Page 85 - IJPS-9-3

International Journal of
Population Studies Human development, population, and environmental burden

The (L, E, G) data are reliable. The United Nations The second axiom is the economic Principle of equal
Development Programme (UNDP) combined them marginal utility (EMU), which states that humanity
into the well-known Human Development Index (HDI). collectively pursues development in health, education,
HDI has faced significant critique (e.g., Kovacevic, 2011; and income. This pursuit involves continuously balancing
Ghislandi et al., 2018) and has undergone multiple efforts to maximize the utility as measured by DPI.
revisions over time. HDI ranks countries and regions on an Mathematically, this principle can be expressed as dL/L
annual basis but provides limited information about their = b dE/E = c dG/G. The EMU principle is the empirical
progress. While HDI ranking is taken seriously each year, it basis for observing the exponents (1, b, c) of the three
does not necessarily indicate which country wins the race. subindices. For general international comparison, the
For instance, if Norway has a value of 0.957 and Ireland has World parameters are used.
a value of 0.955 (or vice versa), it does not imply that one is The simultaneous growth of L, E, and G enables the
superior to the other. It is important to note that HDI uses determination of the exponents b and c by the EMU
a dozen of arbitrary parameters that do not have a solid principle. For example, L, E, and G in the world as a whole
basis in data, which can significantly affect the rankings. over the period 2000 – 2019 grew by 7.79%, 11.83%, and
Moreover, some researchers argued that the HDI rankings 54.88%, respectively, so (a,b,c) = (1, 7.79/11.83, 7.79/54.88)
are biased and unreliable (e.g., Ravallion, 2012). = (1, 0.659, 0.142). These parameters are appropriate for a
Section 2 demonstrates that a natural indicator of worldwide comparison across countries and regions. For
development – DPI – for the world as a whole emerges a comparison of the entire world in particular, the need
from the democratic Human Time Equality Principle and to determine the three parameters (a,b,c) can be avoided
the economic Principle of Equal Marginal Utility (EMU) of by applying the EMU principle, where people collectively
b
c
its three components. DPI is a simple and suitable measure maximize their utility. L, E , and G are each normalized to
for quantitatively comparing the past, the present, and equal unity in 2000 and, by the calibration of b and c, they
3
the future. In Section 3, the necessary data are presented, are projected to grow at the same rate. Hence, DPI World = L .
and the two sets of time series of DPI and GDP for the There are good reasons to question these two axioms –
world since 1770 are calculated, projected, and compared many examples show that equality, justice, and rationality
for the rest of this century under four plausible available are often absent in human affairs. This and other caveats
development scenarios (Hooke & Alati 2022; Wittgenstein are considered further in Section 5.
Centre, 2022). Section 4 presents the preliminary estimates
of the environmental impact of total consumption, both 3. The data sources of the DPI and
past and future, which serves as a proxy measure of projections
environmental burden.
3.1. The world
2. The Development Progress Index (DPI) World development data for 1770 – 1980 were derived from

DPI can be expressed as the weighted geometric mean of Roser et al. (2019) and van Zanden et al. (2014), and the
the three HDI time series, namely L, E, and G, that is, DPI data for 1990 – 2020 were from UNDP (2020) and IIASA
= L E G (Lind, 2019). The three subindices, L , E , and G , (2022). Climate change is a most important component of
c
a b
a
c
b
are averaged geometrically because they are independent our environmental impacts with its expected ubiquitous
dimensions of development. DPI 2000 is set equal to 1.00 by and serious influence on the quality of human life. The
dividing the respective values of L, E, and G in the year Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has
therefore developed a set of five Shared Socioeconomic
2000. The parameters (a, b, c) are derived as follows from Pathway (SSP) scenarios (Keywan et al., 2017), each of
two axioms.
which is associated with a projection time series, including
The first axiom is the Human Time Equality Principle the global mean temperature rise. O’Neill et al. (2016)
(TEP), which Rackwitz (2002) called the “Democratic described the wide range of scenarios in detail. Four of
Principle,” positing that 1 h of a person’s life in good health these are extreme: SSP1 Taking the Green Road; SSP3
should be valued the same as any other hour of any human Regional Rivalry – resurgent nationalism; SSP4 Inequality
life spent in good health. This principle essentially makes – increasing disparities in economic opportunity and
(a unit of average) human time (e.g., an hour or a life year) political power; and SSP5 Fossil-fueled Development –
as the currency of all valuation, which includes DPI. In energy-intensive lifestyles around the world. The most
other words, DPI must increase by p% if L increases by p% likely scenario is SSP2 Middle of the Road when “The world
and E and G remain constant. Hence, the exponent a in follows a path in which social, economic, and technological
DPI equals unity. trends do not shift markedly from historical patterns”

Volume 9 Issue 3 (2023) 79 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.474