It's Time to Fight Population Growth, Which Exacerbates Global Warming and Sprawl

[marmar]

from the Nation, via AlterNet:


It's Time to Fight Population Growth, Which Exacerbates Global Warming and Sprawl

By Katha Pollitt, The Nation. Posted April 9, 2007.


It's ridiculous that we don't fight attempts to promote population growth while we wring our hands over global warming, species loss and suburban sprawl.

Getting a better deal for mothers has been at the forefront of the feminist agenda for decades, although you'd never know it from the way the women's movement is always being accused of attacking women with kids. So it's ironic that what is finally driving at least some governments to act is the desire to boost fertility rates. The aim is to breed the next generation of workers -- ethnically correct workers, too, not the troublesome immigrant kind. As Sharon Lerner noted in The New York Times Magazine ("The Motherhood Experiment," March 4), fertility rates -- the average number of children per woman -- have fallen below replacement level in ninety countries, including such Catholic stalwarts as Ireland (1.9), Spain (1.3), Italy (1.3) and Portugal (1.4). Even the much-trumpeted increasing US population is mostly a product of immigration (the actual fertility rate is 2.0). While politicians in Japan (1.3) seem fatally drawn to chastising women as recalcitrant "baby-making machines," European governments have started asking if making life easier for working mothers might do the trick.

In the modern world, the traditional ways of producing large families -- early marriage, lack of sex ed and birth control, religious propaganda, community pressure, denial of education and jobs to women -- don't work so well, especially when combined with the high cost of living that prevails in many developed countries. Even in comparatively conservative countries like Greece (1.3), young women are going to college, working and postponing marriage, as young men have been doing for years. Faced with the choice between career and kids, a lot of women seem to be voting with their wombs. As Lerner notes, the countries with the most rigidly patriarchal families and the most sexist workplaces are the ones with the lowest birthrates. (That's something for the World Congress of Families to consider when it meets in May in Warsaw. Founded by right-wing "family values" ideologue Allan Carlson, the WCF inveighs against abortion, same-sex marriage and secularism and promotes large "natural families" and "religious orthodoxy." I don't get the feeling working moms are on the agenda.)

If fears of population implosion result in paid parental leave, improved childcare and more support for mothers' careers, it won't be the first time a government has done the right thing for the wrong reason. But isn't it weird to promote population growth while we wring our hands over global warming, environmental damage, species loss and suburban sprawl? The United Nations projects that in 2050 the world's population will reach 9.2 billion! When we think of overpopulation the usual image is of some teeming Third World slum, and indeed most population growth will come in the developing world. But actually it's the developed world that's doing the earth in. Every American uses as much energy as forty-eight Bangladeshis, and as many resources as an African village. Europeans and Japanese aren't far behind. What feels right for a nation or an ethnicity -- we need more Russians! more Italians! more Scots! -- might be wrong for the human race, to say nothing of polar bears. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/50216/

[panader0]

1. Well, I got a vasectomy.....

although I did have 3 kids first.

[Dawgs]

2. Thank you.

It's my biggest issue, and yet I never hear or see anything written or discussed about it. It makes me ill when my co-workers talk about having three+ kids like it's no big deal. Why three?

[EST]

3. It has been proven, over and over, that the only cure for

excessive population growth is education. Yes, there will continue to be winners and losers, but the world cannot stand the current population, let alone fifty percent more.
Arrogance, greed and the lust for power (read-republicans) are the real problems.

[MistressOverdone]

4. Good article with good points

but it doesn't even touch what I think is the biggest issue here.

We have an inborne need to reproduce. Women, in particular, feel the drive. (well, men feel the drive, but usually don't think that far ahead!)

Having a baby is a natural thing. Having a second is also a natural thing. And if you have enjoyed the experience and have the resources, having a third, for many women, is a good thing. Not everyone, but some. After my second (that's where I stopped) I remember feeling vaguely jealous when I saw pregant women. Probably hormonal. I "mourned" menopause because it meant that part of my life was over. Not all women have these feelings, but it has nothing to do with education (I have plenty). It's an individual thing, almost a need. I loved having babies. I loved being pregnant. I loved those soft little heads. I loved the joy of the family in welcoming a new addition. It is a heady, heady experience. Nothing in MY life has ever beat it. But you can't lump us all in one pot. Some women don't feel this way at all.

[BeFree]

11. So?

We need a substitute for womens' urges to make babies? What could ever replace that urge?

The other option is to tube tie all the females, eh?

[pscot]

13. Get a kitten

n/t

[BeFree]

14. Is it that simple?

Kittens are gonna save the world? Makes more sense than the idea that Nukes are gonna save the world.

[pscot]

15. It's all I got

I wish there were a better answer.

[BeFree]

16. You're a male

So you aren't making babies. What we need are some of those of the more productive sex coming up with ideas on how to undermine that productivity.

[MistressOverdone]

18. No, but the article didn't even mention it

and I'm just saying the drive exists in many women. Getting a kitten (not your suggestion, I know) doesn't begin to satisfy this need in the women who have it. Ask any woman going through fertility treatments.

