How Many People Can the Earth Support? En11ironmenta[lmpact and Vulnerq bility. In the minds of many, human Joel E. Cohen years in 1990-1995, an increase of 18 runs out, the price. of coal does not re years. The advantage in life expectancy flect the cost of the collapse of the action is linked to an unprecedented The question "How many people can of .. the more . developed regions over mining community left behind. litany of environmental problems; A the Earth support?" is useful, though the less developed regions fell .from Likewise, market prices need notre grim list prepared by the demographer it is seriously incomplete. It focuses · twenty-six years in 1950-1955 to twelve fleet future consequences of unwanted Paul Demeny in 1991 includes loss of attention on the present and future years in 1990:-1995. In developing re products such .as spent nuclear fuels, topsoil, desertification,. deforestation, numbers,. qualities, activities, and val gions, the absolute number (and the carbon dioxide fron:. power generation, toxic poisoning of drinking water, ues of humans in their relations with proportion) of people who were chron solid wastes from discarded packaging oceanic"pollution, shrinking wetlands, one another and with the Earth. To overgrazi11g, species loss, loss of ically undernourished fell from 941 mil and consumer goods, or ~sl:Jestos, chlor~ wil explain why people are interested in lion around 1970 to 786 million around ofluorocarbons; a)id persistent .pesti-' derness .areas, short(lge of .firewood, this question, I offer an overview of 1990. In Africa, . contrary to the world cides. Assessing ·the costs varies in siltation in rivers and estuaries, en global human population, economy, trend, the absolute number of chroni difficulty, from a relatively easy Gase ctOa€:hment on arable land, dropping environment, and culture.. I then re cally undernourished increq.sed by two like nontoxic solid waste, with a well water tables, erosion of the ozone view some answers to the question and. thirds between 1970 arid 1990. Africa . developed market in some countries, layer, global warming, rising sea lev describe what is involved in answering also had the highest population growth to a relatively hard case like chloroflu els, consumption ofmineral resources, it. Finally, I suggest actionstha:tcould rates during that period -and still does. orocarbon .disposal, apparently with nuclear wastes, anclacid rain. Demeny alleviate some of the problems of pop no present market. complained that ecologists rarely pro ulation, economics, environment, and Economic Growth and Growing third reason that prices are notal vide eno:ugh information to quantify culture. A Economic Disparities. II1 the aggregate ways indicators of human well-being is the relative importance. of these prob The Earth's capacity to support lems in specific locales. More informa people is determined both. by ·natural tion. is needed to evaluate the trade constraints, which some will emphasize, offs among thyse problems, For exam and by human choice, which others will ple; what are the trade-offs . among emphasize. Inthe coming half-century, burying municipal .wa.stes (soil and we ·and our children are less likely to groundwater contamination), incinerc face absolute limits than difficult trade ating them (air pollution), dumping offs-trade-offs among population size. them offshore (marine contamina and economic well-being and environ tion), and reducing them at the source mental quality and dearly .held. values,· (changes in manufacturing and pack~ Foresight and action now might· :qmke aging technology, consumer expecta some of the coming trade-offs easie:r. tfonsamthabits,la:ws·and prices)? I hope to offer a perspective that dif Environmental vulnerability in fers from the views .of those who say creases as humans make contact with that rapid population growth is no the :viruses and other pathogens of problem at all and those who say that previously remote forests and grass: population growth is the only prob lands. The number of people who live lem. A rounded view of·. the facts in coastal cities rapidly approaches should immunize us against both cor one billion. Vulnerability to a rise In nucopians and doomsayers. I give sea levels increases with the tide. ()f more details in my recent book How urbanization. Many People Can the Earth Support?* Past Human Population Culturallmplosion. In recent decades, Population Size and Growth. Two migration~ from rural to urban regions thousand years ago, the Earth had and between countries,as well as busi roughly one quarter of a billion people production of material wealth, the that J1larkets respond to effective~de ness travel, tourism,radio, television, (the population of the United States half-century since 1945. has been a mand, not to human need. Food wm telephones, faxes, the Internet, cas around 1990). By 1650 t~e Earth's·pop~ golden. era of technological·arid eco-. modity prices have dropped by half, settes,. newspapers, an:d magazines, ulation had doubled.· to half a. billion. nomic wonders. For example; .in con while three fourths of a billio.n people have shrunk theworld stage, bringing When the Old World and the New stantprices, with the price in 1990 set in developing countries chronically do cultures into contact and sometimes World began to exchange foods arid equal to 100, totalfood commodity not eat enough (;alories to gr()w nor· into conflict. other resources in a serious way, the prices fell from 196 in 1975 to 85 in mally and walk around, because the In 18QO roughly 1 in50 people lived time r.equired to double thepopulati
