>From behan@osiris.Colorado.EDU Mon Sep 12 16:08:36 1994 Received: from osiris.Colorado.EDU (osiris.Colorado.EDU [128.138.151.16]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.6.9/8.6.9/CNS-3.5) with ESMTP id QAA13411 for ; Mon, 12 Sep 1994 16:08:36 -0600 Received: from taweret.colorado.edu (taweret.Colorado.EDU [128.138.151.21]) by osiris.Colorado.EDU (8.6.9/8.6.9/CNS-3.5) with ESMTP id QAA22010 for ; Mon, 12 Sep 1994 16:10:05 -0600 Received: (behan@localhost) by taweret.colorado.edu (8.6.9/8.6.9/CNS-3.5) id QAA14996; Mon, 12 Sep 1994 16:09:23 -0600 Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 16:09:13 -0600 (MDT) From: Behan Pamela To: PPN List Subject: "overpopulation" Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII If anything, it seems to me that Doug, Don, Kim, and Al Gore's messages should remind us that the meaning of "overpopulation" depends on your interests and your position. Environmental concerns focus on resource use, which directs our attention to the resource users - the developed, rather than the underdeveloped nations. This is NOT the focus of the international population conference, although it does get passing mention. Although I share this concern, I'd say that it's a fairly privileged one - for those of us who don't have to worry about our next meal. Paradoxically, however, it's probably also the most contraversial and far-sighted - challenging the developed world to reduce its consumption, waste, and sense of entitlement to all the world's resources, and the underdeveloped world to behave more wisely than the developed nations ever have. Community concerns vary, but in the Third World are likely to focus on the availability of food for everyone, and the limitation of the size of a community to not outstrip its food supply. That is, a balance between resources and population growth defines population concerns. Kim also reminds us that migration is related to population concerns - a local solution to perceived imbalance, which (by the way) Europe used extensively in its own period of fast population growth. In my own, privileged U.S. community, there is concern about having reasonable jobs for everyone, and about the quality of life deteriorating if too many people move in. That is, there is a perception of an absolute limit to the size of "community," some resources being seen as finite - and "too many people" is related to the jobs & wages available. The relation between jobs and population size, by the way, was very much a part of Malthus' definition of overpopulation. Crowdedness (people-per-square-whatever) doesn't even come into many definitions, although it often seems to be a big factor in informal use of the term. If your concern is about the future, however, this concept may nicely summarize the impossibility of the earth supporting infinite numbers of humans. Finally, birth rates often are used to imply overpopulation, although any real connection between the two depends on the current population, existing primarily in a long-term sense, rather than the immediate sense in which it gets used. (I often think that this definition creeps into the discussion in "us" versus "them" contexts, as when First World writers are feeling threatened by the potential demand for more of the world's resources by the Third World. See the February 1994 ATLANTIC MONTHLY cover article.) Here's an interesting quote to chew on, from the FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Hong Kong: "The U.N. plan defines the population 'problem' in terms of yellow and brown peoples. No one goes around complaining that there are too many Dutchmen, though with 450 people per square kilometer the Netherlands is more than three times as crowded as China. Surely this (Asian) region's unprecedented growth demonstrates that those in undeveloped lands have minds as well as mouths, and that these minds - once unshackled and allowed to realize their potential - are at least as capable of contributing to the world pie as anyone else's. "The irony today is that Cairo's call to lower birth rates comes at a time when Asia's leading economies are suffering from LABOR SHORTAGES while Europe, with its plummeting birth rates, finds itself plagued by UNEMPLOYMENT...." (Emphasis added.) Pamela Behan