If you reply to this long (14kB) post please don't hit the reply
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apologies to Phys-L's methodology judge Brian Whatcott.]
In a recent LA Times piece (APPENDIX) Gregg Easterbrook (2006a)
<http://www.brookings.edu/scholars/geasterbrook.htm>, a visiting
Fellow of the Brookings Institution and senior editor of the "The New
Republic" explains why, with the rising population of the U.S. about
to pass the 300 million milestone, the future looks good!
[According to the U.S.Census Bureau clock at
<http://www.census.gov>,as I write this sentence the U.S. population
now stands at 299,987,544.]
Shades of the late economist Julian Simon (1983, 1998)! For the Cato
Institute's eulogy to Simon see Moore (1998). For a rebuttal to Simon
(1983) see Al Bartlett (undated, 1996).
Oops, as Easterbrook (2006a) says, I must learn to type faster, the
U.S. population has now grown to 299,987,592.
Easterbrook, G. 2004. "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better
While People Feel Worse," Random House reprint edition. Amazon.com
information at <http://tinyurl.com/y7pv7p>.
Easterbrook, G. 2006a. "America at 300 Million," Los Angeles Times, 8
October 2006, online for a short time at <http://tinyurl.com/yfebh6>,
and copied into the APPENDIX. See also Easterbrook (2004).
Simon, J.L. 1983. "The Ultimate Resource," Princeton University
Press. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/yk7g8c>. First
published in 1981.
Simon, J.L. 1998. "The Ultimate Resource 2." Princeton University
Press, revised edition. Amazon.com information on this and other
books by Simon see at <http://tinyurl.com/y4aytj>.
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APPENDIX [Fair Use Notice: I believe this copy constitutes a 'fair
use' of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US
Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107; see
e.g., <http://tinyurl.com/53son >
AMERICA AT 300 MILLION
With the rising population about to pass that milestone, the future
looks good for the United States.
By Gregg Easterbrook, Gregg Easterbrook is a fellow at the Brookings
Institution and the author of "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets
Better While People Feel Worse."
October 8, 2006
WITHIN A WEEK or so, the Census Bureau will declare that the
population of the United States has reached the 300 million mark. As
I write this sentence, the bureau's Population Clock, found at
http://www.census.gov , reads 299,901,023. It took thousands of years
for the population of what's now called the United States to reach
100 million, a milestone achieved in 1915; 52 years, to 1967, to add
the next 100 million; and 39 years, to 2006, to add the next 100
million. And there are more coming, as the U.S. population is
projected to reach perhaps 400 million around mid-century, and may
continue climbing beyond that. Whoops, the Population Clock now says
299,901,426. I must learn to type faster!
The rising population will bring with it more: more of everything.
More people, more sprawl, more creativity, more traffic, more love,
more noise, more diversity, more energy use, more happiness, more
loneliness, more fast food, more art, more knowledge, maybe even more
wisdom. Today the United States is 50% larger in population and
development footprint than a mere four decades ago, and if current
trends hold, four decades from now it will be a third larger still.
That means our national infrastructure must grow by at least another
third to accommodate further population - a third more highways,
housing subdivisions, schools, trash landfills and everything else. I
hope you like the United States, because there is a great deal more
of it coming.
First, let's contemplate what should not worry us about continuing
U.S. population growth. One is the question of whether we can handle
it: We can. Physical resources remain plentiful in the United States
and globally, with no primary physical resource (other than
groundwater in China) currently near depletion. Today, there are
about 1 trillion barrels of petroleum in the world's "proven
reserve," according to U.S. Geological Survey estimates, about a
40-year supply at present rates of consumption, and there may be
decades or even centuries' worth of oil still to be found in
deep-ocean deposits about which little is known. The global economy
is likely to have moved beyond petroleum before the oil runs out.
Centuries worth of coal and uranium are in current reserves. Even
assuming substantial future increases in global demand, most basic
commodities are in good supply worldwide and expected to remain so.
Resource consumption engages all manner of problems, including the
danger of artificially triggered climate change. But for the moment
at least, running out of the stuff we need does not seem to be a big
danger.
