Diane Rehm just rebroadcast her show on world population trends and sustainability (click here for audio). She had some very knowledgeable, if controversial, guests:
William Butz, president and CEO, Population Reference Bureau
Paul Ehrlich, president, Center for Conservation Biology, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University and author of “The Dominant Animal” and “The Population Bomb”
Hania Zlotnik, director, Population Division, United Nations
As I’ve said many times, I don’t intend to spend a lot of time writing on the subject here (see “Consumption dwarfs population as main global warming threat“).
I have more than enough to write about on the policies and strategies that must be enacted if we are to have a chance at preserving a livable climate “” even assuming I knew of and believed in viable, high-impact population-related strategies, which I don’t.
But a number of readers indicated they’d like to see more on the subject, so I will occasionally be highlighting discussions and articles by scientists and others. Certainly any subject that pisses off Rush Limbaugh can’t be all bad — see Limbaugh to NY Times environment reporter Revkin: “Why don’t you just go kill yourself?”
And while I believe journalists should not twitter on subjects like climate science that require far more than 140 characters to discuss intelligently, it is good for snark, as in this Revkin tweet:
Rush Limbaugh fit as fiddle: http://j.mp/RushHeart Docs say no heart disease, but that’s not surprising. Wouldn’t it require a heart?
Related Post:
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
twitter is a terrific resource for passing and getting news links – as a means of communicating complex ideas, well not so much.
And 6.7 billion and counting seems like we’re a plague on this planet. It’d be nice if we could be reasonable and use birth control and try and manage and husband resources, but in a world where superstitious beliefs and greed rule, and the lords of the earth never have enough lucre I’d say in the long run we’re screwed. http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/10/18/the-rich-have-stolen-the-economy/
the planet will not miss us
Nice post !!!
Population, I believe is a massive evil of all the worries and ill-effects on the Planet Earth.
So, it is high time to control and have some measures intact before we actually cross all limits and go out of resources. And I believe that day is not far looking at the way we are moving.
A Planet lover,
-Sidharth
@www.TheWarmist.com
Population and Development Analysis, for interested parties, to be completed …
Being that it’s a New Year, and we need to make faster progress on these things …
A close friend of mine who has been involved in local causes, City Council meetings, activism, and so forth regarding local development decisions, and I, noticed something quite interesting related to a central and powerful dynamic of the population-development machine that we have here, in modern society today.
In essence, it substantially contributes to the self-fulfilling-prophesy dynamic of things, i.e., to the unexamined rat-race that is part of the core population-development growth engine.
In short, what begins as a mere forecast by its originators, and in its intended purpose (that is, what we would forecast to happen with population IF things remain unchanged, trends continue, the status quo continues, and if we don’t actually think much!), somehow transmorphs into — and BECOMES TAKEN AS — a goal to be achieved by other people, in order to achieve their share of funding or their share of something else.
One person’s forecast gets taken as another person’s energetic and passionately-pursued goal — without anyone really examining the matter, considering alternatives, and intelligently choosing to develop a sensible goal that might well be DIFFERENT FROM the forecast.
This dynamic, I think, is part of the core heart of the population and local development issue. It involves population forecasts, built-in State (and other) mechanisms for allocating budget resources, local City Council motivations, and the motivations of real estate developers, local retailers, and etc.
In this case, I’m talking about California and the San Francisco Bay Area, broadly speaking. But, it’s a very good bet that the same combination of dynamics (and logical mistakes) exists elsewhere.
One of the interesting (and unfortunate) things is that the essence of the “net outcome” (in terms of logical flaws, unexamined aims, and self-fulfilling outcomes) of all this, which contributes to the unrealistic perpetual population growth machine, is largely hidden — because it is a net result of a fairly long process that spreads among a number of different types of organizations and steps in the process. The net result is ridiculous, harmful, unsustainable, and downright embarrassing (the latter, from an intellectual standpoint), once you see it, but it is “hidden” in some ways because it is an outcome of a convergence of processes that, in themselves, might SEEM “logical” and sensible.
In any case, because of a number of factors, we have a very strong hypothesis and a range of supporting observations, at various stages of the process. But, we haven’t finished the homework, dotted the i’s, or crossed the t’s.
So, if anyone with a real professional or academic interest in this topic (population and/or the intersection of population growth and the real estate and commercial development machines), considering also the impact of government forecasts and State and local development dynamics, would like to learn more, please feel free to contact me.
Some homework remains to be done. But, the hypothesis is very strong and highly likely to be correct.
