Population And Environment

Rethinking The Debate

Lourdes Arizpe, M. Priscilla Stone, David Major, Priscilla Stone

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367283858
• eBook ISBN: 9781000307672
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

This ambitious interdisciplinary volume places population processes in their social, political, and economic contexts while it considers their environmental impacts. Examining the multi-faceted patterns of human relationships that overlay, alter, and distort our ties to urban and rural landscapes, the book focuses especially on the essential experi

Part One
Population and Environment: Overviews and Methodologies

Introduction to Part One

The debate on the relation between population and environment needs to include an understanding of the true complexity of the issues. The chapters in this section of the volume are intended to begin the process of bringing order and conceptual clarity to our understanding of that complexity.

Arizpe and Velázquez (Chapter 1) consider the reconceptualization of fundamental terms such as population. They, as well as Lutz (Chapter 2), evaluate population trends and further an ongoing discussion of what is known and what needs to be known about the role of population (growth, density, distribution) as a driving force in environmental degradation.

Chapters 3 and 4 pay special attention to the role of gender in discussions of population and its future. Sen (Chapter 3) situates the debate about population growth and its control in the history of gender theory and politics. Agarwal’s companion piece (Chapter 4) examines the link between gender and environment, drawing on studies of rural India.

These authors argue that direct population-environment linkages hold, if they hold at all, only at aggregate levels. At local levels it seems clear that historical, social, political and cultural processes explain the patterns better than demographic processes alone.

The final chapter in this section (Chapter 5) grapples with the methodological challenges posed by this new, more complicated view of the issues. Palloni’s chapter is an effort to sort out some of the conceptual issues involved in generalizing from case studies and to address the complex web of causality derived from these empirical works.

Taken together, these chapters reinforce a central argument of the volume-that population trends must be analyzed in relation to many other, non-demographic, processes-and set the stage for the cases presented in Part Two.

1
The Social Dimensions of Population

Lourdes Arizpe and Margarita Velázquez

While the scientific understanding of environmental and demographic change, as studied separately, is increasing dramatically, our ability to link the two in any synthetic and holistic manner lags behind. The central argument of this paper will be that the scientific community cannot use current models and methodologies for understanding the dynamic relationship between population and environment, but needs a new framework. This new framework will need to extend key definitions of issues and concepts and propose new methods for researching them. Population, for example, cannot be limited to population size, density, rate of increase, age distribution and sex ratios, but must also include access to resources, livelihoods, social dimensions of gender, and structures of power. New models have to be explored in which population control is not simply a question of family planning but of social and political planning (United Nations 1990:202–216; Jacobson 1988:152–54) in which the wasteful use of resources is not simply a question of finding new substitutes but of reshaping affluent life-styles (Meadows 1988; Repetto 1987) and in which pollution control is not simply a matter of “polluter pays” but also of emission controls, which in turn are associated with political and social processes. These will need to be models in which sustainability is seen not only as a global aggregate process but one that incorporates the policy goals of sustainable livelihoods for a majority of local peoples.

This is no small undertaking, and yet the theoretical and empirical challenges posed by global environmental change are in themselves a whole new order of magnitude. Although at a global level many recognize the challenge of harmonizing population growth and human expectations with the rate at which the planet’s natural resources are being used or polluted, we lack the models with which to understand and plan for these changes. Human control of the environment is being overridden by unexpected new phenomena-the greenhouse effect, leading to climate change, and ozone depletion--or by the cumulative effects of old phenomena-desertification, loss of biological and cultural diversity, and soil erosion, among others. Humans are vulnerable now to natural and human-made hazards of a different order than ever before.

Three factors distinguish what we face today from challenges of the past. First, the scale of such phenomena is much larger and the number of people who will be affected by these changes is historically unprecedented. Second, while ecological mismanagement did occur in the past, populations could opt for outmigration. Now, however, there is nowhere left to go. Third, the natural inequities in the geographical distribution of resources have been further aggravated by the concentration of human-made capital in industrialized nations and in elite circles of less developed countries.

A challenge such as this, of a higher magnitude and complexity than humanity has had to face in the past, requires conceptualization and planning at a more inclusive and complex level. But we lack the appropriate scientific and political frameworks; issues tend to be constructed, and dealt with, around single factor explanations and ensuing simplistic actions. Believing, for example, that population is the key cause of environmental degradation is a reductionist argument that leads to narrowly conceived policies. The complexity of the issues involved actually requires a debate on the political and economic planning for a global world.

