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The end of the “population problem”? Another Seneca cliff in our future

The end of the “population problem”? Another Seneca cliff in our future thumbnail

Image from “National Geographic”

If the demographic projections by the United Nations will turn out to be true, the world population should reach over 11 billion people by 2100. Some think that it will be a disaster, others see it as a good thing as it would bring more economic growth. But is it really possible to reach such numbers? Can we really think that women would be so stupid to continue making children even in the midst of the crisis caused by declining natural resources and worsening ecosystem disruption? (unless the Pope himself were to tell them to stop)?

Yet, some models tell us the human population could keep increasing even after the collapse of the world’s economy. There exists something called the “demographic transition” and it is a historical observation that may be extrapolated into the future. The data show a sort of “inverse fertility curve” that makes the poor and the very rich to be more fertile than those who are in the middle. When applied to the scenarios of “The Limits to Growth” of 1972, this idea generated a curious behavior, with the impoverishment of the population causing an increase in the birthrate that causes population to continue increasing for a few decades after the collapse.

But, as it is always the case, extrapolating past trends into the future is extremely dangerous. In particular, it is at least improbable that the post-collapse world will be like running the same movie in reverse. The demographic transition has been observed to occur in growing economies, it won’t simply change sign and reverse itself in contracting economies. To see how it works we can look at the demographic trends in Russia.

The increase in the death rate among Russians was not compensated by an increase in birth rates, as the demographic transition model would say. Russian women and Russian families reacted to a difficult situation by postponing or avoiding to generate new children, correctly understanding that these children would face very hard times and that it would have been impossible for their families to support them. Note the rapid collapse of birthrathes, a true “Seneca Cliff.”

Now, I have a highly positive opinion of the intelligence of Russian people and, in particular, of Russian women. But I just can’t think that people in other regions of the world would behave very differently. Those who maintain that people will make more children as they become poorer seem to assume that most people, and women in particular, are not more intelligent than an average rabbit. But, as it is always the case, extrapolating past trends into the future is extremely dangerous. While is true that most people are not very effective at the task of acting in order to benefit humankind as a whole, most people are perfectly able to understand what’s good for themselves and their immediate families. And, in times of trouble, they normally react by planning in order to optimize the number of their surviving offspring. Humans apply what’s called the “K-strategy” in reproduction: they concentrate the resources available on fewer children in order to maximize their probability of success.

Of course, we are dealing with phenomena of which we know little. After that the world’s economy peaks, all the bets are off. But it may not be a coincidence that whole regions of the world, such as Southern Europe have started a population decline, despite having traditionally been demographically active. Among these GreeceItaly, Spain, and Portugal. Outside Europe, Japan has also started to decline, inverting a tendency of growth that had been ongoing from the 1920s. It is not yet possible to say if these inversions are to be understood as long-term trends. But, if this is the case, they are evidence that an economic crisis has nearly immediate effects on population.

A global population decline would have at least a positive effect in the sense that it would reduce the threat of climate change and the pressure on the ecosystem. But it may turn out to be a disaster if we enter the rapidly descending slope that I called the “Seneca Cliff”. Will that lead to the “near term human extinction” that some think as a likely future? It cannot be excluded, but it is also true that there may be life on the other side of the cliff if we are smart enough to understand the future. It is up to us to prepare for it.

Cassandra’s legacy by Ugo Bardi



27 Comments on "The end of the “population problem”? Another Seneca cliff in our future"

  1. kervennic on Mon, 20th Jun 2016 7:20 pm 

    Russian do not reproduce like rabbits because they are an industrialized country. Industry takes a toll on human reproduction by delaying reproductive age (studies) and other factors that are absent from non industrialised countries.

    This countries will not industrialize in the way the north did. Resources are not the same now, neitheir is the production process. They will continue to follow the usual rabbit path like in Nigeria, benefiting from industrial production for medecine.
    This is why we are heading towards teh high curve anyway, and UN will keep revising up its prognosis.

  2. onlooker on Mon, 20th Jun 2016 8:22 pm 

    The Seneca Cliff human world population is up against is the rapid deterioration and destruction of the Earths ecosystems which support all life on Earth. So falling off this cliff will coincide with the Nature’s inability to support life including human life at the scale it is now. That ability to support life by Earth is rapidly waning due to the pressures human over population and resource use is exacting on Earth. It is too late to prevent a dieoff thus and it ironically will be human die off which will alleviate some of the pressures on Earth

  3. Rodster on Mon, 20th Jun 2016 8:30 pm 

    As i’ve said many times, population growth is a requirement because of our current money system. Everything must continue to grow in order for the system to function.

