World Population Is Predicted to Start Decreasing during This Century

Torstai 21.3.2024 klo 18.54 - Mikko Nikinmaa

When the news is flooded with bad news about climate change, biodiversity loss, overuse of natural resources, environmental pollution etc., good news often go unnoticed. And the true good news has in the past years been that the world population is predicted to start decreasing before the end of this century. It will then continue to decline so that in about 300-500 years the population is back to around 2 billion – a marked decrease from the present 8 billion. This change will mean that all the environmental problems mentioned above are easier to tackle. One must notice, though, that the population decrease does not mean that we need not to change our ways of life to be environmentally sustainable. Otherwise the population decrease will only mean that environmental collapse takes place later than it would happen if human population continued to increase.

However, when the population starts to decrease, one needs to develop completely new economic principles. Today, a decrease of population is seen as a problem. Politics and governance have population growth as a wanted phenomenon. In the present-day thinking, only population growth enables the existence of welfare society. The wellbeing of societies is dependent of economic growth. This idea must change. Instead of aiming at getting more and more, societies should be satisfied with things being adequate.

In terms of climate change and other environmental actions, immediate responses are required. Their effectiveness is helped first by diminishing population growth and then by population decline. On the other hand, the principles for economics and politics, developed for declining population, need to be established in about fifty years. I hope there are scientists who are presently developing ideas for economics beyond year 2100.

Broken water cycle

Tiistai 29.8.2023 klo 15.42 - Mikko Nikinmaa

The civilization as we know it is dependent on appropriate availability of water. Water availability has been adequate and constant for the past 10000 years. It has enabled the development of agriculture followed by industrialization. Feeding the billions of people has been possible, as there has been enough water at right time.

However, it appears now that humans are breaking the water cycle. Intensive agriculture is using more fresh water than would be available. Climate change affects the timing, duration and place of precipitation. Also, glaciers, which are the source of many rivers, have melted to such an extent that the river flow is reduced. Deforestation affects the rains in the areas in the vicinity. All in all, although roughly ¾ of Earth’s surface is covered with water, the cycle of fresh water, needed for civilization as we know it, seems to be in peril.

It is easy to blame climate change for the fresh water problems, but it is only part of the problem. Because of climate change, droughts and heat spells become more common, heavy rains come irregularly and at unexpected places. Often they occur after severe drought, whereby the soil cannot bind the water, which flows to the sea. An important component of the water cycle in equilibrium is that the upper soil is moist. It is then able to bind additional water.

As for many other resources, mankind is overusing water. Intensive irrigation and domestic water use have emptied Jordan, Sacramento River, Colorado River etc., caused almost total disappearance of Dead Sea and Aral Sea, and lowered ground water level to such an extent that Earth’s poles have shifted slightly.

With regard to deforestation, rainforests are much more than important carbon dioxide sinks. They suck moisture from soil, liberate water in the air, and thus cause development of rains in the surrounding areas. With deforestation, this cycle is weakened with the result that rainforest may turn to savannah. It is estimated that when ¼ of the forest is cut, this happens. We are nearing this  percentage both for Amazonas and Congo rainforest.

In view of the disturbed water cycle, one should make every effort to diminish water use in any area to the amount which is certainly replaced by inflow. In terms of plants that are grown, this means that we should at least stop using cotton products, as there is already a sustainable alternative for cloth fibre, i.e., wood fibre. Deforestation of rainforests should be stopped. In this context it would be valuable to be able to stop population growth, as it inevitably causes the need for increased agricultural production, which is a primary reason for breaking water cycle.

Greed is the reason for climate change, biodiversity loss and chemical pollution

Torstai 15.6.2023 klo 19.04 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Growth has been the ultimate aim of economies throughout the world. If economic growth of any area is smaller than in other countries, it reaches headline news. If there is no growth at all, media talk about recession and in worst case of doomsday looming. Growth was easy to reach as long as the number of people remained low so that it was impossible to use all the world’s resources and land, and cause significant pollution. However, those days are long past. Since there are now 8 billion of us and many consume the world’s resources excessively, the basic tenet of economic growth, i.e., no need to take environment into account in economic activity, is not possible any more. All today’s major problems, climate change, biodiversity loss and chemical pollution are symptoms of our overuse of the planet.

We have reached the stage in economic activity that any increase in material consumption causes a loss in other countries or environmental deterioration. And one needs to raise a question: what for? Currently used economic theories have two fatal flaws: first, they do not take into account that the planet we live in has limits and, second, they do not consider environment as a decisive component of economy. One still hears politicians and other decision makers saying that one needs to take economic realities into account before one can carry out environmental actions. They have not realized that environment is as much a part of economic realities as employment or industrial production.

So, what is the reason for the need of growth or increase in consumption? I remember times 50 years ago when the level of consumption was only a fraction of what it is today, almost sustainable. One was happy then with a lot fewer material goods than today. In fact, consuming a lot less than today would not decrease the overall quality of life. So why is degrowth such an evil thing? The main reason is probably that it doesn’t fit into the growth-based economic theories. Since economic growth is a necessity for healthy economy, degrowth is necessarily bad. However, economic growth does not take the environment into account. If it was done, old-fashioned economic growth could mean a reduction in the standard of living: if the state of the environment deteriorated as a result of the increased material growth, the quality of life would decrease. This is what is actually happening today.

