WEBVTT

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Prof: Okay,
we are now at the part of the

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course--
we're coming up to fairly

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modern times,
it's been a very breathless run

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from six million years of
chimpanzee evolution through

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many--
few million years of human

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evolution,
and we're coming up to more or

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less the 1960s,
which is the period of the

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greatest percentage increase in
human population on earth ever.

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So this is the peak of what's
called the population explosion

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and we're going to be talking
about that until almost the end

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of the term now.

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I have to tell you a little
bit, truth in teaching or

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something.

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How I got interested in this
topic.

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When I was just a little bit
older then you are now,

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I did the fairly usual thing of
going--

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putting on my short pants and
going around the world,

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around Asia anyway,
with almost no money in my

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pocket.

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You all, if you have never done
that, you should do it

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definitely, and after you
graduate college is a great time

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to do it.

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One of the places I went to was
Hong Kong.

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Now Hong Kong at that time
there were huge numbers of

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people coming out of China.

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China was still extraordinarily
poor at the time,

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and any time anybody could
leave they left,

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and so Hong Kong was incredibly
crowded with very poor people

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and it's still an incredibly
crowded place of course,

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and migrants are still coming
out if they can.

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One of the--where were these
people going to live?

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There were hillsides with
shanty towns,

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lots and lots of shanty towns,
but also the--

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it's right on the ocean,
it's an island,

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part of it's an island,
so the water is free so many

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people were living in little
sampans,

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little boats called sampans
in--just in the harbor docked

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sort of almost anywhere.

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I thought well that's
interesting, and one of my

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friends, I had a number of
Chinese friends took me to look

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at the boats.

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It was interesting,
I wasn't yet really interested

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in demography but I couldn't
help notice that basically every

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boat had a little girl on it
11,12, 13 or something,

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maybe younger.

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And then we got invited on the
boat,

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one of the first--one of the
boats and people were extremely

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polite,
even the very poor,

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very polite and a lot of bowing
and shaking hands on my part,

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and they wanted to offer me
something,

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a little bit of tea,
a little bit of rice cake,

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they're just as wonderful as
they could be.

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I noticed that when something
had to be done like the tea had

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to be gotten,
or this that or the other

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thing, it was that little girl
that was doing all the work.

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Okay, so what,
that's one the kids,

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it's good for kids to have some
chores.

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Then since--they didn't have
didn't have television or a lot

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of entertainment and here was
this Westerner and they weren't

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so used to seeing a lot of
Westerners on their boats--

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I sort of got passed from boat
to boat.

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When you go walking around the
world that's a very good,

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if you go to places where they
don't see Westerners you can get

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passed on very easily--
so in boat after boat--and this

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phenomenon repeated itself,
that there was this little girl

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in every boat and she seemed to
be doing all the work.

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Finally, I asked my friends,
what's going on here?

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A little hard to get the
information out of them,

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but in actual fact it was a
form of shall we say family

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population control that the--
there--this was a

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non-contracepting population so
children just coming and they

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couldn't support the number of
children that they had and they

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did not value girls very much.

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What they did is,
basically, they sold the girls

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from one boat to the next boat,
and then the little girls were

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basically servants,
again you can use the word

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slave it you want,
but servants in whatever boat

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they had been sold to,
and some money changed hands,

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of course all illegal because
Hong Kong was then under British

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rules.

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It's illegal almost everywhere
anyway.

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They were just working,
doing as much work as could be

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gotten out of them.

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Well that was very sad,
but it wasn't a disaster

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because everybody was living
very poorly.

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Then later, same trip,
with my medical connections,

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I got to tour one of the big
British--

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Queen Elizabeth Hospital,
one of these big city

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hospitals,
it had ward after ward,

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and one of the things I was
taken to see--

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tuberculosis was a very big
problem back then,

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leprosy was a problem,
tuberculosis was a problem.

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I did something stupid with
leprosy I visited--

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there was a leper colony on an
island off of Hong Kong and they

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were constructing stuff,
and I cannot stand around while

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people are working and me not so
I grabbed a pitch--

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a pickax and started working
with them and of course the

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pickax is rough.

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It's made of not terribly well
polished wood and there I was

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banging away with it and it rubs
whatever--

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Leprosy is a bacteria that gets
into your skin and the only way

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to get it is to get that leprosy
into your skin,

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so the lepers had been working
with it and rubbing it into

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their skin and they were rubbing
into the wood of the ax and then

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onto me.

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I did not get--it was really
stupid in retrospect but you do

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a lot of stupid things and I did
not catch leprosy,

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and in fact,
by that time most--they had a

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drug,
an antibiotic against leprosy

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and most of the leprosy bacillus
in these people was dead,

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so it probably wasn't quite as
dangerous as it might have been.

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Anyway, I did not catch leprosy;
you can check my hand and so

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forth.

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The people there had the
old--this is an aside but it's

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about poverty so I'll tell you.

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Leprosy affects the nerve cells
and it doesn't make--

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directly make your fingers or
nose fall off,

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but you don't feel wounds,
so you don't--

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because you don't have the
nerve cells--

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so you don't take care of
wounds, eventually the fingers

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get infected and damaged,
the damage is kind of constant

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and parts of you fall off
actually.

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But it's not the leprosy
bacteria itself,

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which only attacks nerves,
it's the damage that you're not

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paying--
you're not noticing,

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you're not aware of.

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Sorry that was an excursion.

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Leprosy was a big thing in Hong
Kong at that time,

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as was tuberculosis and in the
big British hospital I went in

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and one of the things I saw was
huge wards,

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they're big places with--again
I saw a ward full of these just

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pubescent or pre-pubescent girls
and they all had TB.

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Then there was two or three of
these wards actually,

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so a very large number of girls
there, and I said what's going

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on?

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Then the full story came out.

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That yes, indeed,
there is a lot of selling of

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the children between boats,
and yes they work,

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and because they're underfed
and overworked and TB is

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rampant,
these girls get tuberculosis.

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Then what happens is they take
them to the health station and

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the doctors say you've got to
build up this girl and they give

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them milk powder.

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Milk powder is taken,
and what do you think they do

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with the milk powder?

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Give it to the boy child,
so the girl gets sicker,

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and then she's getting quite
sick and she's brought back,

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and now she's given medicine,
an antibiotic,

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and guess what happens with
medicine?

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Taken to the market,
sold, the money is used to buy

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rice or milk for the boy
children.

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Eventually--so TB,
as you're probably aware,

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gets the lungs,
it can also get in the long

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bones of the body,
and eventually it infects the

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long bones and the long bones
start--

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huge amounts of pus builds up
and eventually it breaks through

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the skin,
so someone who has a child with

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this kind of long bone
tuberculosis sees basically pus,

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the skin eventually breaks and
the pus starts pouring out,

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and the parents are terribly
afraid and they're afraid for

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their biological kids,
their biological sons

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especially.

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As soon as this happens to the
girl they just dump her at the

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British--at whatever the public
hospital is and they just

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abandon them there.

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What the doctors told me was
that the girls are now 13 or 14,

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the tuberculosis is so far gone
that there's nothing they can

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do.

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And the girls die.

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This was my first introduction
to that nexus of extreme

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poverty,
extremely crowded conditions,

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overpopulation,
and I'm not saying the causal

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relationship between those two
is a complicated story which we

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will get to,
but that nexus of--you always

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see, whenever you see incredibly
dense populations you always see

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this kind of poverty and the
kinds of things that people

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undergo.

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I was trying to put myself in
the mind of a parent,

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what kind of a situation are
they are in,

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that they sell their daughters
to fairly certain death and the

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situation is as I've described
to you.

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Even though I saw this as a
huge--as a very large phenomenon

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I've never seen this in any
literature.

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I've never seen an academic
paper about it,

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I've never seen a newspaper
story about it,

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it's not discussed in
demographic circles,

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and some public health circles
which I'm aware,

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it just isn't brought up.

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I'm thinking to myself,
I was not a scholar of this

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thing, and I said,
"have I misremembered

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this?"

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You very frequently misremember
things, have I blown up,

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did I see one or two cases and
have I somehow aggrandized it.

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I eventually,
after telling the story quite a

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bit,
even in the early runnings of

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this class,
I started doubting that

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this--that somehow--
why such a big thing,

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why wasn't it shown?

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One year I decided:
this is the last year;

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I'm not going to tell this
story again because I don't have

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any references for it.

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Everything I say I try to--if a
student comes to me I can give

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you a reference and you can see
in the notes a lot of things

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have little references which you
probably can't read but if you

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call me or email me I'll tell
you what that little scribble

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means.

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Anyway at the end of that
lecture, actually it was about

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two lectures later,
because there was an exam

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coming up right after that.

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More than in this class,
in previous years,

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students used to come up and we
used to spend a half an hour or

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an hour discussing whatever they
want to discuss.

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And one girl stayed by the side
and then when everybody is gone

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she came up to me,
a little bit shy,

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and said, "Thank you for
telling that story.

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My mother was one of those
girls."

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What she knew,
from her mother,

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was basically what I had said,
but the difference was that

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this was her biological mother,
and this wasn't an abandoned

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girl.

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She said she remembered being
in the hospital with all girls

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basically--
the mother--I said "Oh my

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gosh,
would your mother come to class

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and describe what this situation
was like?"

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Yes, the mother was in fact a
professor at a college in New

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Jersey,
not Princeton,

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and she came up here and
described it,

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and again, described it in
great detail and more or less as

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I've described it.

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She said that when she was in
the hospital,

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she saw all the other little
girls,

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more or less the same age,
same medical problem,

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and she said,
as a little girl she always

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wondered why their parent--
their mother didn't come to

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visit them,
why their parents didn't come

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to visit them.

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She was one of the few whose
mother--I guess the father,

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I don't really remember that
detail, did come to visit.

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Well the doctors kind of
noticed that this girl had a

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bio-parent and so they took her
out of the big ward and put a

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lot of incredibly special effort
into this one girl and

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eventually she got the bacteria
out of her and survived.

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She was--walked like this,
missing a hip and had a fair

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number of sequelae from the bone
TB,

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but she got cured,
grew up, managed to get

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educated,
migrate to America,

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and became a professor at,
as I say at a college in New

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Jersey and had a daughter at
Yale taking this course.

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It's one of the miracle stories
but I'm convinced now that I

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didn't dream this stuff up.

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That's really my personal
motivation, that started of

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course the motivation for
being--doing all this course

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stuff.

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What's the word we describe for
this era of the 1960s?

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The population explosion.

13:54.870 --> 13:57.020
Why do we use the word
explosion?

13:57.019 --> 14:01.899
It's a rather emotive kind of
word and it's for this reason,

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that here is a somewhat
fanciful recreation of history,

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but we know it can't be very
much different from this because

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we know what the--
we start knowing what the

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populations were here,
so you put some sort of a

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reasonable growth rate and
populations,

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its going to look like that.

