Population crisis? AIDS?

We have touched on this before, but it does seem as though one of the main accusations thrown against the Catholic Church - that she encourages a population explosion, and at the same time, rather inconsistently, is responsible for the death of millions from AIDS (both, of course, by her opposition to contraception) - is just as shaky as one might expect from knowing something about the history of anti-Catholicism. True, the UN now seems to predict a world population of more than 10 billion by the end of the century, but these projections are disputed, and in any case the more serious challenge is not demographic but political - caused not only by unjust political and economic structures in countries with growing populations, but by the massive social problems likely to flow from the decline and ageing of the population in Europe and North America. [China and Japan too? Read the debate in the New York Times.] [See also this more recent article concerning the possible stabilization of global population by 20150.]

Skepticism about computer projections of human behaviour and natural processes generally is likely to be increased by viewing the fascinating documentary series by Adam Curtis on the BBC, "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace", which shows how these projections are largely based on ideology not reality - in particular by a determination to reduce the world to a cybernetic system that can be modelled by machines (in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary). As for AIDS, the CTS recently published an important report by Matthew Hanley called The Catholic Church and the Global AIDS Crisis which demonstrates not only that the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS has been ineffective, but that the only effective method is precisely the one adopted by the Catholic Church, namely "partner reduction". The Church is the largest single provider of health-care and support for those suffering from AIDS-related illnesses worldwide; besides which her teachings offer the only hope of an integrated and humanistic approach to human sexuality.

Population bomb defused?

For the first time in human history, more people live in cities than outside them. The world’s population has been rising steadily, from 3 billion in 1960 to nearly 7 billion now, and in forty years more it may reach 9 billion.

The numbers sound huge, but Paul Ehrlich’s alarmist prediction in his 1966 book The Population Bomb that in the 1970s hundreds of millions would starve to death has been proved false. Advances in agriculture (the “green revolution”) enabled the world to double its grain supply to compensate for increasing demand. Continued expansion of our population may similarly be offset by further advances in technology. This should not lead us to ignore the possible impact of such a huge increase of numbers on social, political and economic systems, as well as the environment. But Catholics, who are frequently confronted with arguments in favour of contraception based on the “population bomb” thesis, can take some heart from a recent study by National Geographic that emphasizes how hard it is to predict the effects of the population explosion. The real issue, it turns out, is not numbers (which in any case are due to level out by the end of the century) but the use of resources. A person in the developed world uses 32 times as many resources as someone elsewhere, and emits 200 times as much carbon dioxide.

What are the implications? You can have bigger numbers, but people have to stay poor. Or the consumption of the wealthy has to be reduced. Eliminate poverty, and educate third-world women, and population growth will cease. But eliminate poverty, and everyone will be consuming more resources. There is another way, one that allows bigger numbers while combatting poverty, and it goes by the name of “sustainable development”. That is where Catholic social teaching really comes into its own, based on an appreciation of the natural laws written into the created world. This is where we need to devote more research, to find ways to promote development without destroying the earth around us. For more on this, see the earlier post commenting on Caritas in Veritate. See also the book by Fred Pearce, Peoplequake.