Thus, because environment is not a part of economic thinking, its deterioration is not considered as an economic loss, although it should be. Since this is the case, greed becomes the major factor in causing all of the environmental problems that we experience today. As maximizing profits (=greed) is an economically acceptable thing, one does not take into account the environment as long as possible. And greed has led to climate change, biodiversity loss and chemical pollution. What is really worrisome is that even today most politicians, decision makers and voters/common people think that greed (=economic growth) should be the primary factor in policy making.

Interaction between land use, climate change and the occurrence of pandemics

Sunnuntai 20.11.2022 klo 14.18 - Mikko Nikinmaa

It is now almost universally accepted that the SARS-CoV-2 virus (virus that has caused the Covid-19 pandemic) is originally a bat virus that has spilled over to humans. In a Nature article (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05506-2) Eby et al. have followed for 25 years, which environmental drivers are associated with the spill over of another bat virus to mammals. The study is most important, as it directly associates two big areas of environmental concern and the likelihood of bat viruses and probably also other zoonoses spilling over to humans, namely land use and climate change.

The problem with increasing land area being used by humans in increasing the likelihood of humans getting zoonoses has been suggested many times earlier. Whenever the probability of human-animal interaction increases, also the possibility of viruses spilling over to man increases. Today areas free of human influence are getting smaller and smaller because of increasing human population.

The effect of increased land use is worsened by climate change. Whenever there is drought or any other reason for food shortage, shedding of viruses to nearby organisms increases. As climate change increases drought periods, the probability of virus spill over increases. Consequently, pandemics and climate change occur together, by combatting climate change we can also prevent pandemics.

It is only 5 % - why the human addition to carbon dioxide load matters?

Tiistai 5.4.2022 klo 14.40 - Mikko Nikinmaa

The people denying that human influence has little or nothing to do with climate change invariably point out that the addition by humans represents only 5 % of the total production of carbon dioxide at any given moment. Surely, such a small increment cannot have an effect attributed to it.

Another group of people say that the climate change problem is only caused by rich industrialized nations, and has nothing to do with population growth in poor areas of the world. The richest 10 % of the world’s population cause 1/3 of all greenhouse gas emissions while poorest 50 % emit only 15 % of world’s total human-emitted carbon dioxide.

Both of these statements are drastically wrong, and below I try to indicate why. In both cases the ultimate reason is the disturbance of the carbon cycle. In undisturbed nature the carbon cycle is in equilibrium. The carbon dioxide produced in the respiration of all organisms is used up in the photosynthesis and oxygen is produced.

A 5 % increase in carbon dioxide production, because of fossil fuel use, generates a huge disequilibrium, which we now see as climate change. In undisturbed nature, the disequilibrium would slowly (in hundreds to thousands of years) be corrected by an increase of green vegetation to generate a new equilibrium. The 5 % disequilibrium is so huge than the return to equilibrium lasts a long time if it is possible at all. Tipping point can be caused by the disequilibrium such that the temperature increase is so large that a net increase in photosynthesis cannot be achieved. In such a case temperature increase just continues and as worst, Earth becomes similar to Venus.

A disturbance of the carbon cycle can also result from the increased use of land by humans. This is what is currently happening in poor areas, where population increases. The carbon dioxide uptake and oxygen production by green plants is currently decreasing, mainly because of deforestation (but also as agricultural land erodes or is turned to human settlements). This causes similar worsening of the climate change situation as the fossil fuel use of the industrialized nations.

We live in one world with limits, and we should all work for the wellbeing of the planet. We should stop blaming others, which is the easy thing to do, and instead aim at reducing inequality and excessive consumption.

Why fusion energy production does not solve environmental problems if our habits and attitudes do not change?

Maanantai 14.2.2022 klo 19.20 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Solar energy is, in fact, fusion energy. Thus, if one were able to harness fusion for energy production, all our problems with fossil fuels and consecutive climate change would be just a bad dream. Throughout my life, it has been promised that harnessing nuclear fusion for energy production is 30 years away – hitherto it has been the longest 30 years ever recorded, as 55 years have gone, and the possibility of commercial application of fusion power is still 30 years away. Last week widely spread news item (based on successful experiment) suggests that this time the 30 years away may actually be 30 years away. If, and hopefully as, this is true, the energy production can become carbon neutral and the climate change combatted effectively with almost infinite source of energy.

It is possible that many people have already taken this news to mean that environmental actions are no longer necessary. This is largely because climate change has been the one and only environmental problem in the news. However, the fact is that even if the energy problem and its consequences to the environment become solved, we are still living in a planet with limits, and there is no planet B, where we could continue to spread. The real problem is the concept of growth. That is what we must continue to fight against even if the energy problems get solved.

Infinite growth is possible only if there are no limits. And already in 1970’s it became obvious to scientists that the earth has limits. At present man is using much more resources than there are available. Also, human land use is leaving less and less area to wild animals and plants with the consequence that the biodiversity of earth is diminishing. This leads, e.g., to increased likelihood of animal-to-human spread of diseases such as Covid 19. The pesticide and fertilizer use, which has the aim to increase agricultural production, is now starting to cause the opposite, as the pollinators and the beneficial soil microbes start to suffer. Further, the use of chemicals inevitably causes pollution.