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The only thing you can really
see is the Black Death,

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then as we've talked about in
this class,

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starting roughly in the 1700s
population just takes off.

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You've heard of exponential
population growth,

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and you may or may not know
what that means,

14:36.759 --> 14:39.849
but what it precisely means is
there's a certain rate of

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growth,
a certain percent per year,

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and each year the population
grows by that same percent,

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1% a year, 2% a year,
3% a year, but the percentage

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growth is constant.

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The numbers of people added
every year grows because the

14:55.384 --> 14:59.114
base grows, but the percentage
added every year is constant,

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that's exponential growth.

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In fact, during this period,
in fact during most of this

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period, the percentage rate of
growth has been increasing.

15:08.808 --> 15:16.948
It increased from somewhere out
here of .001% to then 0.01,0.1

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and in this period it went up to
2%,

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even 3% globally,
the whole world population

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growth rate in this incredible
expansion.

15:30.950 --> 15:34.110
As you can sort of see again,
in this somewhat schematized

15:34.110 --> 15:36.650
graph,
that the incredible rate of

15:36.653 --> 15:41.193
growth has slowed down a little
bit and we'll talk about what

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that means,
but it's still growing

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outrageously,
or they project that it should

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slow down.

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This is--we are now at about
6.7 billion so some of that

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graph is a projection.

15:57.269 --> 16:00.319
You can call this kind of
population growth

16:00.317 --> 16:02.927
hyper-exponential where the
rate,

16:02.928 --> 16:07.888
not only does the growth get
faster in an exponential way,

16:07.889 --> 16:12.339
but the rate of growth itself
grows so it's hyper-exponential

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growth.

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Now there's a--the whole issue
of population growth is very

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politicized,
some people don't think that we

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should pay--
there's no problems,

16:23.777 --> 16:26.117
some people think we shouldn't
do anything about it,

16:26.120 --> 16:30.270
some people think it's too
politically sensitive to say

16:30.274 --> 16:33.914
anything about it,
and in this discussion one of

16:33.908 --> 16:37.388
the things you hear is,
oh the world's population has

16:37.394 --> 16:41.324
been growing for a long time,
we've been able to cope with

16:41.320 --> 16:45.410
it, our economics is wonderful,
and we've industrialized,

16:45.410 --> 16:47.670
the population has been
growing,

16:47.668 --> 16:50.378
and people have been getting
richer and that is certainly

16:50.383 --> 16:53.613
true since Malthus wrote,
the population has multiplied

16:53.607 --> 16:57.337
many times and yet these mass,
mass starvations have not

16:57.341 --> 16:58.011
happened.

16:58.009 --> 17:00.539
In fact, not only,
as the population has grown,

17:00.538 --> 17:02.078
people have gotten richer.

17:02.080 --> 17:05.900
They say, we've coped with this
in the past we can cope with it

17:05.903 --> 17:06.893
in the future.

17:06.890 --> 17:10.030
The problem is that this is
unprecedented.

17:10.028 --> 17:13.388
That we don't really have any
significant length of history

17:13.386 --> 17:16.166
for something like this,
so anybody who tells you that

17:16.173 --> 17:18.793
they have--
that they know what's going to

17:18.789 --> 17:22.939
happen in the future is just
ignorant and this is absolutely

17:22.939 --> 17:25.049
and just unknown territory.

17:25.048 --> 17:27.218
Unknown territory doesn't mean,
I'm not saying there's

17:27.217 --> 17:28.727
absolutely going to be a
disaster,

17:28.730 --> 17:30.810
or it's absolutely going to be
fine,

17:30.808 --> 17:34.528
it's just that we have no way
of predicting basically anything

17:34.525 --> 17:36.835
with a population growing like
that.

17:36.838 --> 17:39.848
Up until a few years ago
basically nobody predicted all

17:39.848 --> 17:42.678
the environmental--
for instance nobody predicted

17:42.680 --> 17:45.830
all the environmental problems
that we're having now,

17:45.828 --> 17:49.938
that came essentially out of
the blue.

17:49.940 --> 17:55.460
Now this is a schematized
thing, here's kind of a more

17:55.461 --> 17:58.071
cartoonish,
even more cartoonish,

17:58.068 --> 18:01.458
but it doesn't go quite so far
back so it's a little bit better

18:01.462 --> 18:03.752
data here,
and again, showing the same

18:03.753 --> 18:04.153
thing.

18:04.150 --> 18:07.230
This was--you're here this was
drawn in 2004,

18:07.230 --> 18:12.120
we're now in 2008 and we're
about 6.7 so in just the four

18:12.123 --> 18:17.283
years since this was made we're
still on this trajectory;

18:17.278 --> 18:22.128
nothing very unexpected has
happened.

18:22.130 --> 18:26.010
Here is the U.S. Census
Bureau projection,

18:26.011 --> 18:30.751
updated December 2008,
so it's as recent as you can

18:30.748 --> 18:31.788
find.

18:31.788 --> 18:35.708
For what's happened--they do
100 years and you may notice

18:35.710 --> 18:37.600
three billion,
four billion,

18:37.598 --> 18:39.628
five, six, seven,
eight, nine,

18:39.630 --> 18:43.970
and it just keeps going and out
at the end they're predicting a

18:43.970 --> 18:47.610
little bit of fall off but one
doesn't know.

18:47.608 --> 18:54.338
By 2040 they're expecting nine
billion people and still

18:54.343 --> 18:55.593
growing.

18:55.588 --> 19:00.438
There's no--you've heard a lot
about Europe and Michael

19:00.436 --> 19:06.086
Teitelbaum gave you a lecture on
the low population growth rates

19:06.093 --> 19:09.643
in Europe,
in Japan, and in quite a number

19:09.635 --> 19:13.315
of countries in the world and
that's correct that the

19:13.319 --> 19:17.429
population growth is extremely
unbalanced in the world.

19:17.430 --> 19:22.260
The developed countries are
having zero to at most 5% of the

19:22.258 --> 19:24.788
increase,
they're growing at .1%,

19:24.792 --> 19:28.642
whereas, some of the poorer
countries are still growing at

19:28.642 --> 19:31.062
2% or 3%,
so I'll show you a minute that

19:31.060 --> 19:34.140
basically all of this growth is
in the poorer countries where

19:34.144 --> 19:37.524
they're least--
have the least resources to

19:37.518 --> 19:40.508
cope with this amount of growth.

19:40.509 --> 19:46.459
Now here is the population
change in millions and we'll see

19:46.459 --> 19:50.459
that that has basically been
growing.

19:50.460 --> 19:57.300
This is where we are now,
it basically grew up to 1990,

19:57.298 --> 20:01.948
it's fallen off a little bit
here, and then it's predicted to

20:01.945 --> 20:06.585
keep growing for another few
years and then it's predicted to

20:06.593 --> 20:07.913
go down here.

20:07.910 --> 20:10.970
I emphasize--guess work--this
was not on the original.

20:10.970 --> 20:14.160
This is data,
we have fairly decent reason,

20:14.160 --> 20:17.340
but again this error bar is on
here and we don't know what

20:17.338 --> 20:20.828
error bars--
how big they should be and this

20:20.827 --> 20:22.747
is really guess work.

20:22.750 --> 20:27.340
The guess work is not too bad
for the near future because the

20:27.339 --> 20:32.159
women who are going to have
these children are already born,

20:32.160 --> 20:35.510
they're already close to
maturity, we know that fertility

20:35.509 --> 20:39.219
rates generally don't change all
that fast although I will show

20:39.219 --> 20:42.329
you plenty of exceptions to that
in the lecture.

20:42.328 --> 20:46.298
You can maybe more or less
believe the next dozen years

20:46.298 --> 20:50.118
here or something like that and
then you make various

20:50.119 --> 20:52.639
projections,
and I'll show you those

20:52.644 --> 20:55.814
projections can be almost
anything because we don't have a

20:55.807 --> 20:57.357
very good basis for that.

20:57.358 --> 21:02.478
The near term projection that
the number of people added every

21:02.476 --> 21:07.256
year is going to go up is
probably pretty accurate because

21:07.257 --> 21:09.267
it's very near term.

21:09.269 --> 21:14.589
Now, again, the optimists take
that data,

21:14.588 --> 21:16.388
that here is the number of
people added,

21:16.390 --> 21:19.260
you see it has been going up,
it's kind of jiggling around,

21:19.259 --> 21:22.569
and it may or may not decline
in the future but because the

21:22.565 --> 21:26.525
base has been growing,
because the population keeps

21:26.531 --> 21:29.511
growing,
if the same number of people

21:29.512 --> 21:34.032
are added every year then the
percentage increase goes down.

21:34.029 --> 21:37.279
So when you hear a lot of
optimism about the population

21:37.278 --> 21:42.018
situation,
what they're talking about is

21:42.017 --> 21:50.067
that the peak RATE of growth
here in the 1960s has come down

21:50.068 --> 21:54.298
as a percentage of the base.

21:54.298 --> 21:57.498
As you just saw,
since the base is growing the

21:57.503 --> 22:01.853
number--actual number of people
added has not changed all that

22:01.848 --> 22:02.488
much.

22:02.490 --> 22:06.650
Again, we're growing,
the world is growing something

22:06.653 --> 22:09.953
1.25%--
1 to 1.5% a year currently and

22:09.951 --> 22:13.461
the guess work is--
and the hope is that will

22:13.460 --> 22:14.540
continue down.

22:14.538 --> 22:18.408
In fact, this continued
decrease is based on some pretty

22:18.410 --> 22:20.170
optimistic assumptions.

22:20.170 --> 22:24.480
We may get time to talk about
them later but,

22:24.484 --> 22:27.334
fertility has been falling.

22:27.328 --> 22:30.968
If you presume that fertility
has fallen as far as it's going

22:30.973 --> 22:33.833
to fall and now it's going to
stay constant,

22:33.828 --> 22:36.238
so the most conservative
projection is constant

22:36.240 --> 22:36.870
fertility.

22:36.868 --> 22:40.158
Whatever we are at now that's
the way it's going to be,

22:40.163 --> 22:43.343
then you don't get anything
like this, you get a huge

22:43.336 --> 22:44.066
takeoff.

22:44.068 --> 22:48.508
This presumes that fertility
will keep falling until people

22:48.505 --> 22:52.325
have two children per family and
fairly rapidly.

22:52.328 --> 22:55.858
That's a nice guess,
a nice prediction,

22:55.862 --> 23:01.442
but we really have essentially
no decent theoretical basis to

23:01.439 --> 23:03.019
presume that.