This chapter contends that the population-environment debate has become deadlocked because it has become a question of taking sides instead of delving deeply into the complexity of the issues. Also the tendency to use mechanistic, predictive models is inappropriate given the level of uncertainty. Population issues have been decontextualized from actual social environments as well as from the broader and more profound issues concerning the new, emerging economic and political structure of the world and its relationship to the resource base of the planet.

Some may argue that engaging in the analysis of such broad issues may distract from the urgent need to act on population problems. Experience shows, however, that policy solutions focused exclusively on deterring population growth in the short term are ineffective when compared to more encompassing economic and social reforms. The most urgent task, then, is to establish a hierarchy of goals-economic, ecological, social, and cultural--to better direct the already existing potential for action.

At present, the disarray in the debate on population and resource use has been attributed to the lack of reliable data and the uncertainty of predictions. But it is also associated with the failure to analyze population trends in relationship to other processes. This chapter contends, accordingly, that all demographic transitions have been embedded in broader socioeconomic transitions; that population growth is not a driving force but an accelerating force except under rare circumstances where all other conditions remain static; and that population growth can only be understood by analyzing it in relation to rates of growth in the consumption of natural and human-made resources. Finally, we argue, as many others have, that curbing population growth can only occur in the long term with plans for sustainable development at a national, regional and global scale (Ehrlich 1989; Ehrlich and Erblich 1991; Keyfitz 1991 and 1991b; Costanza 1991; Leff 1990; Little and Horowitz 1987; Toledo 1990; Maihold and Urquidi 1990).

Population Trends at the Threshold of the New Millennium

The demographic transitions in North America and Western Europe at the end of the nineteenth century were linked to improved medical services and nutrition levels, which led to the decline in mortality due to infectious diseases (Demeny 1990; Lutz and Prinz 1991). But they were made possible by a number of interrelated changes, including the shift from an agricultural to an urban-industrial society and by associated changes in family composition, age at marriage, and education.

In contrast, mortality decline in less developed countries in the second half of the twentieth century has come about mainly as a result of improved medical and health care services in many cases without the accompanying social, economic, and political transformations. Since these socioeconomic transitions have occurred unevenly, frequently inequitably, and sometimes have even been reversed, the demographic transitions in such countries have not been completed, especially in Africa.

Some authors believe a general demographic transition is already underway. Julian Simon, for example, argues that fertility rates have decreased in countries all over the world (1990). Others reject this optimistic view or believe that such transitions are occurring too slowly (Ehrlich 1989; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1991; Grant and Tanton 1981). Recent figures, in fact, show that worldwide the crude birth rate decreased from 33.9 (1950–70) to 27.1 (1985–90), while the total fertility rate fell from 5.9 to 3.3 during that same period (World Resources Institute 1990:256) (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Fertility Trends in the Developing World

Year	Average No. Births/Woman
1950-55	6.1
1955-60	6.0
1960-65	6.1
1965-70	6.0
1970-75	5.4
1975-80	4.5
1980-85	4.2

Source: Bongaarts, Mauldin, and Phillips 1990.

Lutz and Prinz state that projections for the next 30 years are actually rather reliable, since they are insensitive to minor changes in mortality, migration, and fertility (1991). In Figure 1.1, they summarize projections according to different scenarios. It is estimated that world population will reach around 8 billion by the year 2010 (United Nations Population Fund 1991:3, 48; United Nations Department of International Economic and Social Affairs, 1989; Demeny 1990:41; Sánchez 1989:16; United Nations Development Programme 1990:166).

As Lutz and Prinz emphasize, the momentum of population growth has to be taken into account--the age structure of a fast growing population is so young that even if fertility per woman declined to a very low level, the increasing number of young women entering reproductive ages will cause the population to grow further for quite some time (1991). For the year 2050 and beyond, projections begin to vary from 8 to 14 billion and they diverge even more widely for t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Rethinking the Population-Environment Debate
• PART ONE Population and Environment: Overviews and Methodologies
• PART TWO Population and Environment: Reviews and Case Studies
• PART THREE Population and Environment: Conclusions
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Index