So, even if fusion energy becomes available, we need to limit population growth, resource and land use, and stop pollution. One of the most important things for mankind is to realize that we should all think of ourselves as brothers and sisters regardless of if we live in Finland or Malawi, Russia or Ukraine, China or USA. Another thing to realize is that we should all be equal, the Putins, Musks, Trumps and Xis of the world should realize this.

Demographic Catastrophe or the Direction towards Sustainable Human Population?

Tiistai 18.1.2022 klo 18.12 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Whenever population growth stops anywhere, media and politicians are screaming about demographic catastrophe. This has earlier been said of Japan and many European countries, but now China is concluding the same. The concept of endlessly growing population is based on the gross misunderstanding that the earth has no limits, it is related to the concept of eternal increase of consumption.

Even though recent reports have suggested that human population may peak during this century at 10 000 000 000, this number is far greater than is sustainable. If one would want to have the consumption habits of Americans, we could have about 1 500 000 000 people, if we would want to be like Europeans, then about 2 500 000 000 people could inhabit the world sustainably, and if our outset were that the wealth (or its lack) was frozen at the present-day level throughout the world, about 5 000 000 000 people could inhabit the world. So, regardless of the goal, human population needs to decrease at least to half to enable sustainable use of resources. The last goal, freezing the wealth in different parts of the world is completely unacceptable: it amounts to “climate colonialism”, the rich keeping what they have, and preventing the poor from increasing their wealth.

A sustainable solution would involve a marked decrease of inequality, the rich 25 % of nations should decrease their gross national product by improving the standing of poor nations, which should aim at limiting population growth. Interestingly, the carbon footprint of a Chinese is greater today than that of a European. Thus, a stable or decreasing population in China has as much influence on climate as that of Europe and thus China cannot claim to be a developing country which would have exemptions from policies required of rich countries.

Decreasing or stable population is not a demographic catastrophe. Rather, increasing population is a demographic catastrophe, since it will cause unsustainable life on earth.

Scientists' warning is not heard - or at least not acted upon

Maanantai 2.8.2021 klo 18.22 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Scientists have been trying to alert the public about how the present way of life is not sustainable ever since 1970’s. A very strong message with more than 10000 scientists endorsing the publication of data was written in 2019 indicating that unless strong measures are taken, many tipping points leading to drastic environmental deterioration are reached in the near future. After 2019 the Coronavirus pandemic hit the world, and the lead authors of the 2019 paper thought that it is good time to see, if any measures have been taken to heed the warning. In BioScience this July 28 (https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biab079), Ripple et al. estimated what has happened during the pandemic time. For the most part the findings are bleak: the temperature, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide levels continue to increase, Antarctic, Greenland and overall glacier ice mass continue to decrease at a similar rate as before. What is almost worse is that although many climate-friendly changes took place as a result of the pandemic, almost all have started to revert to pre-pandemic levels. For example, the number of livestock has continued to increase, and all the media are just saying how we need to get the economic growth back to pre-pandemic track.

In the overall gloomy picture there are, however, a couple of bright spots. The first is that the number of births per woman continues to decrease. For ending up with sustainable human population, this is probably the most important trend and should be supported by improving the education of women. The second is the marked decrease in subsidies to fossil fuels. It has been quite funny that the same groups, who have been very vocally against any subsidies to green energy production, have wanted and accepted billions of dollars/euros in subsidies to oil and coal industries.

Stabilizing and reducing the human population by voluntary actions is the key behind making the life sustainable for all citizens of the world. Only with decreasing population can enough environment be kept in natural state to maintain biodiversity and to reduce the risks of new pandemics. Life in the globe with limits requires social justice, not that some superrich burn a lot of money to a few hours space travel.

It is not Environment against Economy: Environment needs to be part of economic decisions.

Tiistai 26.1.2021 klo 18.04 - Mikko Nikinmaa

In the age of Coronavirus Pandemic, the news has virtually nothing else now that Trump is not in the White House any more. In the news it is completely forgotten that environmental scientists warned about pandemics becoming ever increasing threat because of population growth and increased land use already 25 years ago (Daily, G. C., and Ehrlich, P. R. 1996. Global change and human susceptibility to disease. Ann. Rev. Energ. Environ. 21, 125–144). However, the link between environmental distraction and human diseases is rarely brought forward in media, although presently three quarters of new human diseases result from microbes being transferred from animals to humans.

Bradshaw et al. (Bradshaw et al. 2021. Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future. Front. Conserv. Sci. 1:615419. doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419) have recently written a perspective article about the environmental problems we currently have. The major point is that, although the scientific evidence clearly shows that the present environmental actions are not adequate to enable sustainable development, the political and economic circles still think that environmentalists are overblowing the problems. In fact, the populists everywhere have gained ground everywhere by saying that nothing needs to be done. As they say: “The predominant paradigm is still one of pegging “environment” against “economy”; yet in reality, the choice is between exiting overshoot by design or disaster—because exiting overshoot is inevitable one way or another.” Overshoot means that at present the planet’s resources are overused, human population is too big, and land use causes biodiversity decrease.

The economic and political circles are very worried about leaving monetary debt to future generations, although that is just numbers on databases, and can be cancelled if one so wishes. In contrast, environmental destruction can make life of future generations very difficult, yet policy makers do not think that the life of future generations needs to be thought about by carrying out environmental actions.

