Biological Ethics
Table of contents
Chapter 24. Population and natural resources
M. Ferrer
a) Population models
Humanity, according to Malthus, increases in geometric progression, while production increases in arithmetic progression. The solution he proposes for this supposed imbalance is to deny attendance to the poor, so that they do not have children. Malthus' model is an elitist interpretation of the new status that appeared in the Europe of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, with the proliferation of the proletariat in the factory towns.
The economic crisis of the 1930s, which was accompanied by a sharp drop in the birth rate in the Western world, led to the formulation of the statement model of the demographic transition. According to this model, the evolution of the population follows different phases. The first corresponds to a stage of high birth and mortality rates fees , which produce slow population growth. This is followed by an intermediate stage of high fertility and leave mortality, with very strong growth at some point. And the cycle would end with low patterns of both birth and death rates and slow or stable growth.
The model of the population explosion, or neo-Malthusian solution, was first enunciated at the end of the 1940s, in 1947, by the American naturalist Vogt, and is based on a new status, hardly foreseen in the previous model . The population is experiencing high growth which, according to this model, will continue into the future, far outstripping the economic development and even compromising it. If this growth is not curtailed, mankind would be heading towards self-destruction. While Malthus indicates the need for man to master his instincts in order to balance his capacity Genetics with his technical capacity, this model advocates the establishment of national birth control policies.
During the 1970s, modelling added other variables to the demography-development relationship, such as resources and pollution. This would be the model of the limits to growth, according to which population growth accelerates the depletion of resources and increases environmental deterioration. Nature is on the way to exhaustion as source of resources, always in the framework of the current technical parameters. If the latter do not change, the raw materials and basic energy on which today's society relies will be limited in time, at a deadline more or less long term depending on different scenarios, but they are inexorable.
As a consequence of our activities, the process of pollution is added. Elements that are not recycled by technology accumulate in the environment and produce toxic effects on man and other living beings, compromising the habitability of the planet in the future.
Both the political system and a large part of the scientific system have ignored, rejected or discarded other models where the population variable is not taken as a negative and, instead, technical and social dynamics are attributed the capacity to solve problems. Thus, for example, there is the model that considers population growth as a stimulus for economic growth or social change. Or the one that positively relates the spatial size of a country and its population volume to the economic development . Or the one that does not admit that wealth is a limited factor, but that, because it is produced by people, it can be enhanced by human work , by technological innovations and by creative imagination. C. Clark, J. Matras, J.L. Simon and A. Kahn are the most representative authors of these approaches.
Finally, the world of the consumer society and the effects of the hedonistic and contraceptive revolution on it, explains the formulation of the model of demographic involution, according to which rich countries do not ensure the replacement of generations, and therefore of brains; and even if they change white women's childbearing behaviour in the 1990s, the medium-long term gap deadline is inevitable, due to the overload of the productive adult generations surrounded by the elderly and the meagre infant generations. In this perspective, the Western status at the beginning of the 21st century will be a wasteland in the production and transmission of culture.
b) The facts
Population growth during the second half of the twentieth century
During the 1950s and up to 1965, except in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, a wave of population growth began which affected not only the advanced countries but mainly the underdeveloped countries. In the developed countries there was a recovery in fertility that far exceeded the birth rate crisis experienced in the 1920s and 1930s and during the Second World War. In the underdeveloped countries, thanks to the decrease in mortality rates fees and the maintenance of high birth rates fees , demographic expansion reached its peak in the five-year period 1965-70. The annual growth rate, which fluctuated around 1.10% between the 1920s and 1940s, rose to 1.83% in 1950, 1.91% in 1960 and 1.96% in 1970. These percentages suggest that the world population would double in 38 years (according to the 1950 rate, 4,018 million in 1988), or in 37 and 36 years (according to fees in 1960 and 1970, 6,018 million in 1977, and 7,270 million in 2006), if the observed trends were to continue.
But in the 1970s growth began to slow down - the rate in 1980 was 1.64% - and projections also moderated. The most recent projections foresee a population of 6,127 million by the year 2000 (variant average). As the trend towards leave has also accelerated in the developing countries development, it can be assumed that the level will fall below 6 billion (the current rate in these countries is 1.97%).
In the course of the 1970s and even more so in the 1980s, projections were extended to the year 2025 and some were even extended to the year 2100. These long-term and very long-term projections deadline are due to the new treatment of population growth in the international political system and in part of the scientific establishment. Thus, the economic and social development is no longer considered as the main variable to explain the decline in fertility - the relationship between birth rate and development- but is replaced by family planning, and even population control, as the main agents to be used to moderate expansion and achieve a stationary population.
