The End of Doom

by Ronald Bailey

  Of the nineteen countries: Population Reference Bureau, 2013 World Population Data Sheet.

  Ehrlich doubled down: Paul Ehrlich, “Eco-Catastrophe.” Ramparts, 1969, 25.

  Both Pakistan and India: Economic Times of India, “India Likely to Export 18 Million Tonnes Rice, Wheat in 2013/14: Report,” February 24, 2014. articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-02-24/news/47635825_1_top-rice-exporter-global-wheat-prices-government-warehouses.

  The FAO … reports: FAOSTAT. faostat3.fao.org/faostat-gateway/go/to/download/O/OA/E.

  per capita consumption: Mette Wik, Prabhu Pingali, and Sumiter Broca, “Global Agricultural Performance: Past Trends and Future Prospects,” background paper for the World Development Report 2008, World Bank. siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2008/Resources/2795087-1191427986785/Pingali-Global_Agricultural_Performance.pdf.

  “plant breeding efforts”: Keith W. Jaggard, Aiming Qi, and Eric S. Ober, “Possible Changes to Arable Crop Yields by 2050.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365 (August 16, 2010): 2835–2851. rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1554/2835.full.

  “if during the next”: Paul Waggoner, “How Much Land Can Ten Billion Spare for Nature?” Jesse H. Ausubel and H. Dale Langford, eds., Technological Trajectories and the Human Environment, National Academy of Engineering, 1997, 56–73. www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4767&page=56.

  India produces 31 bushels: Ronald Phillips, “Mobilizing Science to Break Yield Barriers.” Background paper to the CGIAR 2009 Science Forum workshop: “Beyond the Yield Curve: Exerting the Power of Genetics, Genomics and Synthetic Biology,” “2009, 17. www.scienceforum2009.nl/Portals/11/BGWS4.pdf.

  that past population growth: Julio A. Gonzalo, Félix-Fernando Muñoz, David J. Santos, “Using a Rate Equations Approach to Model World Population Trends.” Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International 89 (February 2013): 192–198.

  “Overpopulation was a spectre”: “A Model Predicts That the World’s Populations Will Stop Growing in 2050.” Phys.org. 4 (April 2013). phys.org/news/2013-04-world-populations.html.

  “there is around”: Wolfgang Lutz, Warren Sanderson, and Sergei Scherbov, “The End of World Population Growth.” Nature 412 (August 2, 2001): 543–545.

  “most existing world”: Stuart Basten, Wolfgang Lutz, and Sergei Scherbov, “Very Long Range Global Population Scenarios to 2300 and the Implications of Sustained Low Fertility.” Demographic Research 28 (May 30, 2013): 1145–1166.

  In another 2013 study: K. C. Samir et al., “Results of New Wittgenstein Centre Population Projections by Age, Sex and Level of Education for 171 Countries.” Joint Eurostat/UNECE Work Session on Demographic Projections, October 29–31, 2013. staging.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/stats/documents/ece/ces/ge.11/2013/WP_17.2_01.pdf.

  projections are way too high: Sanjeev Sanjay, “Predictions of a Rogue Demographer.” The Wide Angle, Deutsche Bank, September 9, 2013.

  world population stabilization: Patrick Gerland et al., “World Population Stabilization Unlikely This Century.” Science 346.6206 (September 18, 2014): 234–237. www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6206/234.abstract.

  In their November 2014 study: Wolfgang Lutz, William P. Butz, and Samir, K. C. eds., 2014 World Population and Global Human Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. webarchive.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/Documents/XO-14-031.pdf.

  This approach suggests: Bobbi S. Low et al., “Influences on Women’s Reproductive Lives: Unexpected Ecological Underpinnings.” Cross-Cultural Research 42.3 (2008): 201–219.

  Another study in 2013: Bobbi S. Low et al., “Life Expectancy, Fertility, and Women’s Lives: A Life-History Perspective.” Cross-Cultural Research 47.2 (2013): 198–225.

  University of Connecticut anthropologists: Nicola L. Bulled and Richard Sosis, “Examining the Relationship Between Life Expectancy, Reproduction, and Educational Attainment.” Human Nature 21.3 (2010): 269–289.

  US fertility rates: Michael Haines, “Fertility and Mortality in the United States.” EH.Net Encyclopedia, Robert Whaples, ed., March 19, 2008. eh.net/encyclopedia/fertility-and-mortality-in-the-united-states.

  “further increases in the rate”: Oded Galor, “The Demographic Transition: Causes and Consequences.” Discussion Paper series, 2012, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit, No. 6334. www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/58611/1/715373668.pdf.