23:03.019 --> 23:06.979
Now here is the one number you
should really keep in your mind,

23:06.980 --> 23:12.310
this is right up to date,
this is the Census Bureau 2009,

23:12.308 --> 23:15.098
this gives you the world events
and it just--

23:15.098 --> 23:18.378
for being kind of cute it
breaks it down to how much is

23:18.380 --> 23:21.910
the increase each year,
month, day, you can do it down

23:21.912 --> 23:26.662
to the second and notice--
and I gave you these numbers

23:26.655 --> 23:33.475
last time as ratios as per 1,000
this is the number of births per

23:33.480 --> 23:39.560
year 135 million and the number
of deaths 55 million,

23:39.558 --> 23:42.768
so that's the difference,
that's the population growth

23:42.767 --> 23:44.277
rate 80 million people.

23:44.279 --> 23:47.739
That's--I think that's one of
the key numbers to just keep in

23:47.738 --> 23:49.348
mind,
round it off,

23:49.346 --> 23:54.366
80 million that the increase
every year on earth now is 80

23:54.374 --> 23:59.494
million and it's been roughly
that for quite some time.

23:59.490 --> 24:04.360
The maximum here was something
like 90 million,

24:04.363 --> 24:09.453
not quite 90 million,
and now we're just about 80

24:09.448 --> 24:10.718
million.

24:10.720 --> 24:13.090
When people say the
birth--everything's coming down,

24:13.088 --> 24:15.598
things are getting better,
we're going to come to a soft

24:15.597 --> 24:18.077
landing,
well what we actually know is

24:18.080 --> 24:21.630
the difference between 87
million and 80 million with

24:21.634 --> 24:25.734
large and unknown error bars so
it might not be a decrease at

24:25.733 --> 24:26.353
all.

24:26.349 --> 24:27.659
I mean we just don't know.

24:27.660 --> 24:33.780
Nothing drastic has happened to
engender such optimism about the

24:33.782 --> 24:38.412
future of human population,
although you will hear that

24:38.406 --> 24:42.196
over and over,
and over again.

24:42.200 --> 24:49.780
Now as I showed you,
this graph that we are here at

24:49.775 --> 24:56.895
the--actually here to 6.7
billion and all of the

24:56.896 --> 25:04.166
projections show it to continue
to increase.

25:04.170 --> 25:07.380
Again the rate of increase gets
fuzzier and fuzzier as you go

25:07.378 --> 25:11.078
further out in time,
but it will increase,

25:11.077 --> 25:18.127
and the projections are that by
2040 will be nine billion and

25:18.131 --> 25:20.131
still growing.

25:20.130 --> 25:24.630
We're adding a billion at 80
million a year we're adding a

25:24.634 --> 25:26.774
billion every 12.5 years.

25:26.769 --> 25:31.249
If it falls a little bit we'll
add a billion every 13 years or

25:31.251 --> 25:35.511
every 14 years and that's to
keep in mind when you think of

25:35.512 --> 25:38.992
those numbers,
that's a billion people every

25:38.991 --> 25:42.511
12,13, 14 years,
pick whatever number you like,

25:42.509 --> 25:43.769
and think of, everybody's green.

25:43.769 --> 25:46.269
Anybody green in this class?

25:46.269 --> 25:48.039
Anybody not green?

25:48.039 --> 25:50.379
Are you environmentalists?

25:50.380 --> 25:53.410
Yes, who's an
anti-environmentalist?

25:53.410 --> 25:54.030
Hooray!

25:54.029 --> 25:55.599
One, Two.

25:55.598 --> 26:00.088
Well I'm going to return to
this theme but this can't be

26:00.088 --> 26:03.978
repeated enough times,
think of the environmental

26:03.981 --> 26:08.401
footprint of a billion extra
people every dozen or so years,

26:08.400 --> 26:10.120
a billion extra people.

26:10.118 --> 26:11.838
Now add up all the
environmentalism,

26:11.837 --> 26:14.337
all the achievements of this
wonderful environmental

26:14.340 --> 26:14.980
movement.

26:14.980 --> 26:18.630
It's a wonderful thing,
but it pales in comparison that

26:18.630 --> 26:22.890
it's just we're playing a losing
battle with the environment.

26:22.890 --> 26:26.190
As long as we're growing at a
billion people in so many years

26:26.186 --> 26:29.536
we are not going to solve the
environmental problems no matter

26:29.539 --> 26:32.119
what we do,
it's just too great an increase

26:32.116 --> 26:32.716
of people.

26:32.720 --> 26:36.160
Yet, environmentalists
generally never talk about human

26:36.161 --> 26:40.021
population;
it's too politically dangerous

26:40.019 --> 26:42.039
to talk about that.

26:42.038 --> 26:46.298
Hence in this course one of the
very few in the country or

26:46.301 --> 26:50.041
anywhere in the world that
really hits--talks about

26:50.040 --> 26:52.060
population straight on.

26:52.058 --> 26:56.838
Why do we--why are we--why is
everybody projecting that the

26:56.843 --> 27:00.723
population is going to keep
increasing there?

27:00.720 --> 27:05.230
It's simply you look at the age
structure and something like

27:05.233 --> 27:09.523
half of the world's population
is under 15 years old,

27:09.519 --> 27:13.769
i.e., just coming in--I'm sorry
1/3 of the world's population is

27:13.769 --> 27:17.749
under 15 years old and so just
coming into reproductive ages

27:17.749 --> 27:21.589
and we know that for the next--
they will come into

27:21.590 --> 27:26.430
reproductive ages and then be of
reproductive potential for the

27:26.425 --> 27:31.105
following 30 years and we know
that this increasing number of

27:31.105 --> 27:35.705
now 10 to 15 year olds will be
coming into reproductive ages

27:35.705 --> 27:39.055
will keep the population
increasing.

27:39.058 --> 27:44.068
It's certain that it will
increase although the rate of

27:44.071 --> 27:49.271
increase and how it changes is
certainly less certain.

27:49.269 --> 27:55.529
It's under almost any kind of
reasonable assumption the

27:55.534 --> 28:02.614
population is going to grow
another several billion people.

28:02.608 --> 28:05.338
Again, we're in unprecedented
territory,

28:05.338 --> 28:09.738
most people think the earth
right now is incredibly stressed

28:09.741 --> 28:14.531
and it is environmental things,
situation, and now add another

28:14.525 --> 28:18.865
couple of billion people to that
in the near future and see

28:18.866 --> 28:20.286
what's going on.

28:20.288 --> 28:23.118
Since we don't have crystal
balls--the students usually ask

28:23.115 --> 28:25.255
me the question,
'what's going to happen?'

28:25.259 --> 28:28.529
I always have to say,
'I left my crystal ball in my

28:28.526 --> 28:29.176
closet.'

28:29.180 --> 28:33.110
I didn't bring it today,
I do not have a way into the

28:33.113 --> 28:35.173
future,
but anybody who tells you they

28:35.174 --> 28:37.094
know what's going to happen in
the future,

28:37.088 --> 28:39.838
and especially if they're going
to be optimistic about it,

28:39.839 --> 28:45.489
is a very blind kind of person.

28:45.490 --> 28:50.200
You've all heard discussions of
the population problem and it's

28:50.204 --> 28:52.644
really two different problems.

28:52.640 --> 28:56.870
The first problem,
which in the West we're very

28:56.865 --> 29:00.535
cognizant of,
is over consumption by rich

29:00.538 --> 29:01.548
people.

29:01.548 --> 29:06.388
A good fraction of the world is
what you should definitely call

29:06.388 --> 29:09.198
rich and they consume like
crazy,

29:09.200 --> 29:12.520
and a lot of what we consume is
frivolous like Hummers and great

29:12.519 --> 29:15.179
big--
some little person driving this

29:15.182 --> 29:19.472
great big SUV that they never
carry anything heavy and they

29:19.472 --> 29:23.912
certainly don't have to drive
over logs or something which an

29:23.911 --> 29:26.131
SUV is actually good for.

29:26.130 --> 29:30.390
The over consumption depletes
the world's resources,

29:30.390 --> 29:33.820
increases pollution,
destruction of habitat,

29:33.818 --> 29:37.828
etcetera, etcetera,
etcetera, so environmental

29:37.833 --> 29:43.723
misery is largely caused by rich
people consuming profligately,

29:43.720 --> 29:47.540
unnecessarily and profligately.

29:47.538 --> 29:51.378
The other side of the coin is
poverty,

29:51.380 --> 29:55.750
the world is definitely split
and the split is getting wider

29:55.747 --> 29:59.537
between poverty and over--
people who over consume - and

29:59.536 --> 30:03.316
their problem of course is under
consumption and they lead to all

30:03.323 --> 30:06.933
of the problems of poverty which
I have discussed in Hong Kong

30:06.932 --> 30:10.012
and I don't have to tell you
very much about what the

30:10.009 --> 30:12.849
problems in the world of poor
people are.

30:12.848 --> 30:14.398
We have these two opposite
problems,

30:14.400 --> 30:18.320
what I call environmental
misery and human misery,

30:18.318 --> 30:22.578
and they're both very largely
the result of too rapid

30:22.575 --> 30:26.845
population growth that we might,
in some utopian scenario,

30:26.851 --> 30:28.771
eventually be able to cope
with,

30:28.769 --> 30:32.979
say the population levels that
we have now, maybe.

30:32.980 --> 30:35.590
But, at the rate of growth it's
obvious just looking around you

30:35.590 --> 30:37.590
that our technology,
our economy,

30:37.594 --> 30:41.654
our governments,
have not been able to cope with

30:41.645 --> 30:42.935
this so far.

30:42.940 --> 30:45.820
It's very interesting as a
political note that there are

30:45.816 --> 30:48.166
these two faces of the
population problem,

30:48.170 --> 30:51.870
the environmental problem and
the people misery problem,

30:51.868 --> 30:55.278
and it's amazing how people
focus on one or the other.

30:55.279 --> 30:59.029
There's people like--work in
planned parenthood and various

30:59.026 --> 31:01.286
feminists and women's
organizations,

31:01.286 --> 31:03.866
they're interested in people
misery.

31:03.868 --> 31:06.548
They always talk about poverty
and its attendant problems.

31:06.548 --> 31:08.288
Then there's the
environmentalists and they're

31:08.292 --> 31:10.272
worried about trees and the
survival of animals,

31:10.269 --> 31:13.269
and forests,
and nature and both are of

31:13.269 --> 31:17.769
course very important and very
good causes to work on,

31:17.769 --> 31:20.259
but it is absolutely mind
boggling how rarely you find

31:20.258 --> 31:23.128
anybody that's sort of,
is really in any way,

31:23.132 --> 31:28.032
concerned about both problems,
or in any way realizes how

31:28.029 --> 31:33.249
population is the centerpiece of
both of these problems.

31:33.250 --> 31:38.600
Let me talk just a little bit
about over consumption and who's

31:38.596 --> 31:42.536
the number one bad guy in over
consumption?

31:42.539 --> 31:44.899
We are.

