Dr. Hans Rosling is a statistician and global health expert at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. Rosling is also founder of Gapminder Foundation, a Stockholm-based think-tank that aims to show the world’s most important trends through what he calls the “beauty of statistics.” Rosling thinks about and talks about numbers – for example, the number of people on Earth – expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. But he said – while some numbers about Earth today reflect an overwhelming reality – some reveal a hopeful future. Watch the BBC video above … or click into the 8-minute EarthSky interview and hear Dr. Hans Rosling speaking with EarthSky’s Beth Lebwohl.
Hans Rosling: The future of the world doesn’t depend on one thing. We tend to discuss that climate change is bigger than everything, or population is bigger than everything else, or security is bigger than everything else. We have to do several things at the same time to have a good world in the future, and we have to understand the magnitude of these challenges. Because in the end – and we are saying this in Sweden – the future doesn’t depend what happens in Sweden, it’s what happens in the rest of the world.
Thank you for taking the occasion to discuss this topic. I’m glad I found your website on this matter. I’m doing analysis on this field right now and this contributed. Keep up the valuable work.
Dear Hans Rosling, Deborah Byrd, Beverly Spicer and Friends,
Thanks for all you are doing. In an effort to begin responding to your remarkable perspective on the population issue, please note that “the issue”, aka “the mother” of global challenges presented to humanity, is undeniably the colossal scale and growth rate of absolute global human population numbers in our time. As I see it, that is a true statement.
Why are the numbers of the human beings on Earth skyrocketing? That is the question. Please notice that virtually every ‘expert’ on the planet refuses to respond to this single question.
Unchallenged empirical evidence exists (and is everywhere ignored) of a non-recursive biological problem that is independent of ethical, social, legal, religious, and cultural considerations. This means human population dynamics are essentially like the population dynamics of other species. It also means that global human population growth is a rapidly cycling positive feedback loop, a relationship between food and population in which food availability drives population growth, and population growth fuels the impression that food production needs to be endlessly increased. The evidence indicates that as we increase food production every year, the number of people goes up, too.
With every passing year, as food production is increased leading to a population increase, millions go hungry. Why are those hungry millions not getting fed year after year after year… and future generations of poor people may not ever be fed? Every year the human population grows. All segments of it grow. Every year there are more people growing up well fed and more people growing up hungry. The hungry segment of the global population goes up just like all the other segments of the population. We are not bringing hunger to an end by increasing food production; we are giving rise to more hungry people. Please note that there are more hungry and malnourished people on Earth today than were alive on the planet in the year of my birth.
Perhaps a new biological understanding is emerging with the apparently unforeseen and unfortunately unwelcome research. It is simply this: as is the case with other species, human population dynamics is primarily a function of food availability. Human population dynamics is essentially common to the population dynamics of other species.
What happens if it turns out that human population dynamics is similar to, not different from, the population dynamics of other species? What does that mean? From my humble inexpert perspective, it means increasing the large-scale production of food worldwide equals increasing numbers of human organisms on Earth; less available food for consumption equals less humans; and no food equals no people.
Imagine our failure to acknowledge that human population dynamics is similar to the population dynamics of other species as the greatest misperception in human history because this failure could eventually result in a human-driven global ecological wreckage of some unimaginable sort. In such circumstances would experts not have a duty to science and humanity that would lead them to correct so vital a mistaken impression of what could somehow be real? It appears to me that many too many experts have willfully rejected the best available science of human population dynamics by ignoring certain evidence and choosing to let stand, as if scientific, preternatural thinking based upon specious understandings derived from inadequate ’scientific’ investigations.
Extant research of human population dynamics appears to directly contradict the near-universal misconception that humanity needs to increase in a seemingly endless way global food harvests in order to meet the needs of a growing population. The best available research indicates just the opposite: that, just like other species, the size and availability of the human food supply is the independent variable upon which the global human population depends for existence. The human community has a food distribution problem, not a food production problem.
Please note, too, that this relationship cannot be conveniently passed over as a “chicken and egg” situation. That appears to be one of the ways many people have found to miss the point of the science. Because an adequate enough understanding of the relationship between food supply and its effect on human numbers have profound implications for the future of life as we know it on Earth, perhaps this relationship could be made the subject of authentic communication.
All this is remarkably simple and straightforwardly presented, I believe. If this hypothesis is somehow be on the right track, then at a minimum the human community would need to be made aware and to share understandings of the implications of exploding human numbers worldwide.
