it should be remembered that if China had not adopted the one–child programme, and some other Asian countries adopted less severe population policies, the world population would have grown faster and much bigger than it has, causing the crisis to develop earlier and be more extreme.

We are therefore pessimistic of the possibility that world leaders will effectively solve the world food problem.

But we have other reasons for this pessimism. The first is climate change, another of the four principle drivers of the problem that we mentioned. Attention seems for the moment to have fallen away somewhat from this in the media. But having looked at what world leaders have been trying (with little success) to achieve, we think that the problem of climate change will not be addressed in time to avert disaster.

Second, as we note in our essay “Any possible future developments in global food production, planned or unplanned, need to be viewed in the context of the terrible degradation of the agricultural land base that has already occurred”. On top of that we have the ever continuing damage to and loss of natural ecosystems, especially tropical forests, that are needed to maintain human activity (for example, forest removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, mitigating global warming)

Third, human conflict. As we say in our essay; “Sometimes discussions on food production seem to be conducted as if we were dealing with a nice experimental plot on a well controlled farm. Unfortunately global food production is not carried out under such circumstances! Consider conflict. It is not possible to implement programmes of food production in areas where society is riven by civil strife. Even low level strife or between group tensions can stymie food production”.

Consider Africa, the continent at the heart of the world food problem. Strife or open conflict has been, and remains widespread in sub-Saharan Africa. And corruption is endemic in this region. Do world leaders really believe they are going to effectively introduce and maintain food policies in Africa?

Lastly, as we say in the conclusion section of our essay, “Our culture in the industrialized world has changed so that a hedonistic attitude and the pursuit of wealth are now all pervading”. We do not think that the greater part of the electorate will voluntarily change their habits, including reducing food consumption and changing to a more vegetarian diet (it takes less land to produce a given quantity of protein with plant food production than with animal food production). And we do not believe that governments will have the courage to make them.
To come back to population growth. We pose the question: which is worse, to let x million people die of starvation now, or save these people now, contributing to the continuing global human population growth, and leading to y billion starving to death in the not too distant future, and a global crash in the human population. Perhaps to allow starvation now would be good in the long term for the environment on which we depend, and improve the likelihood of the actual survival of our species.

A vision of the future

In a fairly short time, atop a hill of commanding height, overlooking a world littered with corpses, its forests destroyed and in heat almost unbearable, with a look of steadfastness on their faces, and hand in hand, two church leaders and the chief minister of one country declaim “we stood firm by our belief in the moral imperative to relieve the poverty and hunger of the world's people”.

Humanitarianism might be the principal cause of an eventual extinction of the human species.

We now give links to some of the articles.

World food Programme. High food prices a silent tsunami

World food programme. What global price rises mean for WFP

BBC. UN food chief urges crisis action

BBC. World bank echoes food cost alarm/World Bank tackles food emergency

BBC. The cost of food: facts and figures

Telegraph. Families annual grocery bill rises by £800

The Economist. The silent tsunami

The Economist. The new face of hunger

By stealth and deceit. Camoflaged spread of Muslim influence?. Posted November 2007.

(Corrections 26th and 27th April 2008)

The Policy Exchange report “The highjacking of British Islam. How extremist literature is subverting mosques in the UK”, details literature found in mosques and other Islamic institutions (almost a hundred sites were visited) that emphasised the idea of keeping separate from 'unbelievers' (non–Muslims), and literature about the dress and behaviour of Muslim women, about regulations that westerners would regard as very restrictive of personal liberty and that in effect make women inferior to men. Literature was found that promoted hatred and violence towards non–Muslims in general or particular groups of non–Muslims. There was literature in some UK mosques and schools that called for jihad in the UK through force if necessary, anti-Jewish literature (“You will not find any confusion in which the Jews did not play a role...Their attempt at trying to immerse nations in vice and the spread of fornication”), hate literature (“the Jews and the Christians are the enemies of the Muslim”), and literature advocating a violent response to those engaging in homosexuality.

While the Policy Exchange notes that such literature was not found at all in a majority of Mosques and Muslim schools, it admits it was found in roughly 25 per cent; and it was worrying that some of these institutions are amongst the best funded and “most dynamic” institutions of Muslim Britain, many of which have received official recognition in one form or another (e.g. visits from politicians or member of the Royal family.)

Now the Policy Institute thinks that the majority of Muslims in Britain do not hold the radical views expressed in some of the literature found, and we think the Institute is probably right. Yet the extent that such literature is to be found is deeply worrying.

And we feel uneasy about the responses of some Muslim leaders to such disclosures of radical literature — disarming responses like that of one leader who stated that the bookshop in one mosque where radical literature was found was not run by the mosque and any literature found reflects authors views, not the views of the mosque! One wonders what would happen if vehement anti–Muslim literature was ever to be found in non–Muslim institutions. There would be an outcry, an outcry splashed across the media, an outcry leading to criminal proceedings.

We have written elsewhere about the gradual spread of Muslim influence in the UK and indeed in Europe as a whole (see our essays “Undercover mosque, undercover Islamism!” and “the Muhammad cartoons controversy - the context”). We view the disclosures in the present Policy Exchange report as providing further evidence of a concerted attempt by some influential radical Muslim leaders, to spread Muslim influence, by stealth and deceit, with the aim of eventually turning the UK into a Muslim state, and indeed conquering the whole of the West for Islam.
Policy Exchange.
Telegraph

Will we be able to feed the world population? Posted July 2007.

On May the 11th this year (2007) the National Farmers Union of the USA (issued the following Summary report:

“LOWEST FOOD SUPPLIES IN 50 OR 100 YEARS:
GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS EMERGING

SASKATOON, Sask. — Today, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its first projections of world grain supply and demand for the coming crop year: 2007/08. USDA predicts supplies will plunge to a 53-day equivalent–their lowest level in the 47–year period for which data exists.

“The USDA projects global grain supplies will drop to their lowest levels on record. Further, it is likely that, outside of wartime, global grain supplies have not been this low in a century, perhaps longer”, said NFU Director of Research Darrin Qualman.

