Statements from Massimo Livi-Bacci and Richard Choularton for discussion
MUTTARAK Raya
Dear colleagues,
It was really impressive to observe a high number of participants at today’s Webminar.
I’d like to thank our panelists once again and of course the participants as well as Alex, Susana and Lisa for the organization.
Today, we start our discussion with the statements from Massimo Livi Bacci and Richard Choularton.
Massimo listed out a nice set of remarks that we could base our exchange around:
- Whether Malthus’s theory that population growth will outweigh supply of food and other resources is still relevant today.
- Alternatively, whether the theory of Boserup on agricultural intensification and innovation stimulated by population growth is more relevant. This debate, of course, has been around for a long time but with new data and more advanced analytical methods, demographers can contribute to better understanding of the relationship between population and natural resources.
- How heterogeneity in key demographic behaviour i.e. fertility, mortality and migration across regions and communities impact inequality in food availability and security.
- What are solutions to issues such as malnutrition in regions with high population growth, long-lasting impact of childhood malnutrition and climate-induced migration? Whose responsibility: market, national government and/or international communities?
Richard’s statement focuses on food security crises driven by climate change and its relationship with population dynamics. He raised five important points to consider:
1) Complex drivers of food crises
2) Understanding the etiology of food crises and their arc
3) Severity and duration mask population dynamics
4) Slow onset climate change happens one disaster at a time
5) The rapid accumulation and changing nature of climate risks
There were also questions from the audience about different mechanisms through which climate change affects agricultural production such as through affecting agriculture labour force. Another important question that we could discuss further is about the effect of climate change on health. This is also a relevant and important field.
Please send cyberseminar contributions to the email discussion list at pernse...@ciesin.columbia.edu
Finally, a few general guidelines:
· we recommend reading the background materials, however this is not necessary in order to contribute to the discussions and debates.
· As a general rule we like to encourage informed contributions – i.e., based on first-hand research, personal observation, or familiarity with the literature.
· Where assertions are made, we suggest (to the extent of possible) to include citations and provide references at the end of your message.
Without further ado, we wish all a very fruitful discussion!
We look forward to a stimulating discussion!
-- Raya Muttarak, Moderator, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
-- Andres Ignacio, Moderator, Director for Planning and Geomatics, Environmental Science for Social Change, Philippines
-- Susana Adamo & Alex de Sherbinin, PERN Co-Coordinators, CIESIN, Columbia University, USA
Raya Muttarak, DPhil
Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (Univ. Vienna, IIASA, VID/ÖAW)
Deputy Program Director, World Population Program
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone : +43 2236 807 329
Fax: +43 2236 71 313
Email: mutt...@iiasa.ac.at,
raya.m...@oeaw.ac.at
MUTTARAK Raya
Dear Monica,
Yes we will post the slides including the presentation.
Best wishes,
Raya
From: Monica DasGupta [mailto:mdas...@gmail.com]
Sent: 18 May, 2020 6:33 PM
To: MUTTARAK Raya <mutt...@iiasa.ac.at>
Cc: pernse...@ciesin.columbia.edu
Subject: Powerpoints from the PERN Cyberseminar today?
I hope you will available the Powerpoints that were presented at the excellent cyberseminar today?
Monica
--
The Population-Environment Research Network (PERN) Cyberseminar Discussion List
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Giuseppe Molinario
On Monday, May 18, 2020 at 5:44:24 PM UTC+2, MUTTARAK Raya wrote:
Dear colleagues,
It was really impressive to observe a high number of participants at today’s Webminar.
I’d like to thank our panelists once again and of course the participants as well as Alex, Susana and Lisa for the organization.
Today, we start our discussion with the statements from Massimo Livi Bacci and Richard Choularton.
Massimo listed out a nice set of remarks that we could base our exchange around:
- Whether Malthus’s theory that population growth will outweigh supply of food and other resources is still relevant today.
- Alternatively, whether the theory of Boserup on agricultural intensification and innovation stimulated by population growth is more relevant. This debate, of course, has been around for a long time but with new data and more advanced analytical methods, demographers can contribute to better understanding of the relationship between population and natural resources.
- How heterogeneity in key demographic behaviour i.e. fertility, mortality and migration across regions and communities impact inequality in food availability and security.
- What are solutions to issues such as malnutrition in regions with high population growth, long-lasting impact of childhood malnutrition and climate-induced migration? Whose responsibility: market, national government and/or international communities?