31:44.900 --> 31:49.010
So here's the story for--some
of the story for the United

31:49.009 --> 31:49.669
States.

31:49.670 --> 31:57.120
This is the growth of the
United States population from

31:57.119 --> 31:59.189
1900 to 2000.

31:59.190 --> 32:06.760
We in 1900 had about 75 million
and in 2006 this--

32:06.759 --> 32:13.799
so in 2006 we passed 300
million people and that's a

32:13.798 --> 32:21.658
quadrupling that our population
has quadrupled in that one

32:21.663 --> 32:23.323
century.

32:23.318 --> 32:27.058
We were almost like an
underdeveloped country in our

32:27.064 --> 32:28.904
population growth rate.

32:28.900 --> 32:31.460
That is up to the--almost
current,

32:31.460 --> 32:35.410
and here is again the latest
Census Bureau thing from--

32:35.410 --> 32:38.810
again this was--just got it out
of the computer last night

32:38.805 --> 32:40.895
actually,
the latest numbers,

32:40.898 --> 32:44.668
that here's the standard--
one of the standard things is

32:44.672 --> 32:49.792
give you 100 year time frame,
currently they're using 1950 to

32:49.785 --> 32:52.505
2050 and we are,
as you know,

32:52.507 --> 32:55.137
right about here and here is
the U.S.

32:55.137 --> 32:59.377
population growth rate and just
almost a perfectly straight

32:59.377 --> 33:00.107
line.

33:00.108 --> 33:03.558
There is no prediction that the
U.S.

33:03.563 --> 33:08.993
is going to slow down in its
population growth rate,

33:08.990 --> 33:12.320
we are growing at about three
million a year,

33:12.318 --> 33:17.868
currently that's 1% of a year,
and because of natural increase

33:17.871 --> 33:23.151
that's births over deaths of
people already in America,

33:23.150 --> 33:29.130
plus immigration,
we're just going here.

33:29.130 --> 33:34.670
In our population growth rate,
it's about 2/3 births over

33:34.672 --> 33:40.612
deaths of citizens already here
and about 1/3 immigration.

33:40.608 --> 33:45.228
Of immigration,
the guesses are that it's about

33:45.233 --> 33:49.843
2/3 legal and 1/3 illegal,
obviously the illegal is an

33:49.843 --> 33:51.873
enormous guess,
the absolute number,

33:51.868 --> 33:53.788
the percentage of anything that
it is,

33:53.788 --> 33:56.808
if you look at how they come up
with these numbers it's really

33:56.809 --> 33:57.899
'seat-of-the-pants.'

33:57.900 --> 34:03.420
We don't know very much about
the magnitude of illegal

34:03.423 --> 34:08.743
immigration but it's an enormous
political issue.

34:08.739 --> 34:13.779
Now on the consumption side,
of course we consume so much,

34:13.780 --> 34:19.440
and again numbers vary kind of
wildly but the range of numbers

34:19.443 --> 34:24.643
are that an American consumes
something between 20 and 40

34:24.644 --> 34:30.314
times what a person in a
developing country will consume.

34:30.309 --> 34:34.219
If you multiplied our three
million population growth a year

34:34.219 --> 34:37.599
by a consumption factor of 20
that's equivalent--

34:37.599 --> 34:41.899
a population growth of 60
million poor people and so if

34:41.900 --> 34:47.000
you do it that way it looks like
that our population growth is as

34:46.998 --> 34:51.618
damaging to the resource and
environmental situation of the

34:51.617 --> 34:55.837
world as the whole rest of world
put together,

34:55.840 --> 35:00.000
and that's just considering our
population increase not the

34:59.996 --> 35:04.366
population base which is also
consuming at this great rate.

35:04.369 --> 35:10.169
We are--indeed it is certainly
correct that we are a tremendous

35:10.170 --> 35:15.410
strain on the environment and
resources of the earth,

35:15.409 --> 35:17.159
and as I showed you it's not
getting better,

35:17.159 --> 35:21.009
our population is just
increasing.

35:21.010 --> 35:23.480
You have to balance against
that that a lot of our

35:23.481 --> 35:26.361
population growth is of course
people coming in from other

35:26.356 --> 35:28.836
countries so that it's not,
in some sense,

35:28.844 --> 35:32.034
Americans who are getting
richer but its poor people

35:32.030 --> 35:34.030
coming in and getting richer.

35:34.030 --> 35:38.450
You can play these numbers in
all different ways and we'll

35:38.445 --> 35:41.385
talk about the politics in a
moment.

35:41.389 --> 35:46.519
The U.S. Census Bureau used
to say that we will reach--that

35:46.518 --> 35:47.228
the U.S.

35:47.226 --> 35:52.176
population will reach 300
million by the year 2050.

35:52.179 --> 35:56.499
We reached that number 44 years
earlier than the Census Bureau

35:56.500 --> 35:58.640
thought,
and we are still growing and

35:58.644 --> 36:01.674
now the Census Bureau says there
is no sign of stabilization at

36:01.668 --> 36:02.008
all.

36:02.010 --> 36:05.820
They cannot give you a number
at which they think the U.S.

36:05.815 --> 36:09.485
population will stabilize,
because as far out as anybody

36:09.485 --> 36:13.625
can project, there's no reason
to believe that stabilization is

36:13.625 --> 36:14.555
in view.

36:14.559 --> 36:23.729
Now some of the argumentation
is that again people--

36:23.730 --> 36:28.020
this is a very political issue
and half the people say,

36:28.018 --> 36:29.818
'it's all those poor people
that are over reproducing,

36:29.820 --> 36:32.520
can't they learn some self
control?'

36:32.518 --> 36:34.908
Then you have people saying,
'all those Americans and

36:34.914 --> 36:37.544
Japanese that consume like
crazy, can't they use some self

36:37.541 --> 36:38.141
control?'

36:38.139 --> 36:42.659
It's an extremely sterile
argument that goes on and on and

36:42.664 --> 36:47.194
people don't think beyond two or
three sentences into that

36:47.188 --> 36:48.218
argument.

36:48.219 --> 36:52.689
As I'll tell you,
if you do it out numerically

36:52.688 --> 36:58.838
the increasing damage is more or
less equal and it depends more

36:58.842 --> 37:04.902
critically as Americans usually
blame ourselves that we're the

37:04.900 --> 37:08.580
problem,
there's a very kind of--I don't

37:08.581 --> 37:12.681
want to use the word racist but
a very Euro-Americo centric

37:12.681 --> 37:16.431
argument because the presumption
is when it says,

37:16.429 --> 37:19.919
well we're the consumers
and--all the poor people,

37:19.920 --> 37:22.700
we don't have to worry about,
is that they will stay poor.

37:22.699 --> 37:25.879
It's a Western assumption that
poor people are going to stay

37:25.876 --> 37:28.326
poor and they're not--
not only are they not consumers

37:28.333 --> 37:30.283
now,
but they're never going to be

37:30.277 --> 37:30.927
consumers.

37:30.929 --> 37:33.029
And that is just nonsense.

37:33.030 --> 37:35.690
We've seen how the Chinese have
come up enormously,

37:35.690 --> 37:37.820
the Indians have come up
enormously,

37:37.820 --> 37:40.370
the Indonesians have come up
enormously,

37:40.369 --> 37:44.389
everywhere in the world these
vast numbers of poor people are

37:44.387 --> 37:46.997
now starting to be serious
consumers.

37:47.000 --> 37:51.210
I think the CO_2
production in China I think has

37:51.213 --> 37:56.763
just outpaced the United States,
but I didn't look that up

37:56.757 --> 37:59.627
recently,
and so there are equal

37:59.632 --> 38:03.932
problems, so if one gets out of
one's head the idea that poor

38:03.925 --> 38:06.925
people are going to stay poor
forever,

38:06.929 --> 38:11.069
which is a pre-globalization
idea--now a worker in China can

38:11.072 --> 38:15.492
compete with a worker in America
and eventually there's going to

38:15.494 --> 38:16.974
be some leveling.

38:16.969 --> 38:20.179
I think the proper thing is,
if you think there are too many

38:20.184 --> 38:22.834
people on earth,
for either human misery issues

38:22.829 --> 38:25.029
or environmental misery issues
or both,

38:25.030 --> 38:28.030
any birth you should consider
more or less equal.

38:28.030 --> 38:31.280
Preventing a birth in America,
in Japan,

38:31.280 --> 38:34.560
and Indonesia,
everywhere that in the not too

38:34.556 --> 38:39.096
distant future these people are
going to be more or less equal

38:39.101 --> 38:43.571
and we'll see in next lecture
what the people themselves want

38:43.570 --> 38:46.030
with respect to this thing.

38:46.030 --> 38:51.590
I hope after this course that
none of you get involved in the

38:51.590 --> 38:56.500
sterile argument of us versus
them, it doesn't get you

38:56.503 --> 38:57.713
anywhere.

38:57.710 --> 39:03.050
In the world as it is today
most of the--almost all of the

39:03.045 --> 39:07.535
population growth is in the
poorest countries.

39:07.539 --> 39:11.609
Again statistics are pretty
bad, there's something like 95%

39:11.614 --> 39:15.134
of population growth in the
world is in the poorest

39:15.126 --> 39:16.106
countries.

39:16.110 --> 39:18.850
As you know,
new people need schools,

39:18.849 --> 39:20.899
they need healthcare,
they need a place to live,

39:20.900 --> 39:24.170
they need jobs and all of this
takes money,

39:24.170 --> 39:26.460
takes capital,
and that's what the poor

39:26.456 --> 39:29.586
countries are missing,
they don't have the capital,

39:29.585 --> 39:32.715
they usually don't have the
technological expertise,

39:32.719 --> 39:36.409
they don't have often the
quality of government that can

39:36.409 --> 39:40.169
cope with these enormous
problems so it's the places that

39:40.166 --> 39:44.326
are least capable of coping with
a population increase that are

39:44.327 --> 39:46.337
in fact saddled with it.

39:46.340 --> 39:52.490
The magnitude of this growth is
incredible.

39:52.489 --> 39:57.609
As far out as we can project
the poor countries are going to

39:57.610 --> 40:01.950
have to build a city equivalent
of one million--

40:01.949 --> 40:07.719
a city to cope with a million
people every week for the next

40:07.715 --> 40:11.915
45 years which is as far as we
projected.

40:11.920 --> 40:14.630
If you look at--you know the
big cities Shanghai,

40:14.630 --> 40:18.680
Beijing and China,
just pick almost any name and

40:18.681 --> 40:23.771
go to an almanac and you'll see
there's so many mega million

40:23.768 --> 40:27.128
cities in China that--
cities even that I've never

40:27.132 --> 40:28.802
heard of,
when you look up their

40:28.804 --> 40:31.844
population, they're in the
millions and a place like New

40:31.842 --> 40:34.332
York with seven million people
is nothing.