It Is Not Racist to Worry about the Size of Human Population

Maanantai 7.12.2020 klo 15.52 - Mikko Nikinmaa

There are currently 7.8 billion people on Earth. Recent data suggest that the population peaks 2064 at a little less than 10 billion and thereafter slowly decreases so that in 2100 the population is 8.8 billion. This is taken by some people to indicate that the warnings of overpopulation were too hasty. However, it is estimated that these population sizes far exceed what is sustainable: if the European style of living was aimed for by the whole Earth’s population, the planet could sustain 2 billion people, if rich countries would decrease their consumption allowing the poor countries to increase the standard of living considerably, the planet could have about 3 billion people and if the present economic inequality persisted, 4-5 billion people could exist without clear deterioration of the planet.

The world population has started to increase markedly only a couple of hundred years ago. In the beginning of 1900’s there were much less than 2 billion people. In 1960’s and 1970’s the possibility of overpopulation was brought forward by environmental scientists, but was not taken in serious consideration in economics and politics. In fact, it presently appears that if one says that a major environmental problem, also feeding climate change, is population growth, one is immediately labelled a racist. It is often considered that the problem is really overconsumption of resources by the rich, who are then the crooks and racists immediately if they say anything about the high birth rates in Africa and much of South America and Asia even though it is clear that even the present population size in those areas is not sustainable.

Washington et al. just wrote in Journal of Future Studies 25, 93-106:  Why Do Society and Academia Ignore the ‘Scientists Warning to Humanity’ On Population? They brought forward all the points that also I think are important. The overuse of the Earth has three components: overpopulation, overconsumption, and the concept of unlimited growth. All three need to be considered together. There is also the point that the rich countries naturally cannot demand that poor people of the South are not allowed to improve their standard of living. This necessarily causes increased resource use per person.

A major question affecting the population growth is the standing of women. It has been shown that if women’s standing increases, population growth decreases. Washington et al give the following points as ways to combat population growth:

1. Assure universal access to a range of safe and effective contraceptive options and family planning services for both sexes.

2. Guarantee education through secondary school for all, with a particular focus on girls.

3. Eradicate gender bias from law, economic opportunity, health, and culture.

4. Offer age-appropriate sexuality education for all students.

5. End all policies that reward parents financially if they are based on the number of their children.

6. Integrate teaching about population, environment, and development relationships into school curricula at multiple levels.

7. Put prices on environmental costs and impacts.

8. Adjust to population aging rather than trying to delay it through governmental incentives or programs aimed at boosting childbearing.

9. Convince leaders to commit to ending population growth through the exercise of human rights and human development.

I agree with all of these, and if they are thought to be racist, then striving for improving education and for gender equality is racist.

Our future cannot depend on consumption

Keskiviikko 7.10.2020 klo 11.26 - Mikko Nikinmaa

At least one thing is certain, Earth has finite size. People may disagree on economic policies, but in the end Earth's limits dictate, what the economic thinking must converge to in the end: sustainability. This is because we do not have planet B, C, D etc. to continue economic policies, which do not take Earth's limits into account. For a long time it has been possible to base all the future scenarios on limitless growth. This has been possible, because human population had new areas to live in, because new material resources were always found and because the atmosphere, aquatic environment and unused land absorbed all our wastes and toxic materials without observable damage. Thus, economic theories are based on growth and we depend on population growth to maintain welfare state in European countries.

However, we have now reached tipping point. Economic growth requires increased consumption. Increased consumption requires the use of increased amount of resources, somewhere to dispose of wastes, increased land use to relieve anthropogenic pressures and so on. There are several indications that finite Earth cannot tolerate increased consumption any more. We have climate change, pandemic, biodiversity loss (6th extinction wave) and global pollution - for example about 1/3 of world's children are subjected to chronic lead poisoning. Despite all the indications that we cannot continue in the path of earlier generations, it has become very common to start defending nationalistic values and possessions at the expense of those bloody foreigners, especially in poor areas, who do not do their share, and whose work we in the rich areas can utilize to increase our consumption. This attitude is very short-sighted, as the limits to Earth do not follow national boundaries and no country can be hermetically sealed off from the earth.

People are saying that changing our feeding habits from meat-based to vegetarian diet would change the situation: combat climate change and limit pandemics. Yes, it would improve the situation momentarily, but if the economic theories were still based on limitless growth, after a lag time we would be back to the same problems we presently face. Its length would depend on the time that will be taken for the growth to eat up the environmental benefits that the new habits have given. Because of this, the only way to sustainability is to decrease consumption, where it is possible. It is also necessary to scrap the concept of dependency ratio, because it is completely unsustainable. Maybe this would buy us enough time to achieve, what is an ultimate necessity for sustainability, a reduction of human population.

One would need to develop a sustainability index, which takes into account both the consumption per person and population growth. By doing this, one could relate the actions in rich European and poor African and Asian countries. At present it is quite clear that one child born in USA causes a bigger load to the environment that ten born in Nigeria. Regardless, it is imperative that the consumption in the rich countries is decreased.

I hope that we can get away from the unfortunate truth in the "joke", where an economist says to an environmentalist: "Climate change and environmental distruction are just unfortunate consequences of having a healthy economy."

