I’m not insensitive to problems associated with rapidly growing populations. But if you only look at sustainability through the lens of population growth, you are missing the bigger picture.

You may have missed some of the recent headlines:

Declining birth rates raising concerns in Asia

South Koreans Told to Go Home and Make Babies

Singapore’s declining birth rate one of people’s top concerns

Why China’s Declining Population Will Take 100 Years To Fix

Korean – School-Age Population to Fall Below 10 Million

Taiwan’s birth rate hits record low in 2009

Many areas of the world are beginning to panic because their countries are not sustainable, their school systems are not sustainable, their social systems are not sustainable, and their employment base is not sustainable.

You are right that some areas of the world still have a growing population. If you look at the UN country-by-country fertility rates, you can see which areas of the world are still growing and which ones are declining. (Note: Any country with a fertility rate of 2.1 or lower has less that a zero growth rate.) Most of the highest growth rates are in Africa and parts of Asia.

Yes, China has not been the “poster child” for the environment. But they are working hard to turn that around. And China is also working overtime to influence the development of Africa, investing over $10 billion to improve their economies.

Counter to what you are saying, the countries with the best economies are the ones with the smallest population growth. We can only guess at this point, but it would appear to me that if an economy fails, that countries will go through a population surge in an attempt to compensate.

If you are truly looking to preserve the environment and reach a point of sustainable equilibrium, a critical point to consider is having a sustainable economy. Without that, survivalism kicks in and everything else assumes a lower priority.

You note that China is “looking at how to turn around it’s declining populations…”; yet China is hardly a model for sustainability, and quite the “poster child” for what is unsustainable…as the 2008 Beijing Olympics made crystal clear to many.
I am not talking merely about 20th-century population growth, but 21st century as well. Yes, growth rates have declined over the last decades from the peak of over 2% (1965-70) (now about 1.17% per year). However, this smaller % is still of a much larger population base, so the absolute number of new people per year (~90 million) is at an all time high. So with all due respect, your argument is incorrect as you are ignoring key facts. The earth’s population (numbers wise, which is what counts) continues to “explode” despite your statement to the contrary.

I find it rather ironic that you note with concern,
“a global population that is less resilient when it comes to recovering from wildcard influences”. Yet among the wild card disruptors you list, you include economic turmoil (including immigration), war, and pandemics.
Each of those is at least partially or in some cases a consequence of population growth itself; i.e. population densities, unmanaged growth, outstripping local resource base, etc.

I do not disagree with all of your analysis, such as the potential wildcard role of natural and other unknown (technology-induced) disasters, and understand the nature of demographic transition, and the challenges posed by relatively ageing populations. (Though I do not think the answer to past population booms is to try to perpetuate them simply to produce still more worker bees to perpetuate the unsustainable situation.)

Rather I take issue with the rather remarkable (especially in the context of “futurist” analysis) ignoring of general ecological principles, as well as in its rather blind adherence to the “infinitely bigger pie” compulsion.
The fundamental issue is one of sustainability…not just economic, but ecological.

In my view and that of many of the leading thinkers on population biology, we are headed towards population overshoot; which will be necessarily followed by corrections one way or another. The question in my mind is whether we can use our intellectual and ethical capital towards achieving sustainability relatively peacefully and humanely (i.e. without massive suffering), or whether it will be imposed through more cataclysmic “natural” forces, including some you consider. The closer the population grows toward crossing over some boundary conditions, the less control we’ll have. And I don’t claim to be able to quantify what the numerical threshold is, but from the present condition of the oceans, the atmosphere, already-evident climatic disruptions and encroaching desertification, global loss of pollinators and accelleration of biodiversity loss over the past several deaades, I’d say we’re already dangerously close.

Suggesting policies that would reverse the slowing of population growth seems foolhardy at best.

Counter to what you are suggesting, sustainability issues aren’t solved by making people the problem. It becomes a false argument to assume that our problems get fixed simply by having fewer people on earth. Water, energy, and environmental damage are all problems that need to be solved, but those are separate issues from the population.

The 1900s were a very fertile century. The earth’s population exploded for most of the century, but not anymore. The arguments you’re making are based on old problems, old concepts, and old theories. Sorry, but you’re simply shooting too far behind the duck to make a valid argument.

It seems much of the opinion is based on the fundamental assumption (and valuing) of infinite economic growth that must be fueled by population growth. What a tragically narrow way to see the world! First, to assume that well-being requires infinite growth of the pie (with ever-increasing numbers of slices being taken) is wrong; but from a biological perspective, it is impossible.
No where is there here any consideration of the sustainability of such a model. And that’s understandable, because it is a logical impossibility.
No where is there consideration of the effects of the population growth that Frey seeks, upon the biosphere, the natural resource base, etc. What about the water needs, and the fact that many rivers in the U.S. alone are seriously over-appropriated already, and unable to support the ecosystems that evolved with them? What about the energy needs? What about the habitat needs of the other species with which we share the planet? What about climate change? Such issus are conveniently out of the scope of this self-proclaimed “futurist”. Sorry, Mr. Frey, your vision of the future is far too impeded by a tunnel of your own making.

Also, the implications of an aging population are interesting. Sad to say, but much social progress in the West has come because the old guard eventually died, leaving room for fresh ideas from a younger generation. Will generally older populations lose much of their ability and impetus to innovate, creating social and economic stagnation? That’s very frightening to me, even if I become part of the problem at some point! LOL

A few days ago Vice-President Biden committed a remarkable diplomatic gaffe while on a trip through Eastern Europe by saying that Russia has a “shrinking population base” and “a withering economy”. It’s not the sort of thing one expects from the VP when his boss is trying to build ties with Russia. But, the fact is that Biden is right.

Russia has for more than a decade been losing about 700,000 people annually. They are facing a demographic catastrophe. Even China is beginning to re-think its one child policy because by 2015 the labor force will begin to shrink – and it’s hard to maintain economic growth with a declining pool of labor. In Germany, the government considers the situation so desperate that they spent 30 million Euros on an advertising campaign to try to change attitudes towards children and promote fertility. Country after country, especially in the developed world, is facing an economic tsunami in the form of an aging baby boom cohort that, when it retires, won’t be easily supported by a shrinking number of taxpayers paying for underfunded social programs.

There isn’t a country in the world that having dropped below replacement fertility has reversed the trend. Nobody has done that and nobody seems to know how.

This stunning article makes it very clear that the future will be very different for people all over the world.

I can only hope that our politicians are astute enough to use this information to make better decisions to enable a bright future–where the best is yet to come and has not already passed us by.