40:34.329 --> 40:38.709
Sweden, where I lived in Sweden
for a while, has like seven to

40:38.708 --> 40:40.358
eight million people.

40:40.360 --> 40:45.680
New York City has seven to
eight million people,

40:45.681 --> 40:52.701
cities in China that's a small
town almost, and India's not far

40:52.704 --> 40:53.954
behind.

40:53.949 --> 40:58.399
People in the United States
generally don't have much of an

40:58.402 --> 41:01.552
idea of what poverty really
looks like.

41:01.550 --> 41:05.410
One of the best descriptions of
this comes from Bill Ryerson who

41:05.407 --> 41:07.917
is going to be a guest lecturer
later,

41:07.920 --> 41:11.420
and he describes flying into
Bombay,

41:11.420 --> 41:14.050
and this is again a few years
back but in this period of

41:14.045 --> 41:16.715
extreme population explosion
that we're talking about.

41:16.719 --> 41:19.799
He goes to the airport,
and the airport is way outside

41:19.802 --> 41:22.072
the city as all airports have to
be,

41:22.070 --> 41:26.200
and by the international flight
schedules they come in early in

41:26.197 --> 41:27.127
the morning.

41:27.130 --> 41:29.180
He starts driving in and almost
immediately,

41:29.179 --> 41:33.099
at the airport,
he starts seeing poor people

41:33.097 --> 41:36.487
begging,
on the street you see shanty's

41:36.494 --> 41:38.654
that people are living in.

41:38.650 --> 41:42.690
When he comes into the denser
places people start begging and

41:42.693 --> 41:46.203
you see very commonly a mother
holding an infant,

41:46.199 --> 41:48.859
and you can look the infant is
clearly nearly dead,

41:48.860 --> 41:51.760
and the mother's 'please give
me something,

41:51.760 --> 41:54.630
anything so that I can keep
this child alive until

41:54.626 --> 41:57.316
tomorrow,' and there's one after
the other,

41:57.320 --> 41:58.990
after the other and it gets
denser.

41:58.989 --> 42:01.639
And then the sun comes up and
it gets warm,

42:01.639 --> 42:06.109
India's generally a rather warm
country and there's all these

42:06.108 --> 42:09.538
jitney's and motorbikes,
and trucks, small trucks

42:09.543 --> 42:13.283
putting around and they don't
have good catalytic converters,

42:13.280 --> 42:15.800
those are expensive because a
lot of them have platinum in

42:15.804 --> 42:18.164
them,
so they produce a lot of

42:18.159 --> 42:23.409
pollution and the air gets very
thick with this black smoke very

42:23.407 --> 42:25.807
early--
black soot whatever you want to

42:25.806 --> 42:29.036
call it in the early morning so
you're not breathing fresh air.

42:29.039 --> 42:32.329
And then of course they have no
toilets around,

42:32.329 --> 42:35.629
and you're going to read some
articles about what that means,

42:35.630 --> 42:38.750
and so very soon the stench of
human waste--

42:38.750 --> 42:41.190
you're on a main street going
into the main city,

42:41.190 --> 42:46.990
the stench of human waste comes
up at you and it smells terribly

42:46.990 --> 42:52.060
and more and more beggars and
it's just absolutely heart

42:52.056 --> 42:56.196
wrenching description of what's
going on.

42:56.199 --> 43:00.659
And then you think that here
are millions and millions of

43:00.655 --> 43:05.265
people that will never have a
real house, they live in some

43:05.271 --> 43:07.661
cardboard shack somewhere.

43:07.659 --> 43:11.239
They'll never have a real job,
they'll never probably go to

43:11.240 --> 43:15.280
the bathroom in a toilet,
and they may never even breathe

43:15.280 --> 43:19.930
a breath of fresh air,
so poverty is really a very,

43:19.931 --> 43:26.171
very serious kind of situation
and you can go to lots and lots

43:26.166 --> 43:32.706
of cities in the world and see
similar kinds of descriptions.

43:32.710 --> 43:37.300
Now to do the numbers on this
poverty, so we compare it to the

43:37.297 --> 43:40.457
United States,
so General Motors before its

43:40.456 --> 43:41.806
recent demise.

43:41.809 --> 43:45.949
These numbers are three or four
years old,

43:45.949 --> 43:48.759
so they pay wages to the
workers, then they have health

43:48.755 --> 43:51.915
benefits which you've read about
as very high because they pay

43:51.923 --> 43:54.993
them for the rest of their life
and they pay pensions,

43:54.989 --> 43:58.039
so when you add all that up how
much lifetime they're going to

43:58.039 --> 44:00.839
pay for a worker and divide it
by the number of hours the

44:00.840 --> 44:05.480
worker works,
it comes out for General Motors

44:05.478 --> 44:12.228
was $80 an hour and that was
somewhere near a maximum for

44:12.230 --> 44:15.980
union wages,
not counting like airline

44:15.981 --> 44:19.191
pilots who get an awful lot more
than that.

44:19.190 --> 44:23.460
The upper middle class--that's
blue-collar workers at GM--

44:23.460 --> 44:28.060
the upper middle class people
mostly in this room are going to

44:28.063 --> 44:31.163
be earning an awful lot more
than that.

44:31.159 --> 44:35.659
On the other hand is the
poverty level which for a family

44:35.663 --> 44:41.393
of a mother,
father, and three children is

44:41.391 --> 44:47.361
defined as $24,000 a year,
that's the 2006 number,

44:47.364 --> 44:48.624
the official U.S.

44:48.619 --> 44:53.079
number which is $13.35 a day
per person, that's the poverty

44:53.083 --> 44:57.013
level as officially defined in
the United States.

44:57.010 --> 45:03.450
Wal-Mart, a worker,
a sales associate earns $6.10

45:03.449 --> 45:10.709
an hour or $12,000 a year--
$6.00 an hour--is $12,000 a

45:10.708 --> 45:17.948
year they are below poverty
level so the next step UP for a

45:17.945 --> 45:24.055
Wal-Mart worker is the official
poverty level.

45:24.059 --> 45:28.789
When you go to developing
countries you have to cut--to

45:28.788 --> 45:34.298
get any idea of a scale you have
to cut the Wal-Mart wages by at

45:34.304 --> 45:36.674
least a factor of four.

45:36.670 --> 45:43.390
Wal-Mart makes its pants in El
Salvador and the pants sell for,

45:43.389 --> 45:48.299
in this particular article,
on this $16.95 in their United

45:48.304 --> 45:51.724
States stores,
and how much do you think the

45:51.715 --> 45:55.335
women in El Salvador get to make
the pants, per pant?

45:55.340 --> 46:04.400
15 cents is the wage level that
they get for it.

46:04.400 --> 46:09.400
The UN reported that about half
of the world's workers,

46:09.396 --> 46:14.576
which is about 1.4 billion
people, earn less than $2.00 a

46:14.579 --> 46:15.319
day.

46:15.320 --> 46:20.440
The average wage,
the median wage in the world is

46:20.443 --> 46:23.543
something like $2.00 a day.

46:23.539 --> 46:25.269
That's per wage earner,
not per family,

46:25.268 --> 46:28.878
not per person,
but per wage earner and that

46:28.882 --> 46:33.592
then has to be divided among
however many dependents that

46:33.588 --> 46:34.848
person has.

46:34.849 --> 46:36.389
I've told you that what the
U.S.

46:36.394 --> 46:38.494
sets as its official level for
poverty,

46:38.489 --> 46:42.389
every country in the world of
course gets to decide its own

46:42.387 --> 46:46.667
level of what poverty is,
and the official poverty level

46:46.670 --> 46:52.520
in the poorest ten to 20--
poorest 20 countries is $1.25.

46:52.518 --> 46:56.018
You're only poor if you earn
less than a $1.25 per capita,

46:56.016 --> 46:56.626
per day.

46:56.630 --> 47:02.420
In both China and India the
official poverty level is closer

47:02.422 --> 47:06.842
to $1.00 a day and this is at
2005 prices,

47:06.840 --> 47:11.140
again statistics are always a
couple of years behind things.

47:11.139 --> 47:15.219
In rich places like Latin
America and Eastern Europe $2.00

47:15.224 --> 47:19.384
a day is the more appropriate
poverty level and that is for

47:19.382 --> 47:24.312
all the developing countries,
$2.00 a day is the median,

47:24.309 --> 47:27.949
their own self-defined poverty
level.

47:27.949 --> 47:31.759
Within each country and each
region there's great inequality

47:31.762 --> 47:34.912
of course in income,
so about 1/3 of the people in

47:34.911 --> 47:37.891
Latin America are living on less
than $2.00 a day,

47:37.889 --> 47:41.769
2/3 of the people of Pakistan
live on less than 2/3--

47:41.768 --> 47:45.608
$2.00 a day,
but more than 58% of the

47:45.608 --> 47:51.258
population in Kenya lives on
less than $1.00 a day;

47:51.260 --> 47:55.210
Brazil 25% of the people on
less than $1.00 a day;

47:55.210 --> 47:59.000
the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa
44% of the people on less than

47:59.001 --> 48:02.301
$1.00 a day and it's not only
these traditionally poor

48:02.297 --> 48:04.627
countries,
but in Romania,

48:04.625 --> 48:07.875
after the Soviet bloc fell
apart,

48:07.880 --> 48:10.780
40% of the people live on less
than $1.00 a day.

48:10.780 --> 48:16.410
Indonesia had a government work
program so that people could get

48:16.409 --> 48:21.769
some kind of work and laborers
got $0.75 a day for five hours

48:21.771 --> 48:25.451
of work a day,
that's $0.15 an hour.

48:25.449 --> 48:29.209
I don't know how much time it
takes to sew Wal-Mart pants but

48:29.213 --> 48:32.443
maybe an hour,
probably less but--so $.15 an

48:32.443 --> 48:36.183
hour is a wage that for many
people in a place like

48:36.175 --> 48:38.845
Indonesia,
which has a lot of oil,

48:38.849 --> 48:41.969
it's not overall necessarily a
poor place,

48:41.969 --> 48:49.379
$0.15 an hour for an hour's
work;

48:49.380 --> 48:53.260
$0.75 a day and that's much
more than they can get

48:53.264 --> 48:58.024
working--getting agricultural
jobs around where they live.

48:58.018 --> 49:03.868
Here's a description from
Zambia, a nine-year-old boy,

49:03.871 --> 49:08.071
Alone Banda,
his job is to be beat rock

49:08.068 --> 49:10.938
fragments into powder.

49:10.940 --> 49:14.090
He doesn't have a hammer,
he found a large steel bolt

49:14.085 --> 49:16.805
from some construction site,
he found a bolt,

49:16.813 --> 49:19.753
he grips in his bare hand and
pounds the rock with it.