Many voices, many more voices are needed. The passivity of elective mutism that denies what is known to be real is every bit as destructive of the world we inhabit as the pernicious activities of the self-proclaimed masters of the universe among us.
Comments from one and all are welcome. Let us agree to overcome the deafening silence of “the powers that be” as well as their global gag rules regarding human population dynamics and human overpopulation of the Earth because silence threatens the future of children everywhere as much as the plundering, overconsuming and hoarding of greedmongers.
Sincerely,
Steve
Dear Mr. Salmony,
I appreciated your thoughtful comment.
One thing I wanted to point out is that Dr. Rosling, population expert that he is, actually does not perceive Earth’s exploding population as “the mother” of global challenges. He doesn’t want others to think of it that way either. These were his words:
Hans Rosling: The future of the word doesn’t depend on one thing. We tend to discuss that climate change is bigger than everything, or population is bigger than everything else, or security is bigger than everything else. We have to do several things at the same time to have a good world in the future, and we have to understand the magnitude of these challenges. Because in the end – and we are saying this in Sweden – the future doesn’t depend what happens in Sweden, it’s what happens in the rest of the world.
Best,
Beth
I absolutely agree. First thing I learned Pop/Culture 3rd year in college is population, population, population. Did not get why he was downgrading it’s influence either, but I guess when your a PhD, you can make those distinctions, or lack there of, and still come out smelling like a rose. :)
One day I trust that a discussion of human population dynamics and human overpopulation of the Earth happens in many places. Sooner or later discussions of this kind have to occur, I suppose, despite the fact that free and open speech of what looks to me like the very last of the last taboos is forbidden by the self-proclaimed masters of the universe among us, the ones who value money, power and position before all else and exclaim their dishonest and duplicitous ‘work’ is, of all things, “God’s work”.
My concern for children everywhere is this. If children in our time are “sold” the aberrant idea that economic success is what really matters, that arrogance and avarice actually rule this world, then from now here I expect those who are still young will follow a clearly marked and soon to become patently unsustainable primrose
path to perdition, a path that has been adamantly advocated and religiously pursued by the masters of the universe.
Let us not allow the ‘economic success’ that is derived from insider trading, hedging, dark pools of capital, CDOs and other financial instruments, market and currency manipulations, Ponzi schemes and economic globalization by the masters of the universe to be confused with the works of God, as given to us in the Creation and science.
Despite all the efforts to foment confusion and uncertainty by economic theologians and other minions of the wealthy and powerful, I trust we can agree that the
Creation and science itself are utterly different from the artificially designed, ideologically flawed, manmade global economy that is organized and managed by the masters of the universe for their benefit primarily.
Regarding this single thing, can there be even so much as a shadow of doubt?
“Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” Mark Twain. When a premise is based on false assumptions, it is fatally flawed.
ALL of the climate change stuff is bogus, 7,000 years ago, it was warmer on earth than it is now. Do we blame that on SUV’s? It is the height of hubris to believe that we are effecting the climate at all.
It is very telling that “climate change” has replaced “global warming” as the boogey man.
“Faith, it is an island in the setting sun. But proof — that is the bottom line for everyone.” Paul Simon
Ben,
I appreciated your comment. I guess we’ll just have to see.
I’d rather our world err on the side of caution.
Also, I just wanted to point out that one person’s hubris is another’s logic.
Because I think: how could we burn million and millions of tons of gasoline, and expect that *not* to alter the atmosphere, you know?
Think about what happens just when a person runs their car in a closed garage. Why should we presume the atmosphere is so different?