Nor should we worry about running out of land, at least in the United
States. The U.S. is among the world's least-populous nations, with
one-eighth the population density of, say, Britain. The "built-up"
area of the United States is far smaller than most would guess, with
about 7% of the U.S. land mass converted to cities, roads and similar
uses. Even if you include agriculture as a built-up use (modern
high-yield agriculture is far from a natural condition for land),
only about one-quarter of the United States has been converted to
suit the wishes of people. Subtract the parts of the Rocky Mountains,
Southwestern deserts and Alaska that aren't suitable for most kinds
of habitation, and there remains plenty of land in the U.S. for
substantial future population increases. Some nations - Bangladesh,
China, India and Japan - already are approaching their usable-land
limits. America's lies far in the distance.
Globally, it is astonishing that the world's population has roughly
doubled, from 3 billion to 6 billion, in the four decades since Paul
Ehrlich's influential book, "The Population Bomb," predicted global
mass starvation beginning as early as the 1970s. Instead, by 2005,
malnutrition had declined to the lowest level in human history,
according to United Nations figures. How could forecasts of
population doom have been so wrong? The core Malthusian assumption is
that population would always increase faster than technology can
respond. Instead, during the postwar era, it's been the other way
around. High-yield agriculture has increased food production faster
than the global population has grown; energy production and
industrial production have risen much faster than global population.
Now, maybe there is a limit to the numbers the globe can sustain, and
here at home we may not necessarily like a nation of more people,
homes, cars and roads. Everyone hates tract housing, strip malls and
traffic, all of which are fated to multiply. But before you say, "I
hate sprawl," remember that sprawl is caused by more people and more
affluence. And which of these, precisely, do you propose to ban?
We could stop the growth of the U.S. population by banning
immigration, which has escalated rapidly: Today, about 12% of
Americans are foreign-born, versus about 5% when the country had 200
million people. Right now, native-born American women are having
children at roughly the replacement birthrate of 2.1 live births per
woman, suggesting that if immigration were banned, population would
stabilize at about the current level. Essentially, all future U.S.
population growth projected by the Census Bureau comes from
immigration.
Suppose immigration were banned or severely curtailed. (Assume for
the sake of argument that this is physically possible, that walls can
be high enough.) The vibrancy of the U.S. economy would decline;
almost all studies show that immigrants are a net plus to the
economy. Also, immigration helps the United States manage the problem
of an aging population. Today, about 13% of the U.S. population is
over 65; even assuming high immigration levels, that share will rise
to perhaps 17% in 2020. Stop immigration and the share of pensioners
rises beyond 20% and keeps climbing toward 30% or more.
More traffic but plenty of employees to support the retired seems
like a better deal than a stable population with a stagnant economy
swamped by pension costs. The latter dynamic is already observed in
some European Union nations, and it isn't pretty. Russia and a number
of European nations have below-replacement-rate fertility among
native-born women, and either must liberalize immigration laws or see
their economies contract at the very time that demand for retiree
benefits rises.
As for sprawl and exurban expansion, we could stop them by taxing
away prosperity or banning real estate development. But what right do
those already ensconced in nice communities have to deny the same
chance to others?
Inevitably, there will be negative aspects to population growth,
including using up the country's most desirable land. This is
happening already. If your lifelong dream is to erect that perfect
waterfront home on the California coast, or among the Washington
state islands or on the Outer Banks or Chesapeake tidal shores, my
suggestion is you purchase the land deed first thing Monday morning,
as all these regions are already close to "built out." Twenty years
ago, I lived a while on a magnificent rustic mountainside 30 miles
outside Bozeman, Mont., up a gravel road. A working ranch two miles
away was the next closest dwelling. Today, that place is a developed
valley of trophy homes with SUVs in the driveways. I wish it were
still untouched. But what right do I have to rule the mountain vista
off-limits?
An ever-greater U.S. population will bring problems uncountable in
terms of land-use fights, traffic congestion, expansion into what are
now wild areas and the eventual end of our national conception of
America as a place of unlimited expanse. But the rising population
also is a fantastic achievement. It means ever-more people are alive
to experience love, hope, freedom and the daily miracle of the rising
sun. None of us who today enjoy the privilege of being Americans
should want to deny this privilege to the many more to come.
There is one worrisome scenario on population growth: an anti-aging
breakthrough extends the human lifespan so much that the U.S.
population peaks not at 400 million but 500 million or 600 million.
That's hard to fathom, even for an optimist like me. Meanwhile, as I
finish this, the Population Clock just hit 299,902,625. I must learn
to think faster!