Population, development, and human natures

At the dawn of this new millennium, the human enterprise is quickly becoming a globally unified one. Yet numerous obstacles and pitfalls remain in the path of a full and fair unification. A substantial fraction of the world’s population is well-off and increasingly connected through trade and communications systems. But an even larger fraction is struggling to make ends meet and is only sketchily connected to the globalizing economy. And a significant portion are barely surviving, with virtually no connection to the rest of the world. The majority of human beings live in regions where development still falls far short of even modest aspirations, while the already affluent minority strives for even more affluence. The critical challenge of the decades ahead will be to incorporate the lagging four-fifths of the world’s still-expanding population into the global economy while preserving the life support systems that make our planet habitable. In this paper we want to make three basic points about this dilemma. First, the problems of development are intertwined with human population size, population growth rates, and patterns of consumption, including the technologies used to provide that consumption. Second, progress in development will be negatively affected by those variables, primarily through their impacts on humanity’s natural capital—the ecosystems that supply civilization with a flow of indispensable goods and services. And, third, the failure of human cultural evolution in the areas of sociopolitical organization and ethics to keep pace with the evolution of technological capability constitutes a major impediment to the achievement of a sustainable civilization. While these are major obstacles to successful development, they also offer significant keys to finding answers. Taking a global view, it is clear that the ‘population–consumption problem’ can adversely affect all people, and especially those in developing countries. This is perhaps most obvious in the area of climate change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1996). There is a high positive correlation between both the numbers of people and their consumption levels and the fluxes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere, although there is substantial variation in consumption levels and GHG fluxes among societies (Yang and Schneider, 1997–1998; Hoffert et al. 1998). Furthermore, expansion of population and consumption is Environment and Development Economics 7 (2002): 158–170 Copyright © 2002 Cambridge University Press