The recent increase in the number of people living in Hawaii is phenomenal. With a population of only 154,000 persons at the beginning of the 20th century, the Hawaiian islands now hold almost nine times that number: 1,360,301 residents in 2010. In the recent 2000-2010 decade, 148,764 new people were added to the state population.
Hawaii, a microcosm of the world, parallels the world population problem. In 1800, the Earth supported about 1 billion people; by 1930 there were 2 billion inhabitants; in 1974, 4 billion people were listed; and in 2011, just this past Monday, the 7 billionth occupant was officially counted.
Another way to visualize this growth is to observe that each year the world is adding the equivalent of the combined populations of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway and Sweden — more than 80 million new people each year, or more than 220,000 new mouths to feed each day.
The startling rise in Hawaii’s — and the world’s — population growth can be easily overlooked. Most people love babies, and they welcome new residents. The increase in numbers of people is so subtly pervasive. It is often confused with progress. It is even welcomed as a source for economic gain.
The causes of the population rise are multiple, but the salient factor is the sharp reduction in death rates, especially infant mortality, in the absence of a corresponding drop in birth rates. The result for the world in 2011 is an excessive rate of natural increase — birth rate minus death rate — of about 1.2 percent, or an average of about three children per family. While 1.2 percent sounds like a small number, this rate of increase implies that the world population would double in about 58 years. To stabilize the world population, a rate of zero, or an average of 2.1 children per family, is necessary — or, more simply stated, stability is almost assured when one child replaces one adult.
While world birth rates have declined in the past half-century with the increase in availability of family planning and the use of contraceptives in many countries, the pattern of decline has been very variable. Population projections assume that more developed countries — such as the United States, Canada, Japan, parts of China and Asia, Europe, Brazil — with 1,242 billion people in mid-2011 will continue to drop to the stabilization level of two children per family. However, the less-developed nations in Africa and parts of Asia and the Mideast with 5,745 billion people in mid-2011, with less access to education and medical assistance, will continue rapid population growth.
This uncontrolled increase of people directly contributes to economic decline and failing states. Symptoms of this world problem include poverty, housing and water shortages, diminished food production and rising prices, hunger and starvation, soil devastation and climate change.
As a part of the developed world, Hawaii has achieved population stability by natural increase. The availability of health facilities and family-planning education, the awareness of the high social costs of child-raising, and the problems of coping with elevated economic costs of living in Hawaii have contributed to a low rate of births.
However, in-migration has replaced excess births as the major population factor in the "disease" of overpopulation in the Hawaiian Islands. In 2011 Hawaii’s rate of population increase is the same as the world rapid growth rate of 1.2 percent, a figure that cannot be maintained indefinitely in a finite environment.
What are some of the symptoms of this insidious disease?
» Traffic congestion.
» Housing limitations; urban sprawl.
» Solid waste disposal difficulties.
» Ocean quality deterioration and sea life loss.
» Dependence on outside sources for food and energy.
» Increased transportation costs.
» Noise.
» Land destruction to accommodate more people.
Population projections by the state Department of Business and Economic Development clearly demonstrated the relationship of rapid expansion of population by in-migration using the state policy that endorsed economic growth through development of jobs in the visitor industry. In a 1980s study on which the Oahu General Plan was based, one projection showed a Hawaii population of 2,106,200 in 2025, while another projection, using the same fertility-mortality figures but a balanced level of in- and out- migration, raised the island population to only 1,041,000 persons. It indicated that migration alone would increase the population by more than a million people during that 1980-2025 projection period. Hawaii residents have witnessed this rapid growth.
Today in Hawaii, more growth continues to be promoted and more jobs are planned. Are these jobs proposed for use by present residents or for new in-migrants? Is this a reasonable objective, or is it a reckless pattern of growth for economic gain? Are government planners and businessmen trying to increase Hawaii’s dependence on outside sources for food by covering the land with hotels, houses, trains, cars and more people?
Protectors of this precious gem of the world could promote indirect methods to slow movement of in-migrants to Hawaii. This could include:
» Publicly endorse the concept of slow growth. Encourage visitors to visit but not to stay indefinitely. Openly discourage in-migration, as is done in Bermuda and Fiji.
» Set limits on the use, districting, classification, redistricting and reclassification of land.
» Establish limits on the construction of sewers, housing, hotels and highways.
» Develop national laws to change the current situation in which a disproportionate number of aliens are permitted to migrate and settle in this small state of Hawaii.
While the world struggles with 7 billion people trying to survive despite uncontrolled numbers of births over deaths, Hawaii is trying to accommodate to a rapid population growth caused by a steady stream of in-migrants. The capacity of the small planet Earth and of this finite group of Hawaiian islands is threatened by an overload of new residents.
Eleanor C. Nordyke is the author of "The Peopling of Hawaii" (1977, 1989) and a former population researcher at the East-West Center.
