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Population

I was able to give the ‘population pot’ a pretty good stir on Friday in an event for the Cheltenham Science Festival.

For some time now, I have been reflecting on the way in which the world is responding to the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and continuing high levels of population growth. The UN body responsible for coordinating HIV/AIDS has called for funding to grow to around $22 billion per annum – and it seems probable that governments, donor agencies and big foundations will respond positively.

By contrast, funding for family planning peaked some time ago (as a percentage of total expenditures on population-related activities), and is still on a downward curve.

Donor Expenditures199419992004
Family Planning Services55%37%9%
Reproductive Health Services18%30%25%
HIV/AIDS Activities 9%23%54%
Research & Development18%11%12%
Millions in Current US $131416554907

HIV/AIDS kills about 8000 people a month, and there are 5 million new infections every year, so I have no problem about the scale of expenditure in addressing this. However, along with many others, I do have major reservations about the way in which the sums are being invested, especially in terms of the US-driven programmes which are much more ideology-based than evidence-based.

But the fact that this year in Kenya (where the rate of population growth is on the rise again) a sum of around 480 million will be spent on HIV/AIDS, compared to just 7.7 million on family planning and reproductive health, is just completely bonkers. What that means is instead of Kenya’s population stabilising at 44 million by 2050, which is what would have happened with the Total Fertility Rate continuing to decline, it could now go as high as 80 million – and god knows how many of that vastly expanded population will have died of HIV/AIDS between now and 2050.

The additional suffering that all this imposes on some of the world’s most poorest countries is literally incalculable. Continuing population growth is already having a marked impact on the efforts being made to meet the Millennium Development Goals. As the All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development & Reproductive Health put it in 2007:

“The evidence is overwhelming: the Millennium Development Goals are difficult or impossible to achieve with the current levels of population growth in the least developed countries and regions.”

It’s still the case that most “progressive” development experts think that “addressing poverty first” remains the best response, and that most environmentalists, in a reprehensibly politically-correct way, think it is exclusively about over-consumption in the rich world, than over-population in the poor world.

But exactly what kind of world are these people living in? Certainly not in a world where water consumption is doubling every 20 years, more than twice the rate of human population growth, where available arable land continues to decline year on year, where many of the world’s biodiversity hotspots are increasingly at risk specifically because of rapid population growth, where oil at $139 a barrel is already having a devastating effect on hundreds of millions of very poor people, and where accelerating climate change and rising sea levels are going to cause havoc over the next 20-30 years.

That’s our world – not some make believe cornucopian world that some still dream of, where the number of people on it is of no material significance.

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Posted by Jonathon Porritt on June 9, 2008 2:25 PM |

Comments (7)

I presume by "accelerating climate change" you mean the current cooling trend and by "rising sea levels" you mean "falling sea levels", see "Memorandum by Professor Nils-Axel Mörner, Head of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden President, (1999-2003) of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, Leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project."

Posted by Phillip | June 10, 2008 8:08 PM

Many thanks for your session at the CSF, Jonathon, it was excellent.

Posted by Michael Jones | June 11, 2008 4:05 PM

To Phillip the Climate Change Denialist:
"In 2004 the president of INQUA wrote that INQUA did not subscribe to Morner's views on climate change."

"Mörner has written a number of works claiming to provide theoretical support for dowsing, also known as water witching. [2] James Randi, the famous debunker of pseudo-science offered Mörner his $1,000,000 prize if he could successfully demonstrate water-witching which Mörner has advocated as scientific. As of early 2008 Mörner had not accepted The Amazing Randi's Challenge. Randi wrote in 1998

I've described here previously how a pompous-assed "dowsing expert" named Nils-Axel Mörner, associate professor of geology from Stockholm University, has consistently refused to be tested for the Pigasus Prize."

"Morner asserts that satellite altimetry data indicate a mean rise in the order of 1.0 mm/yr from 1986 to 1996,[4] whereas most studies find a value around 3 mm/yr. . . .This is odd, because satellite altimetry does indicate change, at about 3 mm/yr, which is faster than that observed by the tide-gauge network."

Phillip, I think you've demonstrated admirably that not even peer-reviewed scientists (such as myself) are immune to human bigotry.

Posted by punkscience | June 12, 2008 12:09 PM

To punkscience:

What's this name-calling? In my days as a scientist we didn't deride people with names. In fact I'm not a "Climate Change Denialist". I believe in climate change. It would be very strange if the climate were so stable that it didn't change. At the moment the GISS and HADCRUT data seem to show we are in a cooling phase, the earth having gone through several warming and cooling phases in the last century. Obviously prior to that we had the little ice-age and the medieval warm period and prior to the current inter-glacial we had ice-ages.

I'm afraid I don't see any relevance between dowsing and satellite measurements of sea-level changes.

As for "pompass-ass" and "bigotry", well it does the much-tarnished current reputation of scientists no good to promote such emotive language.

Posted by Phillip | June 12, 2008 5:23 PM

Jonathan Porritt for President! Enough is enough. The British people never wanted mass immigration and this experiment has irreparably damaged the fabric of our society, just so politicians could push us to the limit again. I am one of many thousands of older women unable to get a job, as our cvs are routinely thrown into the bin, despite the fact that we keep on trying because there is no alternative.

This jewel set in the silver sea is in reality a foggy little island that happens to have produced a few good wordsmiths who had the good fortune to write in English. When will the powers that be stop thinking we are still a superpower. We're not and we just want to be left in peace.

M Menzies

Posted by melanie menzies | June 17, 2008 1:19 PM

Well said Jonathan...

I need to check this blog more often...

You might like to add a further note, that even with proper funding of FP services, the 'economists' simply will not allow populations to fall, and will just insist on importing more people fodder to keep that murderous cuckoo 'The Economy' growing.

Regards,

S

Posted by Spamlet | July 10, 2008 9:18 PM

Hi Jonathan I had heard that you gave the Pop pot a good stir at Cheltenham - sorry for delay in writing, the pot is bubbling well with OPT just now. As you may know I was on Today on Friday and obviously rattled D Lawson (see Indy today). We are responding - as OPT and individually in my case (quoting you!). I also have a BMJ Leader in pipeline and a Population chapter in a new book from a meeting chaired in Cambridge by Sir John Houghton re the big things that can/should be done re climate change and other env crises.

AT LAST, I sense a small breakthrough, through all those taboos re both pop and family planning itself. Let's work more together, as well as separately, to cash in. 11th hour and 59 1/2 minutes though it is.

John Guillebaud

Posted by John Guillebaud | July 15, 2008 10:49 PM

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