Most important, 2007/08 will mark the seventh year out of the past eight in which global grain production has fallen short of demand. This consistent shortfall has cut supplies in half — down from a 115–day supply in 1999/00 to the current level of 53 days. “The world is consistently failing to produce as much grain as it uses”, said Qualman. He continued: “The current low supply levels are not the result of a transient weather event or an isolated production problem: low supplies are the result of a persistent drawdown trend”.

In addition to falling grain supplies, global fisheries are faltering. Reports in respected journals Science and Nature state that 1/3 of ocean fisheries are in collapse, 2/3 will be in collapse by 2025, and our ocean fisheries may be virtually gone by 2048. “Aquatic food systems are collapsing, and terrestrial food systems are under tremendous stress”, said Qualman.

Demand for food is rising rapidly. There is a worldwide push to proliferate a North American style meat–based diet based on intensive livestock production — turning feedgrains into meat in this way means exchanging 3 to 7 kilos of grain protein for one kilo of meat protein. Population is rising — 2.5 billion people will join the global population in the coming decades. “Every six years, we're adding to the world the equivalent of a North American population. We're trying to feed those extra people, feed a growing livestock herd, and now, feed our cars, all from a static farmland base. No one should be surprised that food production can't keep up”, said Qualman.

Qualman said that the converging problems of natural gas and fertilizer constraints, intensifying water shortages, climate change, farmland loss and degradation, population increases, the proliferation of livestock feeding, and an increasing push to divert food supplies into biofuels means that we are in the opening phase of an intensifying food shortage.

Qualman cautioned, however, that there are no easy fixes. “If we try to do more of the same, if we try to produce, consume, and export more food while using more fertilizer, water, and chemicals, we will only intensify our problems. Instead, we need to rethink our relation to food, farmers, production, processing, and distribution. We need to create a system focused on feeding people and creating health. We need to strengthen the food production systems around the world. Diversity, resilience, and sustainability are key”, concluded Qualman”.

Access the NFU release at NFU

Comment.

“Demand for food is rising rapidly. There is a worldwide push to proliferate a North American style meat–based diet based on intensive livestock production — turning feedgrains into meat in this way means exchanging 3 to 7 kilos of grain protein for one kilo of meat protein”.

A casual browse through the literature will show numerous related statements such as, for example:
“An acre of cereal produces five times more protein than an acre used for meat production: legumes such as beans, peas and lentils can produce 10 times more protein and, in the case of soya, 30 times more”.
viva.org.uk

What is the underlying reason for these differences between plant food production and animal product production? An examination of energy flow reveals the answer — energy from the sun to green plants, then from plants to herbivorous animals, and finally from herbivorous animals to carnivores. At each stage in this energy flow, energy is lost. For present purposes we can ignore the last mentioned stage in energy flow.

Plants can only use a tiny part of the energy reaching them in the sun's radiation. This energy is 'fixed' (incorporated into the plant body) by photosynthesis where carbon dioxide and water are used to build up sugars (producing oxygen in the process). How is energy subsequently lost?

First, all organisms use energy to carry out their metabolic activities (the chemical reactions in their cells). They get this energy from the process of cellular respiration where sugars are broken down to carbon dioxide and water, making use of oxygen in the process. But in respiration, some energy is lost as respiratory heat. So some of the energy initially incorporated in the bodies of plants is lost during the life of the plant in this way.

Second, the whole mass of a plant is not usually eaten by herbivores. For example, root systems are not normally eaten by mammalian grazing animals. So energy stored in the uneaten parts of plants is lost from the energy flow to herbivores.

Third, not all plant material that is ingested by herbivores is digestible; much is voided in the faeces, taking with it its contained energy. Energy is also lost in the process of urinary excretion by herbivores, and of course these herbivores during their lifetime, like green plants, lose energy as respiratory heat.

Now we come back to the first part of the quotation with which this comment section began:

“There is a worldwide push to proliferate a North American style meat–based diet based on intensive livestock production — turning feedgrains into meat”. This was recently illustrated for China when we saw on television in the UK, supermarket shelves in affluent parts of China stocked with milk and meat products, whereas in the past the shelves would have been packed with grain products. From our analysis of energy flow we can see that this change of diet causes increasing pressure on land to satisfy food demand.

But the whole situation is made much worse because the global human population continues to grow rapidly, as the NFU report notes. As we write on our Population Trends page:

“The world population is projected to increase by 2.6 billion from 2005, to reach 9.1 billion in 2050. This additional population is equivalent in size to the combined present day populations of China and India!” But we continue - and here's the rub - “During this period there will be little change in the population of the more developed regions of the world, most of the population growth taking place in developing countries”.

So while population growth in developing countries will itself cause a massive increase in food demand, without any dietary change, it is in these countries that the dietary change is taking place, not in developed countries, and this will exacerbate the global food problem.

It has been possible in the past to increase global food production to keep pace with population growth. This had been achieved through the breeding of more productive and more disease resistant crop plant strains, the massive use of fertilisers, increase in the area of land devoted to food production, and a massive increase in the harvesting of marine fish stocks. But this has been achieved at the expense of ecosystems that have been seriously degraded or reduced in area, and the concomitant great increase in species extinction rate.

As we report on our Book Reviews page, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), conducted under the auspices of the United Nations, had 'four main findings', stated in the Synthesis Report as follows:

• Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fibre, and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.
• The changes that have been made to ecosystems have contributed to substantial net gains in human well-being and economic development, but these gains have been achieved at growing costs in the form of the degradation of many ecosystem services, increased risks of nonlinear changes, and the exacerbation of poverty for some groups of people. These problems, unless addressed, will substantially diminish the benefits that future generations obtain from ecosystems.
• The degradation of ecosystem services could grow significantly worse during the first half of this century and is a barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
• The challenge of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands for their services can be partially met under some scenarios.

End of quote.

“..degradation of many ecosystem services...” — 'services', that is services these ecosystems provide for mankind such as forests sequestering carbon dioxide, “...will substantially diminish the benefits that future generations obtain from ecosystems”.
We cannot go on for ever degrading ecosystems.

