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And Baby Makes 6 Billion As population hits milestone, scientists worry most about consumerism Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer   Monday, October 11, 1999 Sometime tomorrow, the United Nations estimates, the world's 6 billionth person will be born. The event will probably occur on the Indian subcontinent, and the baby's parents will likely be of humble means. Perhaps they'll be subsistence farmers, woodcutters or tradespeople. Maybe they'll own a small shop. Their ambitions will not be overweening: weatherproof shelter, sufficient food and adequate clothing. But it is unlikely the world's 6 billionth inhabitant will grow up to share its parents' modest aspirations. Given current trends, the child may consume more than its parents -- much more. And not just rice and homespun cotton cloth. He or she will want, and probably obtain, a wide array of sophisticated consumer goods: a television, radio and refrigerator. Processed food and drink. Perhaps even a motor scooter or car. And that's the problem, many scientists say. The population crisis isn't just about more people, though that's certainly a big part of it. The United Nations projects there will be 9 billion or more living on the planet by 2050. It's also about the inevitable expectations of the billions of people who will be born in the coming decades. Most will be born in developing countries; most will aspire to the same energy-intensive consumerism now promulgated in North America and Europe. And that could have profound consequences for global ecosystems. Already, scientists say, the expanding human population is causing a mass extinction of other species -- only the sixth time such a widespread eradication of life has occurred in the planet's history. And skyrocketing energy use appears to be loading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other trace gases, causing global warming. The severity of these problems -- and whether humanity can avert catastrophe -- is a matter of some dispute, but there's little doubt about one thing: For the first time, human population is shaping the planet's basic dynamics rather than the other way around. In some ways, current population trends are heartening -- or at least not as distressing as they were even a decade ago. Family planning programs begun in earnest 30 years ago have paid impressive dividends. Worldwide, fertility has been more than halved, down from around six children per woman in the 1950s to 2.06. In developed countries, the birthrate is even lower than the global average. The fertility rate in the United States is 2.03. And both Europe and Japan have rates of 1.4 -- meaning that they may actually decline in population. Dianne Sherman, director of communication for the population office of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said birth control accords reached during a 1994 international population conference in Cairo are working. Birthrates have dropped, said Sherman, because women in developing countries are obtaining the information and materials they need to limit family size. Sherman recently returned from a visit to India -- a country that is approaching 1 billion in population and that promises to outstrip China as the world's most populous nation by 2050. ``Much of our work is being done in Uttar Pradesh, a single state in India that has a population of about 220 million, which is close to that of the United States,'' said Sherman. Uttar Pradesh is an extremely poor state characterized by a rural, conservative culture. Yet people are determined to control the size of their families, Sherman said. ``Virtually everyone we talked to wanted no more than two children,'' she said. ``Reproduction is a politicized issue in India, but (birth control) enjoys tremendous support at the village level. The Cairo accords are working. There are very real challenges ahead, but significant progress has been and continues to be made.'' Still, the average birthrate for most developing countries hovers around 3.8, and many African nations post fertility rates of 6 to 7. That means human numbers are still spiraling upward. Moreover, the world's population continues to grow at close to 80 million annually because of ``population momentum.'' In other words, the average woman is having fewer children, but there are more and more women reaching child-bearing age each year. The future, in short, looks crowded. RANGE OF ESTIMATES The United Nations has plotted three likely scenarios for global population growth, with human numbers ranging from 7.3 billion to 10.7 billion by year 2050. Depending on a variety of factors, population may or may not stabilize at these levels. Those figures are discouraging in light of current resource trends. Desertification and deforestation are accelerating in many countries, local water shortages are expanding into regional crises and about half of the world's fisheries have been overharvested. It is estimated that there are about 740 million acres of high- quality agricultural land in the world, and about three-quarters of that amount is already exploited. To bring the rest into production would require vast monetary investments for infrastructure and market development, and would also exact a high environmental price in the form of obliterated wildlife habitat, soil erosion and water pollution. So there are clear limits to expanding agricultural production to feed the billions of new mouths that are expected. GROWING APPETITES The global marketplace may be creating unprecedented prosperity, but it is also raising troubling questions about the capacity of the planet to support such wealth, some scientists say. ``The trouble is that every villager in India and Pakistan now has access to a television, perhaps even the Internet,'' said Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist whose 1959 book, ``The Population Bomb,'' is considered a seminal text on the modern population dilemma. ``Increasingly, these folks are comparing themselves to Bill Gates, not their parents or their neighbors,'' said Ehrlich. ``They're adopting the American model of consumerism. There are twice as many people today as in 1960, but we're using five times the energy.'' Ehrlich said the new consumer paradigm comes at an infelicitous time, conjoined as it is with a huge, rapidly expanding population and strained natural systems. ``Frankly, the scientific community is worried sick,'' he said. ``In some ways, we know how to solve the population problem -- we've seen some progress there. But we don't know how to solve the consumption problem. We're basically mining our natural capital -- soil, water, biodiversity -- for transitory economic gain.'' A big, hard and thoroughly unpleasant crunch is inevitable, said Ehrlich. ``I think a good case can be made that we're already at the edges of it,'' he said. Ehrlich has many allies in the scientific community, but he has been making dire predictions on resource depletion, famine and epidemics for three decades. So far, few of his prognostications have come to pass. While other population experts are hesitant to couch their concerns in terms as apocalyptic as Ehrlich's, they nevertheless have serious concerns. ``Obviously, the risk of serious environmental problems is high for the next century,'' said Robert Engelman, vice president of research for Population Action International, an environmental research and lobbying group in Washington, D.C. Engelman said many developing countries already face serious food and water shortages. ``In terms of food, sometimes that's due to production problems, sometimes to transport problems, but the fact remains that many countries are incapable of feeding themselves,'' he said. Still, said Engelman, there has always been poverty. ``In and of itself, poverty is not unique,'' he said. ``What is unique to our time is a combination of a population that is at an all-time high and growing, coupled with rising affluence. What is unique is that we now have a global model based on the U.S. model, one that says that the good life depends on consuming large quantities of natural resources.'' A COSTLY TASTE FOR MEAT Meat is emblematic of this model. Meat consumption is going up worldwide, and that demands correspondingly higher per capita production of grain. It takes about 7 pounds of grain to yield 1 pound of beef. Poultry takes 2.7 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat, while swine eat 6 pounds of grain for every pound of pork. In the United States and Canada, each citizen consumes about a ton of grain annually -- partly as bread or pastries, but mostly indirectly, as meat. By contrast, developing countries have yearly grain consumption rates of about 200 pounds per capita. Meat is esteemed as a luxury food -- indeed, a status symbol -- in many developing countries, so demand is acute and growing. And with the desire for meat comes the demand for grain-based livestock feed. Between now and 2030, grain consumption, primarily as animal feed, is expected to grow by about 2.5 percent annually in the developing countries. That may not seem like much, but a single percentage point can represent millions of tons of wheat, corn, sorghum and barley -- enough to feed millions of people if eaten directly. And those millions of tons of grain represent, in turn, great quantities of expended natural resources -- from water for irrigation to the natural gas used to produce fertilizers. Then there is the environmental impact associated with both the grain and the meat: rivers polluted with pesticides and nitrates, exhausted aquifers, eroded soil. And ultimately, there is a wall waiting to be hit: The quantity of arable land is all too finite. So should people in Chad, Bangladesh or Bolivia be denied the chicken dinner they crave? Given the extravagant consumption in the developed world, that hardly seems fair, population analysts say. ``The United States, Europe and Japan created the model, and it isn't a sustainable one,'' Engelman said, ``so we have to be the ones to apply pressure to change it. We need to look at the way we live. Is the quality of life really directly correlated to the amount of stuff we consume? Do we really need the biggest house on the block and the three SUVs in the driveway? Even if we stabilize population where it is now, it won't matter much unless we address consumption.'' BRIGHTER FORECASTS Not all experts are irremediably gloomy about population growth. ``I'm not saying we should adopt a Pollyanna attitude, but doomsaying isn't appropriate either,'' said Robert N. Stavins, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University who specializes in natural resource and environmental economics. The world stands ``at the frontier of an enlightened policy to turn things around, though I don't think we're there yet,'' Stavins said. ``I don't suggest a laissez faire approach, but I think the marketplace is sending signals that will ultimately improve the environment and address natural resource issues.'' Stavins said ``nonrenewable'' resources such as oil, coal and metals are not a critical problem in the long run because the marketplace will either find new ways to extract them profitably, assuring steady supplies, or will discover substitutes. Paradoxically, said Stavins, a more worrisome problem is so- called renewable resources, such as fisheries and timber. ``It's the `tragedy of the commons','' he said. ``There are generally no incentives to manage these resources, but there are ample incentives for everyone to exploit them. So while they are theoretically renewable, they are often exploited to the point of collapse. And then environmental quality may not be adequate to