Living planet requires population decrease

Torstai 10.9.2020 klo 14.10 - Mikko Nikinmaa

The Living Planet Report 2020 was just published (can be downloaded from https://livingplanet.panda.org/). It is sad reading: the vertebrate populations have decreased globally by 68 % from 1970.The most marked decreases have occurred in areas with high population growth and least in areas with low population growth. In South America the decrease of animal populations is 94 % as compared to 1970 and in Africa 65 %. It is no surprise that the animal populations decrease most in areas with high population growth, since there the changes in land use are greatest, and changes in land use account for more than half of the changes in animal populations. Notably, about 75 % of ice-free land area is nowadays impacted by humans, and the percentage of wilderness decreases with population increase: wilderness remains in Arctic areas and deserts, which are uninhabitable.

Although it is clear from the Living Planet Report that population growth cannot continue, if we are to have sustainable future, the economic circles say that future of economies depends on population growth. This thinking is like increasing the speed of the car, when you know that a collision to a brick wall is imminent. Shouldn’t we instead start modifying our economic theories towards a regulated population decrease? If we did that, both biodiversity could be maintained and climate change could be stopped. Not a bad heritage to future generations. I bet they would accept this even if it was done with loans: it is much better to have healthy environment and high debt than to have no debt but unhospitable Earth.

A Change is needed

Maanantai 10.8.2020 klo 18.01 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Climate change, Covid-19 pandemic, racial discrimination, populistic movements, inequality, biodiversity loss – the list could continue almost 

forever. The humankind has problems, and the problems are caused by greed and selfishness. That is best seen in the increasing nationalistic populism. We should only take care of our own group. However, why should we broaden our thinking as far as the nation state. There are usually millions of people in nation states – why should we care of people living in different areas, they are certainly taking advantage of us even if they are living in the same nation as we. Shouldn’t we restrict caring about others to our immediate family. Anyone who looks at all different is not worth caring. That is the basis of any discrimination, we can always find a reason to divide people: according to skin colour, language, religion, gender, disability etc. When the people are labelled to different from us, we do not need to think about how their conditions could or should be improved, but can label them rapists, thieves, murderers, terrorists, whose sole aim is to disturb our life.
Thinking of other people that way, the further they are from us, the less we need to care, makes it possible to be greedy – we do not have to care about their conditions as long as suppressing them gives us more riches. Or if we utilize them, they are not our equals but slaves: why would we care as long as we get cheap t-shirt, can dispose of our toxic wastes cheaply to developing countries or can eat cheaply in ethnic restaurants, or get sexual satisfaction. We in the rich world have been able not to care until recently: the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution have now made many of us to realize that the earth has limits and that we have reached them. Further, it is obvious that inequality across the world cannot continue. To enable sustainable development, we rich need to decrease our consumption, and population increase needs to stop.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of greedy rich people (and less rich ones), who refuse to see that anything needs to be done. Invariably they are reverting to the past, more or less saying that the coal and oil consumption is 1960s didn’t cause anything, so why would it now. The difference to today is that the energy consumption today is manyfold per person as compared to 1960s and we are four times as many. If we could go back to the past, I would gladly do it. None of the present-day problems would have taken place with the population and resource use of that time.

Thus, the change that is needed is the way of thinking. Instead of greed and selfishness, caring and compassion should be the leading qualities. Environmental problems cannot be solved, if the getting rich-me first-attitude persists.

Population growth of humans may be stopping?

Maanantai 20.7.2020 klo 20.08 - Mikko Nikinmaa

The most important reasons for all the environmental problems, climate change, biodiversity loss, loss of arable land, overfishing and pollution are the increase of human population combined with the strive for every human to be able to consume more. Thus, to be able to have sustainable development, the primary goal must be to stop population growth. Hitherto it has been estimated that the growth of human population continues to at least 2100, although the growth rate is decreasing. By 2100 there would be more than 10 billion people on the earth, if no catastrophes occur before that. In view of the gloomy predictions, it was refreshing to read the article by Vollset et al. in Lancet (July 14, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30677-2). They estimate that the population reaches a maximum of 9.73 billion by 2064 and thereafter decreases so that by 2100 the population is 8.79 billion. The population decreases everywhere except in Africa especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The population increase seems to continue there up to 2100 with the consequence that Nigeria will be 2nd most populous country in the world by 2100. Also, out of the world’s population, about 3.8 billion will live in Africa.   

The economic systems virtually everywhere are based on population growth. Thus, one sees in European newspapers big headlines about how terrible the decrease of birth rate is. However, to enable sustainable development, that is what needs to take place. Since the population growth occurs in area from which emigration to Europe is feasible, European countries should, for their own sake, start thinking about immigration as an asset, not as a burden. This requires a change of many people’s attitude.

However, even the 8.8 billion population is too large for sustainable living. Even if climate change with new technologies could be stopped, the need for food, biodiversity loss and pollution continue. The population can be further decreased, if the education, especially women’s education is improved. It is clear from the enclosed figure that lifetime fertility (y-axis) decreases with the number of years of education. With education improved and birth control applied, the human population would decrease to about 6 billion by 2100, i.e. be about a quarter less than today. That would certainly be sustainable, so there is a ray of hope, which is achievable.

Mass extinctions - why they matter even to people who do not care about environment?