Today we find that demand for land continues to rise not only for food production, but to meet other needs of mankind. The growing population maintains the demand for housing and infrastructure that will at least be partly met by taking over more land. As part of the attempt to reduce carbon emissions and ensure security of fuel supplies, increased planting of crops for fuel will take over large areas of land that previously, or could in future, be used to produce food or feed grain for livestock. For example, the increasing use of ethanol as a fuel is causing more land to be used for growing corn or sugar cane for ethanol production. As we read on the Times online 12th June 2007:

“Food price rises force a cut in biofuels. China's communist rulers announced a moratorium on the production of ethanol from corn and other food crops yesterday at the very time that Western leaders are rushing to embrace alternative food-based fuel technology.

Beijing's move underlines concerns that ethanol production is driving up rapidly the costs of corn and grain. It appears to reflect a growing reality about food-based alternative fuel: it is far more expensive both economically and environmentally, than Western politicians are likely to admit.

Calls for biofuels are politically attractive for European and US politicians, amid rising petrol prices and concerns about global warming and an over reliance on Middle Eastern oil.

Communist officials in Beijing, however, who do not have the political concerns of democratically elected leaders in the West, have reacted to a rapid rise in food prices and an intense demand on farm land that threatens to make ethanol production unsustainable.

President Bush, who with Britain wants to see a huge increase in corn-based ethanol, called in January for the annual production of 35 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol in the US.

Although that is a hugely popular rhetoric in the Mid-west wheat belt states - the heart of America's political battleground - environmentalists soon pointed out that such a goal would require an additional 129,000 square miles of farmland, an area the size of Kansas and Iowa combined.

The rush to corn-based ethanol is causing food-price inflation in the US, as it increases the cost of corn grain feedstock and the availability of the crop for such staples as cereal and corn syrup. The ethanol boom has created mass planting of corn at the expense of other crops, which helps to drive up prices, too. Futures prices for corn in the US have nearly doubled in eight months”.
Timesonline

So far we have treated food supply constraints almost as if we were doing field trials and we could control various variables. But the real world is not like that. In some areas there is violent conflict, and displacement of large numbers of people. Under such conditions, it is impossible for countries involved to pursue sustainable development policies. As far as food supply is concerned, we need not only to produce enough food to feed the world, but ensure its adequate distribution; conflict and population displacement make this very difficult. On top of all this we have the food production uncertainties introduced by future global climate change.

Taking into account all the considerations we have raised, our conclusion is that despite possible future advances in technology, it is very doubtful if we will be able to feed the world population in the long-term future.

Shape of things to come — water crises. Posted 8th April 2007.

On the 7th of April, the BBC News had a report about the Yemen, which on the news website had the title “Yemen's khat habit soaks up water”.

The item was about the water shortage in Sanaa, the capital of the country. Now according to the article, the population of the Yemen is nearly 20 million, and the population doubles every 17 years. The minister for water in the Yemen said “The Sanaa basin is using water 10 times faster than Nature is replenishing it”, “and before long there won't even be enough to drink”. At the present, apparently, Yemenis have about one–fiftieth as much water per head as the world average. As the news item that was actually broadcast noted, water levels are falling in boreholes.

The BBC article points out that the country imports most of its food, yet it has land that could be used for growing food; instead it is used for growing 'Khat' from which comes sesame oil. “Khat in today's Yemen is what smoking was in Britain a generation ago. Everywhere you go you find men with cheeks bulging bizarrely as they get their fix. It is a shrub whose leaves, when you chew them, can induce mild euphoria, excitement, hallucinations and even constipation”. The chewing of khat is increasingly popular in the Yemen. And 40% of the country's water goes on irrigation of the khat crops.

Yet it seems highly likely to us that if the land presently used for khat production was used instead for food production, water reserves would still be depleted, especially as population growth continues.

The minister for water has a solution to the problem — relocating large numbers of people down at the Red Sea coast, and using renewable energy to desalinate sea water to provide fresh water.

We note that what is happening in the Yemen is happening in various other parts of the world, that is, water levels are falling, as consumption rises through population growth and especially in some areas also through rising per capita consumption. Water scarcity is now widely recognised as likely to be one of the most serious problems the world human population will face in coming years. The shape of things to come.

The BBC article may be accessed at BBC News

Yes, we are right to give some emphasis to climate change on our web site that focuses on population growth and migration. Posted March 2007.

It must be clear to readers that one topic we give special attention to on our web site is climate change (we even have a separate section of links to climate change organisations on our links page). Our Home page explains why:
“The number of environmental refugees will be greatly inflated if, as expected, global warming causes sea levels to rise, inundating vast areas of densely populated land. In the past, abrupt climate temperature changes have occurred. If they occur in the future, agricultural systems may be unable to adapt fast enough, causing massive decrease in food production, which in turn will swell the number of environmental refugees. Environmental refugees may simply be displaced within a country, or they may by international migration move between nations or continents. Such disruptive movements can impede attempts to achieve sustainable development.

We believe population growth can contribute to political instability and conflict. And the great affluence gap between the rich and poor countries has implications for migration: it fuels the desire to emigrate from poor countries, a desire which is likely to be increased as massive population growth continues in these countries. Such migration increases the potential for demographically fuelled international conflict. And declining natural resources will probably increase 'resource wars'”.

Now a report released by Christian Aid yesterday (14th March) reinforces the importance of the linkages between climate change - environmental deterioration -increase in number of environmental refugees - increased conflict between human populations, and human population growth and migration.

The report entitled Human tide: the real migration crisis notes that a billion people may be forced from their homes between now and 2050 in a global migration crisis dwarfing the effects of the Second World War. Climate change, natural disasters, large–scale development projects and armed conflicts are leading to the world's biggest ever movement of people, mostly in poor countries.

“We believe that forced migration is now the most urgent threat facing poor people in the developing world”, said John Davison, the report's lead author. “We hear a lot about people trying to come to Europe and other rich countries but the real crisis is developing a long way away and remains largely unreported”. Most refugees will have to remain in their own country and will become “internally displaced persons” or IDPs.

The report says: “The number of IDPs is expected to rise dramatically in the coming decades. And those already displaced look likely to be joined by at least equal numbers of people forced from their homes because of climate change. The impact of climate change is the great, and frightening, unknown in this equation. Existing estimates of its potential to displace people are more than a decade old and are widely disputed. Only now is serious academic attention being devoted to calculating the scale of this new human tide”.