Be Well,
Jeff
While you’re addressing population, you might at least point out that (by their own calculations) the cheapest way for anyone to offset their carbon is by providing much-needed family planning to women in the developing world: http://www.popoffsets.com/
I concur with you here, Joe. I don’t think the world is currently “overpopulated.” However, as you state in your earlier post, “consumption,” by just a FEW cultures, is the problem… about half of the problem, anyway. Of equal (more?) significance is HOW the consumption transpires. Both the consumption, itself, and how it is practiced are, and have been, reckless and thoughtless in the extreme. The pursuit of financial gains has been the exclusive motivation for both behaviors. Mr. Huggins (#3) is on the right track but is only just scratching the tip of the iceberg. As has been espoused many places, the “developed” cultures of the world are, and have been, nothing more than a grand ponzi scheme. The architects of this scam dangle the carrot of “prosperity” in front of the mindless while they, the architects, are the only ones who truly prosper at the expense of everyone and everything else. Alas, the indoctrination of the masses to pursue prosperity is, for all intents and purposes, utter and complete. So, while the ecosystems of the planet COULD easily support the current population, and perhaps many more, it will not because too many still cling to the programming that “greed is good” and they are entitled to pursue that prosperity by any and every means available.
Alan Greenspan, in testimony before Congress about the Fed’s complicity in financial markets, once said “a little fraud is a good thing.” Not one member of the panel, or anyone in media or the blogosphere, seemed to WANT to know what he meant by “a little” of even when “fraud” could actually be construed as “good.” I find that simply astounding.
I agree with Joe that the climate crisis cannot be resolved by addressing out population; however, I think that it is clear that we currently are overpopulated. According Plan B 4.0, on page 14, references a Mathis Wackernagel study that humanity’s collective demands surpassed the Earth’s regenerative capacity around 1980. At that time, the world population was about 4.5 billion, whereas it is currently at about 6.7 billion. Given that the bulk of deforestation, depletion of the ocean, and for that matter, global warming, have occurred since 1980 it certainly seems that there could be a relationship between population growth and environmental damage. The human population has had most checks on growth removed during the last century, and like most animals in that situation, our population has exploded. Normally, when this happens, the animal in question eventually outstrips the carrying capacity of its environment, and the population then crashes (something like 90% die off). I believe that is exactly what is in store for humans, but unfortunately on a global basis, as opposed to the local basis experienced by most animals. I believe the global warming is merely one of the boundaries that we are up against. If we manage to get global warming under control, there will still be the next restraint that we run up against, most likely just insufficient food or water. We must do something about global warming immediately, but we will be much better off in the long run if we also start to manage our population growth.
Many feel that population control is key to survival during the next 20 years, yet we are so addicted to satisfying the demands of an increasing population that it’s a topic few want to address. What happens if both population and consumption plateau? Corporations are not keen on that.
Corporations will have to shift to quality goods intended to last generations if possible and getting those products on the market in an economy that allows each and every one the ability to purchase that product if desired. By making a unit of sustainable energy the “common currency” and that cost is the price of social services, including military, health care, and since health care is taken care of I can afford to work 20 hr. week and bingo full employment No more defaulting loans, puff, gone. No more taxes, paid up front! School funding, done! Each society will have a uniform playing field for its citizens to compete. Big Money will be denied the opportunity to shuffle currency and make billions of the backs of the poor. If people can make more sustainable energy than they use they get to sell at parity. International debt is erased perhaps even a big part or all of privet. We bailed you guys out once a year ago and you want to play the same game! Well I say that’s a hit you guys take for messing with the hu-MAN-ity and the future of most life forms.
Is this too evil to discuss?
Should we look at the carbon footprint of the biggest 1%? of the population and compare with even Europeans. The A-S faction is happy to point out what Gore uses. What segment of the population do they represent? The right use brass knuckles all the time. Do we have to hand out a few billion condoms for eternity to make up for the carbon foot print of a few tens of millions. By implementing the above economy you remove the high speed jet set life and the world can move at a more sedate and rewarding speed. Trains and ships. More savings. Why is it that we are willing to stand in our shorts and put up with indignities just to get some place fast? If you got to be there fast do you really need to be there?
Thanks for this. Will listen to show. Hope they mention Pop Offsets. What`s your take on PopOffsets Joe?
http://www.popoffsets.com/
Just reading Al Gore’s “Our Choice” and he mentions that due in part to climate change being an abstraction for most people and therefore offering little emotional impact for many, “… scientists who study thinking advise us to strengthen the linkages between global warming and solutions to other challenges (economic, strategic and social) that seem more immediate and are more likely to induce a desire to make the necessary changes” (page 315).
Seems to me a lot of people get women’s rights and justice — emotionally, viscerally. If the WHO is correct and roughly 80 million births are unplanned each year by the mother/couple, then there’s a massive women’s justice issue which has climate change consequences.
Seems to me if the pill empowers and liberates northern, richer women, it should do the same for southern, poorer women, no? And the positive effects on justice for women would have obvious climate benefits too. From what I’ve been reading about it, PopOffsets seems to be making that connection by helping link groups seeking to empower women with people seeking to offset their GHG emissions.
Leif asks why we don’t give up flying.