October 8, 1998 29 as by sheerpop.u.latiqn growth. published estirimtes ranging fr0111 fewer Atthe··InternationalConference on than 3 billionup to44billion; }3etween Populationand Development in Cairo 1679. and 1<)94 at least sixty additional in 1994,many delegates strongly advo~ estimates were published. These sixty~ cated empowering womeu. through five estimates ofthe Earth's maximum education, paid jobs, credit, property population range ·widely, fromiess rights, •contraception, ··.and. political than one billion to more thanl,OOO bil po~er. .Many people oelievethatif lion. There is neither anincreasing ~or more women had. such· opportunities, a.·decreasing ·trend in these estimates. population .. g~owth .·in .. illany places The scatter ·has increased with time, might well be slower ,inaddition to the contrary to what one might expect direct benefits such empowerment from estimates of a constant of nature. would givewome~. But.~nmany cul One conclusion is immediate: many tures,. empowering .women in these of the published. answers cannot> be ways conflicts directly with the goal: of nearly .right--., or there is n6 single maintaining "full respect forthe vari" right answer. ous .·religious .and ethical values ·and Why there is no single right answer culturalbackgrounds, '·' a goal often re becomes clear when the methods used peated .in thefinaLdocument ?fthe to .• obtain these. estimates are exam" Cairo conference. Cultural conflicts ined carefully. One commonly·used over women'sandmen's status,roles, method assumes. that a single factor, andrightswiUJ1otgoawaysoqn.·· usually food, constrains population Insummar5', Gqucernsabout how size. (That population often. grows Inal1ype()plethe :E,al'thcan. support in fastest in countries with the least food .volvenotonlypopu1atiory butalso.eco and slowest in the countries. where nomics,tlie .environment,.andcultqre. food is mostabundantdoesnotseem to deter those who assume that food The Present limits national population growth.) An As of1997,theworld ~adabout5.8bil estimate ofthe maximum possible.an lion peopl~. A..t curre.nt birth rates? the nualglobal·food productionisdivided world.~i~~.. ·. 30 The New York Review really lie in this. range. lt is merely a equities and organized ·Violence, im waFning signal that the human pop pr~vi:ng governance). There is much ulation has now entered, and is rapidly value in all these approaches. None is moving deeper into, a zone where lim" sufficient by itself. Even in combina its on how ma:ny people the E.arth can tion, they will not eliminate the need to support have been anticipated and make choices among competing values. may be encountered. Lack of certainty about future con straints and choices does not justify How many people the Earth can sup lack of action now. Whenever I ride in port depends both on natural con a car, I put on my seatbelt,though I do straints, which are not fully under~ not expecttobe involved in a crasb.I stood, and on human choices. Many of carry life insurance for my family, these choices are unconscious decisions though I do not expect to die tomor made by millions and bill1ons of people row. It is not necessary to be able to in their daily lives (turn off the light project the future with precision to when you leave the room, or leave it recognize that more than 100 million on; wash hands before eating, or don't women of childbearing age are esti bother; pick up.litter in the schoolyard, mated to lack desired access to means or add to if).The cumulative resultsof of fertility control; that, • as Christo what may be unconscious individual ac pher Colclough and Keith Lewin have tions amount to major human choices: pointed out, 130 million girls and boys consume more or less fossil fuel; spread officially eligible for primary school or prevent infectious diseases; degrade ing in developing countries are out of or beautify the environment. school; that three quart('!rs of a billion Personal and collective choices af people, more or less, were.hungry yes fect the average level and the distribu terday, are hungry today, and will be tion of material well-being; technol hungry tomorrow; that humans leave ogy; political institutions governing their mark on the land, sea; air:, and individual liberty, conflicts, a:nd change other species with whi.ch we shate.the (compare the breakup· of Czechoslo planet; and that while life is better vakia.withthe breakup of Yugoslavia today for many people than it was in to see the impact of politics on the the past, there are also many people. resources subsequently available for for whom life is more miserable than human well-being); economic arrange the available means require, We need ments regarding markets, trade, regu no projections to identify problems lation, and non-market consequences that require action