“The danger is that this new forced migration will fuel existing conflicts and generate new ones in the areas of the world – the poorest – where resources are most scarce. Movement on this scale has the potential to de–stabilise whole regions where increasingly desperate populations compete for dwindling food and water”.

Clearly then migration, increased as a result of climate change, is likely to have an increasingly adverse effect on the environment and stability of societies in the developing world. Note too the reference to migration to the developed world: “We hear a lot about people trying to come to Europe and other rich countries...”. Yes, and despite any benefits that immigrants may bring to developed countries, continued net immigration, which may well increase as a result of environmental deterioration elsewhere partly caused by climate change, is likely in our view to increase tensions between human populations in the developed world, whether these be the populations of different countries, or regions within countries, or residents and new immigrants within countries, or ethnic and religious groups within countries.

Underlying these changes is continued massive human population growth, and this is primarily taking place in those very same poor countries that Christian Aid focuses on in its report. And the report draws attention to population growth where it says:
“The latest Global Strategic Trends Programme report from the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) forecasts the state of the world over the next 30 years. Released earlier this year by the MoD's Defence Concepts and Doctrine Centre military think tank, the report outlines past examples of rapid climate change and speaks in no-nonsense terms about the possible extreme consequences of another one. 'The Earth's population has grown exponentially in the last century and any future event of this type would have more dramatic human consequences, resulting in societal collapse, mega–migration, intensifying competition for much–diminished resources and widespread conflict'”.

For the full Chrisitian Aid report see Report

Student attempt to silence Oxford academic who has explored the adverse effects of immigration on society. Posted 9th March 2007.

David Coleman is the world-renowned Professor of Demography at Oxford University. His research interests include the comparative demographic trends in the industrial world; immigration trends and policies and the demography of ethnic minorities; and housing policy. He has over 90 papers and eight books to his credit.

He appears, in our view, to approach his work with the true scholastic, scientific attitude that we in Gaia Watch espouse. As we say on the “Our Approach” page of our web site:

“Now we believe the correct approach to any problem is to make an analysis of it which is as objective as possible. Once various causal factors are identified, their relative importance must be assessed. Then a strategy to resolve the problem must be faithfully developed on the basis of the analysis made.

The results should be stated clearly, without fear or favour of any likely criticism. We consider this is the only valid approach, from either the scientific or the moral point of view”.

Unfortunately for Professor Coleman, the conclusions he in our opinion correctly draws from his analyses of immigration conflict with the politically correct view that largely sees immigration as an unmixed blessing, both economically and socially. So the politically correct brigades regard him with suspicion or hostility. To make matters worse for him, he is a consultant to Migration Watch, an organisation that campaigns, not against all immigration, but against the high levels of immigration we have been experiencing in recent years. And he is also a member of the Galton Institute, a charity that promotes and supports the scientific study of human heredity.

Now, early March 2007, some students at his own university, members of the Oxford branch of Student Action for Refugees (Star) have campaigned in effect for his dismissal, submitting a petition to the university authorities asking the latter to “Consider the suitability of Coleman's continued tenure as a Professor of the University, in light of his well-known opinions and affiliations relating to immigration and eugenics”. And their petition claims that Professor Coleman is a consultant and spokesperson for Migration Watch (our bold text).

We note that these students did not make any attempt to refute the research conclusions of Coleman by presenting contrary evidence. Indeed we doubt very much if they have even casually glanced through, let alone perused Professor Coleman's publications. It is our belief, based on a careful study over the years of several key papers and books by David Coleman, that he has made a very valuable contribution to our understanding of demographic trends, including ethnic group trends, and their consequences. But we can well understand that some publications by Professor Coleman, like for example the one we give an account of on our Other Literature page ('immigration and ethnic change...'), would have an effect on politically correct persons similar to the effect of waving a red rag in front of a bull! We wonder too if the students have ever studied the many items on the Migration Watch Web site.

And on Migration Watch, Professor Coleman in his response to the whole business, notes that while he has “...acted as an honorary adviser from its beginning”, “...I never speak on behalf of Migrationwatch; I am not its spokesman. If as occasionally happens in the media or in some debate, I am introduced as its spokesman, I immediately correct the attribution”.

Professor Coleman ends his response with these words:
“I put my head above the parapet with Migrationwatch because I was alarmed at what I saw as an increasing tendency by official spokesmen, political and others, to present a somewhat partial interpretation of statistics on migration, to reinvent the migration history of Britain in ways that supported the official case, and to present analyses of the advantages of the economic and demographic effects of migration which tended to ignore its drawbacks”.

We have put this paragraph in bold text because we share this succinctly expressed view.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper has published several articles on this issue, and we give links below to four of these. The 3rd of March article gives reactions to the student petition from Professor Coleman, the President of the University and College Union, and an Oxford University spokesman.
The 6th of March article notes that Star has received massive public funding from the Big Lottery Fund and the Department for Education and Skills. “Both the Big Lottery Fund and the DfES should make clear that, when they hand over these large sums of money, the recipients have certain responsibilities — such as respecting the opinions of others, no matter how much they may disagree with them”.
The 8th of March article gives the student petition, while the 9th of March article gives Professor Coleman's response.

The Telegraph has also reproduced the letters it has received from its readers in response to its articles. They are overwhelmingly in support of Professor Coleman. We end by quoting just one of these readers' comments.

“I totally support Professor Coleman. His view embarrass those who would rather the full facts surrounding immigration remain hidden from the rest of us. His views which many will inevitably brand as racist are also politically incorrect. This alone is becoming a heinous crime in the eyes of government and the soft left.
Speak up, Professor. They have yet to abolish free speech and we need those like you who have access to the true facts to keep the rest of us informed of them”.

Telegraph 3rd of March Telegraph 6th of March Telegraph 8th of March Telegraph 9th of March

Elephant cull. And the global human population?

Once again we hear that South Africa is considering culling elephants: A BBC News item, 28th February 2007, notes South Africa's elephant population had doubled since culling was stopped in 1995. Left unchecked, the population is expected to double again by 2020. A single elephant eats hundreds of kilos of vegetation a day and the large number of elephants is damaging natural ecosystems. As one might expect, some “conservationists argue culling is cruel because it involves killing entire family groups”.