Why some women don't have the need is anybody's guess. I don't know if the answer is hormones, upbringing, or something intangible we will never know.

[Deep13]

5. k&r

[The2ndWheel]

6. Very true

However, if we fight population growth, is everyone ready to deal with the consequences of such an action done in the world we currently, and will want to, live in?

[Deep13]

7. I guess we can either control our population...

...or mother nature will control it for us through food and water shortages.

[The2ndWheel]

9. Those would be the two options

Although China tried to control populations, and I guess they "succeeded" in that they don't have 2 or 3 billion people today.

I believe the only thing our species has shown is that it will not let nature write the rules. Obviously it still does, but we attempt to take nature out of the equation. We've done a decent job at it, since there are millions of people living better than kings once did. Yes, it has had its price. We constantly have to expand just to stay at normal because we consume everything until there is nothing left. We have who knows what in the air, food, water, and our bodies.

We won't be controlling a damn thing though, since everything we have is based completely on endless growth of every aspect of life. We damn sure aren't going to just let nature try and balance things out. No, we will expand further and deeper, taking more control over nature. We will do that because we cannot stop. We're too far into the game. It's us or the habitat, whichever blinks first. We will destroy our habitat if we have to, just to save ourselves from it. After that, we will take any other habitat we need, and kill whatever lives there that isn't productive for us and our wants.

Provided that we have cheap enough energy to do so. If not, then nature will balance things out. Either way, we're not going to stop consuming or producing people voluntarily on any sort of meaningful scale. It's just far too late to do so without massive amounts of suffering on a giant scale.

[GliderGuider]

8. Let's crunch the numbers

The human population is growing by 75,000,000 per year.

According the "The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update", the current global population is at least 25% too high for sustainability.

A number of indicators (climate change, oil depletion, biodiversity loss, ocean fish depletion, declining global grain and fresh water supplies) suggest that we have until 2050 at the latest to get things back in balance.

"Back in balance" appears to mean achieving a non-growing population of 4 billion by 2050.

In order to do that we need to stop all excess births right now, and keep the birth rate at zero for a full generation.

That means that unless we can suppress the human birth rate to zero within the next couple of years, we need to achieve an excess death rate of 75 million per year - and maintain that rate of excess deaths for at least thirty years.

The excess death rate of WWII was only 10 million per year.

There is no way we can meet the target of 4 billion people within 40 years humanely.

Even achieving this through inhumane methods will be extremely difficult. Short of the use of thermonuclear weapons I know of no human mechanism that could accomplish this.

The only mechanisms that can achieve this degree of population re-balancing with any certainty are natural ones - starvation and pandemic.

Gaia tends to prefer equilibrium states. Mother Nature doesn't negotiate, she will achieve her desired state regardless of what we think or try to do about it.

Anyone who thinks there is a kinder gentler solution to this problem has not been keeping up with their reading assignments.

[Deep13]

10. Read the ingredients on the Solent Green box.

If we do not solve this with birth control, then it will be solved by weeding-out live humans. It will either be through institutional murder as speculated in films like the aforementioned or Logan's Run, or through war, starvation, disease and famine.

[pscot]

12. Nature is profligate in its methods

Just as it scatters a million seeds where a hundred are wanted, it's unlikely to pick a nice round number like 4 billion, go directly there and settle down. If you haven't read Overshoot by William Catton, I highly recommend it. Catton uses the analogy of animal populations that exceed sustainable levels for a given environment. Peak populations tend to collapse to levels far below sustainability. There's some variation in what happens next, but we won't need to worry about that. Along the way he explores resource depletion, energy replacement strategies and a lot more. Overshoot is must read. It's a handbook the the crises we're facing today. It was written in 1980 and has proven remarkably prescient. Professor Catton, like M. King Hubbert, was a man who could see around corners. Sadly, he offered no solutions for the problems he saw coming. If you're easily depressed you might just want to stick with American Idol. Turn the volume way up.

[GliderGuider]

17. Not just Catton - here's a reading list.

This is my Ecology/Sociology/Genetics reading list from the last two years:

Overshoot by William Catton
Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update by Meadows et. al.
Living Within Limits by Garrett Hard4in
The Upside of Down by Thomas Homer-Dixon
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter
The Spirit in the Gene by Reg Morrison
Straw Dogs by John Gray
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

I basically picked the number 4 billion because it accords with LTG's assumption that we are in a 25% overshoot. When you factor in the degradation of the global resource base, our filling of the planet's waste sinks and the fact that historically the planet's carrying capacity without the help of oil looks more like a billion, the picture starts to look a whole lot worse.

When I don't have to worry about scaring the horses, my prediction for the human population by 2100 is a billion or less. I figure we should be down to 4 billion by 2050, but our numbers will continue to drop for the rest of the century. That 1 billion number will be achieved without any deliberate human intervention (except in efforts the keep it from happening, which won't work). I don't think there's much we can do to ease the transition. It's another issue of scale, unfortunately.