Smart Population Growth

There are a wide variety of theories on how population growth will affect our future. Most population growth arguments are polar opposites, believing growth will save the world through its advances in technology or it will destroy the world through ecosystem degradation and resource depletion. Homer-Dixon believes the latter and argues that population growth plays a negative role by causing an increased demand for resources and will lead to environmental scarcity and eventually conflict. However he also recognizes the possibility of population growth causing a boost in productivity, technological advances, and even environmental improvement.

Using the research that has been done on population growth, a plan should be formulated to maximize the benefits and minimize the consequences of population growth. Because growth seems to be inevitable, there should be a plan to make sure it is done in the safest way possible to avoid the potential harms. Creating a concept of smart population growth would help to avoid many of the problems Homer-Dixon fears may occur in the future. Smart population growth could be a term similar to sustainability with a somewhat vague definition with the goal of achieving a promising future for everyone. However smart population growth would also have specific goals tied to the concept, to avoid the problems many predict population growth will cause in the future. By following the goals of smart population growth, growth could provide the benefits of advances in technology while avoiding problems such as resource depletion.

One goal could be a commitment to education throughout the world. Education aids in reducing early pregnancies and encouraging adolescents to work hard towards achieving a promising career path. Encouraging teenagers and especially females to put their career first will aid in avoiding teen pregnancies and will most likely result in them having fewer children as they get older. Additionally, education and access to contraceptives should also be an important element of this step and will help to avoid early pregnancies. This should be especially prevalent in developing countries, to help keep their growth stabilized and not at an exponential rate. By keeping growth at a slow and steady rate, there will be more time to find ways to support higher numbers of people without depleting resources. Exponential growth is much more dangerous as the population increases at a rate that is difficult to keep up with.

Additionally, placing an emphasis on education will ensure that technological advances will be created to help support the growing population. Many people argue that as population continues to grow, advances in technology will allow the world to support more and more people. This has already been the case as the carrying capacity has increased over the past few decades. There is even the possibility of environmental improvements as technology improves. A focus on education will encourage kids to continue their commitment to learning and researching in the future and will hopefully lead to advances in technology to help support the population. Placing an emphasis on education, especially in areas where it may be inadequate, will help to improve the future of many. It could also aid in reducing gaps of income inequality, as education helps provide a more promising future. This helps to address Homer-Dixon’s concern that poorer groups will migrate to vulnerable areas and will cause land degradation to these areas.

Another goal in smart growth could be to work towards creating long lasting material goods. This goal is very tricky to address, but it would be an important step towards avoiding Homer-Dixon’s concerns of population growth causing increased resource consumption. Perhaps one of the leading causes of high resource demand is the fact that many goods are not long lasting. By encouraging manufacturers to create long lasting goods and encouraging customers to purchase long lasting goods, resource demand would go down. Additionally encouraging consumers to get broken appliances repaired instead of replacing with new appliances would help in lowering the resource demand.

Homer-Dixon raises many points about how population growth could affect the future. However, unless very strict population growth prevention policies are implemented, which is extremely unlikely, it is a problem that will have to be dealt with. Population growth does not have to only cause consequences to the world.  By focusing on education and strategies to lower resource demand, the problems of population growth can be avoided and the potential benefits will become more likely.