So we return to precisely the same argument that a BBC News item reported on 6th November 2005. There we read that “an animal with a large range, a long lifespan, a hugh appetite and no predators is trampling less robust creatures underfoot”. “Elephants can turn woodland into grassland...have been blamed for driving rhinos off their ranges, and threatening delicate botanical assets”. And “in Kruger National Park (where most of the elephants live), some 13,000 elephants now roam - nearly double the 7,000 that was considered the optimum number during South Africa's apartheid years, when culling took place regularly”.

And when the government then said it was considering culling elephants, there was an outcry. Opponents of culling referred to 'murder' of elephants. Readers of one South African newspaper in their letters to the paper were “overwhelmingly against culling. The idea appals them”.

The problem in 2007 remains the same as it was in 2005: Most of the elephants are found in fenced off areas, no longer able to roam freely as they used to do over vast areas of land, and they have been protected by man in these fenced areas. The result has been a population explosion. This in turn has brought about serious environmental degradation.

But many or possibly most members of the general public, and some conservationists, have 'humane' attitudes that override any possibility of thinking objectively about the situation, so culling is opposed. And this problem is not confined to elephants. It is the same problem with the world human population.

Just as South Africa's elephants have increased in numbers vastly while living in a confined space, causing environmental degradation, so mankind has increased vastly in a confined space, namely the planet, causing severe environmental degradation. What is required in both cases is a substantial reduction in population size. And the idea of controlling the human population so as to bring about population reduction is opposed by the vast majority of people, organisations and governments who/that hold the 'humane' view. The result is likely to be that the human population will be catastrophically reduced to a population living in an environment so seriously degraded that modern civilised living will be a mere memory, or mankind is utterly destroyed.

We feel we must reiterate: Improving technology and reducing consumption will not by themselves solve our problems. We need to control population as well.

Environmental organisations, the media and governments, generally assert that the way to control emissions causing global warming and so avoid catastrophic global climate change, is to improve our technology and reduce consumption. We dispute that these measures alone will have sufficient impact to solve our climate problems and re-iterate that we need also to take action to deal with human population growth.

The basic relationship of factors causing environmental damage is given by the impact equation, I=P×A×T: Environmental impact equals population size times affluence (per capita consumption) times technology (impact of technology per unit of consumption). We need to take action on all three factors on the right hand side of the equation — see our essay on the impact equation accessed from the Analysis section of our Comment and Analysis page.

We are pleased therefore to make available to readers the review by Professor Bartlett of articles in the September 2006 edition of the Scientific American magazine that was devoted to energy provision and global warming. He points out that the articles fail to recognise the importance of the population factor.

However, mankind's contribution to climate change is only one aspect of mankind's total adverse environmental impact. To deal adequately with other aspects - the degradation of ecosystems, the acceleration of species extinction rate, etc., we also need to take action on the population front.

To go to the review by Bartlett click here:
Bartlett review.

Royal Society Warning to the G8 on Climate Change, but there is another warning that should also be given

On the 24th of October 2005, Lord May, President of the United Kingdom's premier scientific society, the Royal Society, sent a long letter to the energy and environment ministers who would attend the G8 dialogue meeting on climate change scheduled for the first of November. Perhaps the main message this letter conveyed was that “there is the very real prospect that the increase in aid agreed at Gleneagles will be entirely consumed by the mounting cost of dealing with the added burden of adverse effects due to climate change in Africa. In effect, the Gleneagles communiqué gave hope to Africa with one hand, through a promise of more aid, but took that hope away with the other hand through its failure to address adequately the threat of climate change”.

Lord May also pointed out that the effects of climate change will not only be felt in developing countries. He considers the United States as an example. Rising greenhouse gas levels may he says have contributed to the severity of the recent storms in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. And “the scientific evidence suggests that the United States will be threatened by more severe hurricanes if greenhouse gas levels continue to rise in the atmosphere”. Obviously with the United States partly in mind, Lord May writes that countries may be unlikely to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by taking actions like reducing fossil fuel consumption, if it incurs economic cost. But he argues, “there will be a great cost to be paid if greenhouse gas levels continue to rise in the atmosphere”.

Lord May urges his readers “to consider some of the latest scientific evidence on the impact of climate change that has recently emerged and to agree further action to stop the rise in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere”. He refers his readers to a paper published the same day which, he says, concludes this climate change is “largely caused by a rise in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities”. This is the paper By James Verdin and colleagues that we give an account of on our Other Literature page.
Go to this account.

Lord May goes on to say that this paper by Verdin and colleagues is one of 17 published the same day as his letter which collectively “show that changes in weather, climate and the concentrations of gases such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have more severe impacts than previously thought on crop yields and quality”. And he reminds his readers that “the impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor persons within all countries”. This will increase “inequities in health status and access to adequate food, clean water, and other resources”.

Lord May puts the problem for Africa in context when he writes:
“Africa is now in a critical situation with respect to drought because of population increase, disease and conflicts” (our italics). However, he does not expand on the importance of population growth.

Now this continued population increase in Africa is in fact massive. Consider total population size (in thousands) in Ethiopia , the main country considered in the paper by Verdin and colleagues, and in Sub-Saharan Africa:
Ethiopia . 1950: 18,434. 2002: 66,040. 2025 (projected): 113,418.
S-S Africa . 1950:176,775. 2002: 683,782. 2025 (projected): 1,157,847.
(Source: World Resources Institute).
And in most of the countries of the whole of Africa (Ethiopia included) total fertility rate is way, way above replacement level!

In their paper Verdin and colleagues indirectly refer to the loss of soil fertility with consequent reduction of crop yield when they say:
“Stemming the loss of woody biomass while increasing fallow, manure applications and water conservation practices can increase soil organic carbon and lead to positive intensification of agriculture, instead of destructive extensification”.

And that is the problem: in many parts of Africa, population growth (more mouths to feed), has led farmers to reduce the length of fallow periods or do away with them, in order to make it possible to plant more crops. Also, the larger the population, the more firewood is needed for cooking, and the greater the need to cut down forests to provide more land for crops. Resultant reduced firewood availability has led to animal dung being used for fuel rather than for fertilizer.

