Non-Human Animals Are Declining in Number--Humans Are to Blame

The World Wildlife Federation and Zoological Society of London have just released the latest Living Planet Report (the 2016 version), and its conclusions are dismal, at best. The Independent has this headline: "World facing first mass extinction since the dinosaurs as wildlife populations plunge by 67 per cent in 50 years" and a very nice illustrative video to go with that. The BBC is a little more reserved in its coverage, but there is nothing encouraging here.

The figures suggest that animals living in lakes, rivers and wetlands are suffering the biggest losses. Human activity, including habitat loss, wildlife trade, pollution and climate change contributed to the declines.

Dr Mike Barrett. head of science and policy at WWF, said: "It's pretty clear under 'business as usual' we will see continued declines in these wildlife populations. But I think now we've reached a point where there isn't really any excuse to let this carry on. "We know what the causes are and we know the scale of the impact that humans are having on nature and on wildlife populations - it really is now down to us to act."

The BBC science writer notes that there are criticisms of the methods used in the report, since many parts of the world don't have good data on animal populations. But even taking those limits into account, the animal population is in decline, we are the cause, and this is not a good thing. 

Migrants Dying in the Mediterranean are Mainly from sub-Saharan Africa

The civil war in Syria has produced a huge mass of refugees, but Europe's deal with Turkey to bottle them up in Turkey seems to be stemming that flow toward Europe, at least for the time being. In the meantime, however, migration out of Sub-Saharan Africa has generated a new round of deaths in the Mediterranean. Huffington Post reports that trying to cross the Mediterranean is three times more deadly this year than last year.

The death toll on the Mediterranean has nearly matched that of all last year, with more than 3,740 migrants and refugees having drowned on their way to Europe, and perilous winter months still to come, aid agencies said on Tuesday.

Smugglers are now sending thousands of people on flimsy inflatable rafts from Libya to Italy in mass embarkations, perhaps to lower their own risks of being caught, but also complicating the work of rescue teams, they said.

You have to go to other sources, however, such as a recent story in the Economist, to realize that these migrants have little to do with the conflict in the Middle East. Rather, they are leaving the rapidly growing countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, especially Nigeria. Think about this: Nigeria is currently the 7th most populous nation in the world, but it is on track to surpass the U.S. by the middle of this year and become the 3rd most populous country, thanks to a birth rate that is currently at 5.5 children per woman. Its economy is heavily dependent upon oil and the drop in oil prices has generated economic problems throughout Nigeria (maybe not as bad as in Venezuela, but still bad). What to do? Head to Europe, that's what. Nigerians have been arriving in Italy without documents for a long time, but the pace is picking up, and it isn't clear that it will slacken any time soon.

China Consumes More Pork, and Latin Americans Pay the Environmental Price

I've written before about the environmental impact of feeding more people, especially in China, the world's most populous country and second largest economy. A new report out from Boston University tries to gauge this impact on Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. China has become a huge trading partner with Latin America, but China mainly buys agricultural and mineral resources, while selling manufactured goods. As the report notes, this is essentially a backward step for Latin America.

LAC is, in effect, exporting water and importing carbon. Overall, LAC’s boom in exports to China has driven the region’s production into carbon- and water-intensive sectors. At the same time, LAC’s boom in imports from China has further increased the region’s environmental footprint on both fronts.

Contrary to the hypothesis of the environmental Kuznets curve, primary production is more environmentally sensitive than manufacturing in LAC: it creates more net greenhouse gas emissions and uses or contaminates more water per million dollars. So it is not surprising that LAC exports to China are more environmentally sensitive than other LAC exports. Given these risks associated with this important new economic relationship, LAC governments would be wise to approach it with reinforced emphasis on setting environmental safeguards that meet the needs of their development strategies.

Although the focus of the report is not on any specific Latin American country or countries, we in the U.S. are obviously especially interested in Mexico. One of the features of the current presidential campaign in the U.S. is Donald Trump's insistence that NAFTA was one of the worst trade deals ever signed. Admittedly, it didn't turn out as well as expected, but that was not the fault of those who designed the deal. I was one among many demographers who testified before Congressional committees and caucuses back in 1993 as Congress was debating the bill. My recollection is that we were all in agreement that good jobs in Mexico would raise wages in that country, thus cutting down migration to the U.S., while also offering cheaper goods for sale in the U.S.--a genuine win-win. NAFTA was, however, undermined by the fact that East Asian countries (principally China and South Korea) offered companies even lower wages than were prevailing in Mexico, and jobs wound up going to Asia rather than Mexico. My sense is that these global dynamics are not well understood by the current crop of American politicians.

It's the Demography, Stupid!

Thanks to my son, John, for linking me to a story from yesterday's Financial Times with the provocative title of "It's the Demography, Stupid," drawing upon Bill Clinton's successful campaign slogan from many years ago that "It's the Economy, Stupid." The article itself is mainly about the effect of demographic change (especially aging) on the interest rate--more specifically, on the "equilibrium interest rate (r*)". 

Why is there a link between r* and demography? Remember that the equilibrium real rate of interest is that which ensures that savings and investment in the economy are equal in the long run. If ex ante savings exceed investment, r* declines, and vice versa. Since the savings behaviour of households is clearly affected by the age distribution of the population, and the investment behaviour of the corporate sector is affected by the labour supply, it is obvious that demography matters a lot for the determination of r*.

Now, I admit that I did not remember what the equilibrium real rate of interest was, so that was my lesson for the day. Life has also taught me that when economists talk about "equilibrium" we should probably stop listening, but in fact that is because demographic change does indeed make equilibrium an elusive concept. The economy needs to adapt to demographic change, rather than pretending that it does not exist, and the author of this story--Gavyn Davies (a British economist)--is pushing that agenda. If you have read my book, you know my belief that demography underlies almost everything that happens in the world, in one way or another. The more of us who understand that, the better off the world will be.

Geography, Demography, and the Presidential Election

You may already have seen this map because it has been making the rounds on the internet, but it tells the story of the geography and demography of the Presidential election. To be sure, the map reflects voting at the county-level for the 2012 contest between Obama and Romney. But this is the road map for the current Clinton - Trump election:

The map was put together by Nate Cohn and Toni Monkovic of the Upshot feature of the NYTimes, and the two of them have a great discussion about what this all means. Here's a snippet:

Toni One way to understand Blue America is to follow the water. The oceans, the Great Lakes and the major rivers were obvious places for small settlements to become major cities. And these big metro areas are where Democrats dominate.The population of rural counties as a whole has been declining, and metro areas are growing. Over time, this will help Democrats, no?

Nate The Democrats do tend to do best in metropolitan areas. All of the major demographic and cultural changes that have helped the Democrats over the last decade are concentrated in these diverse and often well-educated areas. In this election, I’d guess Hillary Clinton will fare even better in metropolitan areas than President Obama did.

The red parts of the country tend to be rural, predominantly white, less-well educated--Trump country. The blue parts in the southern states reflect counties that historically had plantations with large slave populations and they are still predominantly African-American. Blue areas in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona are counties with high percentages of Latinos and/or Native Americans. Blue counties along the two coasts reflect the better-educated urban populations--these tend to be Clinton country.