"We’ll Save the Planet Only If..."

A 15 February 2008 article in the UK's Independent and reprinted at CommonDreams.org, We’ll Save the Planet Only if We’re Forced To, by Johann Hari, doesn't mention "population" but certainly inspired a discussion of overpopulation as "the single biggest aspect of the problem."

Here's a summary of what some CommonDream responders had to say about runaway human population:

•Let’s quit avoiding the single biggest aspect of the problem and the hard solution to it: Global human overpopulation, and mandated population reduction. Pretty much everything else is coincidental to this, and will improve with the population reduction. •Just as the author says that forcing people to make other changes will help climate change, forcing people not to procreate will produce the biggest changes of all. The Earth cannot sustain 6.6+ billion people, let alone projections of 10 billion or more.

•[E]vents will force a reduction in World population by Draconian means - war, famine, plague, and pestilence - if we do nothing to do it as fairly and rationally as possible.

•The hard truth is that unless we reduce World population to under 2 billion before mid-Century we will most certainly suffer a population crash that will take us there tragically. I want everyone under 25 or so reading this to look around at their friends and family of the same generation and ask themselves which 80% of them they want to lose prematurely? Probably even yourself! Those are the stakes we face. Unless you are among the fortunate 1% living in wealth in a gated community with private security forces, you face this fate as much as anyone living in Bangladesh.

•Overpopulation, not mentioned. How can we be so blind to the No. 1 threat? Sure, we all need to consume less and aim for sustainability. But as long as human population keeps growing, we should expect catastrophical, unwanted population reduction.

•Even if you manage (how?) to stop procreation, what good does that do the climate with the lifestyles we’re leading? Bringing procreation to a halt (how?!) will stop the already-greatly-worse global warming that is in existence once we’re all dead and gone, I suppose. But when people write that the “only” way to stop global warming is to stop having kids, I think maybe what is really being said is, “I’d like a far-off solution that involves me not at all, and lets me do what I want, while feeling virtuous.” Kind of like the population version of carbon offsets. How long until the last human dies, once you’ve managed to halt procreation (HOW?!) and what will the climate, being put through everything we put it through in the meantime, be like?

•The best contraceptive on a mass scale is female literacy. Once women become educated they begin to deny men control of their bodies. The developed world’s problem is not overpopulation; it’s that the population we have keeps increasing its energy and land use. Europe and Japan have leveled off in their population and may decline over the next 50-75 years. America continues to grow mainly because of immigration from Mexico and other poor countries. It could comfortably house and feed 1 billion people if we weren’t all so determined to live the lawn fertilizer, two-car garage suburban lifestyle.

•[P]opulation control begins with literate and educated women. Support organizations that work in this field.

•You say over-population is the problem and population control is the cure. But how would YOU institute such a control? Apply for permission to breed? Prove yourself worthy of procreation? By what standard would you choose? Imagine the political and societal upheaval over those topics! Your “solution” could well be far worse than that which you attempt to “cure,” no?

•Overpopulation is a huge problem - but when is the last time (hell, how about the FIRST time) you saw an article specifically talking about it?

Want to continue the discussion? Send me your comments.

The Mathusian Devil is Knocking

Thomas Malthus was a demographer who in 1800 predicted that human population was increasing so rapidly it would outstrip the Earth's resources. Famine and catastrophe would inevitably follow. But the calamity that Malthus predicted never arrived. Remarkably, the production of food—not to mention a cornucopia of consumer goods—has kept pace with population growth. And the standard of living, on average, has improved significantly.

So why was Malthus wrong? First, he did not count on the ability of new-world frontiers like North and South America to absorb people and provide resources. More crucially, Malthus vastly underestimated the power of human ingenuity, namely science and technology. Plant genetics, fertilizers and pesticides have increased crop yields enormously; synthetic materials have led to mass-produced clothes; and automated production lines have manufactured countless consumer goods.

But there is an ominous chill in the air, for the Devil is finally knocking. He didn't come in through the front door, for the world is not suffering for lack of resources, as was predicted. Furthermore, human ingenuity will continue to find ways of making do. Take energy, for example. When oil reserves become short, they will be replaced by solar, wind, nuclear, hydrogen, clean coal, and—if we are desperate enough—even dirty coal.

Instead, the Devil has snuck in the back door. He is quietly and surely contaminating our environment and destroying the natural ecosystems on which life depends. We humans are incredibly motivated to produce the necessities (not to mention our luxuries), but there is no motivation to clean up behind us. It's an inconvenience.

That's why everywhere we look, there is pollution. And now there is global warming, which we are incapable of stopping. With pollution and environmental degradation having reached global scale, the outlook is grim, especially since the number of pollution-creators continues to grow robustly.