The 2001 paper by Drechsel et al that we refer to in our essay “How many people can the earth support? Part 1”, which may be found in the analysis section of the present web page, deals with these matters. These authors studied soil nutrient depletion in 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa and they state “soil fertility depletion is considered as the main biophysical factor limiting per capita food production on the majority of African small farms”. Significantly, they found a strong negative correlation between soil nitrogen balance and rural human population density.

Now fallow periods allow for natural soil regeneration. But Drechsel et al found that fallows have been increasingly encroached upon in the attempt to increase food production. And there was a positive correlation between nitrogen balance and percentage of land under fallow. Marginal lands, not really suitable for agriculture, have increasingly been used and protected areas encroached upon. Sharing farms between sons has led to reduction of farm size to the point where size is inadequate and many people become landless. The authors conclude “it appears that Malthusian mechanisms are at work”. “No amount of innovation management will lead to sustainable utilization of resources under continuous population increase and farm size reduction, i.e. without 'out-migration' or population growth limiting measures” (our bold type).

We therefore find it difficult to believe that even if the climate, agricultural and other remedial measures mentioned by Verdin and colleagues were successfully implemented in Ethiopia, food security could be secured in the face of such a massive population increase and the already incurred environmental deterioration. And even if on a global scale, effective reduction of adverse climate effects was achieved, we doubt whether Ethiopia or other countries south of the Sahara could achieve food security if the population continues to grow as projected.

While then we think Lord May is probably correct (we are not experts in climatology) in concluding that present actions and agreements to mitigate climate change are very inadequate, and so he is probably right to press for stronger action on this front, it is a pity that the Royal Society does not equally promote the introduction of pro-active policies to reduce population growth in developing countries and eventually global population reduction. Such measures would greatly increase the chances of achieving global food security for mankind, and in our view they are essential if we are to prevent further major decline in natural ecosystems and counteract the high species extinction rate.

Go to Lord May's letter.

Many if's and but's: comments on Limits to Growth

On our Book Reviews page we have put up a review of D. H. Meadows et al. (2004) Limits to growth. The 30-year update. Go to this review. That book provides a series of possible future global scenarios. While more often than not they show overshoot (unintentionally exceeding limits imposed by the environment) and varying degrees of collapse during this century, not all the scenarios end this way.

Scenario 9 is the key scenario here. In this scenario, during the present century the global ecological footprint' after a short period of continued rise, decreases considerably (for an explanation of the concept of ecological footprints see our essay How many people can the earth support? Part 2 ecological footprints listed in the analysis section of this page). Population growth slows then levels off at less than eight billion people. Pollution peaks, then falls before it causes irreversible damage. By the end of the century there is enough food for everyone. The sustainable society has been ushered in.

This is a possible outcome, and the authors detail the various things that must be done to bring it about. But how likely is it that these conditions will be fulfilled? Here are some of the conditions. Please note the all!

All people are assured by their societies of acceptance, respect, material security, and care in their old age, no matter how few children they have.
All couples have access to effective birth control technologies.
All couples decide to limit their family size to 2 children.

Before we go any further, let us note the date by which, in the model, these conditions are supposed to be fulfilled. Well the authors say that in generating this scenario from the model, they set the average desired family size of the model population at two children and birth control effectiveness at 100 per cent after the simulated year 2002 that is nearly three years ago now! (These conditions was set for scenario 7 then retained for scenarios 8 and 9.)

But these are not the only conditions. The authors say that this scenario 9 retains the technological conditions of scenario 6. But scenario 6 has the condition that the world is developing powerful technologies for pollution abatement, land yield enhancement, land protection, and conservation of non-renewable resources all at once (our bold type). They say that they start in the simulated year 2002 a programme to reduce the amount of nonrenewable resources needed per unit of industrial output by up to four per cent per year.

Are we in fairy land? Does anyone really think all these conditions can be fulfilled in time to avoid total collapse of human society?

Now I mention a feature of the model which slips into the book's account without any fanfare, a feature that may not even be noticed by anyone not thoroughly reading through the book. It is a feature however, that is mentioned in our book review:

The model used to develop the scenarios does not take into account possible wars and labour strikes, and corruption, drug addiction, crime and terrorism!

All this must be set against a background which the book indeed provides. For example, consider climate change. The authors note that since about 1985, there has been a disturbing upward trend in measurable economic losses from weather-related disasters. And with global warming there may be disturbing positive feedback loops' as the temperature rises, the ice and snow cover of the earth decreases. So the earth will reflect away less heat from the sun, so will warm still further.

Or consider food production. The book notes that this has massively increased in the second half of the recent century. With grain (which, measured in calories, constitutes about half of the world's agricultural output), world production has more than tripled between 1950 and 2000. However, in recent decades the rate of grain production increase has slowed until it has fallen below the population growth rate. And per capita grain production, peaking around 1985, has been slowly falling ever since. It is a sobering thought to realise that in the mid 1990s, 850 million people were eating less food than their bodies really require. While for some time now the number of hungry people in the world has remained roughly constant as population size increased, there are big doubts about the future.

Consider land used for food production. The authors rehearse well known facts:

The total global cultivated area remains roughly constant, yet at the same time millions of hectares are being degraded and abandoned. The food supply for humanity is being produced by constantly moving onto new land while leaving behind exhausted, salted, eroded, or paved soils. Obviously that practice cannot go on for ever. Now the World3 model does take into account some limits, including supply of cultivable land. They assume a certain maximum area of cultivated land; and they take into account that the cost of developing new land is assumed to rise as the more accessible and favourable land is developed first. Land erosion is also incorporated in the model. Nevertheless, the basic facts of seemingly inexorable land use change just summarised above, must call in question whether or not mankind will be able to feed the world's human population indefinitely. And what if global warming submerges millions of hectares of some of the world's best agricultural land?

And what if global warming submerges numerous cities world wide (a very real possibility)? The recent devastation in the New Orleans region might well be a foretaste of even worse events to come.

All these considerations, taken together, provide legitimate grounds for thinking that it is likely mankind will completely wreck the global environment and suffer catastrophic consequences.

