Several people have asked me what I am suggesting we do. I did not come here prepared to talk about that. However, I have been asked that many times, so I will address that in more detail now.
First, let me clarify the problem: I believe we are in
ecological overshoot. According to the
Global Footprint Network, it would take
1.7 Earths to sustainable hold our population at current levels of impact. I think we would do well to cut our impact in half. That would be a huge goal. A more modest, perhaps attainable, goal would be to aim for a 10% reduction in our impact in the next 30 years.
The impact on the planet is popularly given by the formula,
I=PAT, where I is the
impact on our planet, P is the
population, A is the average level of
affluence, and T is a factor based on the
technology used. T represents the level of impact per unit of affluence. That gives us three levers that affect our impact on the planet.
The most obvious place to begin is with technology. Let's just live smarter, and make less detrimental impact on the planet. I am all for that. But how has that been working out so far? Clearly, our efforts to solve climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution of rivers, freshwater depletion, loss of natural land, loss of biodiversity, atmospheric aerosols, chemical pollution, and depletion of fossil fuels has not gone well. We are losing these battles. So realistically, I don't see technology reducing our impact per unit of affluence any lower than 80% of the current level.
Don't get me wrong. I love technology. I have dedicated my entire career as an engineer, working to use technology to improve people's lives. I am for technology. But we need to be honest about the limits to what it can do. I do not see that we can simply engineer our way out of this problem.
The next lever is affluence. Think about that one. There is no way we are moving that lever down. Poor countries rightfully want to increase their affluence. And rich countries don't want to go backwards. So if poor countries increase in affluence, and rich countries stay the same, this does nothing to reduce the factor
A in our equation. I think we need to assume people will want A to be at least 125% of today's value 30 from now. If A is 125% and T is 80% of today's values, those factors cancel out. We have gotten nowhere.
That brings us to the factor P. That is a tough factor to discuss. I love people. I want there to be billions more people on this planet. But if Earth is like a lifeboat with limited capacity, then there are only so many more that we can invite on.
Let me be clear. I am in no sense advocating suicide or genocide. Human life is a marvel. We should not be snuffing it out. That must be off the table.
Neither am I advocating forced birth control. I see no way we could do that in a way that is fair and effective. And we must confine our efforts to things that are fair and effective. First do no harm. Forced birth control is out.
Which brings us to voluntary birth control. We can make abortions and contraceptives readily available. We can empower women and encourage them to choose ways of finding fulfillment other than by giving birth. We can further study our ecological footprint, and educate people on the dangers it poses.
How much would we need to reduce the birthrate to reduce our impact 10% in 30 years? There is this little thing called
population momentum that gets in our way. Since population has been growing rapidly, the younger generations are larger than the oldest generation alive today. And so, even if we were to reduce the birthrate, it takes a long time for nature to bring the population down to the desired level. If we really wanted to reduce our impact on this planet by 10% in 30 years, and we find that this realistically requires a 10% decrease in population (which we will do by voluntarily limiting birthrates) then we need to reduce the rate of births by 50%.
Who would this affect? Some people might argue that countries with higher birthrates should do more. Others might argue that richer countries, which often already have low birthrates, should do more, since their children have a greater impact on the environment. I am not here to decide that. All I am saying is that we, as humans, should work together to persuade people to have fewer children in a way that is fair to all.
I think 50% fewer childbirths per year is a good goal for now. Not only would that reduce our impact 30 years from now, but it would eventually stabilize population at 4.8 billion people about 75 years from now. I think that is a good thing. For by then we will have burned through most of our inheritance of fossil fuels, and possibly most of our accessible concentrated uranium. That will make it harder to maintain the Green Revolution, and might well limit population to the 2 billion people we had before the Green Revolution started. But that is 75 years down the road. I don't expect to be alive then. (If I am, I will be 141!) Future generations will need to deal with that problem. They should be trusted to make that decision.
If the current trend continues, with 1 billion people added to the planet every 12 years, there would be 16 billion people on this planet with no appreciable fossil fuels available 80 years from now. If we followed the trajectory mentioned above, there would be 4.8 billion, which would be much more manageable. We need to at least give our descendants a chance.
The plan I suggested above may fall far short of what is needed. If we are indeed at 175% of the current Earth capacity, a 10% reduction in our impact on the planet within 30 years might be too little too late. Perhaps we should do even more. How?
We might not be doing all that needs to be done, but if we got behind a plan such as the one above, at least we would know that we did what we could. We saw what was coming to our near descendants, and did something about it. At least we tried. That is better than doing nothing.
So, for what it is worth, that is my recommendation. Others will differ, probably somewhat strongly. That's fine. Respectful debate of the ideas discussed here is certainly welcome.