ENVR 201 Midterm 1

"Population & Resources" Module, "The Global Fisheries", "Global Food Systems", & "Food Security" - Ehrlich & Ehrlich, Commoner, Dasgupta, McGinn, Brown

Scarcity-development cycle

Resource created —> prices fall, demand rises —> easy to access, reserves exhausted —> scarcity —> prices rise, stimulates research and development —> innovation leads to substitutes, reuse and recycling —> resource created.

Non-renewable resources: technically vs economically recoverable

Technically recoverable: can be extracted (based on current technology).

Economically recoverable: considering all costs involved, it can be extracted with profit at the current price.

Non-renewable resources: proven vs potential reserves

Proven reserves: economically recoverable, with P90.

Potential reserves: could be extracted profitably, at some price other than the current price

1P/P90, 2P, 3P

1P/P90: proven reserve. Can be extracted with 90% confidence.

P50: probable reserve. Can be extracted with 50% confidence.

2P: P90 + P50

3P: P90 + P50 + P10

Sustainable yield

Rate at which renewable resource can be extracted, leaving capital base so that the rate can continue indefinitely.

Malthusian view and Limits to Growth study

Predicts “overshoot and collapse” (Limits to Growth). The world does not have resources to support the growing population; overpopulation is a serious issue.

• evidence: Limits to Growth study (computer modelling of future)

• limitations: assumes food a fixed limit, assumes low technological substitutability

Overpopulation: neo-Marxist view

Resource maldistribution, rather than scarcity, is the issue. Carrying capacity of population can be overcome by technology and trade.

• evidence: food production has continued growing with population, but is not evenly distributed to alleviate famine

• limitations: even if food production can increase, isn’t land still a fixed limit?

Overpopulation: cornucopian/techno-optimist view

Technology will solve resource challenges. Population growth is the solution, since more people = more economic growth and innovation.

Demographic equation

R = (b-d) + (i-e)

R: population

b: crude birth rate

d: crude death rate

i: immigration rate

e: emigration rate

Crude birth rate (CBR) and crude death rate (CDR)

CBR: annual live births per 1000 population.

CDR: annual deaths per 1000 population.

Total fertility rate (TFR)

Average number of children a woman would likely have during childbearing years (age 15-49).

Replacement fertility rate (RFR)

Number of children a couple must have to replace themselves in a population. A woman needs to have a daughter to replace her as a child-bearer, so replacement rate is greater than 2 (more males born than females).

Infant mortality rate (IMR)

Deaths of children less than one year old per 1000 live births. Good socioeconomic indicator.

Doubling time of population

70/(annual growth rate %)

Population momentum

Rapid population growth despite falling fertility rates. Occurs when society enters demographic transition, population of young people still very high so many children are being born. High proportion of young people means many births and population growth for a few generations after fertility rate declines.

Demographic transition

1. Pre-industrial, CBR = CDR, population small, high IMR.

2. Transitional: technology improves as industrialization begins, CBR>>CDR, rapid population growth.

3. Industrial society, CDR reaches minimum and CBR starts decreasing, CBR>CDR.

4. Post-industrial, CBR = CDR, population stabilizes at larger size.

Demographic trap

Cycle in subsistence economies. Environmental degradation due to overpopulation leads to poverty, which leads to greater need for labour, which leads to a high CBR and more overpopulation.

Sex ratios, sex selection, and Western influence

More males than females in countries where male children socially important, due to sex selection, infanticide, and hep-B (increases likelihood of male child).

Western powers funded sex selection in Asia during the Cold War, since they thought it would reduce birth rates in communist countries and help combat overpopulation.

Pro-natalist policies

Boost population to increase military/political power, combat shrinking population, or shift ethnic balance. May be coercive (forcing) or incentive (encouraging).

Effective population control policy

Need:

• Female literacy and employment

• Poverty alleviation: land tenure, economic security

• Access to health care

• Family planning (least important)

Why do LICs have high CBR?

• Low female autonomy, education, employment

• Religion

• Social pressure

• High IMR (less healthcare)

• Need labour (subsistence economy)

• Resources common-property, so cost of more kids low

Population control coercion examples and outcomes

China: started with carrot/stick policies (e.g. free contraceptives, education for women, loss of promotions/benefits for parents of many children), policies effective and TFR decreased. Then introduced one-child policy, ineffective.

• consequences: neglect of female children, selective abortions, skewed M:F ratio

India: used forced sterilization, sterilization quotas. Ineffective.

• consequences: backlash against future population control policies, increased poverty

Kerala, India

Outlier in India in IMR, TF, growth rate, life expectancy, M:F ratio and female literacy, despite GDP/capita similar to India.

• Quality of life reduces fertility rate, not wealth

• Factors in Kerala: gender equality (matrilineal culture), public education for both genders, Marxist government and economic equality.

Erlich and Erlich, right-wing vs left-wing population perspective

Population Bomb Revisited: say that they overblew population threat by underestimating resilience of Earth’s systems. However, they stand by their warning.

• Right vs left wing: right wing disagrees because they want unlimited economic growth, left wing disagrees because of neo-Marxism (maldistribution, rather than overpopulation, is the issue

Commoner: How Poverty Breeds Overpopulation

• Quality of life inversely proportional to birth rate.