Yours truly,
Beth
Dear Beth Benjamin Napier, Eric P and Friends,
Would it be possible to request of Hans Rosling, Jesse Ausubel, Joel Cohen and the experts in the field of human behavior analysis that they immediately begin an assessment (and perhaps feature an open discussion on the Earth&Sky Blogs) of extant scientific evidence regarding human population dynamics. You have likely noted already that more and more attention has been paid lately to the global ecological challenges posed to humankind by the human overpopulation of Earth, but no one is commenting on scientific research regarding what could be causing this population explosion, eg, human population dynamics. Please consider that we have before us the need both to acknowledge what appears to be the “mother” of human-driven global challenges: the human overpopulation of Earth, and the very last of the last taboos regarding the human species: human population dynamics. Perhaps there is a problem, human overpopulation, and also at least one possible cause of it, which is to be found in the scientific research of human population dynamics. I believe we can be guided by wisdom of the ages contained in two words, that we have seen and heard since the beginning of Western culture. If ever there was a timeless shibboleth of humanity, it has been eternalized in two words from Socrates, “Know thyself”. Unfortunately, self-knowledge of the kind Socrates spoke is not voguish or a guarantor of success or easily achieved like accumulating money, gaining position and power, and doing politically convenient and economically expedient things. Educated sychophants, absurdly enriched minions and other vendors of words have been adamantly putting forward anything and everything imaginable that promote the supreme and selfish interests of the wealthy and powerful. Every bias and rationalization under the sun has been employed; every rhetorical device and ideological artifact used to minimize or deny the import in these words from Socrates. These two words tell us where we need to look for knowledge, finally, after we have looked everywhere else and regarded everything else in the Universe. I fear modern cultural determinants, the ones pervading human thought and action as well as leading us to ignore watchwords of the likes of Socrates, could turn out to be a distinctly human flaw. Let us agree here and now that this flaw is not necessarily fatal and that there is still time to gain knowledge of self, and respond ably to the human-induced threats looming before human species.
We seem ready, willing and able to examine the population dynamics of non-human species. Why not assess the science of human population dynamics? After all, if we know that the human population is exploding worldwide in a soon to become patently unsustainable way, but deny scientific evidence of why the population explosion is occurring, how on Earth are people to make meaningful behavioral changes required for sustainability?
Sincerely,
In the early 1960s, I watched what happened with bacterial and mold colonies on petri dishes in a laboratory. In the late 1960s, I observed stages of tree colonies seen from an airplane window on flights between Kenai and Anchorage in Alaska. In the early 1970s, I studied urban and regional planning in relation to the dynamics of human colonies (villages, towns, cities, and megapolises). The common features in the different scales of living organisms do not give me a basis for optimism.
The commonly used S curve (logistic curve) as a model of population dynamics agrees with real data very poorly in many cases. It seems that in the absence of a balanced system of different interacting organisms leading to either a stable equilibrium or a cyclic (predator-prey) pattern, new forces come into play when the population size crosses a threshold. As a result, the inflection point on the population curve is much, much closer to the no-growth or catastrophic decline than the S curve would predict.
I would second the call for more research on this question. Unfortunately, I sometimes think that we humans will be no more able to influence our future than the bacteria in a colony on a petri dish.
Picture a canoe with 3 people in it. Those three canoeists can argue about how many people the canoe can hold. But, if I am in that canoe, and those who believe we can put more people in it are wrong, I could drown. So, I am very comfortable with not testing the canoe’s capacity.
I see the earth the same way. Maybe it is possible to support 9 billion people on the planet. But, what’s the point? How does that knowledge enrich the human condition? And if the answer is “no”, the results will be catastrophic.
There are certainly many meaningful questions and challenges to whet the appetite of even the most ambitious adventurers and researchers. Finding out how many people can live on the earth doesn’t have doesn’t the same potential for enriching the human condition as does exploration and technological advances.
Prof. Hans Rosling presents statistical data as though it is free of politics. He apparently forgets a century –old observation,
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” – describes the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster politicized arguments.
Rosling also apparently forgot the 1980s computer maxim, GIGO, or ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out.’ – a valuable caution for most of the information on the Internet. Rosling’s British colleague cites early definitions of statistics as “political arithmetic”.
Rosling explains, “Numbers alone don’t mean anything. You have to analyze them … we can make the data sing.” Rosling also claims, “With statistics we can see things as they really are.” Rosling fails to see that comment as arrogant.
Many of Rosling’s biases are apparent in his choice of data correlations.
Rosling offers Sweden as an exemplar of scientific enlightenment, but omits mention of increasing Islamic social pressures, which divide Sweden, including immigrant welfare abuse, demonstrations and riots. Rosling omits mention of increasing Swedish educated classes’ hostility against Israel. No examination of those correlations to confirm the Swedish exemplar.
Rosling cites life expectancy data as a guide to social improvement but does not mention the persistent gap between Western male vs. female morbidity and mortality. Between the two episodes, that disparity appears for less than a second, but no analysis on that socially – engineered gap.
