Eco disaster overblown

 

Eco-disaster?

It is right and proper the BBC are producing programmes emphasising the risk we are running of an ecological disaster. The major element is climate change but population and species loss also feature.. The major spokesman chosen is David Attenborough. Now he is a fine broadcaster who is widely respected. However there are two problems, firstly he does not understand population demographics and secondly he has the naturalist’s interest to preserve all species.

The population scare story is very common. It consists of extrapolating the recent increases in world population to some large ( and indeed scary ) level. Fortunately demography does not work like that.  In undeveloped countries people have large families. It is a sad fact that many children do not survive so parents tend to have many so they have some assurance some will live on to become adults. It is a sort of pension policy to have survivors for old age care. As countries become better off people have fewer children knowing they will probably all survive. Social care and old age pensions makes parents less reliant on their children in later life. This change to smaller families is known as the demographic transition.

The evidence appears to be that affluent societies tend to have fewer children than the replacement rate This replacement rate to allow for the childless is about 2.1 children per couple. Thus if couples have the modern norm of just 2 children the population will slowly decrease. However if is clear that given modern society women in fact have fewer children. Projections in places like France and Italy suggest many have on average far fewer than 2 but as is the case in the UK it is only those groups who are culturally still used to larger families ensure population stability. Most UK population growth comes from immigration.

Demographers expect global population to be flat or gently declining by the end of the century. However the Covid 19 pandemic has caused birth rates to dip

Countries such as Japan are undergoing population declines. It is a little surprising that the presently most populous country, China, is projected to decline. While decades of authoritarian state dictating one child only has a major impact the recent withdrawal of this policy suggests families will remain small. Even India is only just above replacement level of births with every indication that the steady fall in birth rates over years still has some way to go.

There is some discussion about whether this simply reflects women bearing children later in life. However it seems that for many women fulfilment in life means more than children. An important factor is that the demographic transition tends to lag a more affluent society. First modern medicine means higher child survival and it is only after this effect is understood that transition occurs. More recent evidence suggests the lag is reducing.

The effect of the transition is very apparent in the UK. In Victorian times large families were common. Even up until the 1920’s couples with 5 or more children were common. Nowadays it would be quite remarkable to find families of that size. It is not only that child mortality is much reduced but many cultural factors such as contraception, abortion and female emancipation play a part.

The main geographic area still to undergo the demographic transition is Africa. Large families are the norm but as modern medicine penetrates child survivability has improved. While African economies are growing they are still far away from mass affluence.

There is good evidence that overall biodiversity is good for preserving quality of life. One compelling reason is to preserve genetic diversity. Genomes or variants of species genomes will be very useful in breeding to withstand climate change.However this isn’t an unmitigated benefit. Closeness to animals increases the chance of new diseases ( such as Covid 19) transferring from animal to human. We should beware the naturalists wish to preserve all biodiversity uncritically. It is perhaps part of the wish to see all species preserved that will lead an Attenborough to declaim that some lesser black backed orang-otang be preserved. However it is sometimes far from clear what benefit is obtained by its preservation.

Some drives for preservation are really aesthetic or cultural such as the wish to preserve the panda. It often seems that the wish for biodiversity is based on a precautionary principle. We may not know its ecological niche so don’t disturb it. The panda is apparently not part of some food chain in which it is an important predator or prey. Its food is bamboo and it doesn’t appear to play a part in keeping it in check; rather it is the decreasing amount of bamboo which is driving down panda numbers. From the utilitarian viewpoint of life on earth it isn’t obvious any harm would come if the panda died out.

This needs to be approached with great caution. In many cases we just don’t know what contribution any particular species provides. All we are saying is that automatic retention of all existing species may not be justified.

In conclusion we can say that population increases though alarming will probably naturally correct themselves. This process is highly likely to produce a change in the proportion of different people in the population, fewer Russian and Japanese , more Nigerians. The doom laden accounts of species loss is not automatically a sign of impending disaster. Species have disappeared before and maintaining or increasing the number of species on earth is not automatically the good thing that some proponents argue.

It is appropriate to end with a strong caveat thar Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are lobby groups and have their own internal arguments. Sad to say their lobbying doesn’t always help the battle  Their cries of doom should be critically examined. The kind of hair shirt anti technological society extremists envisage does tackling the real issues no favours.