The world population revisited

You've probably heard it said before that the world population is out of control. This is not a new story. It's been raging over the ages: in the 60’s; the 70’s; long before the advent of the wonderful technologies that have transformed food production and all the nice things we've come to embrace.

But what can we say about the world population today? The human population exceeded 7 billion people not that far back. Just how many people can the planet realistically support given our resource usage patterns and the waste that is generated (and our disposal habits of course - which cause all sorts of problems in the environment). Some authors (Richard Heinberg) have surmised that the optimum human population for Planet Earth given our resource usage patterns is around 2 billion people. Now we are a long way from that; currently going at more than 7 billion (and counting). So just how far can we go? Just how many more people can our planet accommodate before it reaches tipping point?

The case for dense settlements

I read an article recently from the Daily Maverick which claimed that the one place in the world with an extremely dense population (130, 000 people per square kilometre) is a suburb in Hong Kong called Mong Kok, where people are packed in high rise buildings as a matter of course. If we could translate that to sunny South Africa, this would amount to fitting the whole population of the country in the little town of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. Or even better, fitting all the more than seven billion people in the world in the Province of Mpumalanga - with some extra space to boot. We’ve got more than enough space in South Africa. We just need to plan better to optimise settlements and the valuable space we have. Next time someone tells you there are too many people in South Africa, tell them they are just too lazy to think.

Technology to the rescue
In truth technology has alway come to our rescue over the ages, providing us with endless possibilities to make the cake bigger. That’s what the Industrial Revolution was about. Same thing with the Green Revolution. The doomsayers are pessimists who consistently view the cup as half empty. Their ilk has been around from the beginning of time. It’s the kind who brazenly declared that the skies are the territory of the birds and argued that if god had intended for human beings to fly, he would have given us wings! These are folks who are just lazy to use their brains. In truth there is always a way. The very things we haven't even begun to imagine are possible. The astronomical explosion of technologies in the mobile sphere is a case in point. In truth, the past few years have brought about such amazing technological innovations that few of us could have envisioned just a decade or so ago. It seems the choice we have is either to continue to innovate and find better ways for our species to continue to thrive, or give up and allow the doomsayers to win the day. There is a cliché that whoever says something is impossible normally finds themselves interrupted by someone doing the exact thing.

Natural resources are finite of course. Or at the least, they do not regenerate fast enough to match our consumption rates. But our minds are not. Water scarcities are predicted to cause havoc for the inhabitants of Planet Earth in the immediate future. At least those are the theories drummed up by pessimists. Of course water is a finite resource. But our thinking is not. And technology gives us options. The good thing is that we are aware and can create options. Which is pretty much what we should spend time doing. Of course it is not wise to waste a resource that is in limited supply. The challenge is in being more efficient in the use of such resources, which is where technology and education kick in.

The case of individual countries
South AFRICA is a medium-sized country with a medium-sized economy, which is struggling with challenges of unemployment (among disadvantaged darkies for the most part), and poor education standards (for darkies too – most of whom got the short end of the stick, owing to apartheid). So that puts us is a very compromising position compared to other countries in the global marketplace. We have a small, poorly equipped population. Those aren't favourable traits in a skills-driven economy. So how can we close the gap in the BRICs grouping? How can we make ourselves count? The world does not owe us anything. The party is over. We need to get our priorities right and make the most of what we have. We need to open up and give opportunities to the dreamers among us. We need to make a habit of embracing skilled foreigners. America became as big and dominant as it is today because of the contributions that skilled foreigners made in the economy. We would be dumb if we missed this glorious opportunity. No room for xenophobia in a globalised marketplace!

Immigrants everywhere!

So there you go folks. Let's build this country. Let us learn to embrace foreigners and make it easy for them to settle in Mzansi. We are too small and too insignificant on our own. We need all the help we can get. We are up against a billion Indians (we are just 5 per cent of the Indian population); we are a mere 25 per cent of the Russian population; a much smaller proportion to that of Brazil; and a measly 5% of the population of mighty China. Saddled with our inferior education and huge unemployment levels - where a big section of the population does not play any meaningful role in our economy - we are nowhere near giving these guys a serious run for their money. The Chinese and Indians are churning out almost two million engineers every year, compared to our paltry two thousand or so. We are short of manpower; call that human-power if you want to be gender-neutral.

So in our world, population matters. The dominant countries have sizable populations. A hundred million seems a fair bet according to The Economist. That’s pretty much the reason why all forecasts confirm that Nigeria is on track to overtake SA soon on the GDP front. So if you are one of those doomsayers who think small populations are a godsend and are advocating for control of birth rates and all that, think twice. Big populations may be a burden in cases where the children do not get a good start in life, but they do increase the probability of those kids taking up places in the economy. We just have to ensure that a good many of them get a good start in life. A whole bunch of us from the townships and villages who are scattered across South Africa today did not necessarily get the best start in life. But not even such a predicament as an unfortunate background can stand in the way of a solid determination to succeed.