Population Growth as a Basic Cause of Environmental Stress

Seven Potential BASIC CAUSES of Environmental Stress

4. Population Growth

"The world population crisis, which is the ultimate outcome of the exploitation of poor nations by rich ones, ought to be remedied by returning to the poor countries enough of the wealth taken from them to give their peoples both the reason and the resources voluntarily to limit their own fertility." --Barry Commoner, Making Peace with the Planet, 1990

The human population recently reached six billion, exploding from only one billion in 1800. (Read report) (alternate site) [500 words]

There goes the heighborhood...

Growth of the human population is usually cited, and often emphasized, as a basic cause of environmental stress. Less often recognized is abundant evidence that population growth itself is driven by economic and social inequity. The largest families and fastest population growth rates generally occur where poverty and social insecurity are rampant. There, having more children is an attempt to gain family workers and old-age support.

The environmental impact of a human population is not simply proportional to population size. Rather it must be weighted by two more factors, often referred to as affluence and technology, as represented in the following equation (also see Miller textbook, p. 15):

Environmental impact of population	=	Number of people	X	Number of resource units used per person	X	Environmental impact per unit of resource used

Impact		Population		Affluence		Technology
I	=	P	X	A	X	T

In this view, two broadly different conditions can cause "overpopulation" insofar as environment is concerned:

People overpopulation may be said to occur in cases where P is large, and A and T are relatively small. Examples: Indonesia, Bangladesh

Consumption overpopulation may be said to occur in cases where P is small, and A and T are large. Examples: U.S., Japan

By such environmental reckoning, then, countries with low birth rates but high per capita consumption of polluting resources are considered very overpopulated!

Immigration is killing the environment!...

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Thomas Detwyler maintains this page (tdetwyle@uwsp.edu)
Last updated 23 January 2001