  OECD economist: Fabrice Murtin, “On the Demographic Transition 1870–2000.” Paris School of Economics Working Paper (2009).

  Lutz calculates that: Wolfgang Lutz, “Toward a 21st Century Population Policy Paradigm.” International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, February 2, 2013.

  As Galor noted: World Trade Organization: www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/its2002_e/chp_2_e.pdf.

  as global fertility declined: John A. Doces, “Globalization and Population: International Trade and the Demographic Transition.” International Interactions 37 (May 2011): 127–146. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03050629.2011.568838#preview.

  24–25 “increasing international exchange”: Mark M. Gray, Miki Caul Kittilson, and Wayne Sandholtz, “Women and Globalization: A Study of 180 Countries, 1975–2000.” International Organization 60 (Spring 2006): 293–333. www.socsci.uci.edu/~wsandhol/Gray-Kittilson-Sandholtz-IO-2006.pdf.

  conclusion is further bolstered: Ulla Lehmijoki and Tapio Palokangas, “Population Growth Overshooting and Trade in Developing Countries.” University of Helsinki Discussion Paper No. 621, December 7, 2005. ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/val/kansa/disc/621/populati.pdf

  “Fertility rate is highest”: Seth Norton, “Population Growth, Economic Freedom, and the Rule of Law.” PERC Policy Series, February 2002. perc.org/sites/default/files/ps24.pdf.

  2013 Index of Economic Freedom: Global Finance, “Economic Freedom by Country—2013 Ranking.” www.gfmag.com/component/content/article/119-economic-data/12450-economic-freedom-by-countryhtml.html#axzz2wzLqcuHl.

  Of the 231 countries: CIA Factbook 2013. www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html?countryName=Singapore&countryCode=sn®ionCode=eas&rank=224.

  continuing global abatement: Center for Systemic Peace, “Global Conflict Trends,” October 14, 2013. www.systemicpeace.org/conflict.htm.

  “after the year 2000”: David T. Burbach and Christopher J. Fettweis, “The Coming Stability? The Decline of Warfare in Africa and Implications for International Security.” Contemporary Security Policy 35.3 (October 2014): 421–445. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13523260.2014.963967#.VMbgfcYfku0.

  Africa is rapidly urbanizing: African Development Bank Group, “Urbanization in Africa,” December 12, 2012. www.afdb.org/en/blogs/afdb-championing-inclusive-growth-across-africa/post/urbanization-in-africa-10143/.

  African urbanites: David Shapiro and B. Oleko Tambashe, “Fertility Transition in Urban and Rural Areas of Sub-Saharan Africa.” Originally presented at the 1999 Chaire Quetelet Symposium in Demography at the Catholic University of Louvain, September 2000. grizzly.la.psu.edu/~dshapiro/Chaire_Quetelet_paper.pdf.

  greater urban-rural differential: Fanaye Tadesse and Derek Headey, “Urbanization and Fertility Rates in Ethiopia.” Ethiopia Strategy Support Program II, Working Paper 35, International Food Policy Research Institute. www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/esspwp35.pdf.

  “Would your life be better off?” Ramez Naam, The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2013.

  2. Is the World Running on Empty?

  “recent trends in price”: John Young, “Mining the Earth,” Worldwatch Paper 109. Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, July 1992, 6.

  “real commodity prices”: Office of the Chairman of the Group of 77, “Overview of the Situation of Commodities in Developing Countries,” March 2005, www.g77.org/ifcc11/docs/doc-04-ifcc11.pdf.

  average prices for energy: John Bluedorn et al., International Monetary Fund, World Ec
onomic Outlook: Growth Resuming, Dangers Remain, Chapter 4, “Commodity Price Swings and Commodity Exporters,” April 2012, 125.

  food price index: FAO Food Price Index, Food and Agriculture Organization, January, 19 2014. www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/.

  “The world is at”: Richard Heinberg, “Beyond the Limits to Growth,” Post Carbon Reader Series: Foundation Concepts, 2010, 2. www.postcarbon.org/Reader/PCReader-Heinberg-Limits.pdf.

  “Government and corporate officials”: Michael Klare, The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources. New York: Macmillan, 2012, 7. michaelklare.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Excerpt.pdf.

  “The world is in transition”: Lester Brown, Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity. New York: Norton, 2012, 160. www.earth-policy.org/books/fpep/fpepch1.

  “It is a matter of”: Hans W. Singer, “The Distribution of Gains Between Investing and Borrowing Countries.” American Economic Review 40 (1950): 477.