today. of market activities; family size and structure, migration, care of the young Pyramid of Population, Economy, and elderly, and other demographic Environment, Culture arrangements; physical, chemical, and Many of . the current statistics and biological environments (do we want a future projections quoted here will world of humans and wheat only?); change. But one message will remain variability or stability; risk or robust useful: Population problems are not ness; the time horizon (five years purely demographic. J'hey also in ahead, or fifty, or five hundred); and volve economics,. the environment, values, tastes, and fashions: and culture (including politics, law, . I emphasize the importance of values. imd values) . Values determine how. parents trade Population, economy, environment, off the number of children against the and culture may be envisioned as the quality of life their children will have; corners. of a symmetrical te.trali:edron how they balance parents' freedom to or pyramid. This image is my mental reproduce and children's freed()m to prophylaxis against omitting important ,eat. Many choices that appear to be. dimensions when! listen to discussions economic depend heavily on individ~ of population problems. Each major ual and cUltural values. Should indus7 dimension interacts with all three of trial economies seek now to develop the others. The symmetry of the pyra renewable energy sources, or should mid means that culture or the environ they keep burning fossil fuels and. ment or the. economy could be placed leave the transition to future genera on top without changing the message. tions? Should women(and, by symme But this pyramidal i1Ilage is to() sim try, should men) work outside their ple in an important .respect. Reality homes? How many people the Earth has not just a single pyramid, but thou can support depends· in part on .how s~nds .or millions of such pyramids, manywill wear cotton and how many scattered overthe globe, wherever hu polyester; on how many will eat beef mans live. Many of these local pyra ancl how many bean sprouts; on how mids· interact strongly over grea.t. dis many will want parks and how many tances, through worldwide . financial will want parking lots; on how many and economic integration, through our will want Jaguars with a capital J and shared commons of atmosphere and how many will want jaguars with a oceans and living species, and through smallj. These choiceschange with time global exchanges of people, microbes, and circumstance, and so ·will how and cultural symbols. Population prob many people the Earth can support. lems vary from place to place but are globally interlinked. Implications for Action The real issue with population is not What.could be done now to ease future just numbers of people, although num trade-offs in making these choices? bers matter and statistics give us quan The ''bigger pie" school says de titative insight and prevent us from velop more technology. The. "fewer making fools of ourselves. The real forks" school says slow or stop popula crux of the population question is the tion gwwth and reduce wants per per quality ofpeople's lives: the ability of son. The "better manners" school says people to participate in what if means improve the terms under which people to be really human; to work, play, and interact (e.g., by defining property die with dignity; to have some sense rights to open-access resources such as that one's own life has meaning and is fisheries and groundwater to prevent connected with other people's lives, uneconomic exploitation, removing That; to me, is the essence of the pop: economic irrationalities, reducing in- ulationproblem. D October 8, 1998 31 Contents 4 Tim .Judah Impasse in Kosovo 6 Anita Desai Death in Summer by William Trevor 8 Leon Levy and .Jeff Madrick Wall Street Blues 12 .John Bayley The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel 14 Brad Leithauser Poem 15 Kathleen M. Sullivan Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court by Edward Lazarus 18 Clifford Paul Fetters Poem 19 Liu Binyan and Perry Link Zhongguo de xianjing [China's Pitfall] by He Qingliah 24 Aileen Kelly Echoes of a Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village by Serge Schmemann 29 .Joel E. Cohen How Many People Can the Earth Support? 32 Benjamin M. Friedman The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy by Patrick J. Buchanan The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern World by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw 37 Helen Vendler Poems New and Collected, 1957-1997 by Wislawa Szymborska New Collected Poems by Tomas Transtromer 40 Tomas Transtromer Poem 41 Edmund S. Morgan The Brave Bostonians: Hutchinson, Quincy, Franklin, and the Coming of the American Revolution by Philip McFarland 43 Robert Craft Stravinsky & Balanchine 44 .Jasper Griffin Magic in the Ancient World by Fritz Graf The Great God Pan: The Survival ofan Image by John Boardman 48 Steven Weinberg The Revolution That Didn't Happen 53 Garry Wills Bill & the Emperor 53 Budd Hopkins, David M. .Jacobs, David F. Maier, Thomas L. Dumm, and Frederick Crews 'When Words Collide': An Exchange 56 Letters from William Bundy, Richard