49:19.750 --> 49:23.560
He takes raw rock,
takes a bolt that he found and

49:23.559 --> 49:29.639
pounds with it and he can fill--
it takes him about a--in a week

49:29.639 --> 49:35.959
he can fill about half a bag
with this powder which is used

49:35.963 --> 49:42.513
for construction and he gets
about $1.50 for the half bag and

49:42.505 --> 49:48.715
it's used for making concrete in
Kenya for instance.

49:48.719 --> 49:50.209
Children start working at five
or six--

49:50.210 --> 49:53.640
we saw--we talked about Charles
Dickens who so much of his

49:53.635 --> 49:57.055
writing was about children going
to work at age seven,

49:57.059 --> 49:59.489
while seven is old,
they go to five and six and

49:59.492 --> 50:01.822
they work as prostitutes even at
that age;

50:01.820 --> 50:04.980
minors, construction workers,
pesticide sprayers,

50:04.980 --> 50:08.140
all the kinds of dangerous and
miserable jobs.

50:08.139 --> 50:12.269
In Sub-Saharan Africa there's
something like 48 million

50:12.269 --> 50:15.559
children 14 and younger who are
working,

50:15.559 --> 50:20.929
and four years later it says,
by 2004 it had increased by 1.3

50:20.925 --> 50:24.945
million,
so the number of children

50:24.954 --> 50:32.264
working at these poverty level
jobs is increasing because the

50:32.264 --> 50:37.994
whole population is increasing
and so forth.

50:37.989 --> 50:41.309
This is the poverty rates
around the world and just

50:41.309 --> 50:44.829
compare--
this confirms the numbers that

50:44.833 --> 50:50.053
I'm telling you that these are
the headcount in number of

50:50.048 --> 50:54.078
millions,
the percent below poverty line

50:54.081 --> 50:58.101
at $1.25 a day,
less than $2.00 a day,

50:58.099 --> 51:02.479
and if you take out China,
China is still one of the

51:02.476 --> 51:05.066
poorest places when you add in
all the peasants,

51:05.070 --> 51:08.710
it doesn't get--it gets
some--actually China makes it

51:08.710 --> 51:11.340
worse,
when you add in China you have

51:11.340 --> 51:14.410
a higher percentage at these
poverty levels,

51:14.409 --> 51:17.479
same for whatever poverty level
you want to work.

51:17.480 --> 51:24.270
These are the appropriate
poverty levels for developing

51:24.269 --> 51:25.779
countries.

51:25.780 --> 51:30.220
Now, again you have the same
two ways of describing this--

51:30.219 --> 51:33.299
the absolute number of people
in this kind of poverty is

51:33.295 --> 51:35.615
growing up,
so as the whole population

51:35.621 --> 51:39.001
grows the number people in these
levels are growing up,

51:39.000 --> 51:42.350
yet there has been economic
progress in the sense that,

51:42.349 --> 51:47.129
as a percentage of people,
the poverty numbers are going

51:47.125 --> 51:49.465
down,
so there's more people in

51:49.474 --> 51:52.914
poverty, but there's a lesser
percentage of the total

51:52.914 --> 51:54.574
population in poverty.

51:54.570 --> 51:56.890
Again, you can,
depending on your political

51:56.891 --> 51:59.211
orientation,
you can describe this as an

51:59.208 --> 52:02.738
increasingly bad situation where
more and more people are in this

52:02.737 --> 52:05.817
kind of poverty,
or a situation that is getting

52:05.818 --> 52:10.168
better because the percentage of
people in poverty is going down.

52:10.170 --> 52:17.600
Now the miracle--so you've all
heard of the economic miracle in

52:17.601 --> 52:20.361
East Asia especially.

52:20.360 --> 52:26.340
Anybody come fairly recently
from China?

52:26.340 --> 52:28.540
None of the students come from
China.

52:28.539 --> 52:31.189
Well the average income,
and again,

52:31.190 --> 52:34.000
income how you define--of
course the Chinese don't earn

52:34.000 --> 52:37.230
dollars so when you express it
in dollars there's a translation

52:37.226 --> 52:40.086
and the best way of doing it is
what's called PPP,

52:40.090 --> 52:41.740
purchasing power parity.

52:41.739 --> 52:44.389
One way is to use the official
exchange rate,

52:44.393 --> 52:47.773
how many--they earn so many
Yuan and how many dollars can

52:47.771 --> 52:49.461
they buy with that Yuan?

52:49.460 --> 52:51.610
That exchange rate,
as you know especially in

52:51.608 --> 52:54.338
China, is manipulated by the
government and is not a real

52:54.342 --> 52:54.882
number.

52:54.880 --> 52:58.320
A number that makes the Chinese
income look more favorable and

52:58.322 --> 53:01.712
is closer to a real number is
what they call purchasing power

53:01.708 --> 53:02.328
parity.

53:02.329 --> 53:05.259
You say how much does a sack of
rice cost in China,

53:05.260 --> 53:07.580
how much does it cost in the
United States,

53:07.579 --> 53:11.849
and you try to use a basket of
commodities appropriate to what

53:11.849 --> 53:15.699
the people in that country
actually use and say how much

53:15.699 --> 53:19.619
would that cost in dollars so
you can have a parity.

53:19.619 --> 53:23.619
On that kind of a level,
a Chinese peasant on average

53:23.617 --> 53:25.307
earns a $1.00 a day.

53:25.309 --> 53:31.799
The person--a $1.00 is the
average income in the Chinese

53:31.802 --> 53:33.812
peasant family.

53:33.809 --> 53:36.659
The jobs in the modern sector,
which means one of these

53:36.659 --> 53:39.299
manufacturing jobs,
and they migrate to some city,

53:39.298 --> 53:42.258
they live in these dorm rooms
where they're just stacked like

53:42.259 --> 53:44.849
cord wood,
and they basically have no free

53:44.847 --> 53:47.787
time and they're--
it's a miserable life but they

53:47.786 --> 53:49.026
double their income.

53:49.030 --> 53:54.700
The economic miracle in Asia is
when people go from $1.00 a day

53:54.695 --> 53:57.905
to $2.00 a day,
and there's hundreds of

53:57.907 --> 54:01.277
millions of people,
you add up China and India,

54:01.280 --> 54:05.660
hundreds of millions of people
who are desperate to earn $2.00

54:05.663 --> 54:08.633
a day;
it's a doubling of their income.

54:08.630 --> 54:09.770
When you read these horrible
stories,

54:09.768 --> 54:13.128
horrible to our ears,
of how, especially women,

54:13.130 --> 54:15.680
moving into the big cities
Guangdong,

54:15.679 --> 54:18.679
Canton or any of the big
cities, how they're living and

54:18.677 --> 54:20.897
the conditions they're working
under,

54:20.900 --> 54:23.350
remember it represents a
doubling of their income and

54:23.353 --> 54:27.233
it's so much--
they can send most of that back

54:27.228 --> 54:33.368
to their home village and home
villages are all living on this

54:33.367 --> 54:35.177
kind of income.

54:35.179 --> 54:39.149
When we talk about poverty--we
will later talk about population

54:39.146 --> 54:43.106
in China - you must realize that
basically all of those workers

54:43.112 --> 54:46.502
who now have access to
moderately decent education can

54:46.501 --> 54:47.911
compete with us.

54:47.909 --> 54:51.179
There's very few jobs that we
can do and they can't do,

54:51.179 --> 54:54.679
and so we at up to $80 an hour
for a blue collar worker are

54:54.675 --> 54:58.165
basically in competition with
someone who's very happy--

54:58.170 --> 55:00.870
and they grumble,
people working for GM grumble,

55:00.869 --> 55:04.079
and in some of their conditions
the grumbling could be quite

55:04.083 --> 55:07.143
fair--
but they're in competition with

55:07.143 --> 55:11.373
people earning $2.00,
that wish they would earn $2.00

55:11.365 --> 55:11.875
a day.

55:11.880 --> 55:18.320
In places--this is not only our
competition but jewelry making,

55:18.320 --> 55:22.450
very labor intensive--of course
countries with low wage rates

55:22.449 --> 55:26.509
attract very labor intensive
jobs and hand making of jewelry

55:26.510 --> 55:28.850
is a very labor intensive job.

55:28.849 --> 55:32.369
Sure enough,
Bangkok was one of the centers

55:32.369 --> 55:35.389
of jewelry making,
and because it was the center

55:35.385 --> 55:37.155
and it requires a fair amount of
skill,

55:37.159 --> 55:41.589
the wages actually rose in
Bangkok for these jewelry makers

55:41.586 --> 55:46.546
and they got up to $8.00 a day
for a jewelry worker in Bangkok.

55:46.550 --> 55:48.260
Guess what happened?

55:48.260 --> 55:51.430
All the factories moved to
China, they're back down to

55:51.429 --> 55:54.479
$2.00 a day, a saving of 75% on
your labor costs;

55:54.480 --> 55:55.870
of course they're going to do
it.

55:55.869 --> 55:59.499
Not only in China,
but Mexico, all the

55:59.500 --> 56:03.100
maquiladoras,
the border between Texas and

56:03.096 --> 56:07.296
California and Mexico has a lot
of factories and because of

56:07.295 --> 56:11.345
various trade laws they can
assemble things and just ship

56:11.349 --> 56:16.199
them across the border with low
trade tariffs and everything,

56:16.199 --> 56:20.739
and they have been nearly wiped
out with jobs moving to China.

56:20.739 --> 56:22.589
Now of course,
for a while anyway,

56:22.585 --> 56:25.605
conditions were getting a
little bit better in China so

56:25.608 --> 56:26.838
the jobs moved to?

56:26.840 --> 56:28.990
Anyone reading the newspapers?

56:28.989 --> 56:32.559
Who's now competing with China?

56:32.559 --> 56:35.529
India, at a high level,
but Vietnam,

56:35.525 --> 56:40.605
Cambodia, places that are even
poorer than China are now even

56:40.608 --> 56:43.318
taking jobs away from China.

56:43.320 --> 56:49.570
In Romania, which is one of the
poorest countries in Europe,

56:49.565 --> 56:55.805
the wages average about $83.00
a week, so $10.00 or $12.00 a

56:55.813 --> 56:56.663
day.

56:56.659 --> 57:00.809
When they got into the European
Union what did the Romanian

57:00.809 --> 57:01.739
workers do?

57:01.739 --> 57:05.859
They moved out to France,
Germany, England to get the

57:05.864 --> 57:10.704
higher wages that are available
there which left a lot of jobs

57:10.704 --> 57:15.394
unfilled in Romania where they
get $12.00 a day as I've just

57:15.387 --> 57:16.257
said.

57:16.260 --> 57:18.910
What did the Romanians do?

