A commentary on the book “Empty Planet; The Shock of Global Population Decline”
by D. Bricker and J. Ibbitson
The authors lament what they percieve to be an impending and disastrous decline in global population. However, this hand-ringing sharply contrasts with the reality of a burgeoning world population of 7.8 billion (2021) which is increasing by one California every 6 months, or by one San Francisco every four days. Concern over a global population “collapse” seems reckless in a world where billions of poor struggle for existence and equity (It has even been suggested that the book is using irony to emphasize the Earth';s excessive population growth).
Data from the Global Footprint Network (GFN) and its Earth Overshoot Day show that for at least the past 50 years there has been an increasing and unsustainable gap between global consumption and biocapacity. Today only a few are fortunate enough to be able consume resources adequate for health and welfare, while the majority suffer in poverty and lack of equity.
We are rapidly destroying the Earth';s oceans and potable water sources and are depleting and degrading the Earth';s natural capital. GFN concludes that achieving sustainability will require a steep reduction of world population. Experts estimate that a sustainable population may number as few as one billion humans, in order to pave the way for a needed rise in average health standards and lifestyles and to account for the necessities of wildlife. Sustainability has already been attained or is being approached in a number of nations and has been demonstrated to be achievable through widespread voluntary reduction of average family sizes to 2 or fewer children.
Against all evidence, the authors' alarmist view is that ”We must ignore (population decline) no longer” (p. 226). They even favor ramping up per capita consumption. They complain that ”...smaller families...reduce the number of consumers...” and they invoke the non sequitur “...robots have proved pretty useless at purchasing refrigerators...” (p. 236). Their stated “solutions” include migration, which although desirable on other grounds, simply redistributes population without altering global population or numbers of consumers.
In an an odd reversal of its theme of promoting more consumption and population, the book concludes with a well-camouflaged admission that fewer people would make for a better world. It notes that benefits of reduced global population include ”...a major role in limiting C emissions...,” and ”...the best prescription for protecting the seas...” (pp. 229-230).
The book's bibliography suggests that the backgrounds of the authors are in Canadian politics rather than in global population studies. See the following sources which argue for a globally sustainable future: “Enough is Enough” by Dietz and O';Neill, “In Growth We Trust” by Stennett, and “;The Story of More,”; by Jahren.