  4. Davy on Mon, 20th Jun 2016 9:16 pm 

    It is ridiculous to think that population can grow much more. I give us another 500MIL in growth. The best and brightest minds are deceived by the cleverness of technology and complexity. This is a denial crutch. No one want to contemplate a die off hence the continuous solution based rhetoric. There are no solutions to traps. We are caught without an exit.

    If you understand the systematic implications of an economic system in rapid decay, climate changing abruptly, and oil approaching a dead state one sees there is no way we can feed what we have now. It all come down to food in the end.

    I was an industrial farmer 16 years ago. I am a permaculture farmer now. I can tell you the best and brightest minds have little real understanding of food production. This standard population growth mantra is absurd. We are close as in 5-10 years of a die off. We need to be talking about that instead the best and brightest are lost in the next great technology. You know robots and mining asteroids. Pathetic!

  5. makati1 on Mon, 20th Jun 2016 11:25 pm 

    The world’s population could easily make to to 9 billion.

    Today’s total: 7,430,000,000 plus.

    Growth this year so far: 40,000,000

    Today’s Growth: 118,000

    http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

    We will pass 8 billion before 2025, baring nuclear war. Even with a land war, we would have to kill off 200,000+ per day to just stay even.

  6. Margaret on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 7:32 am 

    To suggest that continued overpopulation would be in any way due to the “stupidity” of women is to ignore centuries of enforced reproduction by means of forced marriage, war rapes, bride contracts, lack of means to contraception and abortion, religious advocacy of marriage and reproduction, stigmatism of spinsterhood, gay or abstinent lifestyles, incest, child marriages and rapes just to name the more obvious forms of coercion of women’s bodies. And it’s WOMEN who would be stupid about overpopulation. Wake up and smell the f’in coffee.

  7. Cloud9 on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 8:09 am 

    Concerns about population growth are not going to reduce the impact of mood music and a bottle of wine. Rational thinking kills the magic of the moment.

  8. joe on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 9:01 am 

    Just to be clear. Are they saying birth rates will go up or more people will live longer? The clarifcation of that question will tell you how much to “worry”.
    An extra 5 billion geriatrics will not increase global wealth, nor will an extra billion infants.
    But it will cause massive amounts of poverty and probobly slow global growth in either case. The Greatest Generation are nearly all dead, only now are baby boomers retiring and look at the bill we have to foot, wait for the tech boomers to retire, they only sat in offices and went to the gym, thell live for decades more, most will see 100! My worry about THAT future is not a about poor Africans with no health care (lets face it, even the ones that get here had such a tough life so far they wont live much after 70),its how will we pay for so many people who might never have worked in their lives. Im just glad we might give em dope and strap them to a v.r. helmet and let rip!

  9. penury on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 9:13 am 

    Really? And how many angels do you think can dance on the head of a pin?

  10. Davy on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 9:27 am 

    Joe, come on 100? We are going to be lucky to see another 15 years, all or most of us. You are falling for the usual it “was this way”, the “trend is this way”, so by extension this is “where we are likely going”. There was a time when that worked but I doubt it does anymore. Starvation happens quickly. Fuel shortages could leave an entire harvest rotting in the field. Famine would be swift. We know what war would do. We are so fragile now as to be like an egg on a stick. We just have this conditioning we are robust because we always have made it through all obstacles. We are like a young man that gets to middle age and gets hammered by life and is no longer a young man. He is now a vulnerable old man.

  11. JuanP on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 9:37 am 

    Cloud9 “Concerns about population growth are not going to reduce the impact of mood music and a bottle of wine.”. I agree, and that is why I had a Vasectomy. I can fuck all I want now for the rest of my life with no cares in the world. Getting a Vasectomy was my rational decision. What was yours?

  12. JuanP on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 9:39 am 

    I have been waiting for humans to control their breeding my whole life! I ain’t holding my breath, though! LOL!

  13. JuanP on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 9:41 am 

    Margaret, I think men are more responsible for overpopulation than women are. All the points you made are extremely valid as far as I am concerned.

  14. Sissyfuss on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 10:30 am 

    Agree with Juan, Maggie. Patriarchal religious doctrine drives so much of our insane breeding malfeasance.