  “the global economy witnesses”: David Jacks, “From Boom to Bust: A Typology of Real Commodity Prices in the Long Run,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 18874, March 2013, 2. www.nber.org/papers/w18874.

  increases in commodity prices: Martin Stuermer, “150 Years of Boom and Bust: What Drives Mineral Commodity Prices?,” Munich RePEc Archive Paper 51859, December 4, 2013, 9. mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/51859/1/MPRA_paper_51859.pdf.

  The super-cycles are: Martin Stuermer, “150 Years of Boom and Bust: What Drives Mineral Commodity Prices?” Munich RePEc Archive Paper 51859, December 4, 2013. mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/51859/1/MPRA_paper_51859.pdf.

  “Since 1871, the Economist”: Blake Clayton, “Bad News for Pessimists Everywhere,” Energy, Security, and Climate, Council on Foreign Relations, March 22, 2013.

  many researchers believe: David Jacks, “From Boom to Bust: A Typology of Real Commodity Prices in the Long Run,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 18874, March 2013, 4. www.nber.org/papers/w18874; and Maria Kolesnikova and Isis Almeida, “Goldman Sees New Commodity Cycle as Shale Oil Spurs U.S. Growth.” Bloomberg News, January 13, 2014. www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-13/goldman-sees-new-commodity-cycle-as-shale-oil-spurs-u-s-growth.html.

  all known oil reserves: Donella H. Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth. New York: New American Library, 1972, 66.

  2013 now ranks: Tim McMahon, “Historical Crude Oil Prices: Oil Prices 1946–Present,” InflationData.com, March 6, 2014. inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp.

  When the bet was settled: John Tierney, “Economic Optimism? Yes, I’ll Take That Bet.” New York Times, December 27, 2010. www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/science/28tierney.html?_r=0.

  world had reached the peak: Werner Zittel and Jörg Schindler, “Crude Oil: The Supply Outlook.” Energy Watch Group, October 2007, 117. www.lightrailuk.com/pdf/ewg_oilreport_oct_2007.pdf.

  an analysis released by: Steve Geisel, “New ‘Super-Spike’ Might Mean $200 a Barrel Oil.” MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2008. www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-sachs-raises-possibility-of-200-a-barrel-oil.

  In 2014, global oil production: US Energy Information Administration, “Short-Term Energy Outlook,” May 2014. www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/global_oil.cfm.

  that to meet demand in 2035: Richard Newell and Stuart Iler, “The Global Energy Outlook.” NBER Working Paper 18967, April 2013.

  total world petroleum reserves: International Energy Agency, Resources to Reserves 2013. www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/resources2013SUM.pdf.

  “Oil is not in short supply”: Leonardo Maugeri, “Oil: The Next Revolution,” Discussion Paper 2012-10, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, June 2012.

  “Conventional recoverable resources”: IEA, World Energy Outlook 2011: Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?, 7. www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media/weowebsite/2011/WEO2011_GoldenAgeofGasReport.pdf.

  2.6 million oil and gas wells: Wilderness Society, “Oil and Gas Drilling: Some Key Facts,” April 2011. beyondoil.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/drilling-in-america-february-2011.pdf.

  (OPEC) wells total: OPEC, Annual Statistical Bulletin 2012, 27. www.opec.org/opec_web/static_files_Project/media/downloads/publications/ASB2010_2011.pdf.

  27 and 30 billion barrels of reserves: Richard Nehring, Linking U.S. Oil and Gas Reserve Estimates. RAND Corporation, September 1984, 3. www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/notes/2009/N2049.pdf.

  US proven oil reserves at 29 billion barrels: US Energy Information Administration, “U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil,” 2014. www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS1&f=A.

  45–46 “an implied cost”: ExxonMobil, The Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040, 2014, 32.usaans1.usaa.com/en/energy/energy-outlook.

  carbon dioxide prices: Rachel Wilson et al., “2012 Carbon Dioxide Price Forecast,” Synapse Energy Economics, October 4, 2012. www.synapse-energy.com/sites/default/files/SynapseReport.2012-10.0.2012-CO2-Forecast.A0035.pdf.

  Reuters polled twenty: Claire Milhench and Alexander Winning, “Oil by 2020 to Fall to $80 in Real Terms—Reuters Poll.” Reuters, October 30, 2013. www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/30/brent-poll-idUSL5N0IJ3ED20131030.

  $128 per barrel: IEA, World Energy Outlook Factsheet, “How Will Global Energy Markets Evolve to 2035?” www.iea.org/media/files/WEO2013_factsheets.pdf.

  real oil prices: Bilge Erten and José Antonio Ocampo, “Super-Cycles of Commodity Prices Since the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” Initiative for Policy Dialogue Working Paper Series, Columbia University, January 2012, 28.

