Population 10 Billion

‘Population 10 Billion: The Coming Demographic Crisis and How To Survive It’ (2013)

by Danny Dorling (Author)

Pub. Constable, London ISBN: 9781780334912

Online: http://10billion.dannydorling.org/

Commentary

365 pages of anecdotes and opinions peppered with occasional facts do not make for an interesting read. Illustrations are sparse and, in the paperback edition at least, all black and white with tiny text (6 point?) which needs a lens to read it [for example: Page 267 ‘The top 52 world cities by population’ shows a bunch of overlapping numbered circles clustering over Europe? Middle East? Who knows where? With a scale measured in ‘flight time (hours)’ and list of 52 cities - view online as 'Figure 6.1']

Introduction: The introduction is titled ‘Stop Worrying’ and the first half of the book describes various doomsday scenarios as being scaremongering. For example Malthus is described as “The greatest failure...” after the paragraph starts “To counter a childhood when we were dosed with a diet of doom, it is worth beginning with the strongest evidence first. Evidence, that is, that all is not lost. This evidence concerns how poor is the record of those who forecast doom” [p. 110] In the next paragraph Dorling continues to 'dis Malthus, writing “He was not just wrong because he lacked imagination; he also cheated”

Much of the remainder of the book highlights how effectively humans have secured their own reproductive success and longevity. This is followed by an optimistic prediction of the human population successfully hitting the 10 Billion milestone, but there may be plateau reached just before this point where a happy equilibrium is reached.

Having stated previously that there was no evidence for a natural ‘Carrying Capacity’ which restricts global human population size, Dorling does not consider evidence for other damage. Loss of natural habitats and species extinction are ignored, with the only reference being to “Vast and highly unjust levels of wealth in a small minority of the population correlate with high rates of consumption and contribute to environmental degradation and poverty” [p.159] This was indexed under ‘Environmental Degradation’ but there was no index entry for Ecology, Ecological or Nature. Only one index item for Biodiversity refers to ‘Biodiversity Loss’ which merely states “Scaremongering is a trade. A 2009 student dissertation based on a study sponsored by the Optimum Population Trust was widely quoted during 2012...more desertification, more cyclones, rising sea levels, biodiversity loss due to pesticides...all add weight to the claim that up to 90% of the UK population and more than half of the global population has to go” [p.193] To quote only from one student project as the impact of human population growth and consumption on biodiversity indicates that Dorling’s academic interests do not encompass the natural world.

Afterword: the author’s ‘Afterword’ really helps in avoiding valuable time being wasted on the rest of the text: “...it makes little sense to be a pessimist all your life. Be practical, be a possibilist, but be aware that whatever we worry most about today is unlikely to either greatly diminish as a concern, or to still be our greatest concern in future. Here is one last thing to worry about. Better to worry about this now than later, and better to worry about the climate than about 10 Billion people” [p.369]

Danny Dorling has been a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield since 2003.

[16iii2015]