In his treatise on Understanding, David Hume posits that we
don’t know as much about causation as we think we do. Often times, positive
correlation (i.e., two or more things present at the same time) is confused
with causation (i.e., one thing causing another). That umbrellas tend to be out
when it is raining does not mean that umbrellas cause rain (or that rain causes
umbrellas). Rain and umbrellas have their own distinct causes, which Hume would
say we don’t understand as well as we think we do. It is very difficult, for
example, to determine whether climate change caused by methane and CO2
emissions caused October 2019 to the hottest October globally on record; more
data-points covering long stretches of time are needed to distinguish even a
few outliers from being part of a broader trend. By October of 2019, not only
had scientists obtained and analyzed enough samples over a long enough
time-frame to be confident (99%) that climate change had been occurring due to
human carbon emissions. Not since roughly 60 million years ago had the carbon
parts per million in the atmosphere stood at 410 ppm. In having to repeatedly
accelerate their forecasts regarding the various impacts, such as sea-level
rise due to melting ice (on land, such as Greenland), scientists had
demonstrated that our understanding of the causation on the various impacts was still far from perfect. Even so, 11,000
scientists knew enough by November 2019 to declare unequivocally that humanity was facing a climate-change emergency. That is to say, drastic
changes in terms of carbon emissions (e.g., energy sources, lifestyles) would
have to be quickly made to avoid the worst-case scenario (e.g., mass food
shortages, mass migrations from coastal areas and the loss of cities, and
disease). This scenario is in line with Mathias’ theory of population ecology
wherein a population of a species increasing without reaching an equilibrium
maximum faces an increased risk of war, disease, or starvation. Once a species’
population pierces the semi-permeable constraints of the wider ecosystem (i.e.,
natural environment), Nature has its own ways of arresting the schizogenic
growth of a species if it fails to limit its increase. During the twentieth
century, the global increase of our species’ population was expediential, going
from 1.6 to 6.1 billion. Sadly, even many policy-makers were oblivious to the
fact that such a huge change must surely have consequences, at least some day. China’s
one-child policy was an exception, making the relatively unconstrained
population growths in India and Africa more noticeable as potentially
problematic. Why did China need its policy while India, also with a population
of over a billion, did not? In fact, the growth mantra generally subscribed to
by countries across the globe acted as an incentive to make matters worse! Even
a population with a low birth rate was generally taken as a problem. The
negative impacts on a labor force and economic growth more broadly gave
governments an incentive to increase birth-rates and thus populations (even
though immigration served as an alternative). I want to look further
into the case of China as a means of assessing how seriously the world was
taking the climate emergency.
China’s one-child policy,
wherein a couple could only have one child, was instituted in 1980 and
abandoned in 2015, when couples could have two children (but not more). With
one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, China faced the “prospect of
fewer and fewer workers to support retirees amid a rising median age.”[1]
In other words, the pressure of a temporary demographic bind had come to
outweigh concerns about the population level even though 1.3 billion people was
a significant part of the species’ distended population level of 7.5 billion.
Considering that as living
beings, humans must consume energy, 1.3 billion people cannot but have a
considerable impact on how much energy humanity consumes. Even were fossil fuel
sources entirely eliminated in China and abroad, food scarcity would still be
strained, especially considering that India’s 1.3 billion people are also
consuming energy. This goes back to the point that a huge increase in the
species’ population must have significant repercussions concerning energy
(including food).
To their credit, even though
China’s policy-makers in 2019 were “well aware that a rising crop of retirees
threaten[ed] to drain household savings and derail [economic] growth” and that
the population could start to decline in 2030, birth limits remained in effect
in the two-child policy.[2]
Policy-makers argued that technological advances and automation would increase
productivity such that fewer young workers would be needed. I submit that the
government could step in to increase funding to retirees to take the financial
pressure off of their family members who are working. Even absent immigration,
demographic tight-points can be managed such that the overall goal of a smaller
population is not compromised. Therefore, it is irresponsible to say that China
should abandon its two-child policy, even if China’s demographic pinch would
turn out to be worse than expected in 2019 when the global population stood at
7.7 billion, heading in the wrong direction!
Given the climate emergency,
the scientists strongly advised the world that drastic measures needed to be
taken as soon as possible. Correcting for the incredible increase in our
species’ population that occurred in the twentieth century can be considered a
necessary part of the drastic measures. The world would be wise to offer China
assistance (e.g., knowledge) such that the corrective is successful, and to
pressure India to make a similar corrective. In the culture of growth, it is
important to point out that an economy can be expected to contract as its
population decreases significantly. Productivity advances, however, can mean
that a lower quality of life does not go with the contraction. Indeed, economic
contraction is itself part of the decreased demand for energy that goes with a
smaller population. To sustain itself rather than be cut down by natural
processes, our species must decrease its demand overall rather than only shift
off fossil fuels. The planet contains limited resources, including habitable
(and farmable) land. Overpopulation can trigger war, disease, and starvation,
and even changes to the atmosphere that could render the planet itself very
uncomfortable or even uninhabitable for humans.
Listening to a talk given by a NASA
public-relations person, I was stunned that he admitted that in NASA’s view we
can no longer rely “on this rock” for the survival of our species. Hence the
plans to colonize the Moon and Mars. My
reaction was that those are artificial environments for us, and thus inherent
unstable, whereas we are suited naturally to living on Earth—just not 8 billion
of us! Getting back in sync with our natural environment seems to me to be
vastly superior to relying on artificial environments. The twentieth
century—the bloodiest century ever as of its close—can turn out to be a
population bubble or a jump in terms of population. The bubble-effect requires
our species to push itself back down, whereas a jump goes to a
higher-population plateau. China deserves credit for resisting the temptation
to see its population increase unabated in the false assumption that economic
growth is most important.
1. Liyan Qi and Fanfan Wang, “China Left One-Child Policy Behind, but It Still
Struggles With a Falling Birth Rate,” The Wall Street Journal, October 31,
2019.
2. Ibid.
