Most times governments intervene in population, they push population growth. Why? Because they believe more people means more workers and consumers, which they believe will create jobs and help everyone. Podcast guest Jane O’Sullivan‘s 2017 paper “The contribution of reduced population growth rate to demographic dividend” concludes that population growth costs more than it benefits. It requires paying for infrastructure and more. She points out that lowering population growth were[…] Keep reading →

I’ve heard a lot of people promote population growth by saying that more people means more people to solve problems so we should keep growing the population. There’s no end to that logic. That is, no matter how many people are alive, that logic suggests more people is better. They respond to problems of running out of space, energy, and other things that seem constrained in various ways, but I[…] Keep reading →

Wolfgang Lutz is one of the world’s experts in projecting global population levels and demography. I contacted him to help understand the differences between projections based on demography like his and the United Nations’ versus systemic ones like in Limits to Growth. He gave a comprehensive overview of who projects and how, at least as much as can be covered in under an hour. Some highlights: Who projects based on[…] Keep reading →

Wolfgang Lutz is one of the world’s experts in projecting global population levels and demography. I contacted him to help understand the differences between projections based on demography like his and the United Nations’ versus systemic ones like in Limits to Growth. He gave a comprehensive overview of who projects and how, at least as much as can be covered in under an hour. Some highlights: Who projects based on[…] Keep reading →

Following up on my noticing that the “logic” that concludes Malthus was wrong would also conclude Columbus was wrong about being able to sail west from Europe to reach Asia. That he missed two continents and an ocean doesn’t change that you can sail west from Europe to reach Asia. It’s just farther than he expected, and you have to go around the tip of South America. Likewise, Malthus missing[…] Keep reading →

As a culture, we struggle to talk about population. Some consider more people better as a moral absolute. To them, more people solve more problems, so there can never be too many. Others consider Earth’s resources finite. To them, more people means less resources per person, which means beyond an optimum number, more people means lower quality of life, ultimately leading to a collapse of population. The first group values[…] Keep reading →

Perhaps you’ve seen the headlines about tomorrow: World population to reach 8 billion on 15 November 2022, according to United Nations predictions. Are we overpopulated? You’ve seen graphs of population projections from the UN showing the population leveling off or possibly decreasing by 2100 like this one. Does the graph reassure you and make you feel good that the population problem is working itself out with no big collapse likely,[…] Keep reading →