Page 87 - IJPS-9-3

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

Table 1. Projections of regional gross domestic product per eventually leading to the establishment of modern
capita for 2020 to 2100 democracies. The second is the HDI component data.
These are solid statistics and widely used by academia
2020 2060 2100 and the international community. The third and more
Asia 13,638 58,157 220,850 controversial is the Principle of EMU, which posits that as
Africa 5,002 32,870 232,722 humans, we collectively and continually strive to maximize
Americas 32,503 89,813 231,962 the benefits of reducing mortality, improving education
Europe 39,227 112,908 230,820 accessibility, and bettering income levels, as reflected by
Oceania 37,606 96,615 246,029 DPI. Evidently, in some countries, people mostly seem to
World 17,183 58,601 227,261 pursue better health, whereas in other countries, people do
Notes: Numbers refer to the constant 2011 International Dollars PPP so for income. However, the overall growth of L, E, and G
(UNDP, 2020). worldwide is a fair weighting of what we “best” can achieve
Sources: Our World in Data (2023) for population; Hooke & Alati with currently available resources. What is the meaning of
(2022) for GDP. the word “best” here? It is the collective idea of self-interest
(which is widely thought to be short-sighted). But who is
Table 2. Projections of development progress index for to judge if not the human collective? Just as it gradually
2020 – 2100 became understood and is still being better understood,
2020 2060 2100 that it is better to teach children literacy than to send
Asia 1.24 2.1 3.3 them to work, it is more and more seen to be important
to protect the environment. In a mostly democratic world,
Africa 0.73 1.5 2.8 there is no better measure of our collective utility than
Americas 1.61 2.5 3.6 what is revealed (Samuelson, 1948).
Europe 1.80 2.8 3.6 The growth of world development and consumption
Oceania 1.84 2.5 3.5 to date, witnessed by the reliable measures of the three
World 1.28 2.0 3.2 essentials, is an impressive collective accomplishment.
Sources: Our World in Data (2023) for life expectancy; Hooke & Alati In general speaking, the growth has continued at a quite
(2022) for GDP. steady rate over the past century (Figure 1). Can this be
expected to continue? Yes, indeed, with less than half a
impact. However, the agriculture and industry sectors dozen of exceptions, all countries have maintained growth
together should grow about fivefold as the majority of at a good rate, and all have room to grow (UNDP, 2023).
countries develop, converging toward the economies of the
highly developed countries. To get a first impression of that All projections are uncertain and should rest on explicit
impact, it is of interest to see how the GWP influence is assumptions to be believable. The one by Leimbach et al.
projected to grow. The annual impacts may be small, but (2017) uses the established welfare economics while the
they accumulate. Hooke & Alati (2022) showed A&I GWP World Income Model by Hooke & Alati (2022) assumes
growing at an annual average rate of 1.53% from 1770 to “the UN’s most-likely projections” for population and the
2020, at 1.40% from 2020 to 2060, and then at 2.5% beyond constant percentage rate for technology, and the continuing
process of convergence for economic growth. In other
2060 until 2100. The sum of world environmental impact
grows roughly exponentially; if we set the total impact to words, the growth of economy and business will be assumed
as usual (over the past 100 years). Their projections may
1.00 in the year 2000 (well worth the current widespread be “most likely” and were it not for the results that give
worry), then it was negligible in the 1770s (0.0005), still grounds for skepticism. For example, it is hard to imagine
very small in 1900 (0.19), but very disturbing in 2050 (2.2), that Africa’s GDP per person would surpass that of all other
and enormous by 2100 (5.2). continents by 2100 (Table 1). With declining dependence

5. Discussion on oil, it will require enormous changes in lifestyles over
just three generations. Common sense would also suggest
The credibility of DPI rests upon three components. that catastrophic world events, such as the two world wars,
The first is the Human Time Equality Principle. Are all the 2007 – 2008 Global Financial Crisis, or the recent
human lives really of equal value – are not the creative, COVID-19 pandemic, would have led to noticeable and
the unselfish, and the powerful more valuable and should lasting reductions in DPI and GDP. However, this has not
be given greater weight? Such thoughts have undergone been the case. There remains plenty of room and incentives
historical testing and have been emphatically rejected, for the dissemination and expansion of technology.

Volume 9 Issue 3 (2023) 81 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.474