Rosling’s field is epidemiology, but his choice of data shows clear political biases. He examines San Francisco for crime, but not AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, or shortened life expectancy, as highest among districts populated by homosexuals.
Rosling suggests that crime is correlated with poverty, but no examination or crime perpetrators vs. education level or race. Liberals condemn such revealing correlations. How about a correlation with the members of church congregations in poor communities and the incidence of pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers & addicts, teen single mothers and gang membership? Widespread data shows an inverse correlation between religious faith vs. crime perpetration.
Rosling’s British colleague shows a XIX century study of ‘bastardy’ with amusement, but does not show the explosion of single-mother households and poverty after 1970s indoctrination of feminist politics.
Rosling repeatedly shows the increase of life expectancy since 1800, but does not mention that disparities in life expectancy between the West and the Third World are far wider now that 200 years ago. Yet despite conceding “civil wars” in Africa, he persists in implying that 3rd World suffering is due to ‘colonialism’. South Sahara Africa shows lower life expectancy and pervasive social ills, since the departure of Western colonialism, including the Congos, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Rosling repeatedly shows feminist bias, including praising Florence Nightingale. He concedes that such data analysis was, “The usual thing in Florence Nightingale’s time”. Rosling seems unaware that doctors pioneered such research 40 years earlier during the USA Civil War. But they were all men.
Rosling repeatedly claims that ‘green’ politics provide progress, rather than widespread illness, hunger and death in the 3rd World. He sneers at the Swedish conservative party. Professor, your prejudices are obvious.
Rosling might have examined the significant post-1950s incidence increase of breast cancer among American women, which correlates with late child-bearing, few children, use of The Pill, abortion and no lactation. Those correlations might rouse questions from his audiences.
Rosling claims, “Correlations can be tricky.” No. Statisticians can be ‘tricky’. Marxism was founded in ‘dialectics,’ or ‘science’ applied human behaviour. In the XX century, Marxism slaughtered over 100,000,000 human beings, justified by ‘scientific’ Truth. Nazism was founded in ‘scientific’ racism, to conquer the world for the Master Race.
Rosling clams, “Instead of being led astray by prejudice, we can become authors of our own destiny.” Perhaps Rosling’s reading omitted the moral guidance offered in the Bible. God save us from self-righteous technocrats.
In his conclusion, Rosling claims, “Machines might even be able to guide the researchers … statistics can make sense of our feelings, our innermost thoughts and emotions.” Rosling cannot see those claims as the roots of tyranny, justified by scientific ‘political arithmetic’. Those claims should not be proclaimed by an educated person.
…
Wow, a perfect storm of troll…
Dear Bill Everett, David Bross and Jeffrey Noah,
As humanity’s most luminous beacon of truth, science provides us with
a last best hope for the survival of life as we know it on Earth. We
must make certain that scientific evidence is never downplayed,
distorted and denied by religious dogma, politics or ideological
idiocy.
Let us not fail for another year to acknowledge extant research of
human population dynamics. The willful refusal of many too many
experts to assume their responsibilities to science and perform their
duties to humanity could be one of the most colossal mistakes in human
history. Such woefully inadequate behavior, as is evident in an
incredible conspiracy of silence among experts, will soon enough be
replaced with truthful expressions by those in possession of clear
vision, adequate foresight, intellectual honesty and moral courage.
Hopefully leading thinkers and researchers will not continue
supressing scientific evidence of human population dynamics and
instead heed the words of Nobel Laureate Sir John Sulston regarding
the emerging and converging, human-driven global challenges that loom
ominously before humankind in our time, “we’ve got to make sure that
population is recognized…. as a multiplier of many others. We’ve got
to make sure that population really does peak out when we hope it
will.”
Sir John goes on, “what we want to do is to see the issue of
population in the open, dispassionately discussed…. and then we’ll
see where it goes.”
In what is admittedly a feeble effort to help John Sulston fulfill his
charge to examine all available scientific evidence regarding human
population dynamics, please give careful consideration to the
following presentation and then take time to rigorously scrutinize the
not yet overthrown science from Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel
regarding human population dynamics and human overpopulation.
http://www.panearth.org/GPSO.htm
Please accept this invitation to discern the best available science of
human population dynamics and human overpopulation; discover the
facts; deliberate; draw logical conclusions; and disseminate the
knowledge widely.
Thank you,
Steve Salmony
Enjoyed studying this, very good stuff, appreciate it. “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.” by Mother Theresa.