Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Elon Musk has spent years warning that humanity is staring at a population collapse. His diagnosis, however, is not quite the one most scientists share.
The outspoken billionaire has repeatedly argued that falling birth rates pose a bigger threat to civilization than climate change. A new study makes almost the opposite case: bringing the world’s population down to about 4 billion by 2200.
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The researchers posit a radical idea: A gradual decline in the global population could ease pressure on the planet and improve human well-being. They demonstrate this can be achieved through better access to family planning and education, particularly for women and girls in poorer countries.
That puts Musk’s dire predictions of a demographic doomsday in an awkward spot.
THE POPULATION ISN’T COLLAPSING
The world’s population crossed 8 billion in 2022, according to the United Nations. It is projected to reach about 8.5 billion within the next eight years and peak at 10.4 billion around 2080.
After that, the UN sees roughly a 50% chance that the population will plateau or begin declining by 2100.
That is a demographic transition, not the civilization-ending collapse Musk has warned about.
“Population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming,” the Tesla chief tweeted in 2022. “Mark these words.”
Demographers have marked his words. They just don’t appear convinced.
Patrick Gerland, chief of the UN’s Population Estimates and Projections Section, previously told Wired that calling the projected decline a “collapse” was probably too dramatic.
Global fertility has fallen sharply, but it has not suddenly fallen off a demographic cliff. In 2020, the global population growth rate dropped below 1% for the first time since 1950.
More than half of the world’s countries now have fertility rates below the replacement level of about 2.1 children per woman. The global total fertility rate is about 2.25, while population growth is roughly 0.85% a year.
It comes as no surprise that Musk, who has nine children with three women, assumes that more people are the solution to humanity’s future.
FEWER BABIES, MORE CHOICE
The decline in fertility is closely linked to something far less ominous than Musk’s warnings: social progress.
As women gain access to education, enter the workforce, marry or have children later, and gain access to contraception, families tend to become smaller.
“When women are free to decide how many children to have, fertility rates tend to fall toward replacement level or below, often rapidly,” the study says.
The researchers argue that this trend has accompanied improvements in child mortality, poverty and literacy.
And population growth today is not being driven by people suddenly having more children. It is largely driven by people living longer. Global life expectancy reached 72.8 years in 2019, up nine years from 1990. It is projected to reach 77.2 years by 2050.
In other words, humanity’s population keeps growing partly because fewer people die young.
A PLANET UNDER PRESSURE
This is where the study takes direct aim at the idea that fewer people are necessarily bad news.
The researchers examined the relationship between population growth and eight environmental indicators between 1970 and 2020. They found that population size had a greater impact than per-capita consumption on six of them: biodiversity loss, carbon dioxide emissions, energy use, ecological footprint, freshwater use and pesticide use. The other indicators were mineral extraction and plastics production.
Even if individuals become more efficient, billions more people still mean billions more demands on land, water, energy and other resources, the researchers argue.
They therefore describe reversing population growth as a potential “pro-nature and pro-human strategy”.
According to the study, smaller family sizes could ease pressure on resources, reduce pollution and poverty in high-fertility regions, lower conflicts over resources and migration, and improve quality of life in densely populated places.
The proposed target is about 4 billion people by 2200.
Crucially, the researchers reject forced population control, mass killing or eugenics. Their prescription is better education, contraception and reproductive choice.
THE ECONOMIC PANIC
Elon Musk’s argument also taps into a genuine concern: What happens to economies when populations age and shrink?
In June, the tech mogul pointed to India’s falling birth rate. Citing an Economist report that put India’s fertility rate at 1.9 births per woman, he wrote on X, “India’s birth rate has fallen below replacement. Among those most educated, India’s birth rate fell below replacement many years ago.”
This sparked fears that a stagnating birth rate will mean fewer workers, which in turn will result in slower economic growth, a heavier burden on older people and shrinking economies.
The researchers challenge that assumption.
From 1970 to 2020, the share of the global population that was of working age fell from 77% to 55%. Yet global GDP per capita more than doubled.
“In other words, even though the global population is in an aging phase, the numerically average person has become twice as prosperous,” the researchers write.
They argue that countries with declining populations can still see gains in per-capita GDP, labour-force participation and real wages.
The implication is uncomfortable for capitalist regimes built around perpetual expansion and propped up by billionaires like Musk. It indicates that population decline does not automatically equal economic collapse.
THE BIGGER PROBLEM: ENDLESS GROWTH
The study’s argument goes beyond population numbers.
Even if the world population stabilizes, humanity still faces a consumption problem. A smaller population with much higher material consumption can also put enormous pressure on the planet.
That makes the debate over Musk’s alarmist population crisis theory partly a question of what kind of growth societies actually want.
Governments and economists often respond to aging populations by trying to push birth rates back up. The researchers argue that societies should instead prepare for a future in which population growth is no longer the engine of economic expansion.
They strongly make the case that a planet with finite resources cannot support infinite material demand forever.
“Ever-growing wealth and consumption are not ecologically sustainable, and the sooner our societies grapple with this inconvenient truth, the better,” they write.
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
