Resource inadequacies and welfare. The need to control population
By Dr. Yashpal Singh
Chairman, The Wealthy Waste School India
Former Director Environment, Government of U.P.
I have often been sharing my views on the relationship between population, resources, social order and sustainable development and vocalising that a high demand for goods and services combined with a high population and limited resources is resulting in reduced welfare, deteriorating social and cultural values and humanity is in pain and insecure. ‘Man’ is primarily a ‘parasite’ on nature. We are designed to consume and if that is so we have to be careful in the way the resources are used and equitably allocated amongst us.
Surprisingly, a significant number of people I interacted with did not agree and believed that resources are sufficient and population is not a problem. I was surprised as to how these people missed the importance of increasing population and diminishing resources and the impacts it has on environment, sustainability and the social fabric. How was it that they missed the widely accepted doctrine that population numbers tend to grow exponentially while food production grows linearly, never quite keeping pace with population and that nature plays the ultimate balancing act through epidemics and pandemics.
I thought that it is time, probably, to gather some more facts on this so that the criticality of the issue is not lost to the coming generations.
‘Population’ is a critical factor in sustainable development and needs to be regulated. Some data of the past 12000 years reveals that while it had taken over 11800 years for humans to reach a population of 1 billion, it has taken just about 235 years to add another 7 billion. The current world population in 2025 is 8.2 billion with more than 4.2 billion added in the last 40 years. We are adding almost about 1 million to the world population every week. As per U.N. estimates, the World population is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100. In 1970, there were roughly half as many people in the world as there are now. The ideal population size for the earth has been estimated at 2-3-billion.
India leads with a total population of about 1.46 billion and has a population density of 488 persons per square kilometre as compared to 151 persons in China,38 in the U.S., 9 in Russia and 03 in Australia. Does it make us happy?
We have only one earth. Today the. 8.2 billion people on it are using more of its resources than it can provide and gobbling up the renewable resources of 1.7 earths. Unless things change, we will need three earths by 2050. If we consume resources and generate waste as in the United States, we may need 05 earths to sustain the human population. The UN currently projects that we will need 70% more food by 2050 but, increasing agricultural production comes at a cost to nature. Currently 80% of extinction threats to animals and birds are due to agriculture.
Indias present consumption of resources and waste generation is equal to a resource requirement of about 0.7 Earths, but we are developing and have to stand in line with the developed countries upping our consumerism and waste generation. There is a dire need to increase our quality of life which may require an increase in our per capita resource footprint but our total resource consumption and waste generation need to be regulated. Our planet can offer a quality of life comparable to that, enjoyed, in the European Union to not more than 2 billion people. With a population of 8 to 10 billion, welfare per person on a world scale falls to that of a poor farmer who can scarcely provide sufficient food for himself and knows nothing of welfare. Thus, we will have to use and share our resources judiciously to avoid dispute and war.
The ecological footprint is a measure of how much area of biologically productive land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates, using prevailing technology and resource management practices. The units for ecological footprint are global hectares (Gha).
An ecological deficit occurs when the Ecological Footprint of a population exceeds the biocapacity of the area available to that population. A national ecological deficit means that the country is net-importing biocapacity through trade, liquidating national ecological assets or emitting more carbon dioxide waste into the atmosphere than its own ecosystems absorb. In contrast, an ecological reserve exists when the biocapacity of a region exceeds its population’s Ecological Footprint. And India is a country with an ecological deficit.
The world-average ecological footprint was 2.6 global hectares per person in 2019, with an average biocapacity of 1.50 global hectares leading to a global deficit of 1.1 global hectares per person meaning humanity’s consumption of natural resources was outpacing the Earth’s ability to replenish those resources. Indias biocapacity per person, for the same period was 0.4 Gha while the ecological footprint was 1.1 Gha which is a deficit of 0.7, U.S with a biocapacity of 3.7 Gha and an ecological footprint of 7.8 Gha has a deficit of 4.19 Gha. Australia on the other hand with an ecological footprint of 6.1 but a biocapacity of 11.5 has a surplus of 5.1 Gha. Canada with an ecological footprint of 7.9 and bioresources of 14.5 has a resource surplus of 6.6. Countries will have to increasingly share and care but on global level, resources are insufficient.
According to the IMF World Economic Outlook (October 2024), India’s nominal GDP in 2024 was projected at $3,889 billion at current prices. India is the 5th largest economy globally but in terms of nominal GDP per person, we are 144th in the world and in terms of PPP GDP per person we are at number127. Population does matter. India’s nominal per capita is over 50 times lower than the richest country and approximately 8.4 times greater than the world’s poorest country. India is at 38th position in the list of Asian countries.
India’s wealth is grossly inequal. The data does indicate that inequality is linked to population. The top 10% of the Indian Population holds 77% of the total National wealth.
Growing populations and the requirements to provide them with food and urban and industrial infrastructure has put pressures on the demand for land. According to data released by the FAO the per capita availability of agricultural land, at the global level, has shrunk from 1.45 HA in 1961 to 0.61 HA in 2021, while in India it has shrunk from 0.38 ha to 0.13 ha, a reduction of almost 67% India still accounts for a quarter of the worlds hungry people and is home to more than 190 million undernourished people. We have less than a quarter of the per capita land resources as compared to the global average of 0.61. If we multiply in numbers, we further reduce the per capita land availability.
Global per capita average annual availability of fresh water has reduced from 5177 cubic meters in 1951 to 1869 cubic meters in 2001 and is predicted to fall up to 1341 cubic meters in 2025. The UNEP stipulates that a country is considered “water-stressed” if its water availability is between 1000 to 1700 cubic meters per person. An M.I.T. Study has indicated that nearly 5 billion people may live in water stressed cities by 2050. India is one of the most water stressed countries in the world. Per capita annual fresh water availability of 1423 Cubic Meters is less than the threshold. The total water demand is projected to exceed renewable resources of water by as much as 50% in almost every state by 2030.
Resources therefor, play an important part. It is difficult to believe that population is not a problem and there are enough resources. Sustainable management of resources and population is critical to ending poverty, inequality and social disharmony and to achieve sustainable development.
The great Covid surge of April / May 2021 a most heart-rending manifestation of nature’s balancing act which was associated with shortage of beds, shortage of oxygen, shortage of medicines, shortage of crematoria and shortage of vaccines is a sad story of the gravity of this relationship between population and resources which brings only despair and tears.
Let us all realize that resources are finite and divide as we increase in numbers. Let us realize that the rate of increase of population has been and is catastrophically high, a high population with low resource availability leads to social disorder and to nature playing the balancing act. Let us also realize that dominance leads to competition and competition leads to elimination and finally extinction.
With Resources not being adequate even for the present population there is certainly a need to regulate Population for a better tomorrow.