Good question. The answer, I truly believe is that climate future is a nebulous daydreamy thing to most people. There is a disonnection. It’s probably not quite fair when I say that nobody seriously believes in AGW, but that is indeed the way they act. Prince Charles for example speaks with the greatest professions of concern, but he’s disconnected. How do you burn as much carbon as humanly possible in order to protest carbon burning unless you’re disconnected?
Seriously, in every way that counts, I estimate that 99% of prople do not accept global warming science. Talk is only talk.
Dave E (#6) makes more cogent points in one paragraph about overpopulation than I’ve seen in about all the other paragraphs put together in the history of this otherwise excellent site. (Also Olwo #10!)
Similarly, despite Fred Pearce making many excellent points in a very well-written article, his binary, politically-correct thinking that pervades virtually every college campus on this issue (I’ve asked Paul Ehrlich and Al Bartlett and William Catton about the evolution of this political correctness) is exceeded in intellectual honesty and rigor by at least a dozen of those commenting on his article on the link you provide.
Why does our thinking have to be so binary, so either/or? Why can’t both overconsumption and overpopulation be problems?
Consumption by the rich and those in rich nations is not something I would ever support or condone. If I were made King of the Universe (which is now only in the discussion stages), everyone on Earth would have roughly the same wealth as the next person (although this might be a little hard to legislate), as they had in most times and places before agriculture. (Hunters and gatherers usually need to migrate to follow food sources and thus only possess what they can easily carry, making them infinitely less materialistic than those in agricultural societies.)
Overpopulation in rich countries has far more impact than in poor countries, but the increase in population everywhere is a problem. CO2 is a far bigger problem in rich countries, but the depletion of trees, fish, topsoil, fresh water, wildlife and species is a problem in all countries. Every nation is overpopulated.
It would take the resources of many Earths to allow everyone on Earth to have the per capita lifestyle of Americans, so as unjust as that is, we can’t wait for everyone to rise to Americans lifestyles to drop their population. This will never happen because the Earth doesn’t have the resources to allow this to happen.
Educating girls, empowering women, reducing infant and childhood mortality and increasing social security so that no one in any nation has to depend on multiple births for their security in old age are ideal solutions from every perspective except misogyny.
Globally, it’s this simple: Keep population the same and grow per capita consumption and we’ll run into limits to growth. Similarly, keep per capita consumption the same and grow population and we’ll run into limits to growth.
We’re doing both. We have already hit limits to growth. As important as CO2 and global warming are, they are symptoms of a two-headed disease: Overpopulation and Overconsumption. Ignoring one of the heads is mere ignorance, no matter how erudite the politically correct arguments encouraging this ignorance are.
The 2 billion poorest of the poor are and will continue to be the first victims of climate change. Use of bio fuels have already killed as many as ten’s of millions by raising the global price of food dramatically increasing starvation rates — a brutal way to go, more so than being hit by a car which is normally quick — according to Lester Brown and the Earth Policy Institute (Plan B 4.0).
The equivalent full SUV tank of bio fuel feeds a poor person for a year.
This is a powerful moral imperative that we act immediately.
Thanks for many wonderful comments by Dave E. (which I have filed away for the future) and Richard Brenne. They are correct. It is quite logical to consider overpopulation the real problem and too much CO2 emissions as a consequence. The human animal has very little shared intelligence when it comes to planetary resources; we have gleefully raped and despoiled our planet, our only home, without regard for the consequences until global warming reared its ugly head. Maybe we have to thank global warming for its warning that something is terribly amiss in human behavior!
One of the best websites on global warming and the coming catastrophe, and I read you every day from the UK – with despair of course, but also with relief, as a former journalist and now psychotherapist, that at least someone is naming it as it is.
But on population, isn’t one huge elephant in the room largely being missed in almost every discussion of climate change and sustainability? That it’s not that too many people are being born, but that too few people are dying? To focus on reducing births while at the same time deploying every way we know to keep everyone alive for longer and longer is understandable given human emotions, but completely illogical.
Of course, this is, politically, a spectacularly incorrect thing to say. And quite impossible for us as 21st century humans through our own agency to do anything about. It’s not controlling births that’s needed now, but reducing numbers. Been tried before…
For me, the more I read the debates on this site and out there among the climate denial folk, this circle tragically can’t and won’t be squared. Theoretically, yes. And we know what we would need to do. But given human behaviour (and we do after all function as a species just as we function individually), we won’t stop consuming, or wanting to consume, until catastrophe strikes, and we won’t sacrifice either our own children or ourselves to bring numbers down until Gaia does it for us.
Time therefore seriously to prepare for the worst that is coming, and for that psychological tipping point brilliantly identified in one of your earlier posts last week and coming quite soon. One wishes it wasn’t thus, but can anyone provide any serious evidence that this analysis is going to be proved wrong?