From agreement , with the decline in the growth rate, and the continuous readjustments to leave that have been made in the projections, it can be affirmed that the whole catastrophist edifice is now meaningless. Nowadays, few authors speak of a demographic explosion, since both the process of urbanisation and demographic policies have reduced it to just a few issue countries. The neo-Malthusian doctrine today focuses on stabilising the world population by setting the issue number of births allowed or desirable, both in international and national policies. In fact, population control is a reality in the China of one billion inhabitants (almost a quarter of the world population in 1985), and in other Asian countries where actions of a more or less totalitarian nature have been or are being practised. The transfer of involution from the developed to the underdeveloped countries, or the fastest possible insertion of the latter countries in the last phase of the demographic transition, are the major objectives with which the pessimistic culture of our time faces the future.
Present and future of the Western population
The programs of study of historical demography carried out on Western populations shows that the model of the transition is not applicable to Europe, although it was formulated by analysing its own demographic evolution. fees Thus, in some Western European countries the pre-transitional stage does not begin with high birth rates, but there are traditional regulations, such as late marriage and bachelorhood, which have a direct effect on fertility. In developing countries development, and in line with the above, birth and mortality levels are higher than in developed countries in the pre-transition period, and, moreover, when the transition begins, the decline in both fees is much steeper over time than in developed countries.
After the last World War, there was a recovery in fertility, the importance of which is clearly indicated by the term "baby boom", which is used to define this expansionary phase. average During the 1950s, the number of children per "couple" in the United States reached as high as 3.7, which means the extension of the large family. The phenomenon also occurs in Western Europe, where the average oscillates around 3.0.
From the mid-1960s onwards, fertility declined and a reversal of the trend appeared. By the end of the decade, 35 industrialised countries had failed to achieve the generation renewal that requires a minimum of 2.1 or 2.2 children per "couple". The road to zero population growth is already open. In Germany, Austria, England and Luxembourg, mortality exceeded birth rates in the years 75-80. In short, for the first time in the history of the West, a radical change in fertility behaviour is taking place. Some authors and scientific and political circles see this as a serious phenomenon threatening the survival of the white world (Sauvy, Chaunu, Ferrer and Dumont), or as a fact with political and social consequences that are difficult to solve (committee of Europe, some governments), which foresee a decreasing percentage of the active population, in contrast to the increase in the passive population of children, the elderly, pensioners and the unemployed who must be supported by an ever-increasing number of people.
If current trends continue, by the beginning of the 21st century we will have a Europe in which 55% of the population will be over 60 years old, i.e. a Europe that is a demographic wasteland. Likewise, the white population of the Northern Hemisphere would have the population of 100 years ago, a decline of 25% compared to today. Europe's demographic expansion (from 180 million to 466 million between 1800 and 1914, 17% and 34% of the world's population) would be followed by the decline caused by birth control (16.50% of the world's population in 1981 and 13% in the year 2000, if the trend continues).
Food resources
According to many authors and programs of study in the 1960s, Malthusian forecasts were inexorably destined to come true: the land would not be able to feed a rapidly expanding population. During the 1970s, the impact of the oil crisis, with the consequent rise in the price of agricultural inputs, further increased the defeatist view of the relationship between population and food.
At some distance from the pessimistic statements, a 1981 FAO survey of agricultural production over the past two decades, assessment , gives the following results. In the period 1961-65 to 1974-75 there has been a modest improvement in per capita food production (1975), per capita calorie production has been constant. In the rest of the underdeveloped countries, however, per capita production is growing at 7 per cent. The growth rate of total production is 8.89% per year in the underdeveloped countries compared to 2.1% in the Economics market countries. The problem of population-food mismatch is located in Africa, which maintains a constant per capita level in the 1950s and 1960s and declines in the 1970s.
Contrary to the alarm bells sounded at the beginning of the crisis, which predicted a negative impact on developed agriculture (the disappearance of reserves), the facts show a gradual growth in grain exports, which quadrupled by the end of the 1970s. In the economies of the countries on development , agricultural production has increased significantly (South Korea, Formosa, Brazil, the Philippines). India is no longer a systematic importer of cereals, and China provides its food supply. It should be remembered that these two sub-continental countries account for 38% of the world's population.
But the most significant fact of change in recent decades is the decline of subsistence agriculture and the resulting income-based access of households to food and the system's ability to feed the world's entire population (D. Gale Johnson). Regional food shortages are due to structural political and organisational problems. The real problem, stated in a very general way, is that of surpluses in developed countries and deficits in underdeveloped countries.
However, the increase in life expectancy in underdeveloped countries can only be explained by the improvement of the food status , and by a decrease in hunger and malnutrition, endemic evils of mankind which have been considerably reduced in our time. The numbers of undernourished and starving people, which, as stated in the 1950s - the first FAO study - were supposed to affect two thirds of humanity, have been unsustainable for several years now. Weighted estimates consider that the drama of hunger directly affects 400 million people, especially children, in African countries and marginalised social strata in underdeveloped countries.
development By the year 2000, according to the FAO's less pessimistic scenario (1981), the per capita supply in 90 developing countries would increase by almost 9%; increases of up to 15-20% in per capita consumption would be achieved due to cereal imports from developed countries to developing countries, which would increase from the current volume of 90 million tonnes to between 146 and 220 million tonnes. Poor countries could pay for this partly by exporting tropical products to the former.
