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The Great Distraction: ‘Overpopulation’ Is Back in Town
What’s next to hit New York after Hurricane Irene? If you’re in the heart of Times Square during the month of September, you’ll get the chance to see a scary video about overpopulation playing every hour on a huge screen. Sponsored by the Human Overpopulation Campaign of the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the video aims to persuade people that the population explosion is the root cause of environmental destruction and that we need to stop it now.
The timing of the video could not be in poorer taste. September marks the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the Twin Towers. The tragedy of that very real explosion will no doubt weigh heavily on people’s minds and hearts. The period should be a time to commemorate lives lost and challenge the strategic use of violence against civilians, whether by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda or national militaries like our own.
Why then is CBD choosing this moment to launch its video? Ostensibly, it’s because world population is soon to pass the 7 billion people mark. But the real truth is that fears about overpopulation are trendy again -- and well-funded by rich donors. A “sympathetic advertiser”, for example, is bankrolling most of the video.
CBD is a relatively small player in a huge public opinion campaign mounted by the population lobby. Almost everyday, in a variety of media, we are being told that the world’s serious environmental and social ills are caused by too many people. This begs two key questions. Are we really experiencing a population explosion? And just who and what are wreaking the most havoc on the planet?
Unbeknownst to many Americans, the so-called population explosion actually ended in the last century as growth rates came down more rapidly than anticipated. Family size has fallen to a global average of 2.45 children and is projected to fall to two or less in the next few decades. The main reason why global population is projected to increase to 9 billion by 2050, and possibly 10 billion by 2100 (a high projection that is disputed by many demographers), is that currently a large percentage of young people are entering their reproductive years. High fertility persists in only a few countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, because of deep class and gender inequalities and the failure of elites to invest in education, employment and health services, including accessible, high-quality family planning.
The real challenge before us is to plan for the addition of 2-3 billion more people on the planet in a sustainable way. Fortunately, that is possible, but only if we address the real causes of environmental pressures. Instead of blaming overpopulation, Americans need to get serious about climate policy, conservation, the transition to renewable energy, and mass transport. And we need to challenge the grotesque and growing inequality of wealth and power in our nation that fuels conspicuous consumption and weakens the government’s commitment to environmental regulation.
It’s also high time for environmentalists to stop turning a blind eye toward the role of the military in environmental degradation. The Pentagon is a major emitter of greenhouse gases, burning the same amount of fossil fuel everyday as the entire nation of Sweden. From weapons production to war zones, its ecological bootprint crushes and pollutes the earth.
Instead of lumping all people together into one destructive human mass, it’s important to carefully assess which human activities harm the environment and which enhance it. CBD blames overpopulation for the accelerated extinction of plant and animal species. Missing from this simple picture are the ways in which different systems of production yield very different environmental results.
Take the case of food. Industrial agriculture typically erodes biodiversity, while peasant farming often protects crop genetic diversity and creates a welcoming habitat for birds and other species. A Monsanto executive and a Central American small organic farmer may both be part of the human population, but there the resemblance ends.
Equally troubling about overpopulation propaganda is the way it undermines reproductive rights. While its purveyors claim they support family planning, they view it more as a means to an end – reducing population growth, rather than as a right in and of itself. The distinction may seem subtle, but it is not. Family planning programs designed to limit birth rates treat women, especially poor women and women of color, as targets rather than as individuals worthy of respect. Quality of care loses out to an obsession with the quantity of births averted.
The negative view of babies as future polluters and carbon emitters also plays into the hands of anti-abortion activists who are always seeking new ways to portray themselves as pro-life, and the pro-choice and environmental movements as anti-child. At a time when reproductive rights are under severe attack by conservative forces, the population lobby is playing with a fire it may not be able to put out.
So if you find yourself in Times Square in September, my advice is to walk on by CBD’s scary video. More worthy of a visit are Ground Zero or nearby Wall Street, the source of so many of our current financial woes. The focus on overpopulation is a great distraction from what really ails the body politic and the planet. No wonder it’s an advertiser footing the bill.
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483 Comments so far
Show AllMore people means more unemployment and more poverty? Have you taken a look at wealth distribution in the US recently? How all the wealth, all the capital is concentrated in very few hands?
If you think that poverty and unemployment is due to overpopulation, then you are a right wing uber capitalist.
Most of the people on this thread seem completely ignorant of demographics and economics, and have the very strange belief that people will begin multiplying exponentially as (or... because..?!?!) the world is running out of resources.