One thread on population that IS missed too often is that in many poor places, the fast growth of populations is the single strongest driver of rising vulnerability to climate extremes.
It’s not just about emissions end of the problem, but also the risk end. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to double in population by 2050, while the forecasts for CO2-driven change there remain pretty equivocal (in terms of where it gets wetter, drier, etc).
So one driver of exposure to risk is out of control (2x by 2050) while the other (intensification of hazard) remains murky. Doesn’t sound like population side of that equation doesn’t matter. Read last line of this post: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/african-dryland-diaspora/
Another is population growth in the USA (mainly through immigration). The US population goes from 300 million to 400 million in next 3-4 decades. That’s 400 million 20-ton-year super-emitters. That’s not important question?
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/whats-the-right-number-of-americans/
But of course talking about immigration, population and global warming in the same sentence is truly dangerous… ; )
Andy, I don’t think talking about population, immigration and GW is dangerous on this site. It is only “dangerous” if you are afraid of insights that the discussion might bring.
Lets see. How about a BIG sustainable energy tax and BIGGER one for fossil fuels that is pegged to ALL social costs. Health care, defense, schools cops, street cleaning… the whole shebang. In return, no personal income tax, insurance, This is a big one!, national debt, deficit spending, unemployment, ( without all of the above I could afford to work 20 week. Maybe bike to work.) Lower our average CFP down to Japan or lower. Effectively removing a billion people off the planet. POOF!!! Intimidating Corporations and those many 100 or 200 : 1 high emitters to come down close to the rest of us. At least charge them for the privilege of their CARBON STOMP. Much of that STOMP is tax deductible with current policies, as you well know but do not seem to assimilate. ( What a deal!) Industry in turn concentrates on quality goods to be cherished for generations…. Producing sustainable home energy production systems allowing a cash cow to sell into the grid at parity. Let your imagination to run amuck!
Only looking for ways to fail, insures that you will!
I’m glad to see dicussion picking up on this – “politically difficult” – subject.
Adding to what others have said, I would note that if one accepts that we are not going to keep warming below 2 degrees C and will, therefore, suffer the more serious impacts, we really should devote policy development energies to dealing with the root cause of the whole problem – overpopulation. For the short term, each baby born today, is a potential climate refugee in a few years time. For the longer term, a reduced, stablized world population will be necessary to continue our species into the distant future.
How do we deal with this issue now and going forward? – bears some serious thought and public dialogue.
Andy (#14),
You seem to want to blame climate refugees for being in the way. This seems like an ethical problem in your thinking. Why not make room for them when they do have to move?
Also, you have made the mistake more than once that population increase in the US implies emissions increases. It does not. Pending legislation has emission cuts of 80% by 2050 for the country independent of what happens with population.
So, you can get 6% efficient Kaneka thin film amorphous silicon solar panels for $0.98/Watt retail. (Google for it.) These have durability data which suggest they’ll last more than 50 years. This makes sense since amorphous silicon is already disordered and it is the disordering effects of cosmic rays that degrade crystalline silicon panels which last 30 years. So, solar power is now much cheaper than coal. $0.98 gets you about 91 kWh so that is about a penny a kWh. Thin film amorphous silicon solar panels were first developed during the Carter administration.
It seems to me that after Reagan made a deal with the Iranians to keep our hostages longer, funding for both solar power and family planning dried up. If that had not happened, we would now be talking about a world population of 8 billion in 2050 owing to demographics in place in the 1970′s and we would also be emitting half the carbon we are now and also be much wealthier owing to two decades of cheap solar power. This is because emissions have to do with technology choices, not population.
Those who attempt to hitch population issues to emissions are doing us a great disservice by muddying the waters and delaying effective action. No amount of free birth control is going to change emissions now, only technological changes can do that.
Population crusaders need to find issues that are actually relevant to population, and ecology is not one of them since, as deep ecologists point out, it is population pressure, not population, that is the relevant variable.
Those who just have a gut feeling that the world is too crowded need to examine their misanthropy rather than burden us with their unsubstantiated claims.
Richard Brenne and others:
Paul Ehrlich, Al Bartlett and William Catton are all endorsers of the Population Institute’s Global Population Speak Out (GPSO), which will take place in February.
Designed to invigorate discussion of population as a fundamental sustainability issue, GPSO currently has over 190 participants and many high profile endorsers. Any concerned individual is welcome to join.
From the GPSO homepage: http://gpso.wordpress.com/
“The size and growth of the human population are fundamental drivers of the ecological crisis we face – no less crucial than over-consumption in developed nations. All habitat & biodiversity loss, atmospheric emissions and toxic pollutants can be traced back to the interplay of both these factors (consumption AND population). If we hope to slow down and mitigate this worldwide tragedy, many experts agree, we’ll need to continue working strenuously on adopting eco-friendly, sustainable economic behavior, but also conduct a massive shift of attention and resources toward humane, progressive measures designed to stabilize and ultimately reduce world population to a sustainable level.”