Another scenario envisages a growth of 2.7 per cent, in which the 41 poorest countries would cover 97 per cent of their calorie requirements in the year 2000. Or 3.1%, in which case these countries would increase from 80% of calorie requirements in the three-year period 1974-75 to 103% in the year 2000.
status Regarding the percentage of countries suffering from malnutrition problems, the "low" scenario assumes that 23% of the population would be undernourished in 1975 to 17% in 2000, the medium scenario to 11% and the high scenario to 7%.
Finally, in the last three decades there has been an increase not only in productivity but also in the amount of land irrigated. Between 1970 and 1980, the number of irrigated hectares increased from 565 million hectares to 598 million hectares, an increase of 5%. In China and India, between 1965-70 and 1979 the irrigated area increased by 30 million ha (from 70 to 100). (from 70 to 100).
Energy resources and raw materials
There is no doubt that there are limits to the use of existing energy sources or minerals as long as the technical parameters of the current system remain in place.
Between 1950 and 1981, energy production and consumption more than tripled. Economic growth, industrialisation and increased fertiliser consumption by agriculture are factors that explain such a leap.
At the same time, there has been a change in the structure of consumption. Coal, which in the 1950s accounted for almost 50% of total primary energy, has lost weight in favour of oil, which has become the basic source for Economics. Other alternative energies, such as natural gas and, to a lesser extent, hydroelectric and nuclear energy, share the upward trend in percentage terms with oil. Currently, five-sixths of the energy obtained from the different energy sectors is consumed in developed countries.
Coal production in 1981 was concentrated in the USA, USSR and China, which accounted for two thirds of world production (2,742 million tonnes). In the other producing countries, the decline in European (except Poland) and Japanese production is significant, as is the development decline in production in South Africa, Australia and India; world trade only accounts for 10% of production, although the trend in the 1980s seems to be towards a higher percentage, due to the gradual replacement of oil by coal, which began with the crisis in the industrial countries, especially in Europe and Japan, which are both producing countries and major importers. The production of synthetic fuel oil and its possible cheapening due to technical improvements, as well as the liquefaction and gasification of coal, at status experimental, would give even greater priority to coal. Its possible transport by pipelines could help it to regain its lost leadership, and the rate of growth of production in absolute terms could increase compared to that of recent decades. Although reserves are estimated to last more than 1,000 years, the current state of technology and prices may limit exploitation to a period of 200 years.
Prior to the oil price crisis (2 dollars a barrel in 1970, 12 dollars in October 1973, from 13 at the end of 1978 to 40 in the mid-1980s, and then a decline that brings the current price to around 25-30 dollars), the world Economics was based on the import and consumption of oil, both in developed and underdeveloped countries. The crisis has led to a certain geographical redistribution of production. Thus, OPEC countries (Arab countries: Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia; African countries: Libya, Algeria, Nigeria and Gabon; Latin American countries: Venezuela and Ecuador) have been joined by others that have increased production (USSR, Great Britain, Norway and Mexico). The OPEC countries no longer contribute 80% of world production and in 1983 they sent only 35.3% to the market. It is very difficult to estimate oil reserves, given the huge issue of errors suffered by default, both by public authorities and private companies. In any case, it will be the developing countries development that will determine in the medium and long term deadline the rate of production and consumption, also in relation to the possible replacement of oil by cheaper energy sources.
The use of gas, which is normally associated with oil, and whose reserves are enormous, is still limited by transport constraints. New technologies - pipelines, transport of liquefied gas in tanks, underground storage - are gradually giving it a more important role, especially in industrial countries. Gas currently accounts for 22% of energy consumption.
Coal, lignite, gas and fuel oil form the basis of thermoelectricity and are closely linked to the proximity of deposits, and are therefore linked to a few producing countries and to imports closely linked to industrial countries. In contrast, hydroelectricity, which still has potential in industrial countries, has great potential in underdeveloped countries. Africa accounts for more than 27% of the world's potential, SE Asia for 16% and Latin America for 20%. These data make it possible to foresee that hydroelectricity will be in the near future a basic source of modernisation and industrialisation.
Among conventional energy sources, nuclear energy seems destined to play a major role in the future. It has several advantages: it is cheaper than fossil fuels, it is easily transportable due to its high concentration Degree , it has an unlimited future if fusion is applied, and its environmental impact is lower than that of other fuels. However, the production of radiation and its destructive power require strict control of its use and give rise to serious reservations on the part of public opinion in free countries.