Sunnuntai 28.6.2020 klo 20.13 - Mikko Nikinmaa

In a recent issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA) Caballos et al. wrote an article “Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction” (PNAS 117(24): 13596-13602, 2020). It is a clear account about how many terrestrial vertebrates are on the brink of extension. While the message of human role in extinctions is very clear, the present extinction rate being about 1000 times greater than the background rate, it is very difficult to get people who do not care of the environment to realize that it also matters to them. One of the salient points of the article is that the disappearance of one species affects the well-being of other species.

People, who don’t care of the environment, usually care about themselves. Only few people have been against Covid-19 restrictions. What they often do not realize that the Covid-19 pandemic is associated with the extinction wave. One of the biggest reasons for extinctions is the fact that increasing proportion of land goes to human use because of our population growth. As a result, the remaining wild animals come in closer contact to humans and tame animals than earlier. This increases the likelihood of animal micro-organisms reaching humans and consequently zoonosis (i.e. diseases transmitted from animals to humans). It is no wonder that the number of diseases transmitted from animals to man has drastically increased in 2000’s: MERS, SARS, Ebola, Chicken flu, Swine flu and now Covid-19. Even if one does not care about environment, one should care about one’s health.

Also people, who do not care of the environment, must eat, and they may like blueberry pie. About three quarters of all our food plants require insect pollination. Currently pollinating insect populations are decreasing drastically, and the worst scenarios suggest that we cannot eat blueberry pies within 50 years, because of lack of pollination. There are two reasons for the decreasing insect populations. The first is the heavy use of insecticides, and the second the reduced land area for insect refuges (i.e. land areas, which are not in heavy agricultural or other human use). Again, the increasing human populations exert the most important pressures, and to enable sustainable agriculture, one should be able to stop population growth.

While Caballos et al. article did not consider aquatic animals, they are also suffering from extinctions. The worst scenarios suggest that overfishing causes extinction of most important commercial fish species before 2100. In addition to overfishing, aquatic pollution causes the extinctions. Thus, the problem affecting the diets of people not caring of the environment, is caused by mass extinctions.

The mass extinctions themselves are the result of growth ideology. To be able to have reasonably good life for everyone, we should be able to abolish inequality.

Coronavirus pandemic signifies the end for greedy globalism but should be the starting point for sustainable globalism

Sunnuntai 10.5.2020 klo 17.35 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Looking at the figures showing, how coronavirus is spreading in the world, one cannot but come to one conclusion. The situation is rapidly becoming worst in countries with populistic leaders who preach nationalism. Also, most indicators of world’s present problems show that the greedy economic globalism has failed miserably, and is contributing to the possible rise of next pandemic, climate change, immigration and environmental pollution.

On the other hand, the coronavirus pandemic has shown that the world is one entity, regardless if we want it or not. Currently the virus has spread to 212 countries, and the fact that one can travel from the most remote part of the world to any centre means that the only way to avoid the spreading of this or future pests is complete isolation from the rest of the world. From this I can reach only one conclusion: the only way to have acceptable future is to start sustainable globalism.

A starting point for sustainable globalism is that human population growth must be stopped, and should actually start to decrease. This is already happening in several rich countries, but it is invariably presented as a huge problem threatening the future of the nations concerned. The population growth mainly occurs in poor nations, which were for a long time under colonial rule. Because of this, any efforts originating from the industrialized countries to curb population growth are easily viewed as tries to re-establish colonial rule. As long as the efforts are seen as the rich countries’ effort to maintain their wealth, this is an unavoidable conclusion. Thus, curbing population growth cannot succeed, if nationalistic attitude prevails: it requires understanding that it is needed for global health. Consequently, the global wealth inequality should be decreased.

Decreasing wealth inequality is largely correcting colonial injustices, which persist even today. One cannot say that the currently poor areas like Africa would be poor because of their lack of natural resources. They are poor, because the resources are not used for their benefit, but profit usually multinational companies based in rich countries. This is also true for both manufacturing and agricultural production. With regard to agricultural production, poor countries often cultivate plants which are exported to rich countries and do not feed the local population. Furthermore, the production is largely owned by companies residing in rich countries. When agricultural production is largely exported, the poor countries end up as importers of food required by the local people. With regard to industrial production, much of it is done for export. Again, the companies are largely parts of multinational ones with headquarters in rich countries. The reasons for production in poor countries is first that the salaries are very low, but also that environmental standards required for production in rich countries need not be followed whereby production costs are minimized. This type of cutting cost is the greedy economic globalism, which the true sustainable globalism should do its utmost to fight against. The solution to decreasing wealth inequality is actually quite simple. All the products from poor areas are priced as if they were produced in rich countries, and the difference in the present and future price is given to (especially women’s) education, improving the environmental standards of production and salaries. The funds cannot be given directly to the governments of the poor nations, because they are (unfortunately) often corrupt, and would just use the funds for their own benefit instead of using them for the benefit of the people.

The third part of changes, which are required in order to combat one of the grave problems, the climate change, is to stop using fossil fuels. I don’t go further in detail to it, because the two directions above will immensely help in achieving that goal, and because there are already several technological possibilities for the required change.