There is a certainly great deal of misanthropy out there, but its not in sustainability advocates who recognize population stabilization is central to a long term healthy relationship to the planet:
http://gpso.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/happy-new-year-gpso-community/
The planet holds too many people, in my opinion. But that’s just my opinion.
Presumably there is an optimum size for human population, but it’s devilishly hard to pin that down to a range of numbers. I read How Many People Can the Earth Support? and I am no wiser on the numbers for having done so.
What is clear to me is that population could be reduced gradually, through attrition, without hurting anything except the absurd notion that production and consumption must grow continuously on this small planet.
#20,
OK that was funny. A grammatical error when discussing who is not literate provides a chuckle. However, you are just labeling without providing any arguments in support of your position.
An excellent reason to hope for a larger population is to have more eyes on the problem and more minds thinking about solutions. Humans are perfectly capable of having a beneficial effect on the ecosystem and having more people helps us to sort out how to do that sooner.
What are the long term solutions for population control assuming you want to go there?
1: Kill off excess. (Not to practical but we are trying hard with our policies.)
2: Family planing. Way underfunded.
3: Education. ” ”
4: “Universal” health care. You got to be kidding.
5: Clean living conditions, access to clean water, sanitary s**t hole. Sorry, only for some of us.
6: Healthy diet. Fat chance.
7: Unpolluted air and stable climatic conditions for agriculture. Not our problem, we are legal, it says so right here in the law. So what if we drafted it with the politicians that are in out pocket. Prove it.
Chris Dudley,
As mentioned in the blog post, there is a clash of world views going on here. We may as well argue which direction the sun rises. You can see from the GPSO site that many people far more qualified than you in ecology would disagree with your arbitrary assertions.
http://gpso.wordpress.com/2010-endorsers/
http://gpso.wordpress.com/2010-pledges/
You can also review this online debate from the Economist:
http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/151
On the other hand: If with concerted effort we as a nation can reduce our carbon stomp from it’s current ~20:1 to even European levels or Japan? With rational approaches that target efficiency and sustainability, humanitarian approaches to business, reduction in dubious war efforts? Certainly do-able in my eyes.
We could effectively almost instantly reduce the world “population” by about a billion. With NO BLOOD on the ground! What do you say, BIG MONEY?
Oh, and a more secure economy in the bargain…
Wow – Great comments especially #6 through #19. You can see who’s spent the most time studying and thinking about this problem. I’m friends with Bartlett, Catton and Ehrlich and after some predictions of Paul’s in “The Population Bomb” and one paragraph in his and Anne’s “The Dominant Animal” have rarely found any of the three to be wrong in their data, thinking and conclusions.
Chris, you make some good points in the first two paragraphs in #18 but need to listen to GSPO who like the three mentioned above appears to have devoted her or his life to the study and communication of this issue.
Andy, I’m very impressed with your comment in so many ways, especially in being so kind on a blog where you haven’t always been treated as kindly. That is a great point about the risk as well as emissions end.
And Andy, I’d consider revising your DotEarth tagline about nine billion people, because that isn’t a certainty. I’ve noticed in you, Ehrlich and many others who know the environment best that you need to factor in the resource depletion side of the equation more. I asked you about this at Portland State and you sounded way too much like Milton Friedman.
I think Friedman’s conventional economics will in some small number of decades or even years be viewed the way we view eugenics today, because conventional economics don’t at all factor in limits to growth, that the entire human economy is a wholly-owned subsiderary of nature, and that we have to learn to live off the interest of renewable resources like soil, trees, fish and fossil aquifers instead of drawing down their capital as we’ve been doing.
My panelist Diane McKnight, an expert on the subject, says that she doesn’t think we have the water infrastructure to grow our population much beyond what it is now.
And Chris, that tired argument that we need more people so more brains are thinking about this stuff doesn’t speak very highly for all of us here now, does it? Rather than more people, we need more deep thinking like that done by Bartlett, Ehrlich, Catton – and usually Romm and Revkin.
Lastly to Mark Brayne (#13) our friend from the UK: You’re right, you’ve identified the elephant (death rates) behind the larger elephant (overpopulation) in the room. A friend of Gore’s told me that 20% of all medical resources goes to people in the last six month of their lives, often in their 90s and 80s. Certainly those medical resources could be better used in other ways.
I have one child, a daughter who attends my panels with those listed above and who decided while in Africa to distribute condoms in the poorest South African townships as a 16-year-old. Actions like that are a start.
Someone posted an excellent illustration of exponential growth. It’s in one of these websites at Climate Progress. If anyone remembers it, could you please repeat it? I would like to copy it as it illustrates so succinctly the problem of over-population! Thanks!! (It’s a comment by one of the readers).
