A long view of demographics

Population explosion is not the nightmare of the future but the quality of people's lives, says demographer Danny Dorling

POPULATION 10 BILLION
The Coming Demographic Crisis
and How to Survive It
Danny Dorling
Constable; 370 pages; £8.99

Demographer Danny Dorling has two propositions and takes 370 unnecessary pages to make them. The first proposition is that ecological pessimists and doomsayers who claim that we are standing on the precipice of a population disaster are wrong. Mr Dorling, a professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield, uses data to show that we have already passed the peak population growth rate and that the crisis is abating, not ballooning. His second proposition is that "rational optimists" who argue that free markets and technology will find the solutions to all the problems that population growth causes are also wrong. Mr Dorling, who calls himself a "practical possibilist", sees the world heading into disaster even if global population stabilises around 10 billion over the next 100 years as the United Nations expects it to, unless we learn to curb consumption and economic growth and also create a more equal world.

The book's central thesis, in other words, is that we need to be less worried about the number of people (especially since we could be looking at a steep population decline after we touch 10 billion), and more concerned about how people live their lives. This is because while there might be enough resources to meet the needs of 10 billion people sustainably, there certainly won't be enough to meet their greed.

When Mr Dorling thinks he has got you just a little bit worried, he changes tack and tells you why you should breathe easy: there are strong signs already that humans are beginning to curb consumption (in the United Kingdom, for example, the weight of material goods being consumed has been falling since 2001, while energy use peaked in 2001 and had fallen by three per cent by 2007). But then, just as you have begun to relax a bit, Mr Dorling assumes his other persona and tells you to be wary of evil influences. "It is not just that many of the main TV channels are owned by somewhat sinister corporate interests, or that the newspapers with the widest of circulations in many countries are often peddling arguments designed to increase mass stupidity… Education knowledge itself is controlled and disseminated through a very small set of places," he says. Practical possibilists, it seems, are prone to alternating moods of pessimism and optimism.

But that is the least of the problems with the book. After all, you can see this as a consequence of Mr Dorling's desire to make nuanced arguments. The real problem with the book is that while Mr Dorling is careful and precise when he makes purely demographic arguments, he is carefree and loose when he wades into areas such as economics, history and politics, and gives his pro-left bias a free run. For example, he refuses to consider the possibility that the material consumption is falling precisely because of new technology that is making such things as newspapers, books, music CDs and even some business travel, unnecessary. Mr Dorling also credits the communists of Kerala with the fertility fall in that state from 5.6 children per woman in 1957 to 1.7 in 1993, while anyone in Kerala knows that its social indicators are better because of multiple factors, ranging from an enlightened king who put emphasis on education to social reformers who put an end to untouchability, and to some extent, even missionaries who set up schools all over the state. Mr Dorling is also eager to credit the Communists of China with a kind of benevolent halo.

Much of the book is a criticism of free markets, profits, capitalism, consumerism, new technology and economic growth per se. This in itself is no bad thing, because the current free market orthodoxy is in need of some challenge, especially as upward mobility decreases in economies such as the United States, just when income and wealth inequalities are peaking. After all, deep inequality can be defended only when there is easy upward mobility and a high level of churn that prevents class rigidities. But Mr Dorling does not have the theoretical equipment to provide this challenge, hence the book reads like a propaganda pamphlet in places.

The ideal future that Mr Dorling visualises is one where there is little growth, but poverty is reduced because there is greater sharing, not only between individuals but also among nations. People will be able to migrate to wherever they want, because there will no longer be passports. Prestige of countries will no longer be associated with their GDP growth, because growth will cease to be seen as a positive objective. People in general will consume far less than they do now voluntarily and also share more. Mr Dorling picks out Japan as a kind of future to which all could aspire: very low but sustainable growth and far greater equality among the citizens than in other countries such as the US.

If you are looking for a well-written book with a cogent argument, Population 10 Billion is not that book. But if you like to know how and why human population grew to be where it is, or if you like to pick up a lot of interesting data points, you could find this book worthwhile. Here's a sample: human beings in the world alive today weigh 287 million tonnes, of which 15 million tonnes, or five per cent, is due to some of us being overweight; each person requires 50 to 100 times more water to produce what they eat than what they use in their home; and 2,000 years ago, India's population was 78 million, while China's was 62 million.

Here is a quote from Mr Dorling that probably shows you how he views his own book: "...pragmatic possibilists … tend to be quiet, not mocking, and to write very long and interesting books that patiently explain what is going on." I agree with the "very long" part of that statement.