DOES DEPOPULATION IMPACT CLIMATE CHANGE?
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Global human population growth peaked in the 1960s at over 2% per year, but the caveat is that birth rates are now precipitously declining to less than 1%. As the human population is living longer and families choose to have less children the rate of sustainable fertility needed to replenish diminishing numbers have decreased. Demographers define population collapse is when the delta between birth rates and the death rate narrows. According to the World Economic Forum, in the 1960's, there were 6 people of working age for every 1 retired person, however, today, the ratio is closer to 3 -to-1 and by 2035, it’s expected to be 2-to-1. The concern here is not the total human population but a declining birth rate.
In some countries, like South Korea, the senior citizen population is rapidly increasing in to retirement, while the birth rates are falling, generation-by-generation; so catastrophically that their fertility rate is unsustainably below the global replacement rate of 2.1 births per family needed to sustain their population and economic viability.
In 2024, more than half of the Earth population growth occurs in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa countries like Niger. However, Demographers believe it does not take much to impact fertility rates because even a modest increase in the standard of living results in a rapid decline in fertility rates; as seen recently in countries like Jamaica.
There appears to be a vivid correlation between the decreasing rate of fertility, per capita income (Average income per person, per country) and CO₂ emissions. According to the United Nations Population Fund South Korea has a total fertility rate in 2024 (Births/Women) of 0.9; while Niger is ranked number 1 globally at 6.6 (Births/Women). According to the Global Carbon Budget 2023, South Korea has a population of 51.78 million, per capita income (2011) of $41,321 and a per capita CO₂ emissions of 11.6 t. Comparatively, Niger, has a population of 25.31 million, per capital income (2011) of $1,008 and a per capita CO₂ emissions of 0.12 t. The quantitative trajectory of these combined reports shows higher standards of living subsequently increased consumption of products, higher waste production and energy usage which leads to greater CO₂ emissions per person.
Photo courtesy of Pew Research Center
Young people of working & reproductive ages are the main demographics of the population in the workforce, contributing to a nations Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and inevitably will be the caregivers of retirees; whom are living longer. The one consolation bolstering the shrinking labor force of most industrialized countries, like Canada, with low fertility rates has been immigration. However, immigration is not a long term solution since population decline is a global problem, immigration only shifts the problem to other nations. The most educated and often male labor force from these immigrant exportor countries are no longer available to contribute to the GDP of their birth place.
It may seem counterintuitive that the benefits of higher education and household incomes would subsequently lead to lower fertility rates; since, throughout history, humanity has usually been able to flourish during times of material abundance.
It is worth mentioning the role of endocrine (Hormone) disrupting chemicals (EDC) impact on low sperm count and reproductive hormonal imbalances. Toxic EDC used in everyday products are poisoning the population. The Polytetra Fluoroethylene (PTFE) (Decrease testosterone hormonal levels) coating on nonstick cookware flakes off in to cooked foods, Phalates (Esters pf Phthalic acid) used to make plastics pliable enter the body through the skin, the biggest organ of the human body, from vinyl clothing and Bisphenol A (BPA) (Increase estrogen hormone levels) found in plastic baby bottles . . . Other vectors include, but are not limited to modern farming chemicals used for synthetic fertilizers, pesticides & herbicides.
There has been dramatic increase in the population rates of low levels of testosterone in males, increased rates of Alzheimers, Parkisons’s and Autism . . . The rising trajectory exhibited in the population within the past 5 decades is too accelerated to be a result of advanced or increased diagnostic screenings methods. Although EDC’s can be complicit in impacting fertility rates, demographic evidence points towards the main culprits of the global decrease in birth rates are attributable to an increase in the standard of living and education; especially of women.
The catastrophes predicted by Paul Erlich and Garrett Hardin of world hunger, an increase in crime, mass homelessness and global conflicts over scare natural resources caused by over population burdening the Earth global carrying capacity never came to fruition. Modern agriculture technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have made accelerated advances in efficiency and yields. Inaddition, the creation of the global economy emerged to provide consumers with an abundance of products. Yet, in the early 21st century, even as birth rates were already decreasing environmentalist still promoted concerns of environmental pollution and over consumption of scare natural resources due to over population. However, with lowering birth rates, environmental activist should not relish population decline as a solution to help heal the Earth from the ravages of climate change because it distracts from the real cause. The largest producers of green house gas emissions are the fossil fuel corporations and manufacturing industries whom shifted the blame of environmental pollution to the perceived threat of over population
The reality is, the Earth has the ability to successfully sustain over 40 billion people. However, despite modern mechanized farms reaping record high harvest during the mid 2000’s according to an United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report on food security and nutrition in the world “821 million people were undernourished in 2017; up from 784 million in 2015.” “While 22% of children under 5 are stunted.” Modern technological advancements in agriculture have given world farmers the ability to grow enough food to feed 1.5 times the total word population; 10 billion more people than the current needs of the global population. The U.N. estimates higher yields can be accomplished even without the use of genetically modified organism (GMO). Unfortunately, the focus is commercial food production to grow feed crops to feed livestock for meat production and for biofuels. A sustainable alternative is to grow food in a sustainable way with a focus on providing agriculture for human nutrition with fair food distribution.
In the early 1800’s, 84% of the U.S. population worked as Farmers. In 2021, 1.3% of the U.S. population are employed in direct on-farm employment. In the 1940’s 1 Farmer was able to feed 18 people worldwide; while today, 1 Farmer can feed 155+ people worldwide. Global food shortages can be attributed to various causes, in no respective order of severity: wars, poverty, forced human migration, an emphasis on cash crops, inefficient food distribution, global increase in red meat consumption, food waste, economic inequality, a lack of botanical genetic diversity and climate change . . .
Not all attempts to increase fertility rates are altruist and maybe biased against the fertility rates of non brown and black people or those on the social periphery, like Gypsies, because of racist concerns of racial replacement of the nation dominant demographic group. The environmentalism movement has a long history of adoption by white supremest and nationalist movements to blame the over population of non whites and the influx of black & brown immigrants for causing environmental pollution and over consumption of natural resources.
The world has witnessed the consequences of when womens’ reproductive freedoms have been challenged by political elites. From 1966 to 1989, in a pursuit to increase the post world World War II population decline, the Romanian anti-abortion regime of dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu made most forms of abortions illegal (Decree 770); with very few exceptions. The secret police weaponized abortions and reproductive contraceptions and inserted themselves in to the intimate lives of Romanian women of reproductive age. This period in Romanian history witnessed an increase in parents abandoning over 150,00 infants to state-run orphanages; along with an increase in maternal and infant mortality. Mothers were forced to carry to full term high risk pregnancies that endangered the lives of the mother and some resulting in preterm birth and infant deaths.
Irrespective of the human population on the Earth, an end to climate change can only occur when the human population adopts a sustainable lifestyle and initiate equitable socioeconomic changes in the way they produce & consume the material resources of the Earth.
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