G. Wilkinson, Meyer Friedman, M.D., Helen Epstein, Peter D. Lax and Anneli Lax, and Joan Didion CONTRIBUTORS .JOHN BAYLEY has written books on Pushkin, Shakespeare, BRAD LEimAUSER's new poetry collection, The Odd Last Housman, Hardy, and Tolstoy. His most recent novel is The Red Thing She Did, from which the poem in this issue is drawn, will Hat. be published later this month. < .JOEL E. COHEN, Professor of Populations at Rockefeller and LEON LEVY is currently the chairman of the board of trustees Columbia Universities in New York City, is the author of the of the Oppenheimer Fund in New York. JEFF MADRICK is book How Many People Can the Earth Support? · the Editor of Challenge magazine and is working on a book ROBERT CRAFT bas just finished a new book, About Must, about productivity. His most recent book is The End ofAffluence. and About Must Go: Travel Writings for Music and Art Lovers. LIU BINYAN, one of China's leading writers, is currently a He has just completed Volume III of his Schoenberg series for Director of the Princeton China Initiative in Princeton, New Koch International. Jersey. His most recent book in.English is A Higher Kind of ANITA DESAI's most recent book is Journey to Ithaca. She is Loyalty: A Memoir. PERRY LINK is Professor of East Asian Professor of Writing in the Writing and Humanistic Studies Pro Studies at Princeton University and the author of the forthcoming gram ·at MIT. book The Uses ofLiterature in the Socialist Chinese Literary System. CLIFFORD PAUL FETTERS is a poet living in Seattle. EDMUND MORGAN is Sterling Professor of History Emeritus BENJAMIN M. FRIEDMAN, who teaches economics at Har at Yale University. His latest book is Inventing the People. vard, is the author of Day of Reckoning: The Consequences of KATHLEEN M. SULLIVAN is Stanley Morrison Professor of American Economic Policy Under Reagan and After. He is cur Law at Stanford University. rently writing a book on the moral consequences of economic TOMAS TRANSTROMER is Sweden's leading contemporary growth. poet. SAMUEL CHARTERS is a poet, novelist, and translator. JASPER GRIFFIN is Professor of Classical Literature and Pub HELENVENDLER is Porter University Professor at Harvard Uni lic Orator at Oxford University and fellow of Balliol College. versity.Her new book, Seamus Heaney, will be published this fall. His books include Homer on Life and Death and Latin Poets and STEVEN WEINBERG holds the Josey Regentel Chair in Sci Roman Life. ence at the University of Texas at Austin. He has been awarded TIM JUDAH is a journalist who lives in London. During the the Nobel Prize and the National Medal of Science for his work Yugoslav war be lived in Belgrade, writing for The Times of on the theory of particles and fields. He has written about cos London and The Economist. His book The Serbs: History, Myth mology for the general reader in The First Three Minutes: A and the Destruction of Yugoslavia was published last year. Modern View of the Origin of the Universe. AILEEN KELLY, a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, is the GARRY WILLS is Adjunct Professor of History at Northwest author of Mikhail Bakunin. Her most recent book is Toward ern University. His most recent book is John Wayne's America: Another Shore: Russian Thinkers Between Necessity and Chance. The Politics of Celebrity. Editors: Robert B. Silvers Barbara Epstein Publisher: Rea S. Hederman Advisory Editor: Elizabeth Hardwick Associate Publisher: Catherine Tice Assistant Editors: Jei:mifer Schuessler Michael Shae Business Manager: Raymond Shapiro Eve Bowen Ann Kjellberg Manager of Subscriptions and Direct Sales: Michael Johnson Contributing Editor: Louis Menand Advertising Director: Lara Frohlich Marketing and Circulation Director: Louise Tyson Staff Artist: David Levine Robert Karron, David Jacobson, Jeff Alexander, and David Kaiser, Editorial Assistants; Borden Elniff and Bart Johnson, Type Production; Janet Noble, Judith Miller, and Barbara Adams, Production; Crina Archer, Classified Adv~rtising; Alexis Amsterdam, Advertising Assistant; Nancy Ng, Promotions Associate; Tim O'Brien, Circulation Manager; Diane R. Seltzer, Office Manager/List Manager; Teddy Wright, Assistant; Dwayne Jones, Direct Sales Accounting; Margarette Devlin, Comptroller; Pearl Williams, Assistant Comptroller; Kevin Theodore and Daniel Frooks, Accounting Assistants; Sylvia Lonergan, Researcher; Michele Gentile, Receptionist; Rande Barke, Office Staff. Microfilm and Microcard services: University Microfilm, 300 North Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. · Drawings on pages 6, 10, 12, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 32, 34, 35, 36, 48, and 50 by David Levine. Other illustrations: on pages 53 and 54 by Grandville; on page 44 by John Flaxman. The illustrations on pages 37 and 38 are from Anna Bikont and Joanna Szczesna, Pamiatkowe Rupiecie Przyjaciele i Sny Wislawy Szym borskiej (Warsaw: Proszynski i S-ka, 1997). The illustration on the cover is a detail from Ma Yiian, Plum Blossoms by Moonlight; The New York Review of Books (ISSN 0028·7504), October 8, 1998, Volume XLV, Number 15. 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The cover date of the next issue will be October 22, 1998. 3