Very few of you can correctly use "exponential" in a sentence and almost none of you seem to have any idea what the current direction of fertility gorwth rate is.
For whatever odd reasons many of you think that a larger number of people means fewer jobs or more expensive or fewer products, flying in the face of everything humanity has learned about economies of scale.
The food issue seems a GREAT one to prove the author's point about "distraction" - Goldman Sachs enters the grain market and makes people starve through commodities futures speculation (read the excellent Harper's article) and most of the people on a "left" message board blame the rise in food prices and scarcity on...
... poor people having babies!
Lets say hypothetically population tops out at 10 billion, that is STILL too many on a planet ALREADY suffering ecological crashes in the ocean for example. The goal should be negative population grow though as many childless couples as possible in the hope there are enough seed species left to regrow out tattered eco-systems like the forests of the Pacific Northwest for example. Unlike you I don't see humans as the pinacle of creation, but just another species and a rather violent ugly destructive one at that!
Nothing hypothetical about it.
You are clearly ignorant of the available literature and I don't see the point in debating you if you are not aware of the basics of the issue at hand.
I would ask again how you know what the right number of humans is. You seem to know the wrong numbers which necessarily means you know the right number, although you never share.
Why you keep living if you are this devoted to reducing the human population is a mystery to us all.
that "hypothetical" may not be so far in the future. i found a world population clock here: www.worldometers.info/population/ and learned that "it had taken all of human history until around 1800 for world population to reach one billion, the second billion was achieved in only 130 years (1930), the third billion in less than 30 years (1959), the fourth billion in 15 years (1974), and the fifth billion in only 13 years (1987). During the 20th century alone, the population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion."
the person you're debating with appears unaware that more people now suffer malnutrition, even face starvation than were even alive before the industrial revolution. simple mathematics should provide a clue, shouldn't it?
"the person you're debating with appears unaware that more people now suffer malnutrition, even face starvation than were even alive before the industrial revolution. simple mathematics should provide a clue, shouldn't it?"
And you seem to be unaware that the world produces enough food, even for the projected 9-10 gigs.
You also seem to be aware of the massive wastage of food in western countries, where 40-50% of food is discarded as trash.
You seem to aware that the US is one of the world's breadbaskets, producing massive amounts of food, yet, something like 10% and climbing IIRC, of the US population has food security issues.
You also seem to be unaware of the massive wealth inequality in the US, where the wealth and capital is held in very few hands.
IOW, it isn't that there isn't enough food, it isn't that there isn't enough resources, it isn't that there isn't enough wealth, it is that that wealth, is grabbed by a few.
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"IOW, it isn't that there isn't enough food, it isn't that there isn't enough resources, it isn't that there isn't enough wealth, it is that that wealth, is grabbed by a few."
No, it's not an either or. It's BOTH. Food and resources will become more scarce on account of a peaking & subsequent decline in fossil fuels, and also because of the massive environmental/climate issues brought about by global warming.
No.
See that agroecology article that was posted on CD about a week ago, the one that most of the population ranters either ignored, or posted stating that they were too lazy to read because it was too long.
Productivity per land area, can be sustained, even increased. Labour productivity would decrease, but, that is hardly a bad thing, as that would mean more jobs.
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I read the article, and will not take the time to fully critique it here. Bottom-line: While the author conveys some useful information, I don't buy his overly optimistic spin on the food security issue.
The threats to future food stability is a list so long I don't even need to bother listing them all, but just try these for a small sample: lack of fossil fuel inputs for fertilizer/pesticides reducing yields, reduced energy and increased costs for the massive industrial farming that has spawned the "green revolution", massive spreading of desertification destroying wide stretches of arable land, unprecedented soil erosion, increased frequency and intensity of droughts causing for one, huge increases in industrial irrigation that is severely depleting aquifers, a host of climate change induced disasters (e.g., massive floods, etc.). That's all I have time for, there are many others.
Sure, we could feed the worlds people okay if we totally reconfigured the worlds agricultural system, and ALL of us began to eat way "down the food chain" (which by the way is o.k. with me - I'm about 75% vegan anyway), and we totally reconstructed our global economic system based on a much wider distribution of assets. Even so, we have limits to food, and we have limits to the mouths that we can feed.
A rational response be prepared to be called a "liberal," a "racist" and a hate of women's rights.
Hey, actualleftist!
FYI, you're the least friendly leftist I've ever seen.
Methinks you should change your username to "actualtroll".