Richard (#27),
Actually, the idea that more people means more originality is a fresh and interesting one if one considers it in the context of networks where the number of connections grows at a much faster rate than the number of nodes. It is useful to have more people around to tear down the tired old ideas about carrying capacity, over population and overshoot: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/05/scrooge.html
For a great interview of Ehrlich listen to this:
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2009/11/lnl_20091119_2205.mp3
It was done recently when Paul was in Australia, by one of the best interviewers in Oz, Philip Adams, for “Late Night Live”, which is available as a transcript or podcast.
Chris (#29) -
You’ve articulated your ideas quite well without the additional help of any new births (that I know of) to aid your thought process.
We’re each capable of changing our consciousness to something infinitely more profound than anything we know now. In fact that’s what I think we’re here to do. Thinking that additional births are necessary to do this seems to me like waiting for the Second Coming so that we can ignore the teachings and work necessary to understand the First.
Or like waiting for aliens to come explain everything to us (Aliens to us: You’ve overpopulated and overconsumed the limited resources of your planet, changing your atmosphere as a result. Good luck.)
Trying to grow everything in matter, especially our population, is materialism. It is the selfish gene at work, the Tragedy of the Commons from the genetic through individual, family, corporate, state, national and even species-wide levels.
How about we stop trying to grow everything in matter, and start trying to grow spiritually? You seem completely capable of this without bringing additional innocents into the world that there won’t be resources to feed, for a multitude of reasons (read Lester Brown).
And by the way, Lester Brown, Al Bartlett, William Catton, Richard Heinberg, James Lovelock and James Hansen are among the gentlest, kindest and most caring people I’ve ever known. Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and other unthinking cornucupian materialists are not.
Richard (#30),
It seems to me that you are making an error by objectifying people to the point of considering them to be material only. I am pretty obviously interested in their creative contributions, something rather different.
A most interesting broadcast and thought-provoking series of posts. Thanks for putting this up, Joe.
I agree with others that there isn’t an either/or here: over-population and consumption together are the issue. The human threat to bio-diversity, continuity of resources and functioning of natural systems is most grievous.
Butz brought up an interesting point, about increased “south-south” migration as well as “south-north.” Does this seem likely to others? What would be the effects? Wouldn’t it penalize developing countries that have been taking positive action to better life for their own populations? Aren’t we already seeing conflict driven in part by overpopulation (as well as climate change)?
Mentioned on the program was that governments in some developing countries have in the last decade actually decreased family-planning services and aid to their own populations. How to persuade these governments that their countries’ prosperity would increase with more attention paid in this area?
Not mentioned on the program or in this discussion is certain religions’ adamant opposition to any form of birth-control. How does this hinder greater public discussion and action both in the US and the rest of the world? It certainly hinders women’s choices.
Also brought up in the program but not addressed, is the question of men’s negative attitudes towards family planning, birth control and women’s education in some cultures. Do these men’s attitudes change over time as women lower their fertility? How is this effected?
Digression re end-of-life issues: some months ago, my brother took a job at a nursing home and now has dire things to say about what he calls warehousing and keeping alive elderly people whose bodies are trying to begin the natural dying process, and how the medical industry profits from this. I’m not proposing euthanasia or “death-panels,” but perhaps we need to accept that prolonging the end of life by any means possible is not always the best option?
Is 9.8 billion a self-fulfilling prophecy? As in, we project it, therefore we can’t do anything about it? What would it really take to lower that dire projection?
Adrian (#33) – Great points in every paragraph!
Chris (#32) – You’re discounting the creative contributions all 6.8 billion people on Earth can make by insisting that they aren’t enough.
Richard (#34),
I provided a quantitative argument for a larger population. This was in contrast to a link to a blog full of name calling. I also provided a link which explains why population pressure may be reduced while population increases, providing further definite arguments. You, in contrast, name drop (argument from authority) and then end up in a logical circle regarding materialism.
One thing in the offing that suggests that mass extinction would be more easily prevented with more people rather than fewer that does not depend so much on increased creativity alone but rather straight labor capacity is biochar. Owing to the scattered nature of the source material, having more people producing and interring biochar cuts the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere quicker and thus saves more species while cutting land use for agriculture owing to increased yield and also sharply cutting nitrogen load on our estuaries. Efficiencies associated with centralization which would allow for fewer laborers may not manifest where biomass is involved. Thus, those concerned with ecology may find that more people with constant negative per capita population pressure leads to a better outcome than fewer of the same sort of people on a straight linear basis owing to the crisis nature of our current situation, disregarding the highly non-linear effects of boosted creativity in a larger network. Eradicating invasive species may have similar labor requirements.
It is very clear that people can do more than live lightly on the land, they can encourage the land to be more itself and thus be a net benefit. Population pressure can have a negative sign and draw more biodiversity out of the earth than exists now.
