GEOG 3000 Resource Management HUMAN POPULATION AND THE DEMAND FOR RESOURCES

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GEOG 3000 Resource ManagementHUMAN POPULATION
AND THE DEMAND FOR RESOURCES

• M.D. Lee CSU Hayward Winter 2004

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Population and Consumption

• The UN Agenda 21 states that the unsustainable
  pattern of production and consumption ..is the
  major cause of the continued deterioration of the
  global environment.
• Population growth across the planet is obviously
  an important factor in this but is not the only
  one.
• Industrialized populations (20 of the world
  total) are using 85 of aluminum, chemicals 80
  of paper, iron steel 75 of timber, energy
  60 of meat, fertilizers 50 of fish, grain.
• Resource use has been rising faster than world
  population - in 1995 at a rate of about 5.5 per
  year compared to the 1.6 population growth at
  that time (WRI,1996).

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A Simple Model IPAT

• Paul Ehrlich (Stanford), Norman Myers
  (Berkeley/Oxford) and others have shown us
  through their writings how resource
  sustainability is governed by IPAT
• Impact population affluence technology.
• The greater the population growth (P), the
  greater the demand for goods and services per
  capita (A), and the greater the use of
  inefficient, wasteful or unsafe production
  technologies (T), the greater the impact on our
  natural resource base and overall environment.
• From this simple conceptual model, one can
  instantly understand how over-population is not
  only a function of how many people there are,
  but how they live.

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How IPAT works

• Assume population, affluence and unnecessary
  wastefulness continue to increase over time.
• Combined they will have a multiplicatory effect
  even more people wanting even more stuff provided
  by even more wasteful or damaging means.
• For sustainability to be reached, each of the
  variables need to level out, or one or more needs
  to diminish if one or more of the others rise.
• In the medium term, population looks set to keep
  on rising and each nation, especially the
  poorest, seeks to grow their GNP and consume more
• Therefore we can only compensate through
  improving technology and service delivery systems
  (the T component).

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The T Variable

• Technology, T, is a critical variable in IPAT.
• Reducing the value associated with T requires
  moving to means of providing goods and services
  that are more efficient and less damaging.
• There are many examples to think of cars with
  higher MPGs, low-watt lights, drip irrigation,
  recycled paper mills, insulated and energy
  efficient homes, solar energy power plants,
  organic farms, sustainable forests, .

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IPAT and the USA

• CRO point out that the US has 5 of world
  population but we consume 30 of world resources.
• Since 1900, the US population grew 300 but raw
  material use grew 1700.
• Americans use per capita compared to world
  averages
• 7 plastics, crude oil.
• 6 synthetic chemicals and aluminum.
• 4 sand, gravel, copper.
• 3 iron steel.
• 1.5 cement (Presidents Commission on
  Sustainable Development, 1997).
• Moreover, recent per capita reductions have had
  little absolute effect because of population
  increases.

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Playing With The Numbers

• Conceptually, if population growth rates in 2000
  were to continue to 2050 and we continually
  expect GNP/cap to rise by, say, 3 per year, T
  would need to be improved by 90 to maintain our
  present environmental and resource conditions.
• In other words, we would need production and
  delivery systems of goods and services that are
  10 times as efficient as they are now!

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Population Growth

• For every nation, the following formula governs
  annual population growth.
• ?Pm Pm-1/1000.(bmim)-(dmem)
• m year in question
• Pm-1 population in millions at end of previous
  year
• ?Pm annual change in population in year m
• bm live births per thousand
• im immigration per thousand
• dm deaths per thousand
• em emigration per thousand
• Therefore Pm Pm-1 ?Pm

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Numerical Example

• ?Pm Pm-1/1,000.(bmim)-(dmem)
• ?Pm 300,000,000/1,000.(133)-(90)
• Therefore Pm Pm-1 ?Pm
• Pm 300,000,000 2,100,000
• Pm 302,100,000

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Exponential Growth

• The balance between births, deaths, immigration
  and emigration per thousand bi-d-e/10 gives
  the annual rate of increase r.
• This r can be used to project the growth of
  population over a particular time period.
• Pmn Pm.1(r/100)n
• m a given year, e.g. 2001.
• Pm population in millions at end of year m
• n number of years into the future e.g 10
• Pmn population at end of year mn, e.g. 2011
• r annual increase in population

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Numerical Example

• Pmn Pm.1(r/100)n
• r bi-d-e/10
• r 133-9-0/10
• r 0.7
• Pmn 300,000,000.1(0.7/100)n
• If n 1, Pmn 302,100,000
• If n 10, Pmn 321,674,000
• If n 100, Pmn 602,654,369

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Impacts of Annual Population Growth Rate (r)
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Demographic Change

• Populations change in complex ways.
• A key issue is total fertility (av. no. children
  per female).
• Where fertility is high, populations youthful and
  death rates low, there is maximum opportunity for
  growth.
• Fertility gt 2 long-term growth
• Fertility lt 2 long-term decline
• Fertility 2 replacement rate or ZPG
• Industrialized countries average fertility 1.6
• Developing countries average fertility 3.0
  (manygt 5.0)
• Global average fertility 2.7
• Current annual increase in world population is
  84m 250,000 per day, 170 per min., 3 per sec.
• Migration from poor to rich countries is
  significant.

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The Demographic Transition
(source Wright Nebel, 2002)
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The J-Curve of Exponential Population Growth (UN
median projection)
(source Wright Nebel, 2002)
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Impacts of Future Fertility
(source Wright Nebel, 2002)
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Population Projections

• World population will grow at around 1.4 per
  year (for next 20 years), a doubling rate of 50
  years.
• US population is growing at around 0.7.
• Current world population is 6 billion and the
  2050 best estimate is 9.4 billion (WRI, 1998)
  but could be over 12.0 billion.
• The FAO believes the theoretical maximum
  population that the earth could support to be
  around 50 billion (but at what standard of
  living?)
• The UN would like to see no more than 8 billion.
• Optimistic demographers and resource experts hope
  that the worlds population will eventually grow
  to around 10 billion and stabilize there.

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Where Will The Growth Be?
(source Wright Nebel, 2002)
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Regional Demographic Progress
(source Wright Nebel, 2002)
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Population Pyramids Show Why
(source Wright Nebel, 2002)
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Priming the Pump

• As indicated in WRI 2001 Box 1.12, past high
  fertility has created a pool of 1.5 billion
  between 15-29 and close to 2 billion lt15 years
  old, mostly in developing nations.
• Thus some 97 of all population growth will be in
  the developing nations.
• By 2030, more than 60 of all people will live in
  cities, up from 30 in 1950.
• The number of people who live in urban areas is
  expected to increase to more than 5 billion
  people, with 90 of those living in developing
  country cities.

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Urbanization And Its Implication

• Cities offer more opportunities for people who
  are both pushed and pulled to live there from
  rural areas.
• Hundreds of cities will grow to have more than
  one million inhabitants and megacities will
  expand.
• Population growth rates coupled with increasing
  aspirations for material wealth and urban
  lifestyles will fuel the IPAT phenomena.
• Most cities are expansive consumers of ecosystems
  and the goods and services they produce and
  creators of concentrated waste and pollution.
• The failure to transfer resource-efficient and
  clean technologies to the developing nations will
  exacerbate the IPAT (will old technologies be
  dumped there?)