Why should we then do all of this? The answer is really simple: I suppose we want our children and grandchildren to be able to live in an open society. If this is our hope, we must be able to decrease the likelihood of viral transmissions from animals to humans. They have increased in frequency in recent years, because increased human population decreases the space available for animals, and consequently animal-human interactions increase. Vegetarian diet is not a solution, because direct animal-human transmissions remain a possibility. In addition to avoiding zoonosis, sustainable globalism would also decrease migrations and environmental pollution and combat climate change.  

Reaching another tipping point: insect declines and food production

Lauantai 9.5.2020 klo 18.11 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Three quarters of the plant food we eat requires pollination. Intensive agriculture has been able to increase yields partly with the help of heavy insecticide use.

The two above sentences are in direct contradiction, as pollinators are insects. Harmful insects and beneficial insects are equally killed by insecticides. For a long period of intensive agriculture the negative effects of insecticides on pollinators were not seen, as adequate areas remained outside intensive agriculture to enable effective reproduction. However, it now seems that we have reached a tipping point, where increased intensive agriculture with heavy insecticide use decreases yields. Tipping point means that any further increase in insecticide use results in catastrophic decline of insect populations, whereby pollination  is reduced and consequently agricultural production decreases markedly. This conclusion is based on the observations that insect populations have already decreased in size, and that an increasing proportion of land must be used for agricultural production to feed the ever-increasing human population. Because of this, the insecticide-free refuges for pollinators are disappearing with increasing frequency.

The media discussion at the moment concentrates mainly on neonicotinoids, but actually the type of insecticide does not matter much, because they all have a negative impact on bee and bumblebee populations. In addition to the direct effects of insecticides on bees, it is possible that the recent serious outbreaks of viruses in bee colonies are affected by insecticides reducing the efficiency of insect immune system.

The declines of pollinator populations and consecutive reduction of yields of agricultural products are another symptom of the overuse of the planet, the other notable ones being coronavirus pandemic and climate change. For climate change the reasons are overconsumption in rich countries, inequal distribution of wealth and population growth, for the other two mainly population growth. Because human population has increased beyond sustainability, major efforts should be directed towards population control. It should be done in a way that it is not seen as rich countries again imposing colonial rule. Maybe shifts in wealth distribution could help?

 

Coronavirus has significant associations with air pollution

Perjantai 24.4.2020 klo 16.48 - Mikko Nikinmaa

The incidence of coronavirus infections has been lowest in islands or island-like areas (e.g. Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, Finland, Iceland, Alaska). Generally, they are sparsely populated and not important for through-traffic. However, both Taiwan and South Korea have high population densities. The low number of coronavirus infections in South Korea has usually been explained with early onset of restrictions and early start of intensive testing. That interpretation is not entirely convincing, since early onset intensive testing has also been done in places with high counts of coronavirus infections. Further, significant differences in coronavirus-induced mortalities occur between areas with high numbers of coronavirus infections.

Two articles published in the Science of the Total Environment have now, in my opinion, completely clarified both these outstanding issues. Both the incidence of infections and the lethality of infections is increased by air pollution. Especially nitrogen dioxide but probably also ozone and particulate matter increase both the incidence of coronavirus infections and the mortality caused by them (Zhu et al. Science of the Total Environment 727 (2020) 138704; Ogen Science of the Total Environment 726 (2020) 138605). In every sparsely populated place also the nitrogen dioxide level is low, but it is quite low also in Taiwan and South Korea, since the pollution does not stagnate in the area. In contrast, the polluted air remains in Lombardia and Madrid area, where coronavirus cases and mortalities abound. Also, Paris, London and New York area likely have high nitrogen dioxide level – and all have high number of coronavirus mortalities. In contrast, at least partially the low coronavirus mortality in Germany associates with relatively low nitrogen dioxide levels even in the densely populated areas.

Thus, air pollution, to a large extent because of car traffic, has significant connections with coronavirus infections. They are symptoms of the same problem, our overuse of the planet. Population bomb, talked much of in 1960-1970’s, increases the likelihood of future pandemics. An Indian author pointed out that because of the decreasing space for wild animals, their interactions with man may cause the birth of next pandemic in India ( S. Minhas, Could India be the origin of next COVID-19 like epidemic?, Science of the Total Environment (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138918)

Coronavirus Pandemic and Climate Change are Different Facets of the Same Problem: the Overuse of the Earth

Perjantai 17.4.2020 klo 19.29 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Coronavirus Pandemic and Climate Change are both different aspects of the same problem: our overuse of the Earth. Further, neither problem can be solved thinking nationally: both viruses and pollutants cross national borders with no problems. Even if hermetic closure helps to limit the spread of the current Coronavirus, without solving the problem with the overuse of the Earth there will be a next virus attacking man in the future. It is not by accident that there have been several worries about pandemics in 21^st century, Ebola, SARS, swine flu, at the same time that clear Climate Change signs have been seen. Hitherto international cooperation has enabled us to avoid the worst possible outcome of the diseases, but this time it appears that the ongoing surge of nationalism has meant that instead of thinking what would be the best way to combat Coronavirus globally, one has resorted to national solutions.

