The Unsustainable Population Explosion

In some parts of the world, such as Britain and other parts of Europe, populations are ageing. An elderly population has financial, emotional and practical issues for society. Pensions are one issue. Governments will have to make them more affordable, accessible and efficient so that the elderly can be supported in their old age, alternatively people can work for longer.

In other parts of the world populations are young and rapidly growing such as in China where there are over 1.3 billion people - more people than the global population in 1850s. India has over 1.15 billion people and a young population. Sub-Sahara Africa has the highest youngest population in the world. Over 44% of the population is under 15 years old.

A younger population creates different problems to an ageing one as the population is growing. A rapidly increasing population puts an increased demand on facilities and resources such as food, housing, schools and hospitals.

Demographers predict that citizens of the present developed and ageing nations will become a tiny minority of the world's population in the future. This will cause a world shift of power as discussed by Goldman Sachs in its weekly notes and in a booklet ‘The Power of Numbers – Why Europe needs to get younger’ by Richard Ehrman.

According to Goldman four trends will shape this century: the recovery in birth rates in advanced economies, baby-boomer retirement, the rebalancing of global population, and the development of multicultural societies.

In his paper Richard Erhman, Deputy Chairman of Policy Exchange, and Chief Leader writer of The Daily Telegraph in the 1990s, implies that Britain and Europe are likely to emerge from the credit crunch only to find they are at the beginning of a long term demographic crunch.

It is considered that there will be a big power shift within the developed world. Over the next forty years, Japan, Russia and many European countries face a sustained, outright fall in their populations - something that has never happened before in any advanced economy. For most European nations the prospect is one of ageing stagnation with the exception of the UK where the population is predicted to increase due to mass immigration. The UK is projected to become the largest European nation by population, surpassing Germany.

In contrast, across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas numbers are rising rapidly and will continue to do so. Between now and 2050 this growing demographic divergence between today’s developed and developing worlds will revolutionize the economic, political and military balance of power across the globe.  The paper concludes that the Government should acknowledge that mass immigration will not solve our ageing problems. It suggests that Britain should have a population strategy and we should raise the retirement age. Furthermore, people should be educated about the societal consequences of ageing.

The global population is predicted to rebalance with Europe reducing from having about 22 per cent of the world's population in 1950 to only about 7 per cent in 2050.  Currently, the world’s population power is thought to be shifting towards China and in the longer term to India and Africa. What will the effects of this change be on the environment, world health, the world economy and social and economic attitudes?

Goldman tentatively suggests the possibility that Africa will improve its governance and hence its productivity and become a model of growth for the world economy. And if Africa fails to do so, there might be severe humanitarian consequences. Already Africa suffers droughts, wars, disease and starvation, how will the African continent be unable to cope with even more people? Ultimately, events in Africa will affect the whole planet.  

Goldman also suggests that developed countries should reproduce more to keep up with the developing countries yet such population growth is unsustainable.

In the early nineteenth century the world population reached 1 billion, by the 1920s it was 2 billion, by 1950, 2.5 billion, by 1987 5 billion and today nearly 7 billion people live on Earth. Every hour another 10, 000 human babies are born that’s 3 per second.

This population explosion is predicted to continue until the world population reaches 8 to 12 billion, and then to stabilize. A world population of nearly 7 billion is already causing large scale changes in the Earth’s biosphere and atmosphere leading to climate change, habitat destruction, a loss of biodiversity, animal and plant extinctions - ramifications that will run long into the future.

The effects of such a huge world population and people’s unsatiable appetite for resources are not only environmental, the demography of a rising world population has economic and societal implications too. An increased global population will lead to a greater need for food, housing and shelter, energy and power, health services and an increase in waste amongst other issues all of which will have financial implications.

So, far from encouraging the developed nations to populate it would be better to help the developing world to manage and curb their population growth for the sake of the planets survival. What are your thoughts?  Have your say. We welcome your thoughts and proposals. Add your comment below.  Have your say. We welcome your thoughts and proposals. Add your comment below. Not a Citizen? Sign up

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