Richard’s statement focuses on food security crises driven by climate change and its relationship with population dynamics. He raised five important points to consider:
1) Complex drivers of food crises
2) Understanding the etiology of food crises and their arc
3) Severity and duration mask population dynamics
4) Slow onset climate change happens one disaster at a time
5) The rapid accumulation and changing nature of climate risks
There were also questions from the audience about different mechanisms through which climate change affects agricultural production such as through affecting agriculture labour force. Another important question that we could discuss further is about the effect of climate change on health. This is also a relevant and important field.
Please send cyberseminar contributions to the email discussion list at pernseminars@ciesin.columbia.edu
Jane O'Sullivan
I loved Massimo’s paper, and his very pertinent questions. In response mainly to Question 5, I’m attaching a chapter addressing this topic.
Massimo raises the “debate” between Malthus and Boserup. Although Boserup frames her thesis as a disproof of Malthus, she misrepresents Malthus’ position by claiming that he discounted technological improvement (“[Malthusianism is] based upon the belief that the supply of food for the human race is inherently inelastic”). He did not – he merely stated that it had an arithmetic tendency, in contrast to the exponential tendency of population growth (i.e. in contrast to each additional person, one technological improvement does not, of itself, beget more technological improvements – indeed, as Richard Choularton observed, it might bring us nearer to limits to technically-feasible productivity). Boserup was not entirely wrong when she says Malthus believed “that population growth must be regarded as a variable dependent mainly on agricultural output” while she sees agricultural output as a variable dependent on population growth. However, she was (I believe) wrong to see these as binary propositions – both can, and clearly do, coexist.
I found it interesting that Massimo asserted that, “The two theories are only apparently contradictory.” I agree, but for different reasons. I don’t recall Boserup herself acknowledging the idea of “buying time” – this would have caused her to admit the relevance of Malthus, whom she was at pains to dismiss – although she does concede that, if population becomes sufficiently dense, it can’t sustain the investment needed for high rates of population growth.
What struck me when I read Boserup was that she described in detail exactly the emiseration of people due to population growth, that Malthus lamented. That is to say, her main driver for technological change was that people had to work harder and harder to achieve the same output. She observed that they could not be coerced into working so hard, if population pressure didn’t force them into it. But she saw this as a wholely good thing. Malthus was asking (in response to the Utopians), how could communities of people be permanently relieved of deprivations? His answer was that preventative checks on population growth would be essential (and he didn’t believe these would ever be sufficiently effective – a point with which we can readily disagree, in the age of modern contraception). Boserup was barely interested in the quality of life of the majority workers. Her interest was in “progress” – the idea that the refinements of civilization and higher achievements of mankind required differentiation of labour, which according to her required hierarchies and landlessness to coerce the masses to generate sufficient surpluses to maintain urbanization and an administrative and cultural elite. Thus Boserup’s stimulus is Malthus’ misery.
I conclude that Malthus is as relevant as ever, and Norman Borlaug was right that the Green Revolution merely bought us a few decades, that we have not used well. It will be touch-and-go whether we can avoid major famines this century. How much we can “flatten the curve” of population growth will make more difference than how much we flatten the curve of per capita greenhouse gas emissions.
Sent: 19 May 2020 01:43
To: pernse...@ciesin.columbia.edu <pernse...@ciesin.columbia.edu>
Subject: [PERN Cyberseminar] Statements from Massimo Livi-Bacci and Richard Choularton for discussion
MUTTARAK Raya
The response from Massimo.
Dear Jane,
Thank you so much for your very interesting comments. You are right, of course, when you say. “I don't recall Boserup herself acknowledging the idea of "buying time" – this would have caused her to admit the relevance of Malthus, whom she was at pains to dismiss – although she does concede that, if population becomes sufficiently dense, it can't sustain the investment needed for high rates of population growth.” This is true. However, I am interested in the “outcome” of Boserup’s theory (more than in her personal convincement), and the outcome that you aptly synthetize “Boserup’s stimulus is Malhus’ misery”. We could also say that Malthus way of “buying time” corresponds to today’s deforestation or land-grabbing…
Thank you so much for making available your chapter on “population policy and climate adaptation and mitigation”. It is an interesting reading, and very useful should I undertake a 7th edition of my book “Concise History of World Population”!
Best,
Massimo
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/ciesin.columbia.edu/d/msgid/pernseminars/SYYP282MB116757C171330A2FEFA41F61A3B90%40SYYP282MB1167.AUSP282.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.