But, these pedestrian consideration seem less compelling to me than adopting an attitude that more creativity should be sought. For one thing, that requires educating the people we have now, including girls, and so we arrive at the only effective means of population stabilizations in a manner that surpasses the minimum required effort. So, let us truly welcome all our new people by providing them with the most education they can absorb. Let us not suggest that they are a burden or a problem. Push for more creativity, and all our current issues become small matters.
Chris Dudley:
We can agree that women’s education and, I hope, empowerment, are critical to sustainable living scenarios. I am glad to see you suggest that population stabilization is a desirable thing and should be affected through education.
Personally, I also agree that human beings have the inherent capacity to heal and nourish the planet and should be encouraged to do so. I think in the aggregate however, as I am sure you will agree, we are failing spectacularly on this currently. Very little nourishment and copious destruction from my point of view, including the ongoing sixth mass extinction which has been named after our species due to our dominant hand in it.
When it comes to ecology, I think I’ll stick to the experts (and yes, authority); a small sample of which are below (5 out of the current 204 Global Population Speak Out 2010 participants).
Steven Beissinger, Ph.D., A. Starker Leopold Chair in Wildlife Biology and Professor of Conservation Biology, Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, Division of Ecosystem Sciences, University of California Berkeley
Wiebke Boeing, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in Aquatic Ecology, Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Ecology, New Mexico State University
Ferdinando Boero, Full Professor of Zoology at the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies of the University of Salento, Italy
Mark Boyce, Alberta Conservation Association Chair in Fisheries and Wildlife, Professor University of Alberta, Department of Biological Sciences, Safari Club International’s 2007 International Conservationist of the Year
Corey Bradshaw, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Aquatic Sciences, University of Adelaide and South Australian Research and Development Institute; Research Director of Marine Impacts, Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability, University of Adelaide, Australia (Blog – ConservationBytes.com)
#37,
If you are going to cite people, you’d better give some relevant quotes which indicate that these people hold the opinion that population rather than population pressure is a problem. The deep ecologist Arne Naess was always careful to draw that distinction. If your authorities have not been similarly careful, they are in error. You are also in error since you separate consumption from population when it is the product which is important. Population is always a positive number which changes slowly but impact can be positive or negative or zero (zero net carbon for example). It is the product which is important and it is very clear that only one can be changed rapidly in response to a crisis. This makes the slowly changing factor completely irrelevant in a crisis. This is why your error damages efforts to preserve species. You have picked the wrong factor and all that can occur is that you will alienate people from dealing with the problem which is not population but rather the effects of population pressure. You will alienate them because it is self evidently wrong to tell people how many children they should have.
Chris Dudley:
I will leave it to others to judge your arguments… which boil down to — correct me if I am wrong — that one good way to decrease population pressure on the environment is to increase the population.
*******************************************************************
In the meantime, other readers can review our website here:
http://gpso.wordpress.com/
You can see Mr. Dudley probably did not read our site at all, as his latest comments so thoroughly contradict our stance.
Best regards.
#39,
When you use the term overpopulation applied to people, you are committing a horrendous act. Please stop.
Chris Dudley:
No one individual causes over-population, obviously. But in your stubborn denial of the epiphenomenon of aggregate global overpopulation, you contradict much of what you claim to stand for.
I am sure Deep Ecologist George Wuerthner would agree (GPSO Endorser #49).
Remember, you and I began by battling for the term misanthropy, which you first applied in an ad hominen attack slung towards “population crusaders”. My explicit position, rather, is that in your failure to appreciate that ecological wisdom (as defined below) can not include perpetual population growth, need not include include perpetual population growth and should include every wise effort to slow and stabilize homo sapiens population growth of 200,000+ individuals everyday… you are the de-facto misanthrope, as you risk the future viability of a prosperous, healthy human enterprise on our only habitable planet.
3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM
Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of nature, not separate from nature. We must maintain an ecological balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and our planet. We support a sustainable society which utilizes resources in such a way that future generations will benefit and not suffer from the practices of our generation. To this end we must practice agriculture which replenishes the soil; move to an energy efficient economy; and live in ways that respect the integrity of natural systems.
6. COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
We recognize it is essential to create a vibrant and sustainable economic system, one that can create jobs and provide a decent standard of living for all people while maintaining a healthy ecological balance. A successful economic system will offer meaningful work with dignity, while paying a “living wage” which reflects the real value of a person’s work.
Local communities must look to economic development that assures protection of the environment and workers’ rights; broad citizen participation in planning; and enhancement of our “quality of life.” We support independently owned and operated companies which are socially responsible, as well as co-operatives and public enterprises that distribute resources and control to more people through democratic participation.
7. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY
We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control with more cooperative ways of interacting that respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.
9. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
We encourage individuals to act to improve their personal well-being and, at the same time, to enhance ecological balance and social harmony. We seek to join with people and organizations around the world to foster peace, economic justice, and the health of the planet.
