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Jeffrey Sachs: Population Controller?
In a March 1 op-ed in the Washington Post Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs made his pitch to be the next president of the World Bank promising to “lead the bank into a new era of problem-solving.” John Cavanaugh and Robin Broad have laid out a raft of righteous concerns about Sachs’s candidacy. The “solutions” Sachs proposes to poverty, they point out, can be summed up in the not very-new words: “aid” and “trade.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s Sachs’s other favorite problem solver: population control. That’s taking us to a new era, alright: right back to the nineteenth century of Thomas Malthus.
Sachs presented five Reith lectures titled “Bursting at the Seams” in 2007. He reiterated the main points on population in an op-ed for CNN last October, to greet the globe’s seven-billionth inhabitant. “How can we enjoy sustainable development on a very crowded planet?” Asks Sachs. Two ways: the first requires a change of technologies and more global cooperation, he writes. The second is the stabilization of the global population. Developed world birth rates are down, he says, “The reduction of fertility rates should be encouraged in the poorer countries as well. Rapid and wholly voluntary reductions of fertility have been and can be achieved in poor countries.”
Given the options, Sachs's same-old pro-privatization development policies will be greeted as enlightened, none so more than his position on “reducing fertility.” He’s not promoting mandatory sterilization, after all, and he’s in tune with a growing crowd that’s recycling old population myths for the new save-the-planet context. But smart people have been working for decades to delink poverty from population. At the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development world leaders pressed by women’s groups agreed. As Radhika Balakrishnan, feminist economist, director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers puts it, “how population behaves is more important than how it grows.”
Given global distribution and consumption patterns, one of Jeffrey Sachs’s children in the United States, for example, probably destroys more of the planet’s resources in a day than your average small African village.
At the Reith lectures, Sachs made clear that he won't be proposing problem solving that affects his own ilk’s consumption habits. Quizzed about Western greed, he shot back: “I do not believe that the solution to this problem is a massive cutback of our consumption levels or our living standards. “ So it’s back to poor women and their kids.
Around the world, high-level women leaders including former presidents Michelle Bachelet (of Chile) and Mary Robinson (of Ireland) have launched an initiative to focus global attention on women’s expertise and leadership as regards Climate Change and development. Sachs’s focus on women as the “problem” takes us in exactly the opposite direction.
The sad thing is, thousands of genuine development experts were in town the week that Jeff Sachs’s Washington Post piece appeared. As he was basking in the media glow, they were enjoying no money media attention at all at the United Nations’ fifty-sixth Commission on the Status of Women.
MADRE convened a panel of sister organizations—represented by women whom executive director Yifat Susskind introduced as the “world’s foremost rural development experts.” Decide for yourself.
I had a chance to talk with Fatima Ahmed, director of Zenab for Women and Development in Sudan and Rose Cunningham, director of Wangki Tangni, an indigenous women’s group in Nicaragua. (I really, really encourage you to watch this video.)
Asked about the challenges they face, Ahmed and Cunningham talked about climate change, but they talked much more about soil erosion and deforestation driven by rapacious corporations. Top of their list of concerns were war, discrimination and the destruction of indigenous knowledge. Population comes up only in discussion of their communities’ tendency to help and—shock— share with those in trouble. Afterall, development isn’t only about profits and resources, said Cunningham. “It’s also about people and animals.
Putting people first? Now that would really be a new era. How about a woman from the global South for World Bank president?
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Show AllI believe well meaning, ethical people have a duty to forgo having children. We have too many surplus people, most exploited by the 1%.
The earth is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and destructive effluent is finite. Its ability to provide food and energy is finite. Its ability to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. And we are fast approaching many of the earth's limits. Current economic practices which damage the environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued without the risk that vital global systems will be damaged beyond repair.
Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth. A World Bank estimate indicates that world population will not stabilize at less than 12.4 billion, while the United Nations concludes that the eventual total could reach 14 billion, a near tripling of today's 5.4 billion. But, even at this moment, one person in five lives in absolute poverty without enough to eat, and one in ten suffers serious malnutrition. (From World Scientists Warning to Humanity, 1992)
This is not an old recycled population myth.
Reduce consumption in the rich countries? Yes, that's a swell idea. Tell A.C. to give up his 8 cylinder 4 barrel carb boat . . . he's a white European.
It's not a problem if you love being cannon fodder, prison fodder, and cheap disposable, replaceable, fungible, expendable, and exploitable labor. No problems there.
"wholly voluntary reductions of fertility have been and can be achieved in poor countries" - what part of that does the feminazi author not understand? Yeah, pick on Jeff Sachs' children, that's really mature. If one of them consumes more resources than an "African village," it's because the African village has no resources. And if that's the case, why shouldn't they have access to birth control? It is a crime to bring a child into the world without the ability to care for it, and that applies in the US as much as in the Third World.
YEP! you're right. I had one child and got my tubes tied at 32 cause I couldn't afford to have another. On the other hand Hispanic-origin population in the US would contribute 32 percent of the Nation's population growth from 1990 to 2000, 39 percent from 2000 to 2010, 45 percent from 2010 to 2030, and 60 percent from 2030 to 2050. In 2010 only 16% of the population was Hispanic but they were responsible for 42% of the growth.
It costs $28,000 to have a baby in my county - pre-postnatal WITHOUT complications. It costs $10 - $12,000 to educate each child for 12 years. That's $172,000 a family of 4 kids = $688,000 and that does not include food, medical and housing.
So you see ESPECIALLY the US has a BIG problem.
Nature does not care whether humanity voluntarily and humanely reduces its overpopulation. It will continue to balance the populations of ALL species in her own often violent, painful and cruel way.