• Economic need for children in subsistence economies, so birth control not enough to curb birth rates

  • Need to address socioeconomic factors

• Neo-Marxist

• Demographic trap and colonialism

Dasgupta: Population, Poverty and the Local Environment

Demographic trap. Poverty leads to economic need for children, more children leads to overpopulation, overpopulation degrades local environment, degradation leads to poverty. Solution is to address economic inequity, bring security to the poor.

Lowe: Population and the Great Transition

• Malthusian view: tech keeps solving population problems, but it would be easier to just curb population

  • would it, though?

• HICs have a bigger environmental impact per capita than poorer countries

  • population control is necessary there despite lower birth rates

Aquaculture pros and cons

Pros:

• Contributes to affordable nutrition and food security

  • nearly all fish production in last 40 years was in aquaculture

• Overfishing has depleted valuable wild-catch stocks, aquaculture is increasingly necessary

Cons:

• High waste outputs, which can harm local ecosystems

• Energy- and water-intensive

• Diseases spread from farmed to wild fish

Aquaculture solution: ricing

Raise fish in rice paddies, they eat bugs growing on rice and provide nitrogen.

Costs of overfishing

Economic: revenue loss, decreased food security, conflict (e.g. fisherman vs government), monitoring and enforcement costs

Environmental: ecosystem degradation, food web disruption, decreased biodiversity.

Factors in overfishing and efficiency paradox

• Growing demand for fish as incomes rise

• Increased “efficiency” of fishing tech (non-selective gear leads to high levels of by-catch and waste)

• Migratory resource, hard to police

• Government policies and subsidies allow fishers to stay in the industry despite depletion —> leads to overcapacity of fisheries

Collective action problem/social trap

If a common property resource is rivalrous and non-excludable, and resource will be depleted whether any individual uses it or not, there is no incentive to curb consumption. Decision to use resource is irrational in the long term due to social cost, but rational in the short term due to personal gain.

Threats to fisheries (other than overfishing)

Pollution: agricultural runoff, acid deposition, toxins, mercury, plastics.

Climate change: temperature change, acidification, shrinking of freshwater habitats

Policy strategies to address overfishing

• Limit fishing to sustainable yield

• Control illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing

• Consider ecological impacts

• Help fishers make transition to other industries

• Reduce government subsidies that increase fishing, buy back fishing equipment, introduce subsidies to decrease fishing

• Encourage less fish consumption

• Make fishing regulation local, not centralized

Factors in food yield increase over 1900s

Improved irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide use, plant breeding (e.g. dwarf cereals), global spread of crops (wheat, corn, soy).

First and second Green Revolution

First: mono-cropping, irrigation, chemical fertilizers, pesticides

Second: fast growing, high yield, Dwarf corn and wheat

Food security

Access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food.

Food policy imperatives

Preserve agriculture economy, ecosystems, soil quality. Manage emissions and environmental damage.

Animal products and food scarcity

Meat and dairy consumption increasing in LICs as incomes rise (however, decreasing in HICs due to health concerns).

• massive need for crops and land for livestock

• conversion of plant energy to animal tissue highly inefficient

Factors in food production problem

Although yield still increasing, rate of increase slowing.

• Climate change impacts on land: sea level rise, drought

• Pesticide resistance due to continued use

Address food challenges: supply-side

• Reduce tillage of land (soil health)

• Increase multi-cropping: grow more crops on same land (summer/winter alternation)

• Plant grains with nitrogen-fixing leguminous trees

• Boost water productivity

• Breed drought-resistant, water-efficient crops

• Increase grain-to-protein efficiency (nearly 40% of grain used as animal feed, thus increases animal protein)

Boost water productivity

• Use drip irrigation: less evaporation, more labour-intensive (creates jobs)

• Use less thirsty crops (e.g. wheat instead of rice)

• Reduce water and energy subsidies

• Shift to local water control: leads to higher pricing, greater incentive to limit use

Increase grain-to-protein efficiency

• Choose fish: 2 kg grain = 1 kg fish, 7 kg grain = 1 kg beef/pork

• Feed animals soy, which increases protein production

Address food challenges: demand-side

• Population control

• Consumption control: at North American rate of consumption, world would only support 2.5 billion people (Brown)

• Reduce crop losses, food waste

• Shift from animal to plant proteins

McGinn: Promoting Sustainable Fisheries

• Rivalrous nature of fish (fisher-fisher conflict)

• Failure of modern systems to regulate industry

• Ecological impacts of overfishing

• Shift towards less valuable catch

• Inefficiency of newer “efficient” fishing technology

• Need for governments to stop subsidizing industry.

Brown: Feeding Seven Billion Well

Discusses future food shortage as population grows and demand for meat rises, methods to address issue:

• multi-cropping/nitrogen-fixing plants

• soy as feed

• controlling population

• raising water productivity

• eating less animal products

• eating more herbivorous farmed fish

• using polyculture

Common property resources

• Non-excludable/enforceable, rivalrous

  • often results in exploitation, social trap

• Can be managed sustainably by local communities —> open access, high demand and “efficient” extractive tech results in overuse

Resource matrix

Public goods: non-excludable, non-rivalrous

Common prop resources: non-excludable, rivalrous

Club goods: excludable, non-rivalrous

Private goods: excludable, rivalrous

Public goods

No economic incentive to create them in a free market —> often created by government. Result in positive externalities.

Derived demand

Demand driven by some other outcome, i.e. driving.

• we don’t drive for driving’s sake, so driving should be substituted for more efficient modes of transport in cities!