  “The age of ‘cheap oil’”: Leonardo Maugeri, “Oil: The Next Revolution,” Discussion Paper 2012-10, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, June 2012, 6.

  government-owned oil companies: Silvana Tordo, Brandon Tracy, and Noora Arfaa, World Bank Working Paper 218, National Oil Companies and Value Creation, Vol. 1, 2011. siteresources.worldbank.org/INTOGMC/Resources/9780821388310.pdf.

  In the wake of the Arab Spring: Michael L. Ross, “Will Oil Drown the Arab Spring?” Foreign Affairs, September/August 2011. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68200/michael-l-ross/will-oil-drown-the-arab-spring.

  “Scarcity leads to shortage”: David Zetland, “Do Smaller Water Footprints Lead to Bigger Profits?” The Guardian, November 22, 2010. www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/water-footprints-bigger-profits.

  “Scarcity and shortage are the same”: David Zetland, Living with Water Scarcity. Aguanomics Press, 2014, 100. livingwithwaterscarcity.com/.

  “Underpricing”: Summary Human Development Report 2006, Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis. New York: UNDP, 2006, 52. hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr_2006_summary_en.pdf.

  Even now, 3.6 billion: Drinking Water. World Health Organization, 2012. www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/monitoring/water.pdf.

  foolish policies: John Parnell, “World on Course to Run out of Water, Warns Ban Ki-Moon.” The Guardian, May 23, 2013. www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/22/world-run-out-water-ban-ki-moon1.

  water privatization: Fredrik Segerfeldt, Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the World’s Water Crisis. Washington, DC: Cato Books, 2006, 144; see a short version at www.ein.eu/files/Segerfeldt_Amigo.pdf.

  these initial projects: Jennifer Franco and Sylvia Kay, “The Global Water Grab: A Primer.” Transnational Institute, March 13, 2012. www.tni.org/primer/global-water-grab-primer#countries.

  “Barriers to adaptation”: IPCC, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, April 2014, Chapter 3, 76. ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap3_FGDall.pdf.

  recent alarms: Tom Philpott, “Are We Heading Toward ‘Peak Fertilizer’?” Mother Jones, November 28, 2012. www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/11/are-we-heading-toward-peak-fer
tilizer.

  applying nitrogen, phosphorus: National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame, Justus von Liebig. www.aghalloffame.com/hall/liebig.aspx.

  “humanity faces a Malthusian trap”: James Elser and Stuart White, “Peak Phosphorus.” Foreign Policy, April 20, 2010. www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/20/peak_phosphorus.

  “impending shortage of two fertilizers”: Jeremy Grantham, “Be Persuasive. Be Brave. Be Arrested (If Necessary).” Nature 491.7424 (November 14, 2012). www.nature.com/news/be-persuasive-be-brave-be-arrested-if-necessary-1.11796.

  development of such nutrient-efficient crops: Xiurong Wang et al., “Overexpressing AtPAP15 Enhances Phosphorus Efficiency in Soybean.” Plant Physiology 151.1 (September 2009): 233–240. www.plantphysiol.org/content/151/1/233.abstract.

  “insufficient economically recoverable lithium”: William Tahil, “The Trouble with Lithium: The Implications of Future PHEV Production for Lithium Demand.” Meridian International Research, January 2007. www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/refs/nuclear/TroubleLithium.pdf.

  “Even with a rapid”: Paul Gruber et al., “Global Lithium Availability: A Constraint for Electric Vehicles?” Journal of Industrial Ecology 15.5 (October 2011): 760–775. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00359.x/abstract.

  on the order of 1 billion: Cyrus Wadia, Paul Albertus, and Venkat Srinivasan, “Resource Constraints on the Battery Energy Storage Potential for Grid and Transportation Applications.” Journal of Power Sources 196.3 (February 2011), 1598. cyruswadia.com/prof/Publications_files/Wadia%20et.al.%20Resource%20Constraints%20on%20Battery%20Storage.pdf.

  hike in the price of some raw material: Chris Rhodes, “Peak Minerals: Shortage of Rare Earths Metals Threatens Renewable Energy,” OilPrice.com, July 30, 2012. oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Peak-Minerals-Shortage-of-Rare-Earth-Metals-Threatens-Renewable-Energy.html; Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, Deniz Koca, and Kristin Vala Ragnarsdottir, “Metals, Minerals, Energy, Wealth, Food and Population: Urgent Policy Considerations for a Sustainable Society.” Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering B 1 (January 20, 2013): 499–533. www.davidpublishing.com/davidpublishing/Upfile/10/21/2013/2013102168383361.pdf.; and Ugo Bardi and Marco Pagani, “Peak Minerals.” The Oil Drum, October 15, 2007. www.theoildrum.com/node/3086.