As we reach 7 billion people, Climate Progress is featuring a variety of opinions on population.

– by Ian Angus and Simon Butler in a Grist repost

The approach of [7 billion] milestone produced a wave of articles and opinion pieces blaming the world’s environmental crises on overpopulation. In New York’s Times Square, a huge and expensive video declares that “human overpopulation is driving species extinct.” In London’s busiest Underground stations, electronic poster boards warn that 7 billion is ecologically unsustainable.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich’s bestseller The Population Bomb declared that as a result of overpopulation, “the battle to feed humanity is over,” and the 1970s would be a time of global famines and ever-rising death rates. His predictions were all wrong, but four decades later his successors still use Ehrlich’s phrase — too many people! — to explain environmental problems.

But most of the 7 billion are not endangering the earth. The majority of the world’s people don’t destroy forests, don’t wipe out endangered species, don’t pollute rivers and oceans, and emit essentially no greenhouse gases.

Even in the rich countries of the Global North, most environmental destruction is caused not by individuals or households, but by mines, factories, and power plants run by corporations that care more about profit than about humanity’s survival.

No reduction in U.S. population would have stopped BP from poisoning the Gulf of Mexico last year.

Read more

UPDATE:  The director responds to comments here.

JR:  Right now, the global economy is a Ponzi scheme.  We created a way of raising standards of living we can’t possibly pass on to our children.  As Tom Friedman reported in 2009, “We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.”

It has to collapse, unless adults stand up now and say, “This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate.”  Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”  I’ve also noted that the 1% can insulate themselves from the collapse far longer than everyone else, with their gated and moated communities, multiple homes in multiple climates, security guards, private jets and general insensitivity to the price of anything — and hence insensitivity to the value of everything.

by Cole Mellino

The new documentary film GrowthBusters had its world premiere in Washington, DC last night. And Climate Progress had a chance to catch up with Director Dave Gardner to chat about why he made the movie.

Gardner, like so many Americans, grew up hooked on growth. He once had a successful career as a corporate film producer, putting together promotional videos for large companies. But his newest film rails against many of those corporations that are trying to keep us addicted to growth.

First, here’s the trailer to the film:

GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth Trailer from Dave Gardner on Vimeo.

GrowthBusters follows Gardner as he questions the push for never-ending economic growth in the U.S. and the world.

“If I have one goal on this planet, it is to make it okay to question growth,” he tells Climate Progress. “I’m not afraid to say I’m against growth.”

Read more

A cyber-penny for your thoughts.

Toles has the cartoon that sums up the week’s biggest news:

Notice how he sneaks in climate change along with the food insecurity message.

Related Post:

• Nature:  “Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced.”

As we approach 7 billion people, Climate Progress is featuring a variety of opinions on population (see links below).

by Carl Pope and Carmen Barroso

Any day now, if it hasn’t happened already, the 7 billionth baby will be born on our small planet.

While many may assume that the environmental and reproductive health movements have divergent agendas—the health of the planet vs. the health of the people—we agree on one very simple principle: everyone, whether born into the bustling streets of New York or a remote village in Nicaragua, is entitled to a set of fundamental human rights. These include the right to live in a healthy and safe environment, and the right to decide if and when to have children.

Today, more than ever, those rights are deeply intertwined. The 7 billionth baby will inherit a planet facing enormous threats and challenges. And while environmental and reproductive health organizations have different missions, we know, based on decades of experience, that the health of our planet and our people are inseparable. We can be mindful of our environment and improve the lives of women, men, and youth worldwide.

Environmental justice and reproductive rights are mutually reinforcing; when people have the knowledge, right and tools to decide how many children are right for them, they typically chose to have smaller, healthier families.  This has positive ramifications on the surrounding environment and the health of families and communities.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OR COMMENT

Read more

Population Action International asks “What’s Your Number?”

Climate Progress hasn’t focused on population, for reasons explained here: “Consumption dwarfs population as main global warming threat.”  But now that it seems that population growth trends are not stabilizing as quickly as had been widely projected just a few years ago, we’ve been covering it a little more.

Population Action International has this clever calculator to draw attention to the issue.  And here’s an excellent video they put together last month, “Weathering Change:  Stories about climate and family from women around the world,” which “takes us to Ethiopia, Nepal and Peru to hear the stories of four women as they struggle to care for their families, while enduring crop failures and water scarcity”:

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OR COMMENT

Read more

Demographers are predicting that world population will climb to 10 billion later this century. But with the planet heating up and growing numbers of people putting increasing pressure on water and food supplies and on life-sustaining ecosystems, will this projected population boom turn into a bust?

by Robert Engelman, in a Yale e360 cross-post

The hard part about predicting the future, someone once said, is that it hasn’t happened yet. So it’s a bit curious that so few experts question the received demographic wisdom that the Earth will be home to roughly 9 billion people in 2050 and a stable 10 billion at the century’s end. Demographers seem comfortable projecting that life expectancy will keep rising while birth rates drift steadily downward, until human numbers hold steady with 3 billion more people than are alive today.

What’s odd about this demographic forecast is how little it seems to square with environmental ones. There’s little scientific dispute that the world is heading toward a warmer and harsher climate, less dependable water and energy supplies, less intact ecosystems with fewer species, more acidic oceans, and less naturally productive soils. Are we so smart and inventive that not one of these trends will have any impact on the number of human beings the planet sustains? When you put demographic projections side by side with environmental ones, the former actually mock the latter, suggesting that nothing in store for us will be more than an irritant. Human life will be less pleasant, perhaps, but it will never actually be threatened.

Some analysts, ranging from scientists David Pimentel of Cornell University to financial advisor and philanthropist Jeremy Grantham, dare to underline the possibility of a darker alternative future. Defying the optimistic majority, they suggest that humanity long ago overshot a truly sustainable world population, implying that apocalyptic horsemen old and new could cause widespread death as the environment unravels. Most writers on environment and population are loathe to touch such predictions. But we should be asking, at least, whether such possibilities are real enough to temper the usual demographic confidence about future population projections.

Read more