10. FUTURE FOCUS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or “unmaking” all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions.
#41,
You should reread what I wrote. I asked population crusaders not to hitch their wagon to climate because they are hurting the cause. The term misanthropy was applied to gut feeling folks. That is a separate and less motivated group. The crusaders are usually under the delusion that it makes sense to think of human beings as unthinking animals so that crude population dynamics models might apply. They are Malthusians for the most part, enamored of false ideas, rather than simply selfish about space like the elbow-room type though they may have started that way.
You’ll notice that the ten key values say nothing about population. And, you have not come up with any sort of counter to the idea that unmaking our waste may go better with more people than with fewer.
Again, the term overpopulation applied to people is abhorrent. Please stop. You sound just like Scrooge.
Chris Dudley:
I have now started to receive supportive emails from people who have ran into you in the past. Generally, you are considered a lost cause, who will parrot ridiculous propositions ad nausuem.
I can see why.
Good luck in your efforts.
#42,
I wonder if you can even hear in your words the speciesism and sense of human supremacy.
It is the height of human arrogance to go on blithely growing our numbers vastly out of proportion with any comparable species, to keep living in a way separated from our local ecosystems, assuming we are the anointed ones, given special exemption from the basic laws of nature which apply to other species and govern the workings of the biosphere. That sense of supremacy is really the root of our environmental problems today. We’re just one of millions of species. Get over it.
GPSO 2010: ref: Chris Dudley… It is too late for Chris? He has already been infected with the “pursuit of knowledge” virus. It will eat at his brain in the dark of night. He will have dreaded “flash backs” at odd times. He will have vague urges and spasms for a “fact”. In order to have replied at all he has read. He is doomed…
Chris -
I don’t know if anyone is still reading this, but I’ve seen in your various postings that you often make very good points. On this subject it appears that we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I actually think your contrarian views brought out many excellent points especially by GPSO, who I agree with wholeheartedly, and also Canoes (#44), Adrian (#33) and many others.
So Chris, I wish you no ill in any way and look forward to reading more of your otherwise thoughtful posts. We’re all in this together – and I think by all I mean enough. I do value everyone who is here, but think everyone living and everyone to come will have a much better chance at a happy, healthy productive life if there are fewer rather than more births in the future.
Canoes (#44),
There is no comparable species. We live by choice, others don’t. Because of this, the fate of most of the more complex species is in our hands. Species Copernicanism is a highly irresponsible intellectual posture. Relationships between populations of other species do not apply to us and it is very wrong to assert that they do because it removes all responsibility for our actions. It is also very wrong because it implies that there could be surplus people (overpopulation). No, our position is much graver than equivalence with other species.
#43,
I am sorry that I have not yet persuaded you how repugnant the use of the term overpopulation is when applied to people. You seem very thin skinned, having assumed you were attacked when you were not. That sort of attitude makes learning difficult but perhaps, with time, you’ll come to see the problem.
Richard (#46),
Just a reminder that it is fairly mainstream rather than contrarian to value human life. Mislabeling in this manner suggest some confusion on your part.
Chris (#49) -
We’re still going at it as if the Terminator and Energy Bunny bred endless Terminator Bunnies!
I generally like your precision, Chris, but in this case I meant contrarian to almost all the others commenting here. Among 6.8 billion of us I think the vast majority live as if they agree with you but mostly without ever thinking about it. The effect of this non-thinking is to share your views, which obviously you have spent a good deal of time thinking about. So I’d be the contrarian out in the general population, but you’re the contrarian among these 50 comments.
And I took Canoes (#44) very thoughtful, precise and I think accurate statement to include comparable species meaning relatively large mammals that need to eat and drink a comparable amount. The Disney film Earth featured three other charismatic mammals in cheetahs, lions and polar bears. Each of these three species averages about 22,000 individuals in the wild.
That means that for every cheetah or lion or polar bear there are over 300,000 of us. And on average we consume many times what any living animal consumes in resources and pollute way more as well. And in America and other wealthy nations our per capita consumption and pollution exceeds that of the largest of the dinosaurs. To think that this growth of population and consumption is remotely sustainable is to me and I think others here beyond belief.
And I think the rest of us commenting here value human life more than you do, Chris, because we don’t think among 6.8 billion of us there isn’t the intellect or caring to solve our problems, and we don’t want to see the unnecessary suffering of billions resulting from a surplus of additional births, including somewhere from millions to billions that didn’t ask to be born into starvation and lifelong suffering. That is valuing human life. Your wanting to skip down an endless lollipop lane of abundance for yourself and those like you will ultimately have the tragic effect of exceeding all intentional genocides put together.
Richard (#50),
That you consider a person to be surplus because he is poor is very sad.
When lions learn to eat grass as we have, they will be numerous as the ruminants just as we are. You seem to misunderstand why carnivores are less common than herbivores.