  15. Robert Spoley on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 11:25 am 

    Question. What is the most dangerous chemical on the planet? Answer. Testosterone. Question. What is the most valuable thing on the planet? Answer. Self discipline. These two items are constantly vying for control. When “T” wins, we get mayhem. When “SC” wins, we get stability and prosperity. Tell that to people with 10 kids. Riiiiight.

  16. makati1 on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 5:25 pm 

    A woman puts her life on the line EVERY time she becomes pregnant. Not to mention the discomfort of the last few months of carrying the baby.

    I wonder if the population would be as high if the same thing were true of men?

    Say, if every time he puts it in, he could contract diabetes or have a heart attack? Or at least, his balls would swell to the size of cantaloupes. lol

  17. Margaret on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 11:07 pm 

    What I’m taking from this thread is that so *many* of the variables raised are completely valid: it’s not just cultural enshrinement of going forth to populate, we also DO have the urge for sex as comforting, probably more so in times of stress; our elders (and ourselves) ARE as a group going to live longer,we HAVE self-selected for a kind of unchallenged longevity in this window of abundance, and our tech HAS enabled us to accelerate all of these things way past sustainability. If you can see this gestalt, it’s difficult not to be afraid of what’s starting to happen as the gravy train tap starts to close. But I’m not convinced that demographic transition means that overpopulation can pile on. All of the modes of enforced reproduction I mentioned above are likely to go up in times of crisis. Hell, every pseudoapocalyptic movie and book that romanticizes the “freedom” of shooting the gun and grabbing the nubile girl reinforces this patriarchal daydream (anarchy means even less responsibility for sex!)And conversely, doing your procreative duty to a fastidious god in the hopes that he’ll cut you some slack when the locust plague comes along will also be a prevalent strategy in some populations. But increased birthrate under these circumstances doesn’t automatically translate to increased population that persists over time. It’s a lot more likely to translate to increased infant mortality, increased disease vectors, refugee crises increasingly skewed toward the very young, and correspondingly a less educated populace which will reinforce the whole loop all over again. Sound familiar?…

  18. Sissyfuss on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 12:15 am 

    Hey Mak, are you saying my cantaloupe balls aren’t normal? Is why I can’t find underware that fits? (Forgive me, Margaret, but we men are still Neanderthal deep down.)

  19. makati1 on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 12:23 am 

    True, Margaret. When the pharmaceutical industry shuts down, and it will, the die off will be horrendous the first year. Especially in 1st world countries and particularly the obese, drugged up Exceptional” country, America.

    Life expectancy, even for those living now, will be cut drastically. My mother lived longer (89 years) because of a pacemaker installed 8 years ago, and a half dozen different drugs every day. My stepdad is alive (age 93) because he now totes a pig valve that replaced a failing one of his own years ago. Not to mention the drugs he takes. How many will die the first month those drugs are not available. Tens of millions.

    Population worries? Not me. Mother nature is going to offset the new births with even more deaths at the other end. Those who survive the early years will never see 50 or maybe not even 40.

  20. makati1 on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 12:26 am 

    Hahahahaha. You must have problems walking Sissyfuss. If the other part of the trio matches size…

  21. Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 12:49 am 

    I’d like to thank all the commenters for pointing out and waxing idiotic about the painfully obvious. It seems you have all mastered hindsight. Fucking retards.

  22. JuanP on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 6:19 am 

    Margaret “But increased birthrate under these circumstances doesn’t automatically translate to increased population that persists over time.”
    You are correct again, IMO. Women will have more children in the future, just as it was in the past, but this will not lead to population growth forever. At some point in time deaths will catch up with births and eventually overcome them as the current population is unsustainable. We don’t know when that will happen or what our population level will be by then, though. I think we will push the limits of what is possible beyond what many of us can imagine, though.

    Global population is increasing by around 80 million per year. To stop population growth in a world with increasing fertility we will need to increase deaths by at least a similar amount. That is easier said than done. All the additional deaths from WWI, WWII, the Spanish Flu, the Black Plague, and other deadly past catastrophes happening at the same time continuosly would not be enough to achieve this. The mortality needed to stop population growth implies unimaginable suffering and violence for decades are ahead of us, but I think it will take very long to get to that point and we will completely destroy the biosphere in the process.

    I think the global population will be lower in 100 years than it is today, but I think there is no way of telling how much or for how long it will keep growing. The only scenario in which I see us having a lower population in a decade than we have today is a full out nuclear war between the USA and Russia or the release of some unstoppable highly lethal weaponized biological agents.