Los Angeles , exemplar of the world. Reflections on Diamond's book Collapse

Jared Diamond's book Collapse is reviewed on our Book Reviews page. You can go to this review. Here we draw attention to demographic issues dealt with in that book and see how these are working out in one place the Los Angeles region in the USA .

The world human population will continue to increase for many years to come. The more people there are, the more food, space, water energy and other resources are consumed (and the more waste products are produced). So the more people there are, the greater the adverse effect of the human population on the environment. But this increased impact is not just a consequence of numbers of people. After all, as Diamond writes, if most of the world's 6 billion people were in cryogenic storage, they would not cause environmental problems; but they are not. What matters is the per capita impact on the environment. And this is much higher in the affluent First World ' than in the poorer Third World '.

Now rates of population growth vary across the world. The highest rates are in some Third World countries, the lowest in First World (industrialised) countries. And per capita impact is increasing amongst the low impact people of the world for two reasons:

First, in Third World countries, the inhabitants desire to attain to First World living standards and many are well on the way in some countries to achieve this.
Second, considerable migration is taking place from the Third to the First World , driven by political, economic and social problems at home. This migration is now the main cause of population increase in the USA and Europe. These migrants quickly adopt First World consumer habits, and so their per capita impact on the environment rises rapidly.

Summarising, Diamond writes:

the biggest problem (for environmental damage) is the increase in total human impact, as the result of rising Third World living standards, and of Third World individuals moving to the First World and adopting First World living standards.

Now we turn to what Diamond says about the environmental problems in Los Angeles in the USA. According to Diamond, the complaints of virtually everyone in Los Angeles relate directly to the growing and already large population. The terrible traffic jams, the very high housing prices caused by millions of people working in a few centres of employment where there is very limited residential space, and consequently great daily commuter distances. These are the biggest factors hurting the ability of Los Angeles employers to attract and retain employees. Diamond says no cure is even under consideration for these problems, which can only get worse.

And now for migration. Diamond writes the contribution of Southern California to the ongoing increase in the world's average per-capita human impact, as a result of transfers of people from the Third World to the First World, has for years been the most explosive issue in California politics. Diamond goes on:

California 's population growth is accelerating, due almost entirely to immigration and to the large average family sizes of the immigrants after their arrival.

Diamond looks at immigration from Central America, noting that the long border between California and Mexico is impossible to patrol effectively. Now what do Californians think about this immigration stream? Apparently they disapprove. There was a measure on the 1994 state election ballot (Proposition 187) that would have deprived illegal immigrants of most state-funded benefits. This measure was overwhelmingly approved by voters but then gutted by the courts on constitutional grounds. It is clear that there are striking parallels between Southern California, and Great Britain where immigration is the main cause of population growth, popular concern over massive immigration has increased, and where, in our view, judges and courts seem to be constantly inhibiting what we see as reasonable attempts to control immigration.

Diamond goes on to note that Los Angeles is a leading contributor to the energy crisis in the USA. And the high gas consumption combined with the physical setting of Los Angeles generates a serious smog problem. The habitat management problem that people are most conscious of is that of fires in surrounding woodland which each year destroy hundreds of homes. This situation is much worse than it was some years ago, because people have increasingly moved to live in and next to these highly flammable habitats.

There is a serious threat to California's agriculture from introduced alien species. And salinization, as a result of irrigation agriculture, is ruining large areas of agricultural land in California 's Central Valley. Rainfall is low in Southern California , so Los Angeles depends upon water supplies mainly from the Sierra Nevada mountain range and adjacent valleys of Northern California. With the growth of California's population, there has been increasing competition for those water supplies among farmers and cities. And Diamond notes that it is expected global warming will reduce the Sierra snowpack that provides most of the water. Diamond also notes the collapse of fisheries in both northern and southern Californian waters, and how biodiversity losses have affected some of California 's most distinctive species.

All these problems are the same sort of problems that are found across the world. So Southern California is an exemplar of our world.

New United Nations Ecosystems Warning

The United Nations today (30th March 2005 ) issued a press release on the "Millennium Ecosystem Assessment" (MEA) Report. This gives the whole of mankind an urgent warning about the way the world's ecosystems on which we all depend have been, and continue to be treated.

Many people still seem to believe that everything will be alright with the world: Man's inventiveness, giving great powers to find substitutes for scarce resources and to reduce pollution, will enable mankind to achieve global sustainable development despite the continuing massive increase in population. The MEA upsets this confident view.

The Press Release begins:
"A landmark study released today reveals that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests are being degraded or used unsustainably. Scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years".

Later the Press release notes:
"Although evidence remains incomplete, there is enough for the experts to warn that the ongoing degradation of 15 of the 24 ecosystem services examined is increasing the likelihood of potentially abrupt changes that will seriously affect human well-being. This includes the emergence of new diseases, sudden changes in water quality, creation of "dead zones" along the coasts, the collapse of fisheries, and shifts in regional climate".

Perhaps the most worrying thing this press release says, concerns what needs to be done now.
"The challenge of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands can be met under some scenarios involving significant policy and institutional changes. However, these changes will be large and are not currently under way" (our bold type).

"Increasing demands". It is in our view, very important to realise the magnitude of the likely increase in demands. There are two main causes of this increase. First, as we note on our Population Trends page, the world population is projected to increase by 2.6 billion from 2005, to reach 9.1 billion in 2050. This additional population is equivalent in size to the combined present day populations of China and India. All these extra people will cause an increase in total global demands.
Second, the standard of living of the vast majority of already existing people in 'developing' or 'third world' countries is way, way below that of the peoples of developed countries. It is generally agreed that the standard of living of these peoples in the developing world must be raised significantly. This will also cause a massive increase in demands.

Then as well as these considerations, mankind must try to reverse the degradation of ecosystems. A most daunting task once one realises the massive extent of this degradation!

The press release, a statement by the Millennium Assessment Board and the pre-publication final draft of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis report, may be found by going to
UNEP web site

UK Sustainable Development strategy. The missing policy

In 1999 the Government published "A better quality of life. A strategy for sustainable development for the UK"; it also published "Quality of life counts". In March this year (2004) the UK Government issued its annual report "Sustainable development. Achieving a better quality of life. Review of progress towards sustainable development. Government annual report 2003". This document reports progress since the 1999 strategy document was published. The government also published its 2004 update of "Quality of life counts".

