De new novel by Ian McEwan, Wat we kunnen weten, unfolds over a hundred years. In those hundred years, floods and wars have halved the number of people. People have more or less come to terms with it.
Halving the number of people seems to me insufficient for a sustainably liveable world. There are still 4.1 billion of them, and the available space has shrunk considerably due to rising sea levels. 4.1 billion people is an enormous number. A biologist will certainly agree, a mathematician perhaps too, but a layperson does not feel the difference between a million and a billion. Both are a lot, in the same way that mammoths and dinosaurs are both ancient.
Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest relatives, and comparable in size, weight and diet. Estimates of chimpanzee numbers range from 170,000 to 340,000. Multiply that by ten thousand and you get 1.7 to 3.4 billion – still well short of a halved humanity. Bonobos are far fewer still: fifteen to twenty thousand. After the halving of the human population, there would still be two hundred thousand people for every bonobo. Bear in mind that these figures assume the great apes come through all the wars and floods unscathed.
There are six hundred thousand to nine hundred thousand American black bears in the world. Any surplus is shot, because otherwise there are ‘too many’. People are so ubiquitous that a bear frequently encounters them. Once every two years, one such person is mauled to death after stroking a bear cub or feeding it sweets.
Once every two years, one such person is mauled to death after stroking a bear cub or feeding it sweets
A tidy house is a happy house. If we continue to let our production, consumption and waste grow, I expect that natural disasters and wars will come that herald a gigantic contraction of humanity. Perhaps by as much as 999 per mille. After that, the remnant of humanity can plunder the earth to its heart’s content – the planet can handle that. The period of involuntary contraction will be a grim time, one that could last several centuries.
That is why I advocate voluntary contraction. And because nobody wants to give up a penny, contraction is only achievable through population limitation. Old Malthus had foresight. To begin with, we should abolish child benefit, which children gain nothing from anyway. The money saved could be spent on things that do benefit children, such as education, childcare, leisure activities and healthcare.
Unfortunately, population decline is a taboo subject. Politics actively pursues growth – more, more, more. The environmental movement stays silent on population decline, partly out of fear of racism. After all, white populations have smaller families than black ones? So Europe will presumably think Africa should shrink. But no: Africa’s CO2 emissions are half those of Europe, even though three times as many people live there. Population decline is therefore more effective in Europe.
After a contraction of 999 per mille, one in a thousand people would remain: 8.2 million. Still ten times the number of American black bears, twenty times the number of chimpanzees and five hundred times the number of bonobos. Whether that is too many we do not know. What we can know is that Ian McEwan’s prognosis is too optimistic.
Koos Dijksterhuis writes daily nature observations in Trouw, and writes books and formal verse in rhyme.