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9
Stabilizing the Human
Population: Strategies for
Sustainability
Chapter Outline
Achieving a Sustainable Human Population: The Challenges
Stabilizing the Human Population: Some Strategies
Economic Development and the Demographic Transition
Family Planning and Population Stabilization
Small-Scale, Sustainable Economic Development
Sustainable Populations in the Developed Countries
Creating Sustainable Populations in the Developing Countries
Overcoming Barriers
Psychological and Cultural Barriers
Educational Barriers
Religious and Cultural Barriers
Ethics and Population Stabilization
Status Report
Key Terms
contraceptive measures demographic transition family planning
birth control abstinence induced abortion
environmental impact collective rights ethics
population control
Objectives
1. Discuss why demographic transition may not work to reduce population growth in some developing countries.
2. Define “family planning” and list the different methods of birth control.
3. Compare extended voluntary family planning to forced family planning.
4. Define “urban sprawl” and discuss how it relates to growth management.
5. Discuss why populations of the developed nations have a dramatic impact on the environment.
6. List the population control strategies for developed countries.
7. List the population control strategies for developing countries.
8. Discuss how psychological, economic, educational, religious, and cultural factors can influence population growth.
9. Contrast the view of individual rights with the idea of collective rights as they pertain to reproductive freedom.
Lecture Outline
Achieving a Sustainable Human Population: The Challenges
A. Finding acceptable means of slowing the growth of the human population in order to create a stable population size.
B. Find ways to humanely reduce the size of the human population.
C. Stopping population growth, reducing population size and developing sustainable economic plans can help break the vicious cycle of poverty and environmental destruction.
Stabilizing the Human Population: Some Strategies - Stabilizing the human population will require attacking the root causes of rampant population growth: poverty, lack of education, the inequality of women, and poor health care.
A. Economic Development and the Demographic Transition
1. Demographic Transition - Traditionally, economic development, through stimulating the demographic transition, was thought the best population control strategy. Industrialization will not be the answer, though, where energy, economic and natural resources, and time are limited. There are four reasons economic development might not work:
a. Economic resources of developing nations may be too limited.
b. Demographic transition takes a lot of time.
c. Population growth can outstrip economic growth.
d. Fossil fuel energy sources are diminishing and becoming more expensive and could be economically unavailable to developing nations.
B. Family Planning and Population Stabilization
1. These programs may be voluntary, extended voluntary, or forced and aim to provide birth control and motivation for its use to all couples.
C. Small-Scale Sustainable Economic Development, Better Health Care, and Improvements in the Status of Women
1. Such initiatives aim to create incentives, such as jobs and improved health care, for women to have fewer children.
D. Sustainable Populations in the Developed Countries
1. Though growth in developed countries is comparatively slow, their high level of per capita consumption is important. A single American or Canadian uses 20 to 40 times more resources than a citizen of the developing world.
2. Financial assistance and sharing of appropriate technology with less developed countries may be the most effective way for developed nations to assist other countries in need of aid.
E. Creating Sustainable Populations in the Developing Countries
1. Improved funding and implementation of population control programs in developing countries is urgently needed.
Overcoming Barriers
A. Psychological and Cultural Barriers - Population control efforts must cross the psychological and cultural barriers of security and esteem tied to large family size.
B. Educational Barriers - Less educated people tend to have more children than do the more highly educated.
C. Religious Barriers - Religious doctrines continue to foster excess reproduction among those who uncritically accept religious dogma.
Ethics and Population Stabilization
A. Is Reproduction a Personal Right? Many argue that the collective rights of all living humans, and the integrity of the biosphere which those rights presuppose, supersede individuals' rights to reproduce excessively.
B. Is It Ethical Not to Control Population Growth? Ethical obligations to future generations suggest that it is not morally right to allow population growth today at the expense of tomorrow's citizens and of other species.
Status Report
A. Major efforts are underway to reduce the growth of the human population. World population growth has dropped substantially in the last 25 years.
B. Growth rates in the developed nations have fallen in the last two decades.
C. Most of the new growth in the coming decades will occur in the less developed nations.
Suggestions for Presenting the Chapter
· Instructors might look for local examples of urban sprawl for class observation and study. How is your city dealing with urban development? What are the sustainable solutions to your local problems?
· A speaker on family planning will provide interesting topics for class discussion.
· Instructors might assign individual or groups the task of studying a particular countries’ population issues. Compare the problems encountered in developed and developing countries.
· Instructors should explore the ethical issues surrounding population control. This can be done by class/group discussion, writing assignments and speakers.
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