Just sayin'.
To the pro fertility people, do you really think more people is going to improve the quality of life for poor people or the environment NOW? Note that we do not live in some imagined utopian future, we live in the present and that your pro fertility propaganda has real consequences in say India where more people will make neither quality of life better, nor the Ganges river any cleaner. Does it ever occur to you, your words have real consequences?
Do you really think refusing to address how wealth, capital, resources are distributed and used, will improve the quality of poor people anywhere?
Much of the US, and world's wealth, capital, resources, is held in a small number of hands. It isn't that there isn't enough, despite what people like you claim, it is that most of it is grabbed a small amount of people.
Your right wing refusal to address to wealth distribution has real consequences. Does that ever to occur you?
You didn't answer the question at all, will more children in India make life better there yes or no? Will more children in West Virginia make life better there, yes or no? Will more children in China make life better there, yes or no? Will more children in sub Sahran Africa make life better there, yes or no?
Again I'd like to see a post capitalist cooperative future but we aren't there yet, are you willing to deal with the FACT that the increased population you actively advocate for has real ecological consequences NOW? Remember the actual children won't be born into your nicey, nice, fantasy world, but in our actual world of the present where if anything sadly greed is on the rise in countries like China where far from moving to a more sustainable cooperative mode of life, they are rapidly attempting to adopt U.S. style consumerism, and with a population of 1.5 billion to boot. That sounds sustainable doesn't it? Ever seen photos of the air over some of the largest Chinese cities? It is not a pretty sight.
Sigh!
From what I can see the authors arguent boils down to seeing babies as little future carbon footprints is "negative," and therefore we must not talk about it.
Her other argument is also emotional and not rational, ie how dare they bring it up on 911. Yawn, 911 is just another day to me, the day the chickens came home to roost in fact to quote Malcom X!
Denial, strong it is, in Betsy Hartman, says Eco-Yoda!
"Instead of blaming overpopulation, Americans need to get serious about climate policy, conservation, the transition to renewable energy, and mass transport"
Ok, so we're screwed? Why not just say we're screwed?
Betsy Hartmann, I think that you need to write more on this subject. Clearly, given the number of posts, very many people who consider themselves to be "progressives" have regressive and corporate-friendly attitudes concerning population.
An they are obsessing about things they have no control over. They never mention any proposals to control this "overpopulation" problem because they know the reaction they would get to proposing programs of invasion and forced sterilization of brown and black people - or worse.
I always find this degree of over-concern for overpopulation among US liberals is always directly proportional to how rich and suburban/exurban the liberal is.
I agree strongly with your last sentence. But it is not just liberals; it is also libertarians and many anarchists (who may not be conscious of it, hold views deeply influenced by liberalism).
The funny thing is that to enact the kind of fast decrease in population that the population ranters want, you would need MASSIVE GLOBAL government, you would need pretty much unprecedented government interference in private life.
Funny that a libertarian, or an anarchist, would support something like that.
Or maybe people like you could stop being in denial, and we could set up mutual aid societies to distribute birth control?
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I'm not a Libertarian or an Anarchist. Thank God! But I love people that suggest government is mainly an "interference" in our personal lives. I hate to tell you, but in a Democratic Republic "the government is us" in many respects. The people have a responsibility to hold their representatives accountable to uphold their own individual AND "collective" interests. Authorizing government, as the central implementer of policy choices for ALL the people as a whole in a given jurisdiction, to carry out policy designed to promote social/economic/ecological stability on the planet over the long-term, should not be viewed as an unwelcome "interference into our private lives".
And what are you a Bolshevik Trot? Proud of comrade Lenin and Trostsky's murder of working class anarchists, sailors, trade Unionists, and peasants at Kronstadt Commie?
Ever read Emma Goldman's Disillusionment in Russia about military industrialization under Lenin and Trotsky? Or Orwell's description of the functional working class left anarchist libertarian socialism by the CNT in civil war era Spain? Anarchists were the FIRST to fight the fascists so you can just fuck right off with your comparison of anarchists to bourgeois liberals!
I made less than 10,000 last year and work as a landscaper outside Detroit, and live in the industrial slums of Ypsilanti Michigan near Willow Run in a poor and diverse area culturally, so total fail on every ASSumption you made. Fuck, I am probably the only working class person who actually posts on this board.
Sigh!
