Lecture 9 - Population, Industry, and Consumption

The Weight of Numbers

• World population reached 6 billion in Sept 1999 (it was only 2 billion in 1930)’ it reached 7 billion in Oct 2011; it reached 8 billion in Nov 2022

• Ca. 250,000 added every day (that’s about a Halifax every day or two)

• Ca. 90 million-plus per year (a Vietnam or Philippines per year)

• In the next three years or so - a new USA population will be added to the planet…can we cope?

Thomas Robert Malthus

• An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

• Argued that food production grows arithmetically, but population grows geometrically

• Predicted immediate crisis…didn’t happed. Why?

Industrial Revolution

• Increased Food Production

• Increased application of technology to, well, just about everything → increased productivity further

• “Age of Improvements” → sanitation, chemistry, medicine, etc.

• All of which = a fall in death rate at the same time that there is stability in the birth rate

The Demographic Transition

Most Western / post-industrial countries have gone through this:

1. Before: Birth & Death rates high → no population growth

2. During: Birth high, death falls → population growth

3. After: Birth rate falls → population growth declines, eventually to zero (or even goes negative).

Population Density, Regional Growth Rates, and their Potential Environmental Consequences (2002)

About 2 billion hectares of soil, equivalent to 15 percent of the Earths land area have been degraded through human activities… Over the past 40 years, approximately 30% of the worlds cropland has become unproductive.

More than 5 million people, mostly children, die each year due to diseases caused by poor drinking water

Consumption as a Phenomenon

• Surprisingly, this has only recently become an object of study / analysis

• A big problem is definitional. For example: “consumption is the process in which goods are bought and used to satisfy people’s needs.: → are there any problems with this definition?

• What about the idea of necessities vs. luxuries → should this factor into our analysis

• We’re on firmer ground with the history

Origins of Modern Consumerism…

• Josiah Wedgwood (1730-97), “potter to the Royal Family”

• Came up with a way to copy china (from China)

• Aggressively advertised his wares, and developed lines that would sell on the basis of their “desirability factor”

The 2^nd I.R. - Energy & Products

• There are major differences between 1st I.R. and 2nd I.R.

→ 1^st: It’s British, (1780-1830) based on textiles, coal, iron, &steam

→ 2^nd: (1870??? - ???) the I.R. spreads both geographically and economically

• Steel (produced through the Bessemer Process) replaces iron as the primary metal; chemicals, electricity, oil become the hallmark industries of the 2^nd I.R.

Instruments of Growth

• Banks, not individuals, determine investment patterns

• The corporation became a crucial entity in daily life.

• The revolution spreads. In 1850 — Britain dominant; by 1900 — Germany, France, Italy, Russia, the US, Japan all join her

• Production shoots up

Social Impact

• Workers increasingly regimented, less skilled

• Science and Technology increasingly important in the industrial process (Research & Development, in other words)

• White collar workers swell the middle class

• The biggest impact of all is the creation of the Assembly Line means of production

Industry & European Global Dominance

• Industry gives Europe power over the rest of the world (communications, military might, transportation technology - and the will to do so)

• As we have seen, this creates a truly welded global economic system…

• … and the appearance of the gap between “haves” and “have nots”

Electricity

The Allis - Corliss Engine linked steam power to generate mains electricity. Electricity is revolutionary because it is scalable and can be used to produce heat, light, or motive power

Industrial Chemistry: Food, and Death

• The Haber (or Haber-Bosch) Process: the most important chemical reaction in history; invented by Fritz Haber and perfected over the years 1909 to 1913

• What it does → fixes nitrogen

The Second I.R. - its Spread and Productivity

• 1850 - Britain dominant;

• 1900 - Germany, France, Italy, Russia, the Us, Japan all join her

• Production goes off the scale, thanks to the production line process (Henry Ford’s ides)

• Examples of resource consumption and primary productivity:

1870  1913

Coal (tons)  230 million           1.5 billion

Steel (tons)  550 thousand        32 million