The overuse of the Earth can be divided into three components, which all must be addressed in order to avoid future pandemics and combat climate change. The three components are population growth, excessive consumption by the rich and inequal wealth distribution. Quite often when one discusses with some climate activists, they claim that including population growth is virtually racism, as it “blames” the world’s poorest, who have caused little of the climate problem. On the other hand, some people from rich areas maintain that the climate problem is solely caused by population growth, as the use of fossil fuels in for example Europe has decreased for the past 30 years. Both are wrong, because they come together as a result of wealth inequality.

The reason why population growth is an ultimate problem for both Coronavirus Pandemic and Climate Change is manyfold. There are now about eight billion people living on the earth. The sheer number of people inevitably leads to increasing portion of the Earth to be used for human habitation and food production. Agricultural practices have led to land deterioration – loss of fertility and erosion, which increasing amount of land is needed to feed people, and this need is compounded by the population growth. As a result, natural habitats are changed to human use, which means both that the carbon dioxide sinks of forests decrease and that animal biodiversity gets smaller. Also, wild animals have less space and must increasingly be in close proximity to humans and domestic animals. At present, the total biomass of humans exceeds that of wild animals and the biomass of farm animals is far greater. Further, humans everywhere like to eat meat, and in most places the only way to get meat unspoiled to the customers is to have animals alive until someone buys their meat. The animals, which are sold are often wild homeothermic animals, birds and mammals. Zoonosis – a disease transmitted from animals to man – is a bacterium or virus of birds or mammals, which mutates enough to enable transmission to humans. The vegetarians naturally point out that if eating meat were stopped, both the possibility of zoonoses would disappear and climate change be reduced. Zoonosis risk would decrease markedly, but not disappear, since wild animals would still be in close contact with humans because of the diminishing area of natural environment. Climate Change would be combatted, as the carbon footprint of meat production is much larger than if vegetarian diet is used. One must remember, though, that eating fish or shellfish or terrestrial poikilotherms has only slightly higher carbon footprint than vegetarian diet. Also, there are currently no known transmission of microbial pathogens from poikilothermic animals to humans.

Although rich countries at present are decreasing their carbon dioxide emissions, the present use of Earth’s resources is severalfold compared to poor areas. Further, to reduce costs, a lot of the cultivation of plants in poor areas are done to produce goods for rich nations. The cotton and avocado cultivation uses most of the water in arid areas and is almost exclusively done for export to rich nations, and the sales do not benefit the local population. Also, the rich nations export much of their wastes like plastics and metals to poor countries, where they somehow disappear (and are found in, e.g. plastic waste gyres of the oceans); the companies from rich countries make profits on products (e.g. clothes) manufactured in poor countries with virtually no pollution control. In conclusion, we in rich nations owe a lot of our wealth to the poor areas. Consequently, we cannot say that they would not be allowed to want to have similar standard of living as we do.

This leads to the final part of the problem, wealth inequality. Correcting that is needed both to reduce the risk of future pandemics and to combat climate change. We in rich nations could easily decrease our resource use and consumption, as the present Coronavirus lockdowns indicate. The decrease could be transferred as wealth to poor areas, and the technological progress used to help everyone. If we continue with our greedy economic globalism or resort to nationalistic policies the humankind, even we rich, goes under either because of another pandemic or climate change.

Young climate activists - why they should always include African, Asian or South American individuals

Sunnuntai 26.1.2020 klo 17.30 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Young climate activists were allowed to take part in Davos Economic Forum. However, it appears that the message of requirement for huge conceptual changes in the economic thinking throughout the world is still not taken seriously. When discussing economy, world leaders seem to forget the environment when one has to decide between healthy environment and economic growth. It is completely forgotten that a functional economy requires healthy environment, and that limitless growth is not possible in a planet with limits.

Notably, American Press (AP) initially left a young black African climate activist Vanessa Nakate out of a group photo showing young climate activists attending the Davos meeting. The other activists were young white Europeans. This omission may be more serious than mere reading of the news item suggests. It prompted questions about racism, but in a way more worrying is that the only representant of activists outside the traditional industrialized countries was left out, intentionally or non-intentionally. The problem with this is that the environmental problems involve the whole globe.

As pointed out by Vanessa Nakate, the climate problem is largely caused by the massive energy consumption (mainly using fossil fuels) of traditional industrialized countries. However, presently African, Asian and South American countries are increasing their energy consumption (also mainly using fossil fuels), and without a strong contribution to climate actions from the traditional Third World countries, effective actions cannot be done. This is required, as China is already emitting most carbon dioxide in the world, and countries like India and Brazil are rapidly climbing in the statistics. An increase of energy production in those countries should be environmentally clean, which is presently not the case: while the energy consumption utilizing fossil fuels has decreased in Europe for the past 20 years, it has markedly increased in Asian and African countries. Although the use of energy per person is much lower in those countries than in traditionally industrialized countries, the new energy should be produced without fossil fuels if one tries to combat climate change. And this cannot be achieved without active movement against climate change.

There is also another environmental problem, which mainly concerns the traditional Third World countries. The marked increase in human population has occurred outside the traditional industrialized countries, where population increase is close to 0. Biodiversity loss, decreased fertility of land, deforestation and such like would be of concern even if we could solve the climate problem. The overconsumption and excessive fossil fuel use, and overpopulation are thus questions that require concerted action from people at all corners of the world. In view of this, intentional or non-intentional omission of a climate activist from Africa is an unfortunate incidence. (BTW, all the young activists are female, where are all the young men).