assure a recovery.'' But there are also ways for the market to address the plundering of renewable resources, said Stavins. ``We can put scarcity value taxes on fish landings, for example,'' Stavins said. ``Or you can use a tradable permit system, similar to what's being used to reduce acid rain. Say the government wants to reduce the catch of a species 10 percent from 10,000 pounds a year. They issue permits for 9,000 pounds total, and inefficient producers can sell their permits to more efficient producers.'' In the long run, said Stavins, modern industrialization may reduce rather than exacerbate pollution and resource waste. ``Industrialization can cause problems short-term, but studies have demonstrated that after a certain point, rich, industrialized societies demand tougher and tougher controls on pollution,'' he said. ``Globally, it's getting harder and harder to buy dirty technologies. The incentives are shifting away from them. That's why I'm not as pessimistic as some people.'' THE RISK OF SURPRISES But no one -- not even moderate optimists like Stavins -- is predicting a future without rough spots. Six billion people create a great deal of stress, both environmental and social. Things, in short, could go wrong. Quickly. All the estimates for population growth, says Engelman, are assuming ``no surprises'' scenarios. Unexpected catastrophes could cause the population curve to angle sharply downward. A few back-to-back poor harvests in the world's grain-producing regions could trigger global famine. AIDS and Ebola could pale in comparison to the next unknown virus waiting to emerge from an African or Amazonian rain forest. ``There are very real risks ahead, and disease is one of them,'' said Engelman. ``We also don't know what the future climate will be. If big surprises are in store, all bets are off.'' Still, said Engelman, ``if we all work together, we can probably dodge the bullet. And the real work is in the middle ground, assuming neither the worst nor the best scenarios. We have to address population growth and consumption simultaneously. Dealing with only one or the other won't do it.'' WORLD POPULATION -- Looking back... World population stood at well below a billion from prehistory through the 18th century, kept in check by disease and famine. By the 1800s, however, progress in agriculture, medicine, sanitation and industry resulted in substantive gains in longevity. Consequently, population growth took off. -- ...and looking ahead Globally, the birthrate has fallen dramatically in the last 30 years, from about six children per woman to around two. But rates remain high in many parts of the developing world, stretching natural resources. 6 billion Oct. 12, 1999 7.3 billion (Low projection for 2050) 10.7 billion (High projection for 2050) Source: Population Reference Bureau and United Nations Steve Kearsley / The Chronicle   Get a printer-friendly version of this article

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CHART: THE WORLD AT 6 BILLION . -- Largest countries with increasing populations In millions 1999 2050 China 1,266.8 1,477.7 India 998.1 1,528.8 United States 276.2 349.3 Indonesia 209.2 311.9 Brazil 168.0 244.2 Pakistan 152.3 345.5 Bangladesh 126.9 212.5 Nigeria 108.9 244.3 Mexico 97.4 146.6 Vietnam 78.7 126.8 Philippines 74.4 130.9 Egypt 67.2 114.8 Iran 66.8 115.0 Turkey 65.5 100.7 Ethiopia 61.1 169.4 Thailand 60.9 74.2 France 58.9 59.9 Republic of the Congo 50.3 160.4 South Korea 46.5 51.3 Burma 45.1 64.9 Colombia 41.6 71.5 South Africa 39.9 52.5 Tanzania 32.8 80.6 Canada 30.9 42.3 Kenya 29.6 51.0 . Population by continents 1995-2050, in millions Africa 720 2,046 Asia 3,438 5,443 Latin America& Caribbean 447 810 North America 297 384 Europe 728 638 . -- Countries with largest population declines In millions 1999 2050 Russia 147.2 121.3 Japan 126.5 104.9 Italy 57.3 41.2 Ukraine 50.6 39.3 Spain 39.6 30.2 Germany 82.2 73.3 Romania 22.4 16.4 Bulgaria 8.3 5.7 Hungary 10.1 7.5 Poland 38.7 36.3 Czech Republic 10.3 7.8 Greece 10.6 8.2 United Kingdom 58.7 56.7 Belarus 10.3 8.3 Portugal 9.9 8.1 Netherlands 15.7 14.2 Belgium 10.1 8.9 Austria 8.2 7.1 Croatia 4.5 3.7 Latvia 2.4 1.6 Lithuania 3.7 3.0 Switzerland 7.3 6.7 Slovakia 5.4 4.8 Slovenia 2.0 1.5 Denmark 5.3 4.8 . -- ENERGY The United States and Canada far outstrip all other countries in energy consumption. But the rest of the world is catching up, threatening accelerated rates of pollution, global warming and resource depletion. . Commercial energy By gigajoules per capita, (1 gigajoule equals 0.36 barrels of oil), 1995 figures . World average 61 Africa 13 Asia 31 South America 38 Central America 137 Europe 145 Pacific Islands 173 North Amercia 317 -- CARS The United States has no peer in the per capita use of motor vehicles. Greater global prosperity, however, is dramatically increasing car use in developing countries, with a concomitant increase in air pollution and urban sprawl. . Population Private car Density use per capita (persons per acre) (miles driven per person) United States 36.3 6,740 Canada 64.4 4,307 Europe 123.3 2,802 Developing Asia 402.1 999 -- BEEF Meat is an energy intensive product cattle, for example, require 7 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat. Generally, meat consumption tracks affluence. Americans are still the world's leading beef eaters, but meat consumption is on the rise globally. . Beef Consumption Annually, per capita, in pounds, United States 96.8 Italy 55 China 11 . Sources: U.N. Energy Statistics Yearbook; Peter Newman and Jeffery Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence; U.S. Department of Agriculture; U.N. 1998 Revision of World Population Estimates and Projections Steve Kearsley / The Chronicle CHRONICLE GRAPHIC ©1999 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A1 Chronicle Sections Datebook Commentary Sports News Business