The government assesses progress towards sustainable development using a series of indicators which had been established in 1999 and detailed in "quality of life counts". There are 147 'core indicators', of which 15 are called the 'headline indicators'. The new "achieving a better quality of life" report just deals with the headline indicators, while the "quality of life counts" update deals with all the core indicators.

What is missing from the whole government approach to sustainable development, both in 1999 and in 2004, is any attempt to reduce future population growth and then secure a reduction of population, in our view vital ingredients of truly sustainable development. As explained in our essay "how many people can the earth support? part 2" (see bottom of this page), there are good grounds for arguing that the UK population has long since grown above carrying capacity. Whether or not one accepts this conclusion, the basic fact is that the more people there are, the more people there are to consume resources and pollute the environment. Population growth is one factor contributing to increase in the number of households, which in turn leads to more houses being built and more green land being taken over for development. The bigger our population, the more difficult it seems to be to reduce poverty and keep down crime rates.

In the main 2004 "achieving a better quality of life report" we read that the UK government has four main objectives:
Social progress which recognises the needs of everyone.
Effective protection of the environment.
Prudent use of natural resources.
Maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment.

The document then goes on (p. 16) to list the guiding principles for achieving sustainable development. One of these is "taking a long-term persepective". Now the UK population will probably grow considerably during the next few decades, putting an increasing strain on the environment. But in the paragraph enlarging on this long-term perspective, there is no reference to population growth. And none of the headline indicators concern population growth.

However, amongst all the core indicators discussed in the "quality of life counts" document, there are two indicators concerning population.

The first is in the section K "shaping our surroundings". Indicator K3 is 'population growth'. In the 1999 document the government here acknowledges that "the pressure on all resources increases as the population increases". Significantly, in the tabulation of the indicators in the 2004 update, there is a column headed 'strategy'. Against the K3 population growth indicator is written 'na', that is 'not applicable'. K3 is in fact one of the indicators which are simply used for 'contextual' purposes. The government then, accepts population growth trends as a 'given', that is, something one just has to accept.

The second population indicator is in the section "international co-operation and development". Indicator U3 is "global population". Here again, in the 1999 document, the government acknowledges the importance of population growth: "the pressure on all resources will continue to increase as the population increases". But if you read this section, in both the 1999 and 2004 documents, you will find no mention of any policy to reduce population growth globally and promote subsequent population decline. In the 2004 update, once again in the strategy column we find 'na': U3 is also only a contextual indicator.

In our view, population growth should be more than a contextual indicator, at both global and local levels. Indeed, one focus of government policy should be to develop a strategy to reduce population size.

Analysis

This section of the page provides access to various documents. These are grouped into two sub-sections, first the more recently added documents (December 2003 and later), secondly older documents.

The most recent additions to this section are:

2nd November 2007. An essay on possible failure to secure adequate future global food supply.
Population growth and environmental deterioration. Are things finally coming together for mankind's doom?

Mid-February 2007. An essay on the undercover extremist Muslim activity in the UK.
Undercover mosque, undercover Islamism!

Late April, 2006. An essay on the sociological context of the Muhammad cartoons controversy.
The Muhammad cartoons controversy - the context

Mid-September 2005, revised December 2005. An essay on the relationship of economic growth to environmental degradation.
Is Economic Growth good for the Environment? An approach to this question using the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis.

7th August 2005. An essay on the terrorist threat in the UK.
The terrorist threat in the UK. Interim assessment, early August 2005

July 2005. Organic farming works with nature. And Lawrence Woodward, a leading expert on organic farming, considers that organic farming, with important provisos, could feed the world. A paper by him on this subject is reproduced here, by kind permission of the Directors of the Elm Farm Research Centre.
Can organic farming feed the world?

June 2004. An essay on the effects of the changing population age composition during the Demographic Transition.
The Demographic Dividend

December 2003. A major debate on the pros and cons of immigration to the UK betweeen Emeritus Prof. Nigel Harris, University College London, and Professor (formerly Reader) David Coleman of Oxford University, which is attached here as a pdf file. We are grateful for their willingness to let us post this debate on our site. The debate was first published in the journal World Economics. The debate is reproduced with kind permission from World Economics Volume 4 Number 2 (April-June 2003), copyright NTC Economic and Financial Publishing, web site http://www.world-economics-journal.com
The immigration debate
NB. This is a large file. Please be patient. It may take a minute or two to load up to your screen.

Older documents that can be accessed from this page

These older items, seven in number, are listed at the end of the page. Two are guest contributions for which we are very grateful.

The first of these comes from Peter Salonius of the organisation Scientists for Population Reduction (click here for the web site of the organisation). This contribution is a copy of his presentation made to the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, in April 2002. Economic and demographic conditions are of course different in Canada to what they are in the UK. However, there are some demographic similarities between the two nations. In both, the population continues to grow; indigenous fertility rate is below replacement level, and the main cause now of population increase is net immigration. So this contribution is relevant to the situation in the UK.

The second guest contribution comes from Professor Virginia Abernethy of the Vanderbilt University Medical School, USA. Originally published, January 2001, in the journal Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, this essay gives an ethical perspective on the concept of carrying capacity - the ability of the planet to support the growing human population. So this essay links nicely to another essay mentioned below.

The seven documents

1. How many people can the earth support? (part 1 - Environmental deterioration and carrying capacity)
2. How many people can the earth support? (part 2 - Ecological Footprints) (Revised, autumn 2002)
3. I=PAT. An Introduction
4. What policy should the UK Government adopt towards immigration?
5. Immigration. Benefits for the UK and a note on moral obligations (this essay is followed by some critical comments)
6. Damage Done to the Health of Canadians by Federal Population Policy and Recommended Solutions (Peter Salonius)
7. Carrying capacity: the tradition and policy implications of limits (Virginia Abernethy)

Essays one to three focus on the impact of the human population on the environment. Essays four and five give insight into the two sides of the great immigration debate. Essays six and seven are the guest essays.