UN population projections as underestimates? The world's newest numbers

8/14/2019 UN population projections as underestimates? The world's newest numbers

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Re

Why cur

may t

This is to offer two observations

revised U.N. population projecti

Medici

The most recent U.N. populati

again turn out to be dramatic un

Because in the past, decades offactor that has repeatedly con

lowering death rates more dracanceling-out tendencies otherw

Result? In the past, real-world

routinely ended up not just grow

Births Deaths

Year per 1000 per 10

1939 35 21

1940 34 20

1945 38 20

1947 36 191950 39 11

1955 35 09

1960 32 08

1965 33 09

1970 30 08

1975 28 06

1980 25 061984 27 06

Examining the data, we notice that for every

year, each person who died had been replace

result of dramatic reductions in the death rat

only was Sri Lanka's population almost a hal

This last fact is the lesson that S

rates around the world, progresslowering death rates even more.of the day, when taken togethe

Cam

pbell,

Mitchell,andReese,

1997.

ference: The Wilson Quarterly and Martin Walker's article,

he World's New Numbers (2009). ww.wilsoncenter.org

rent U.N. population projections (20

rn out to be serious underestimates

concerning the

ns of 2008:

I.ne, Life-extension, and Underestimate

n projections could, like so many demographicerestimates of the numbers that actually emerge.

alling birth rates were expected to slow rates ofounded such projections, however, is that m

atically than expected so that dramatic reductise suggested by falling birth rates.

opulations with decades of falling birth rates (e.

ing larger, but growing faster-than-ever (see data

Extra

0 per 1000

.14 .

14

18

1728

26

24

24

22

22

19.21.

thousand residents of Sri Lanka in 1939, there were 35 births and

d, physcially-speaking, and then - fourteen extra abies were born(due partly to the war on malaria) there were twenty-one extra ba

f-century larger, but its rate of growth had act ally increased y fif

ri Lanka holds for the world today: Even if we s

in medical research, life-extension, and biotechnThus, while both trends each constitute one sort, our populations could end up growing faster

Death rates

09)

s

projections in the past,

Why?

population growth. Thedical advances end up

ons in mortality end up

., Sri Lanka 1938-1984)

below).

21 deaths. Thus, by the end of the

er 1000. By 1984, however, as a

ies born per thousand. Thus, not

y percent.

ucceed in lowering birth

ologies may well end upof good news, at the endinstead of more slowly.

Birth rates


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which fertility rates have not yet caught up to our falling mortality rates. And they hope, imagine, andsuppose that the transition will complete itself any decade now. One problem is, however, that suchanticipations may well be subverted by a problematic aspect of transition theory.

How? Why? Because science, medicine, and technology lower mortality rates not just once, butrepeatedly - over and over and over again so that we live in a perpetual state of transition. In otherwords, we repeatedly extend and perpetuate the period of demographic transition (with its skyrocketing

populations) so that its completion never occurs or is repeatedly postponed.

(In effect, each of our breakthroughs in medicine and life-extension re-initiate the transition period,delaying its completion and extending its duration more and more - so that our falling fertility rates arenever allowed to catch up.) As fertility rates slowly and gradually adjust to an initial mortality reduction,

todays genetics, technologies, and medical advances institute a second, third, fourth, and fifth mortalityreduction in increasingly quick succession.

As a result, falling fertility never catches up to the multiple new reductions in mortality and the interimstage of the transition (with its period of soaring population) is never completed. (It will be completed

eventually, of course, but with each delay in the transition, the completion is increasingly likely to occuras a collapse.)

What current theory does not fully articulate, therefore, is the role of science, technology, and medicinethat are currently making reductions in death rates so quickly and repeatedly that offsetting fertility

reductions do not (or cannot) occur in the short times available.

And finally, the coup de grace of all this is that the emerging advances in longevity seen in laboratory

organisms (and compounds, perhaps, like resveratrol) seem set to perhaps amplify and worsen our currentovershoot and carry us calamitously past natural thresholds and tipping points that should not betransgressed, so that our degree of overshoot becomes so great that complete collapse can no longer be

avoided.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, the earth's carrying capacity for an industrialized humanity is almostcertainly somewhat less than two billion, and, considering the fact that we are on-track to add our seventh,

eighth, and ninth billions between now and mid-century, a continuation of today's demographic tidalwave may constitute the greatest single risk that our species has ever undertaken.

As a member of the natural science community, I concur entirely with one of the "asides" in MartinWalker's article, The World's New Numbers (2009): "Whether the biosphere can adapt to such increasesin consumption remains a critical question."

Copyright 2009, R. Femmer.

All rights reserved.


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Anson, A. 2009. What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet,The Wecskaop Project, M. Arman Publishing, Florida.

Kenyon, C., 2005. The plasticty of aging: insights from long-lived mu-

tants. Cell 120 (25 Feb 2005): 449-460.

Kenyon, C., et al. 1993. C. elegans mutant that lives twice as long aswild type. Nature 366: 461-464.

U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2009. World Popu-lation Prospects Report, 2008 revision.

Walker, M. 2009. The World's New Numbers. The Wilson Quarterly.

http://wilsoncenter.org, accessed August 30, 2009.

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UN population projections as underestimates? The world's newest numbers