57:18.909 --> 57:21.739
Imported Chinese,
who worked for less and filled

57:21.744 --> 57:24.464
the jobs,
there's an unlimited number of

57:24.463 --> 57:28.253
peasants in China that would
love to work in Romania under

57:28.250 --> 57:31.580
almost any kind of conditions,
and they leave their husbands,

57:31.581 --> 57:34.311
their children,
everybody is left home usually

57:34.311 --> 57:38.481
under the care of grandparents
who are too old themselves to

57:38.483 --> 57:39.053
work.

57:39.050 --> 57:44.670
Keep that in mind,
abject poverty is a $1.00 a

57:44.668 --> 57:50.038
day, the economic miracle is
$2.00 a day.

57:50.039 --> 57:56.459
Okay, what does living look
like in these places?

57:56.460 --> 57:59.850
We've been talking about
Bombay, and Shanghai,

57:59.846 --> 58:03.606
these are big places that
everybody knows about.

58:03.610 --> 58:06.480
You'll never guess where this
is and you've probably never

58:06.476 --> 58:07.176
heard of it.

58:07.179 --> 58:09.139
This is the capital of
Mauritania.

58:09.139 --> 58:11.799
How many know where Mauritania
is?

58:11.800 --> 58:14.130
Good, it's on the Atlantic
coast of Africa.

58:14.130 --> 58:17.670
I should remember to always
make a slide--geography map

58:17.668 --> 58:19.108
slides but I didn't.

58:19.110 --> 58:22.670
It's on the Atlantic coast it
is--the capital is a place

58:22.666 --> 58:23.956
called Nouakchott.

58:23.960 --> 58:28.010
Nouakchott is over there
somewhere and this is the

58:28.007 --> 58:32.547
suburbs of Nouakchott and what
it is is desert it's--

58:32.550 --> 58:36.270
all of Mauritania is basically
desert,

58:36.268 --> 58:38.758
until it rolls into the ocean
in which case it becomes an

58:38.762 --> 58:39.122
ocean.

58:39.119 --> 58:44.889
In the desert all these people
live in shanties of any kind of

58:44.891 --> 58:48.961
construction material that they
can find.

58:48.960 --> 58:52.150
The national government,
the city government does not

58:52.152 --> 58:55.532
have the resources to deal with
these people at all,

58:55.530 --> 58:59.350
so they get no sanitation,
they get no policing,

58:59.349 --> 59:02.969
they get no water,
there's just--these are called

59:02.972 --> 59:07.732
unplanned communities and they
sort of basically don't exist.

59:07.730 --> 59:09.640
What are they to the government?

59:09.639 --> 59:12.739
They're a source of problems
because very poor people,

59:12.737 --> 59:15.657
who have nothing to lose,
revolt every so often.

59:15.659 --> 59:18.189
They say you've got something,
we don't have it,

59:18.190 --> 59:21.120
we want it, why is the
government not doing anything

59:21.115 --> 59:23.745
for us,
so this is a source of social

59:23.746 --> 59:26.346
discontent,
and the shanty towns are around

59:26.347 --> 59:29.267
every big city in the world are
great sources of social

59:29.271 --> 59:30.031
discontent.

59:30.030 --> 59:32.970
What you see here is a road,
and I've just said they

59:32.974 --> 59:34.654
basically don't have roads.

59:34.650 --> 59:37.780
What happens is that the
military in each of these

59:37.777 --> 59:41.797
countries wants to be sure to be
able to control the people,

59:41.800 --> 59:44.230
so every so often they send in
a bulldozer,

59:44.230 --> 59:48.440
you can sort of see another
road here off to the right.

59:48.440 --> 59:52.420
Let me get a better one of
these--they just come in one

59:52.422 --> 59:56.702
morning and the people are
asleep in their shanty's because

59:56.699 --> 59:58.839
they don't have any jobs.

59:58.840 --> 1:00:02.210
And very early in the morning
they just hear this rumble and

1:00:02.210 --> 1:00:05.640
they walk outside to find out
what it is and the bulldozer is

1:00:05.639 --> 1:00:08.949
two minutes away from their
house and they just go down and

1:00:08.952 --> 1:00:11.412
knock out anything that's in the
way.

1:00:11.409 --> 1:00:14.929
If you happen to be in the path
that the military bulldoze

1:00:14.931 --> 1:00:17.491
knocks down,
well sorry, sorry,

1:00:17.489 --> 1:00:21.109
that's gone,
and then the soldiers can go

1:00:21.114 --> 1:00:23.384
into these situations.

1:00:23.380 --> 1:00:28.490
The point being that these
enormous dense populations,

1:00:28.489 --> 1:00:31.809
which we associate with
Calcutta or Bombay,

1:00:31.809 --> 1:00:35.689
or Shanghai,
Canton, are in fact almost

1:00:35.690 --> 1:00:40.390
everywhere in the world now
including this--

1:00:40.389 --> 1:00:45.179
this is where Nouakchott meets
the Atlantic Ocean.

1:00:45.179 --> 1:00:49.169
Here's the Atlantic Ocean
there, and what do they live on?

1:00:49.170 --> 1:00:53.240
Well they live on fishing and
each of these little things

1:00:53.237 --> 1:00:56.067
here, if you can see,
is a fishing boat,

1:00:56.070 --> 1:00:59.340
a little boat that they row out
and fish.

1:00:59.340 --> 1:01:02.370
Look at how many boats there
are, all trying to get an

1:01:02.369 --> 1:01:05.969
occasional fish and that's not a
terribly rich fishing ground of

1:01:05.969 --> 1:01:06.769
the world.

1:01:06.768 --> 1:01:10.088
It's very close to the equator
and there's no big upwelling of

1:01:10.085 --> 1:01:13.125
nutrients, there's not a great
big fishing down there.

1:01:13.130 --> 1:01:17.940
This is how the people have
been competing with each other

1:01:17.942 --> 1:01:21.152
for the few fish that are out
there.

1:01:21.150 --> 1:01:24.180
Now--so that's the desert and
here is the jungle.

1:01:24.179 --> 1:01:29.619
This is Brazil in a place that
you may have heard of Serra

1:01:29.615 --> 1:01:32.085
Pelada,
peeled mountain or naked

1:01:32.094 --> 1:01:35.974
mountain, anybody who has heard
of it or seen pictures of this

1:01:35.974 --> 1:01:36.614
before?

1:01:36.610 --> 1:01:39.400
One--a couple of people,
it's very well known,

1:01:39.400 --> 1:01:42.720
so if you travel in Brazil all
the big cities again have shanty

1:01:42.717 --> 1:01:45.817
towns where people are desperate
for some kind of a job.

1:01:45.820 --> 1:01:49.560
Every so often a truck rolls
through and says,

1:01:49.559 --> 1:01:51.769
I have some jobs,
and people just pile in,

1:01:51.768 --> 1:01:54.278
and I've watched it,
and they don't ask how much,

1:01:54.280 --> 1:01:56.810
where am I going,
what's the kind of work;

1:01:56.809 --> 1:02:00.009
a job is like a magic word,
it's like manna from heaven,

1:02:00.005 --> 1:02:01.455
they jump in the truck.

1:02:01.460 --> 1:02:05.260
Well one of the places you're
taken to is this place,

1:02:05.260 --> 1:02:07.000
and this place is way in the
middle of the jungle,

1:02:07.000 --> 1:02:11.440
like 1,000 miles from Rio or
Sao Paolo and what it is,

1:02:11.440 --> 1:02:14.450
it's a mountain that they found
gold in.

1:02:14.449 --> 1:02:18.169
Normally if you've seen like
mining in the western United

1:02:18.166 --> 1:02:22.006
States they have these steam
shovels which have a bucket as

1:02:22.014 --> 1:02:27.374
big as this whole room probably,
and each drag of the bucket

1:02:27.365 --> 1:02:33.055
pulls up hundreds of tons,
I don't know the actual numbers.

1:02:33.059 --> 1:02:38.329
In Serra Pelada,
human labor is cheaper than to

1:02:38.331 --> 1:02:40.741
buy a steam shovel.

1:02:40.739 --> 1:02:44.399
What each of these little dots
are is a person.

1:02:44.400 --> 1:02:45.060
What it is?

1:02:45.063 --> 1:02:48.263
This is a pit and they're
digging in the mud there,

1:02:48.260 --> 1:02:51.750
they carry the mud up--the
sluicing is up here on the top

1:02:51.746 --> 1:02:54.576
where they have--
sluicing is--gold is heavier

1:02:54.577 --> 1:02:57.317
than soil so they take,
basically mud,

1:02:57.324 --> 1:03:01.054
dump it into someplace,
water runs over it,

1:03:01.050 --> 1:03:04.510
washes away the mud,
and anything that sticks down

1:03:04.507 --> 1:03:07.817
falls heavy in little flakes or
tiny nuggets of gold;

1:03:07.820 --> 1:03:11.230
that's the primitive way of
doing gold mining.

1:03:11.230 --> 1:03:14.390
Just flow water over mud and
there's very,

1:03:14.394 --> 1:03:18.414
very low concentration you get
a gold flake there.

1:03:18.409 --> 1:03:21.679
What do these people--how do
they work?

1:03:21.679 --> 1:03:26.199
This is--they go down,
then climb--these are wooden

1:03:26.195 --> 1:03:29.155
ladders,
and another part they climb

1:03:29.163 --> 1:03:33.553
down the ladders and they have
burlap sacks on their back,

1:03:33.550 --> 1:03:36.140
the cheapest kind of sack,
and they go down and with very

1:03:36.139 --> 1:03:38.219
primitive implements or maybe
their hands,

1:03:38.219 --> 1:03:41.269
they take the earth from the
bottom of the pit,

1:03:41.268 --> 1:03:44.488
they put it in these packs,
they put the pack on their back

1:03:44.485 --> 1:03:47.525
and they climb up the stairs and
dump it into the sluice

1:03:47.534 --> 1:03:49.534
apparatus and then go back down.

1:03:49.530 --> 1:03:51.360
That's their whole life.

1:03:51.360 --> 1:03:53.580
There are miserable wages,
they can't leave because

1:03:53.583 --> 1:03:56.033
they're in the middle of the
jungle, they have no way of

1:03:56.029 --> 1:03:58.029
getting back to any kind of
civilization.

1:03:58.030 --> 1:04:00.520
The companies do indeed provide
prostitutes for them.

1:04:00.518 --> 1:04:03.218
This whole village is full of
prostitutes which are the women

1:04:03.215 --> 1:04:04.785
that come out the same
situation.

1:04:04.789 --> 1:04:08.419
Send a truck around and say
they have jobs for women,

1:04:08.418 --> 1:04:11.838
they jump on with little or no
questions asked.

1:04:11.840 --> 1:04:15.020
How is the whole thing kept
under control?

1:04:15.018 --> 1:04:19.278
By soldiers with guns or
paramilitaries with guns,

1:04:19.280 --> 1:04:25.150
and here is moderately typical,
one of the workers has not even

1:04:25.152 --> 1:04:29.112
the clothes on his back,
and there's huge numbers of

1:04:29.106 --> 1:04:30.916
them and they are kept in
control.