There remains solar energy and its derivatives, which constitute the energy base for half of humanity and will be one of the energy sources of the future. Biomass, or the energy stored in plants, is used to produce thermal or physical coal subject - by pressure or fermentation - and lubricants - alcohol, methane and fuel oil. The progressive extension of biomass as an energy source for electricity production and as a heat source source is spreading in the Third World. China and India are pioneers in this field. Brazil, which has based its industrialisation on the same sources as the industrial countries - importing 80% of the oil consumed, the gigantic Itaipu power station on the Paraguayan border, coal whose reserves are estimated at 4 billion tonnes, nuclear energy - has recently begun a policy of bioconversion based on sugar cane, of which it is the world's leading producer, and from which it obtains ethanol and alcohol. Since 1979-80, Fiat and Volkswagen have been producing cars that run on pure alcohol. Wind and tidal power are also used, and are, above all, an excellent basis for electrification. In India, a technical wind energy harnessing model was built between 1959 and 1964, which, although it was accepted in rural areas, did not prosper because of the skill oil crisis, although after the crisis, programs of study was restarted to improve and disseminate it.
As far as the direct exploitation of solar energy is concerned, it is not likely to become widespread until well into the 21st century, at least for industrial uses. For the time being, it is almost exclusively used in the home.
Looking ahead, there is no problem in the very long term deadline for the supply of iron, aluminium, titanium, chromium, magnesium, vanadium and platinum. Prospects are not so good for copper, lead, tin, zinc, molybdenum, tantalum and tungsten. And they are worrying for minerals such as silver, mercury, bismuth and asbestos, although all can be replaced by others for industrial use. The addition of seabed mining resources, in particular polymetallic modules, to the market is a technical and economic challenge, as well as an environmental one, unless mining technologies are developed that do not have secondary effects on marine waters.
The environmental problem
Although raised in the 1960s by isolated authors, the topic of the environment was first formulated in 1972 with model Meadows and the publication of the book "The limits to growth", which was produced at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on behalf of the Club of Rome. This will be followed by others that improve the quality and processing of information. Based on the systematic simulation methodology, which presents different scenarios according to the behaviour of the different variables up to the year 2000, 2025, etc., they are inclined to affirm that there will be an environmental catastrophe if drastic action is not taken on each of the variables chosen, especially demographics.
"Global 2000 is the last of the catastrophist models. It was commissioned by the Carter administration and published in 1981, and adds little new to previous models. If trends persist, we will have an overpopulated, more polluted, ecologically less stable, and more vulnerable to disruption in the early 21st century. The model makes unreliable assertions about the evolution of certain degrading factors over the past decades (loss of land and forests, which are not counterbalanced by reforestation and new land conquered); the impact of coal combustion, the topic of acid rain, pollution of the aquatic environment, urban deformism, etc. are studied. Apart from catastrophism, report considers technology as a factor to be taken into account for the future, both as a means of correcting and overcoming problems. The response to "Global 2000", which was commissioned by President Reagan by a team coordinated by J. Simon in homage to A. Kahn, is the most qualified example of critical analysis and treatment of information ever published.
It should be added that this kind of modelling has had little validity as a valid method, since the change in the functioning of one of the variables not foreseen by the analysts has invalidated the results. Such would be the case of the first rise in oil prices not foreseen in the I report to the Club of Rome, or the trend since 1983 to the leave also not foreseen in "Global 2000".
Today it can be said that it is political, financial and management problems that limit the application of technical solutions such as the recycling or transformation of waste into resources, the development of alternative energies, organic agriculture, etc. In advanced countries, the objectives and achievements of environmental policies are progressively more demanding and qualified, while efforts are increasing to optimise the use of resources, to control and reduce pollution levels in rural and urban areas, and to improve the quality of life and respect for nature as a whole.
c) evaluation ethics
The scientific and technical progress that mankind is continually increasing with its mastery of nature is developing, together with the hope of a better human life, an anguish about the future. The panic derived from the programs of study of some ecologists and futurologists about demography, and the consumerist mentality, whose only concern is that material goods should continually increase, have contributed to the birth of an anti-natalist mentality. In any case - whatever the future may be - it is necessary to remember that the topic of human population growth is not simply a technical, economic, social and environmental question, but directly concerns the fundamental rights of the person and natural law; in other words, it is or must be framed within a global vision of man.
The earth's overpopulation problems - in part really existing and in part irrationally feared as the great catastrophe - have their origin in human selfishness, greed and lack of solidarity. This is where the real and ethical solutions lie: a fair distribution of goods and a research that seeks to increase resources and aims to solve the energy crisis but never imposes measures that coerce - sometimes violently - the freedom of a married couple to live their parenthood responsibly or infringe on the right to life.