For a long time we’ve been hearing scare stories about overpopulation. Well, it MIGHT be true that certain (very small) areas of the globe are overpopulated, though even that is in doubt. There are certainly areas of the globe where people are jammed in cheek-by-jowl (like Hong Kong or Tokyo or Singapore), but what constitutes overpopulation isn’t just the population density: It’s the outstripping by the population of the ability of the available resources to sustain them. Since the cities I just mentioned have a high level of development, overpopulation even there is going to be disputable.
But all of that is elsewhere.
It’s not in the U.S.
Surprisingly, the 2000 Presidential election provides an illustration of this. As we all know, the nation was closely divided between the “blue” or “Gore” areas and the “red” or “Bush” areas. Recently I printed a map of these when calibrated by state, but the division can also be calibrated based on county, as in the first map accompanying this entry. (Thanks to one of the folks in the comments box for recalling such county maps to my memory!)
Here’s the deal: Gore apparently slightly won the popular vote, though he didn’t win the election because the way the electoral college works, since Bush slightly won that. That means that the blue areas of the map have a population approximately equal to that of the red areas. (In reality, there’s more to the story than this since there are “blue voters” in the red areas and “red voters” in the blue areas, but it’s not enough to void the point I’m about to make.)
The point is: The blue areas are a tiny portion of the country, while the red areas are huge. This means that–unless the red areas are far more resource-poor than they actually are–we could have many, MANY more people in the U.S. than we do without hitting true overpopulation.
Since overpopulation is one of the key reasons offered for contracepting and aborting our progeny, this means that this “reason” does not exist in our country. The 2000 election proved it.
Now, as I indicated, there are more dimensions to the story than I indicated. To see some of these dimensions, read this page from a “Bush perspective” and this page from a “Gore perspective.” The latter, in particular, contains a number of cool maps. The former, in particular, contains some cool analysis.
None of the other dimensions challenge the basic point I am making. In fact, there are more sophisticated maps making the same point–like the second one associated with this entry, which is a straight population map of the U.S.
The basic point remains the same: The U.S. is not overpopulated. In fact, the world is not overpopulated. Our real problem is not lack of resources but barriers to food and resource distribution that are put in place on the local level (like the north, Muslim area of Ethiopia deliberately trying to starve the south, Christian area of Ethiopia). If the distribution avenues commonly available in the U.S. were available worldwide, the earth could sustain many times the people it currently houses.
In fact, you may have read accounts noting that the entire world population could comfortably fit in my home state of Texas, leaving the rest of the planet empty.
That’d be juss fine with me! Then ev’ryone would be Texan!
Resistance is futahl.
Y’all will be assimilated.
(BTW, Rodeo is now the national pasttime.)
We’ll all become Texans? Been there, done that.
“The blue areas are a tiny portion of the country, while the red areas are huge. This means that–unless the red areas are far more resource-poor than they actually are–we could have many, MANY more people in the U.S. than we do without hitting true overpopulation.”
Much as I share your skepticism regarding the myth of overpopulation, I’m not sure how much water this argument in this form holds.
It’s certainly true that the red areas are resource-rich enough to support a much greater population than they presently do — but it’s also true that THEY’RE ALREADY DOING SO.
That is, the only reason high-population blue areas can exist is because there are low-population red areas supplying them with food and other resources.
In New York City, 8 million people may live on a little over 300 square miles, but those 300 square miles don’t remotely sustain those 8 million people.
NYC’s bridges and tunnels transport hundreds of truckloads of food and water every day into the city to sustain those people, and that food and water has to come from somewhere where people live less densely than they do in NYC.
So the fact that people in the blue areas live in blue-area level population densities seems not to offer prima facie evidence that the populations of red areas could sustainably rise to comparable density levels.
Also, long before population growth reaches the point where the population is unable to sustain itself, it can have other deleterious effects that we might not want to embrace in the name of population growth. For example, I’m sure millions of people could live comfortably on the land currently occupied by Yellowstone National Park, but I don’t think we want to turn it into apartment buildings and condos all the same.
Sergei, I appreciate your thoughtful comments, as always. In fact, I anticipated them (though not that they woudl come from you specifically). This is why I included the qualifier “unless the red areas are far more resource-poor than they actually are” in my remarks.
This clause was meant to take account of the fact that the red areas contain sufficient resources to sustain many more people than currently inhabit the U.S., even counting Yellowstone Park and similar natural wonders as resources that should not be depleted.
As someone who has taken a number of ground-level trips across the country, I am an eyewitness both to the country’s natural beauty and to the fact that most of it is still yet full of miles and miles of NOTHING. America, when you see it up close the way I have, is ASTONISHINGLY, MIND-BOGGLINGLY, ***HUGE***.
So while it’s true that the inhabitants of the blue areas leech off of–(ahem) *depend on* the red areas, it remains true that these areas could stil support a much larger population than they currently do. (Sorry, my red-area neck was showing for a second there.)
As far as prima facie considerations go, it seems to me that the fact the blue areas have a population approximately equal to the red areas while being so vastly smaller still provides prima facie evidence for the fact that the U.S. is not overpopulated. Also, note that the claim was not that the red areas could sustain equally dense populations as the blue ones (that would be impossible unless the blue areas started losing population), but merely that the population of the nation could be considerably bigger than it is.
This could be challenged by mounting the kinds of considerations you raised, but those would be secunda facie considerations. (The rebuttal to the charges then being tertia facie considerations.)
It’s really hard to believe that the world is overpopulated when the Pope can attract crowds of upwards of 10 million in one place just to see him. That’s practically one third the population of Canada all within visual range of each other.
America is a truly enormous country, almost all of which is inhabitable. It could easily support billions of people.
For most people who get caught up in the overpopulation hysteria it is not that they don’t think the earth could sustain X number of people. It is because they subscribe to an environmentalist philosophy which says that human beings are parasites on nature. They like to go camping out in the wilderness and resent having to drive further and further every year to get away from civilization. Or they may hate traffic jams.
The Catholic Educator’s Resource Centre which I have stumbled upon has some excellent essays and articles on the Overpopulation Myth:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/directory/Current_Issues/Population_Control/
Can you believe I know two women who have told me they don’t intend to ever have children because they think the world is overpopulated and they think they have to do their part?
The power these philosophies have over people and our culture is astounding.