Infighting amongst progressives always saddens me, but I have to say that this article is ridiculous. The problem of overpopulation should be obvious to anyone who has spent any time in the natural world, and for Ms. Hartmann to try and suggest that humans can ignore what other species cannot is insulting to our collective intelligence. No living thing can multiply exponentially and expect zero consequences.
To then also turn the subject into something partisan is beyond a travesty.
Sorry, Ms. Hartmann, your views on overpopulation are about as realistic to me as trickle-down economics. :-(
As soon as I saw the title of this article I knew it would be met with a torrent of denunciation from the Common Dreams commentariat, which has thoroughly internalized the American liberal version of Malthusianism as an unquestionable axiom.
It's so much easier to blame the planet's problems on an undifferentiated mass of "people" than it is to apply real political analysis to determine the true causes and solutions for food insecurity, drought, climate change, poverty, and environmental degradation. Disapproving of others' reproductive choices is so much simpler (and infinitely more satisfying!) than actually doing something to change the system.
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Am I to assume that you don't think overpopulation is a problem? I think it is, and by the way, I in no way exclude the U.S. We are the third largest population in the world, we have the highest per capita consumption, and we are still growing exponentially. And although the reasons are different, population in the U.S. is just as much or actually even more important to confront than the population in a country like Ethiopia, for example, despite the fact that they have a large population (14th in the world at about 82 million), their growth rate is three times that of the U.S., and they are one of the poorest countries in the world.
"It's so much easier to blame the planet's problems on an undifferentiated mass of "people"......."
Clearly, if some are in fact doing that they are not helping to advance a reasonable conversation. ALL countries that are experiencing population overshoot, and/or are adding to their population above replacement rates, and/or are raping the planet at rates much higher than the average country needs to seriously address any of these issues that pertains to their country.
Please see my above post:
Posted by cdresearch
Aug 31 2011 - 5:38am
.... and tell me if there are things that you disagree with.
Those who believe the planet can hold 10 billion are working from anthropocentric emotionalism, as per the Ms. Hartman's "how dare you be negative about babies," so don't expect a rational response to your balanced and rational post. BTW I agree population control ought to start in the U.S. first, see what an eater of third world babies racist liberal I am?
Sigh!
This "discussion" would be considerably more productive if the disbelievers in overpopulation stopped calling its opponents idiots, stopped asking them to kill themselves, and stopped accusing them endorsing forced sterilization.
It would also be helpful if they stopped responding to people who say "I think overpopulation and overconsumption are both problems" by accusing them of not caring about overconsumption.
It's hard to have a meaningful conversation when people have such angry, exaggerated responses.
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You got that right! Good points.
+ 1
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"This "discussion" would be considerably more productive if the disbelievers in overpopulation stopped calling its opponents idiots, stopped asking them to kill themselves, and stopped accusing them endorsing forced sterilization.
It would also be helpful if they stopped responding to people who say "I think overpopulation and overconsumption are both problems" by accusing them of not caring about overconsumption.
It's hard to have a meaningful conversation when people have such angry, exaggerated responses."
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Welcome to the dimwit world of overpopulation denialists. Expecting to have a meaningful conversations with these dolts is like wishing for the moon. It's like talking to flat earth folks who are filled with the hubris of mindless certainty. What's left is to enjoy yourself with these knuckle dragging droolers.
It's awesome to see adults who can type minimally be clueless about something as simple as exponential growth and it's implications as to environmental limits. The fact that Darwin made it the basic driver of evolutionary selection doesn't seem to have even grazed their brains.
It's equally awesome to watch these folks step over the bodies of a billion starving people, in large part caused by population overshoot which they pooh pooh, and pretend to be the defender of the poor.
The drive for equity will always be an issue and a legitimate one. But turning the earth into a overcrowded ecologically denuded and poisoned rat colony is not how you gain fairness. Keeping people weak and desperate is progressive?
There isn't a better place to go to learn about exponential growth and its implications than the link below. It could use a few updates but all its basic points are sound.
http://www.albartlett.org/
"Can you think of
any problem in any area of
human endeavor on any scale,
from microscopic to global,
whose long-term solution
is in any demonstrable way
aided, assisted, or advanced by
further increases in population,
locally, nationally, or globally?"
- Prof. Al Bartlett
In order to live comfortably in the fantasy world of our author of fiction as well as non-fiction Ms Betsy Hartmann, one has to be possessed of a Descartian mind-set that has non-human flora and fauna classified as lesser organisms, merely machines at the mercy of the god-like humans who are master and mistresses of all they survey. My god, what arrogance!