The Netherlands is full – NRC
Nice, that series of reflections on the issues surrounding the growth of the Dutch population. Still, after the first episode, a nasty feeling came over me. Because the question ‘full or not full’ is not about the distribution of space and solving short-term problems, but about a balance in strategic natural resources, of which space is only one. The question is therefore not how many houses we can house, but how many people we can provide structurally, i.e. sustainably, with food, fresh water, energy and raw materials. The world now has 8 billion inhabitants and we are going to 10 of 11 billion.
‘Earth Overshoot Day’, the day we made our calculated annual quota of supplies, now falls in July. Ergo, even with assumed consumption behavior, a maximum of 5 billion people can happen to the earth. A maximum of 3 billion for Dutch consumption behaviour.
The fact that we are now keeping the 8 billion alive and happily continuing to grow means that we are taking a huge advance on the stocks of the very near future. What we cannot resist today, including economic growth and population growth, depends on what the youth will still have to distribute tomorrow. I predict: that will be correct.
The Netherlands ranks 29th out of 237 in the population density ranking. In short: if the world is overpopulated, then that certainly applies to the Netherlands. full!
Roermond
A version of this article also appeared in the January 6, 2023 issue