1:04:30.920 --> 1:04:34.170
In this particular instance the
things were looking like they

1:04:34.168 --> 1:04:36.008
were going to go out of control.

1:04:36.010 --> 1:04:45.210
Again, this is all around the
world you'll find situations

1:04:45.211 --> 1:04:47.151
like this.

1:04:47.150 --> 1:04:55.780


1:04:55.780 --> 1:04:59.230
Sometimes I talk
about--everywhere in the world.

1:04:59.230 --> 1:04:59.950
If you go up to Mt.

1:04:59.947 --> 1:05:01.907
Everest--we've got--what are
the ends of the earth?

1:05:01.909 --> 1:05:04.249
There's the deserts,
there's the jungles,

1:05:04.251 --> 1:05:05.131
and there's Mt.

1:05:05.128 --> 1:05:08.168
Everest and I just copied down
some statistics on Mt.

1:05:08.172 --> 1:05:11.452
Everest, how much population
there is in the world.

1:05:11.449 --> 1:05:16.639
There's--up high,
and I used to mountain climb a

1:05:16.637 --> 1:05:18.847
lot,
a single footstep can require

1:05:18.847 --> 1:05:21.597
eight breaths,
you take a step you pant eight

1:05:21.597 --> 1:05:23.857
times,
and people like me it would be

1:05:23.858 --> 1:05:25.538
a lot more than eight times.

1:05:25.539 --> 1:05:28.439
On one particular day,
and standard in the couple of

1:05:28.436 --> 1:05:31.846
months that you can climb it,
there's 500 climbers waiting to

1:05:31.846 --> 1:05:33.036
climb up Everest.

1:05:33.039 --> 1:05:37.439
The place is just littered with
dead bodies, it's littered with

1:05:37.440 --> 1:05:39.220
oxygen bottles,
I mean Mt.

1:05:39.215 --> 1:05:43.185
Everest is kind of a congestion
zone, it looks like Grand

1:05:43.190 --> 1:05:47.590
Central Station that have been
sort of cleared out of people on

1:05:47.592 --> 1:05:48.872
many days.

1:05:48.869 --> 1:05:52.569
There's 120 dead bodies
littering the top of Mt.

1:05:52.567 --> 1:05:57.047
Everest, so population has
gotten so extreme that it's not

1:05:57.050 --> 1:06:00.980
only the big cities,
it's basically everywhere that

1:06:00.983 --> 1:06:03.033
you look people are.

1:06:03.030 --> 1:06:08.720
Let's just conclude today with
a little bit of future guessing.

1:06:08.719 --> 1:06:13.559
We know that fertility--so now
we have most of the world at a

1:06:13.561 --> 1:06:18.161
very high fertility rate,
population going gangbusters.

1:06:18.159 --> 1:06:22.249
Now can we dream up a scenario
where this gets better?

1:06:22.250 --> 1:06:24.590
It may get better,
it may not get better,

1:06:24.590 --> 1:06:27.310
things may get worse until
there's some incredible crisis

1:06:27.306 --> 1:06:29.146
or things may stay as they are
now,

1:06:29.150 --> 1:06:32.810
or things may coast to a soft
landing,

1:06:32.809 --> 1:06:33.289
we don't know.

1:06:33.289 --> 1:06:40.029
Let's draw ourselves a scenario
for the soft landing situation.

1:06:40.030 --> 1:06:42.770
One of the things that we know
is that there's very,

1:06:42.768 --> 1:06:45.258
very poor people,
these $1.00 a day people don't

1:06:45.257 --> 1:06:48.377
limit their births and the exact
reason for it we'll discuss

1:06:48.380 --> 1:06:48.910
later.

1:06:48.909 --> 1:06:50.369
A lot of it has to do with
education,

1:06:50.369 --> 1:06:52.789
that they don't--a lot of
things about how their bodies

1:06:52.786 --> 1:06:55.736
work they don't understand,
so they're afraid of modern

1:06:55.737 --> 1:06:59.627
contraception,
a lot of issues which we will

1:06:59.628 --> 1:07:00.538
discuss.

1:07:00.539 --> 1:07:04.399
We observe around the world
that some increase in standard

1:07:04.398 --> 1:07:06.768
of living has to take place
for--

1:07:06.768 --> 1:07:12.508
before people start being
willing and want to limit their

1:07:12.510 --> 1:07:13.740
fertility.

1:07:13.739 --> 1:07:17.259
Let's take the minimum
situation, let's say someone

1:07:17.255 --> 1:07:20.695
gets one of these $2.00 a day
jobs and that's--

1:07:20.699 --> 1:07:24.469
then they start thinking
differently about themselves in

1:07:24.469 --> 1:07:26.319
the world,
they may be in the city where

1:07:26.324 --> 1:07:28.784
they get some education,
some awareness of what's going

1:07:28.782 --> 1:07:31.062
on in the world,
they want to limit their

1:07:31.061 --> 1:07:34.421
population so let's say that we
go from $1.00 a day to $2.00 a

1:07:34.418 --> 1:07:36.508
day,
that's incredibly optimistic

1:07:36.505 --> 1:07:40.085
that $2.00 a day is sufficient
but you'll see what-- where I'm

1:07:40.090 --> 1:07:40.620
going.

1:07:40.619 --> 1:07:42.829
That's a doubling of income of
the poor people.

1:07:42.829 --> 1:07:45.529
Again, something like a third
of the people on earth are in

1:07:45.530 --> 1:07:49.680
this $1.00 to $2.00 a day range,
so you double their income and

1:07:49.681 --> 1:07:54.811
all of sudden miracles happen
and population stops growing,

1:07:54.809 --> 1:07:57.739
not real, way overly optimistic.

1:07:57.739 --> 1:08:01.639
Another thing that we know is
that when incomes around the

1:08:01.639 --> 1:08:05.809
world rise the poor people have
the smallest rise and the rich

1:08:05.811 --> 1:08:08.071
people have the biggest rise.

1:08:08.070 --> 1:08:10.970
If the small people are
doubling their income,

1:08:10.965 --> 1:08:13.985
what is the average of the
whole world doing?

1:08:13.989 --> 1:08:15.889
It's going to be much then
doubling.

1:08:15.889 --> 1:08:18.739
Again, you can pick--I'm sure
economists have these numbers,

1:08:18.743 --> 1:08:21.263
I don't have them,
you can pick whatever you want.

1:08:21.260 --> 1:08:24.580
If in order to raise most of
the world from $1.00 a day to

1:08:24.582 --> 1:08:28.142
$2.00 a day you need to double
their income and does the whole

1:08:28.136 --> 1:08:31.106
world rise by more than 2 times
maybe 3 times,

1:08:31.109 --> 1:08:33.929
but we can pick any number that
we want.

1:08:33.930 --> 1:08:37.010
I've told you two facts,
that the population of the

1:08:37.009 --> 1:08:40.459
world is for sure going to
increase by something like 50%

1:08:40.457 --> 1:08:42.857
before, if, and when it
stabilizes.

1:08:42.859 --> 1:08:47.689
We can sort of see ballpark a
50% increase coming.

1:08:47.689 --> 1:08:51.989
Now, but this average standard
of living has to at least

1:08:51.988 --> 1:08:54.128
double,
and probably triple or

1:08:54.132 --> 1:08:57.792
quadruple, or again pick almost
whatever number you want,

1:08:57.788 --> 1:09:02.148
so at the minimum of doubling
the world's per capita income,

1:09:02.149 --> 1:09:06.909
50% more people are doubling
the income means a three--

1:09:06.908 --> 1:09:10.988
that the gross economy,
well it has to triple because

1:09:10.993 --> 1:09:13.823
you have 1.5 time as many
people,

1:09:13.819 --> 1:09:17.649
each earning twice as much,
that's a tripling of the world

1:09:17.648 --> 1:09:18.318
economy.

1:09:18.319 --> 1:09:22.309
If you want to say that the
world--that to double the income

1:09:22.310 --> 1:09:26.030
of poor people you have to
triple the world economy,

1:09:26.029 --> 1:09:29.499
then that's three times more or
four and half times as much.

1:09:29.500 --> 1:09:32.950
Basically we're looking at a
optimistic scenario for the

1:09:32.953 --> 1:09:36.593
future where we come to a soft
landing and then in order to

1:09:36.594 --> 1:09:40.494
come to a soft landing we have
to have the economy of the world

1:09:40.487 --> 1:09:43.887
increase by a factor of three,
by a factor of four,

1:09:43.887 --> 1:09:47.967
four and a half,
five, six, somewhere in that

1:09:47.970 --> 1:09:49.970
range of numbers.

1:09:49.970 --> 1:09:53.990
Now technology--the improvement
of technology allows us to grow

1:09:53.988 --> 1:09:56.208
our income with--
a somewhat less than

1:09:56.212 --> 1:09:58.102
proportionate increase in
resources,

1:09:58.100 --> 1:10:01.750
and again, you can make a wild
guess about how much technology

1:10:01.747 --> 1:10:05.217
will improve in the future so
that we can double our income

1:10:05.217 --> 1:10:09.047
without quite doubling the drain
on world's sources or the amount

1:10:09.046 --> 1:10:12.706
of pollution we put it into,
or the amount of carbon dioxide

1:10:12.708 --> 1:10:13.518
we put into it.

1:10:13.520 --> 1:10:17.370
We're looking at this enormous
increase in order to come to a

1:10:17.372 --> 1:10:20.412
soft landing,
we're looking at this at least

1:10:20.405 --> 1:10:24.565
a tripling of the world economy,
and something like a tripling

1:10:24.572 --> 1:10:28.652
of the pollution in the world,
the carbon dioxide in the

1:10:28.648 --> 1:10:31.988
world, the use of resources in
the world.

1:10:31.988 --> 1:10:36.478
Most people believe that we're
at the limit of what the earth

1:10:36.480 --> 1:10:39.550
can cope with in terms of the
economy,

1:10:39.550 --> 1:10:41.610
which is basically how much
we're taking out of the earth.

1:10:41.609 --> 1:10:45.039
We're at the limit right now
but with population we're not

1:10:45.042 --> 1:10:48.052
going to have a soft landing
unless we triple that,

1:10:48.051 --> 1:10:50.041
at least minimum triple that.

1:10:50.038 --> 1:10:55.938
That's the significance of this
population issue that can the

1:10:55.940 --> 1:11:02.040
earth cope with the tripling of
the economic activity on it?

1:11:02.038 --> 1:11:04.818
I left my crystal ball home so
you're going to--you are

1:11:04.815 --> 1:11:07.845
definitely going to find out the
answer to that question.

1:11:07.850 --> 1:11:10.970
Okay, next time we will
continue.

1:11:10.970 --> 1:11:16.000