Having Kids vs. Overpopulation

by Phil Stott

I had the great fortune to be able to attend the World Business Forum at Radio City Music Hall recently, and to hear speakers like President Bill Clinton, George Lucas (yup, that one), management guru Gary Hamel, and Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman all giving their views on where they think we're headed in coming years.

While I could have listened to Clinton speak all day-and on any subject-the speaker who gave me most pause for thought was a guy called Jeffrey Sachs. Another economist-he advises President Obama, as it happens-he gave a speech titled "Economics for a Crowded Planet" that really struck a chord with me.

Part of the reason Sachs' speech stood for me was because he was one of the few presenters at the conference who seemed unable to find any sort of silver lining to the challenges we're facing as a society. He wasn't exactly predicting doom and disaster, but his core point was that we're all going to have to get used to getting by with a lot less in future-the reason being that there are an ever-increasing number of people on this planet, and all using more resources than ever before. And, given that we're already using more resources than the planet can sustain, something's going to have to change.

One of the key points in Sachs' speech was that the current rate of population growth on the planet is unsustainable. We've grown from around 6 billion at the turn of the millennium to an estimated 6.8 billion today, and current projections have us surpassing the 9 billion mark sometime in the 2050's. (By contrast, Wikipedia puts the global population in 1900 at a scant 1.65 billion.) What's most frightening about those figures is that Sachs estimates the planet can only sustain 8 billion-meaning we'll be at crisis point before most of our kids are in their 40s.

As parents, one of our most basic hopes is that our kids grow up to lead better lives-and in a better world-than we did. Now I'm not complaining; I've had a pretty good life thus far, and lived it in a reasonably stable and peaceful world. My real concern is that, with all the problems that a population crunch is likely to bring with it (forget wars over oil, fresh water could become a reason for conflict) the world my kids will inherit is likely to be much less stable, and much more crowded. And obviously, as someone who's brought one child into this world-and is awaiting the arrival of a second in February-I'm part of the problem.

Therein lies the root of a question that I just can't seem to get a handle on, no matter how hard I try. If, as Sachs claims, population needs to be capped at around 8 billion, how do we go about achieving that? The practical answer is to promote family planning around the world, but the much larger philosophical questions remain: In a world where controlling population is a must, is it possible to make a decision about who does and doesn't get to have kids, or how many they can have? If it is, how do we make that decision? And, knowing all of that, should we be having children at all.

That last question seems to me to be the key to everything. I was aware of the overpopulation debate before having a child, but I went ahead and did it anyway-and it's been the best thing I've ever done. For me-or anyone else in my position-to then turn around and tell someone else they can't enjoy the same rights would be a classic case of "do as I say, not as I do."

So there's the issue: as parents, we're directly responsible for contributing to the overcrowding of the planet. Sure, you might not be having 12 kids to help you eke out a living in an economic backwater, but numbers are numbers, and even your one or two offspring add up. How, then, do we reconcile that with the need to keep the planet liveable for the future generations we're so busy creating?