  23. Davy on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 6:55 am 

    Margaret, nice to have a woman’s touch here on our over testosterone splashed board. This is a process and the process being global and macro will average with an ebb and flow that all great systems follow. We should expect some awful events with some periods of returning stability. That just represent the frequencies found in life. We humans want to model these frequencies in our own image but that is folly. A combination of all the above will occur but one thing is appearing less likely all the time and that is a growing population.

    Climate Change, dead state of oil, and a collapsing economy will limit food. It is as plain and simple as it gets with that statement. Our global industrial food system needs good climate with an oil based culture transporting huge monocultures over vast distances and traded and exchanged in a system of economic confidence. How the hell do people think our food system can continue to grow with so many issues with climate change, oil, and the economy? Anyone here claiming we don’t have issues with climate change, oil, and the economy is a fool.

    Why do we have so many discussion with this tirade of doom? We have so many discussion across society because they are issues. The “what” that makes people think we can still grow population and development is the underlying belief in human ingenuity and technology. Yet, technology is failing spectacularly now and problems from it are getting worse. Our food chain is nearing its limits because of the tirade of doom. Technology is actually making things worse coupled with failing with new and better abilities.

    Population is directly related to the food chain that is directly related to climate, oil, and the economy. Connect the dots and do the math. Continued population growth beyond maybe another 500MIL does not add up. How this population declines is an open question because the possibilities are vast and many depend on our own actions. We are clearly facing a bottleneck that will involve some kind of die off. We can look back in history to clearly see what die offs are. They won’t be much different except they will take on the ugly characteristics of our technological age complete with radiation and mass killing devices. I laugh my ass off when I see the so called smart people in the world talking about population growth. Talk about deception of all those clever minds. I personally think the really smart people are the most handicapped and the most likely to die in the coming die off.

  24. Kenz300 on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 9:24 am 

    Too many people……….create too much pollution and demand too many resources….

    China made great progress in moving its people out of poverty…….one reason was slowing population growth…..

    If you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.

    CLIMATE CHANGE, declining fish stocks, droughts, floods, air water and land pollution, poverty, water and food shortages all stem from the worlds worst environmental problem……. OVER POPULATION.

    Yet the world adds 80 million more mouths to feed, clothe, house and provide energy and water for every year… this is unsustainable… and is a big part of the Climate Change problem

    Birth Control Permanent Methods: Learn About Effectiveness

    http://www.emedicinehealth.com/birth_control_permanent_methods/article_em.htm

  25. John on Mon, 11th Jul 2016 12:59 am 

    Infinite growth with finite resources. It doesn’t work. It will never work. We are 6 billion past the sustainable population level. I suspect right now we are in the biggest “bubble” of all time simply waiting for the pin prick of reality. I suspect very soon now, within a year, a lot of people will die. Billions. The irony in all this. That’s the good news. If you want to know the bad news do some research on what happens to unmanned nuclear reactors (458 globally) or spent fuel in cooling pools (around 250,000 tons worth). It’s so insane what we have done it’s almost incomprehensible. This won’t be a pick up the pieces and soldier on event. It will be extinction thanks to our greed and stupidity.

  26. Billy Bob on Mon, 11th Jul 2016 1:09 am 

    John I have researched the unmanned reactor issue and it’s the scariest stuff I have ever read. We are quite literally doomed. There is no way around it. Not with the current bunch of idiots at the helm. For the uninitiated within hours or a reactor being unmanned the reactor will scram. This is a fail safe shut down that stops criticality. That’s the good news. It’s assumed a scrammed reactor is manned because it takes around 3 years for the fuel rods to cool down! That requires active cooling via diesel generators. There is no AC power when the reactor scrams. US reactors require 7 days worth of diesel. After that meltdown and in many instances breach of containment. There are 99 reactors in the US alone. That’s a global extinction level event. Unfortunately it gets worse. Whereas reactors may have few tons of fuel at any moment in time, the spent fuel (still hot for 3 years) is stored in cooling pools right next to the reactors. They run on the same cooling systems and contain thousands of tons worth of hot spent fuel. Turns out Dr Strangelove was a documentary. There is no happy ending to the story of mankind.

  27. George on Wed, 24th Jul 2019 1:14 pm 

    3 years later. Russian demographics suffer 154,000 drop in Russia’s population this year. Classic Seneca cliff now

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