Population Decline Crisis: A Thought-provoking Reponse

A question for Douglas Tallamy that he answers with the most thoughtful response we've seen seen yet: You often say that human overpopulation is the root of our environmental problems. If that is so, why does Elon Musk call population decline the gretest threat to humanity? And why is the news that China is no longer growing in population being called a crisis?

The short answer is that Elon Musk is as ignorant of the ecological forces that drive life on Earth as he is knowledgeable in other ways. Recent headlines about population declines in China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and Italy have indeed been met with cries of alarm. The feat has been explicit: fewer babies will create an existential crisis for humanity. One reason for the emergency—the one we unfailingly hear about first—is that the decline in birth rates means there will be more old people than young people for at least a few decades. Assuming the old depend on the young for care, there won't be enough young people to take care of all the old people.

But it is not humanitarian challenges that strike fear in the hearts of economists when population growth slows. Rather, population declines threaten age-old economic models that assume perpetual growth. Fewer people equals fewer customers. Our measures of "success" tend to be economic in nature, and they assume that we can—indeed, we must—enlarge our economies forever. If our GPP does not increase annually, if we don't consume more and more goods, most economists tell us we are doomed. the concept of a steady-state economy—one that maintains productivity at an even keel without growing, an economy in which we do not constantly increase our material wealth but that produces enough for all—is anathema to dominant economic models.

And so, we are told, we have a crisis, and many governments are scrambling to incentivize baby-making. What we have not been told is that reports of population declines are the first glimmer of real hope that we humans may have a future on Earth. No matter how many times or clearly we use the word sustainable, nothing on this planet is sustainable if the human population continues to grow. We do face existential crises today—several of them, in fact: We're in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event on Earth, which is rapidly eliminating the organisms that run the ecosystems on which we all depend. Climate change is causing extreme droughts, floods, wildflowers, sea level rise, heat, and ocean acidification. Abundant fresh water is disappearing where we need it, rivers do not reach the sea, and immense aquifers are nearly dry. Global pandemics are inevitably plaguing crowded populations. These are real crises, all of which are caused by too many people, not too few.

And yet, incredibly, we decry the first good news about human population growth as a crisis! By "we" I mean primarily economists. Every card-carrying ecologist on the planet agrees that our global population has exceeded Earth's carrying capacity—its ability to sustain human numbers without degrading the resources we and other living things require in the future. In fact, most agree it would take from wo to four Earths to sustain our current population at a reasonable level of comfort. On a finite planet, perpetual growth is simply not an option. We have no choice but to transition to a no-growth culture as soon as possible. Transitions are often hard, though because we are forced to find new ways to deal with old problems. Curiously, the challenge we hear about more than any other—the problem of what do do about old people—may actually be the easiest to meet.

Read the rest of his intelligent and thought-provoking answer to this question in his latest book, "How can I Help?" In the book, Tallamy answers questions commonly asked at his lectures and shares compelling and actionable answers.