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                                                                                SPECIAL ISSUE: MILLENNIUM -- BEYOND THE YEAR 2000 

THE CENTURY AHEAD, Page 64

Too Many People


If the environment is already threatened by overpopulation,
what would the world be like with twice as many inhabitants?
You wouldn't want to be there.

BY EUGENE LINDEN


    The state of the environment in the latter part of the next
century will be determined largely by one factor: human
population. If the species doubles its numbers by 2050, to
nearly 11 billion, humanity may complete the devastation that
accelerated so steeply in this century. Such unabated expansion
in our numbers would continue to soak up the world's capital
and prevent the poorer nations from making the necessary
investments in technological development that might deter
continued population growth.

    If the worst occurs, countless millions will become
environmental refugees, swamping the nations that tried to
conserve their soil, water and forests. The great-grandchildren
of today's young people would have to share the planet with
only a ragged cohort of adaptable species dominated by rats,
cockroaches, weeds, microbes. The world in which they survived
would consist largely of deserts, patches of tropical forests,
eroded mountains, dead coral reefs and barren oceans, all
buffeted by extremes of weather.

    The best hope for both humanity and other life-forms would
be to cut human propagation in half, so the world's numbers do
not exceed 8 billion by mid-century. (The only event in which
the earth would achieve zero population growth or even shrinkage
would be some environmental or social catastrophe.) The huge
run-up in human numbers has foreclosed most options and
shortened the amount of time available to come to grips with
rising threats to the environment, contends systems analyst
Donella Meadows, co-author of Beyond the Limits, which updates
the controversial 1972 blockbuster The Limits to Growth. In the
past, says Meadows, there were always new frontiers for
exploding populations, as well as empty lands to accept wastes.
No longer: most suitable areas have been colonized, most
easy-to-find resources are already being exploited, and most
dumping grounds have filled up. "If humans manage brilliantly
starting very soon," Meadows believes, "it is possible the
world might look better than it does now."

    Still, for centuries humanity has confounded doomsayers by
finding new supplies of food and energy. In the early 1970s
some environmentalists interpreted temporary rises in food and
oil prices to mean mankind was again pushing the limits of
earthly resources, yet surpluses returned in later years. Julian
Simon, among other economists, argued that this revealed a
basic problem with the limits-to-growth argument. Price rises
caused by scarcities, he argued, will always stimulate human
ingenuity to improve efficiency and find new resources.

    In the intervening years, however, there has been evidence
that the market often fails to react as quickly as problems
demand. The world took 15 years to respond to signs of ozone
depletion in the upper atmosphere, but because ozone-destroying
chemicals take 15 years to migrate to that stratum, the real
delay amounts to 30 years. Moreover, these chemicals can remain
in the atmosphere as long as 100 years. In addition, market
forces often work perversely to hasten the demise of species
and resources. The increasing appetite for bluefin tuna among
sushi lovers and health-conscious diners has vastly increased
the market price of the fish. But instead of dampening demand,
the principal effect has been to encourage further fishing, to
the point that the total number of the magnificent pelagic fish
in the Atlantic has dropped 94% since 1970.

    Demographers refer to such collisions between rising demand
and diminishing resources as "train wrecks." As the world adds
new billions of people in ever shorter periods, such potential
conflicts happen almost everywhere. With most of the world's
good land already under plow, a population of 11 billion human
beings would probably have to make do with less than half the
arable land per capita that exists today. That would set the
stage for disaster, as farmers stripped nutrients from the soil,
exacerbated erosion and gobbled up water and wild lands.

    If population keeps building at the current rate, the most
ominous effect is that millions of life-forms will become
extinct. Humans, no matter how well behaved, cannot help
crowding out natural systems. A survey of 50 countries by
environmental researcher Paul Harrison showed that habitat
loss, the most important factor leading to extinctions, rises
in direct proportion to the density of the individuals that
make up various species. Big animals often range over hundreds
of square miles and increasingly collide with settlements.
Smaller species, which make up most of nature's diversity, are
affected by human activities in countless ways. Frogs, for
example, are gradually disappearing around the world, perhaps
because airborne pollutants are destroying their eggs. The
crucial question is whether humankind can afford to exterminate
large numbers of other species without ruining the ecosystems
that also sustain us.

    The world could avoid this question by reducing the burden
placed on the biosphere by rising human numbers and the
life-styles of rich nations. To do so, however, would require
countries to treat these threats far more seriously than they
did at the Earth Summit in Brazil last June. The affluent
nations must move their economies more rapidly toward patterns
of production and consumption that recognize the limits of what
the earth can provide and what wastes it can accommodate. The
poorer nations must make monumental efforts to remove
incentives for people to have large families. This will require
massive social change, including better education and improved
access to family planning. With each passing year, it becomes
more likely that the fastest-growing nations will be forced to
adopt coercive measures, as China has, if they are to stabilize
their numbers.

    If none of this takes place, what might the earth look
like? Author Meadows predicts that at its best, the typical
landscape might resemble the Netherlands: a crowded, monotonous
tableau in which no aspect of nature is free from human
manipulation. Other analysts look to the history of island
cultures because they tend to reveal how the environment and
humans respond when burgeoning populations put stress on an
isolated ecosystem.

    Easter Island in the Pacific provides a cautionary example.
When Europeans first landed there in 1722, they found 3,000
Polynesians living in extremely primitive conditions on the
island amid the remnants of a once flourishing culture. The
story of Easter Island is one of ecological collapse that began
around the year 1600, when a swollen population of 7,000
stripped the island of trees, depriving inhabitants of building
materials for fishing boats and housing. As the populace
retreated to caves, various clans warred over resources, then
enslaved and later cannibalized the vanquished. By the time
Europeans arrived, the beleaguered survivors had forgotten the
purpose of the great stone heads erected during Easter Island's
glory days.

    The tropical island nation of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean
presents a more hopeful case study, according to environmental
historian Richard Grove of Cambridge University. Mauritius is
nearly as densely peopled as Bangladesh, yet manages to support
healthy ecosystems and a booming economy. Nearly 200 years ago,
the island's French settlers became alarmed by the cutting of
ebony forests that caused severe erosion and had led to the
extinction of the dodo bird. By the end of the 18th century, the
locals had developed a full set of environmental controls,
including strict limits on tree cutting. In recent years,
Mauritius has launched a successful education effort to
stabilize population growth. The country now ranks among the
most prosperous in Africa. "I would be much less pessimistic
about the future if the rest of the world could act like
Mauritius," says Grove.

    The world no longer has the leisure of the two centuries
Mauritius took to develop a conservation ethic. In the past,
natural forces shaped the environment. Now, unless a new round
of volcanism erupts worldwide or a comet courses in from outer
space, human activities will govern the destiny of earth's
ecosystems. It may soon be within human power to produce the
republics of grass and insects that writer Jonathan Schell
believed would be the barren legacy of nuclear war. If humanity
fails to seek an accord with nature, population control may be
imposed involuntarily by the environment itself. Is there room
for optimism? Yes, but only if one can imagine the people of
2050 looking back at the mad spasm of consumption and
thoughtless waste in the 20th century as an aberration in human
history.