Hostname: page-component-6bb9c88b65-k72x6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-26T04:59:13.926Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond Population Stabilization: The Case for Dramatically Reducing Global Human Numbers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

J. Kenneth Smail
J. Kenneth Smail*
Affiliation:
Kenyon College, USA
Get access

Abstract

There is a growing tension between two apparently irreconcilable trends: (1) demographic projections that world population size will reach 10 to 11 billion by the middle of the next century; and (2) scientific estimates that the Earth's long-term sustainable carrying capacity (at an “adequate to comfortable” standard of living) may not be much greater than 2 to 3 billion. It is past time to develop internationally coordinated sociopolitical initiatives that go beyond slowing the growth or stabilizing global human numbers. After “inescapable realities” that humans must soon confront, and notwithstanding the considerable difficulties involved in establishing “global population optimums,” I conclude with several suggestions how best to bring about a very significant reduction in global population over the next two to three centuries. These proposals are cautiously optimistic.

Information

Type
Roundtable Article
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , September 1997 , pp. 183 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abernethy, V.D. (1993). Population Politics: The Choices That Shape Our Future. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Abernethy, V.D. (1996). “Population Theory and Future Population Size.” In Nath, B. (ed.), Environmental Pollution. London: University of London, European Centre for Pollution Research.Google Scholar
Bailey, R. (1995). The True State of the Planet. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Bartlett, A.A. (1994). “Reflections on Sustainability, Population Growth and the Environment.” Population and Environment 16(1):5–35.Google Scholar
Brown, L.R. (1995). Who Will Feed China? New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Brown, L.R. and Kane, H. (1994). Full House: Reassessing the Earth's Population Carrying Capacity. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Cohen, J.E. (1995). How Many People Can The Earth Support? New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Connelly, M. and Kennedy, P. (1994). “Must It Be the Rest Against the West?” The Atlantic Monthly 274(6):61–84.Google Scholar
Daly, H.E. and Cobb, J.B. Jr. (1994). For The Common Good. 2nd edition. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, C.G. (1952). The Next Million Years. New York: Doubleday Dolphin.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H. (1990). The Population Explosion. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H. (1996). Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future. Covelo, CA: Island Press.Google Scholar
Giampetro, M. and Pimentel, D. (1993). “The Tightening Conflict: Population, Energy Use and the Ecology of Agriculture.” NPG Forum. Teaneck, NJ: Negative Population Growth.Google Scholar
Gardner, G. (1996). Shrinking Fields: Cropland Loss in a World of Eight Billion. Worldwatch Paper #131. Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute.Google Scholar
Grant, L. (1992). Elephants in the Volkswagen: Facing the Tough Questions about Our Overcrowded Country. New York: W.H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Grant, L. (1996). Juggernaut: Growth on a Finite Planet. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press.Google Scholar
Hardin, G.J. (1969). Population, Evolution and Birth Control. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Hardin, G.J. (1992). Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics and Population Taboos. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, P.A. (1993). The Third Revolution: Population, Environment, and a Sustainable World. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Hollingsworth, W.G. (1996). Ending the Explosion: Population Policies and Ethics for a Humane Future. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press.Google Scholar
Kaplan, R.D. (1994). “The Coming Anarchy.” The Atlantic Monthly 273(2):44–76.Google Scholar
Lutz, W. (1994). “The Future of World Population.” Population Bulletin 49(1). Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau.Google Scholar
Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., and Randers, J. (1993). Beyond the Limits. Post Mills, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Moffett, G.D. (1994). Critical Masses: The Global Population Challenge. New York: Viking Penguin.Google Scholar
Myers, N. and Simon, J.L. (1994). Scarcity or Abundance?: A Debate on the Environment. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Pimentel, D. and Pimentel, M. (1991). “Land, Energy and Water: The Constraints Governing Ideal U.S. Population Size.” NPG Forum. Teaneck, NJ: Negative Population Growth.Google Scholar
Smail, J.K. (1995). “Confronting the 21st Century's Hidden Crisis: Reducing Human Numbers By 80%.” NPG Forum. Teaneck, N.J.: Negative Population Growth.Google Scholar
Smail, J.K. (1997). “Averting the 21st Century's Demographic Crisis: Can Human Numbers Be Reduced by 75%?” Population and Environment 18(6):565–80.Google Scholar
Turco, R.P. et al.(1983). “Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions.” Science 222:1283–92.Google Scholar
Vogt, W. (1960). People! New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar
Westoff, C. (1995). “International Population Policy.” Society 32(4):11–15.Google Scholar
Wong, Y. (1994). “Impotence and Intransigence: State Behavior in the Throes of Deepening Global Crisis.” Politics and the Life Sciences 13:3–14.Google Scholar