The World Bank [ain't that where this Sachs guy is lobbying to head up] says that 'world population will not stabilize...' The World Bank, the World Bank, The World Bank??!!! The World Bank's & IMF's notorious track record of draconian SAP policies in Africa & so-called 3rd World countries- Is Soooo BAD that anything they say RE: Africa & the 3rd World is SUSPECT! IMHO- They have NO credibility RE: this issue!
The idea that millions [or now billions] are poor & hungry because the current population is 5 - 7 billion- misses the point! When Malthus in the early 1800s claimed that there were too many people [estimated in 1800 at only 1 billion] there were still untold millions of poor & hungry people! In fact the when World's population was less than 1/2 billion or even less than 100 Million- there were still many millions of poor & hungry people! This historical fact shows that issue of poverty & hunger has far more to do w political, economic & societal inequality [occasionally in combo w environmental conditions- IE: droughts & floods] than due to so-called over-population!
Yes, we need population control. We do not need Mr. CorporUtopia Sachs for other reasons, but how population grows makes how population behaves increasingly hopeless. Everyone should emulate the Bushs and Obamas and have no more than 2 children. Someone as important as Laura Flanders should not mock the need to reduce our over-crowded spaceship's out of control population.
Yes, I do not support Sachs, but I do support Planned Parenthood.
There's always a danger when a problem is defined through an either-or analogy. There's no question population numbers must be reduced; however, the consumption patterns of citizens of the West are reprehensible, and quite deadly to those living in equatorial regions. If the arguments move to population numbers without demanding a new responsible consumer ethos, then nothing will be resolved. Earth mother's resources will be rung out until there's nothing left to eat or grow.
What I find interesting is Sachs bringing up the issue of population "control" at the same time that the Republican presidential candidates are doing their utmost to turn the clock back on women's reproductive rights. The Catholic Church smells a time of strategic advantage, so it, too, is chiming in with the old line of reasoning that kept women pregnant and barefoot down the centuries. Their idolatry of the sperm will make it impossible to see birth control programs (or family planning services) funded in 3rd world nations.
We also recently saw the U.S. MIC try to use an inverted form of chivalry in pretending it was in Afghanistan to liberate women. Meanwhile, State Department misogynists passed out Viagra to Tribal elders who had their sights set on "marrying" the local 13-year olds.
It's amazing the lengths old patriarchal cults of power will go to in rationalizing ways to retain the advantages they've for so long arrogated to themselves. They cannot see beyond their own metrics.
"here's no question population numbers must be reduced; "
Sorry, but there is a question that population numbers must be reduced. The world produces enough food the current global population.
"What I find interesting is Sachs bringing up the issue of population "control" at the same time that the Republican presidential candidates are doing their utmost to turn the clock back on women's reproductive rights. "
It is not all that interesting. Sachs' position on population is pretty consistent with his type of neoliberalism. You don't see it as much in the US, but it is not uncommon among (neo)liberals in Europe (ie emphasis on population, dismissing, rejecting and opposing any attempts to restrict consumption, arguing that if population were reduced, consumption can be increased, life will be good)
rfloh,
While I agree with you that the world produces enough food to feed all humans, we still must reduce our population because we share this most perfect of all worlds with millions even trillions of other sentient beings; with millions and billions and trillions of plants and microbes and insects. (I include all of those in sentient beings, including plants). We have become a cancer destroying the healthy cells in the planetary body, such as frogs, birds, trees, animals, lakes, streams, rivers, oceans.
What two of the following three items belong together and why: squirrel, mouse, tree.
Exactly. Feeding, clothing and housing too many people is creating a world without species diversity. Monocultures are disasters waiting to happen.
Wrong. People insisting on being carried everywherein personal auto transportation everywhere, on discarding huge quantities of food, on fighting endless wars, is what is destroying the environment.
Its not either, or, floh, its all of the above
A reduced population will not help the environment, if per capita per consumptiom goes up. Ie fewer people who use more, ala Jeffrey sachs. You need to address consumption first, the belief that ties quality of life to consuming ever more, ala Jeffrey sachs. The attitudes towards consumption need to be addressed or the problem will never be solved. Population matters, but it isn't as if humans did not go around degrading the environment, wiping out other species when the global population was smaller.
Humanity has had dramatic local environmental impacts since the beginning of the "agricultural revolution" about 10,000 years ago. But it hasn't had a global environmental impact until well into the fossil fuel age, and it could not have initiated irreversible climate change nor the sixth great species extinction until the last few generations. This is a function of BOTH shear numbers and technology-based per-capita consumption.
Wrong. I suggest you look up the spice silphium, which in Roman times was very very popular. So popular that it was harvested and eaten to extinction. Or Lebanese cedars. Or bison in America.
"The world produces enough food the current global population."
The world produces enough food only with the intensive use of petrochemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Those artificial stimulants are self-limiting and also destroying the biosphere upon which all life depends.
The most optimistic credible estimates of a sustainable global human population is 1 billion (the pre Civil War population when we were still mostly rural). But the last time humanity lived in harmony with the web of life, when we were still hunter-gatherers, we were only 4 million.
This earth cannot sustain its current human population, even if we all lived at African levels of consumption.
It boggles the mind when so many still feel that with enough technology all problems of population will be solved. One gets the feeling that many actually love standing in line to check out of a store, or having fun being in an overcrowded elevator, or getting stuck in traffic. All symptomatic of to many people. They have come so dependent on the concept of growth to keep the dreams of capitalism alive we all will wake up one day jammed against each other struggling to find a little peace and quiet . Well that is after we get our eyes and heads out of the smart phones and take a look around at the environment. Many would probably be happy if they could disappear into cyber space and become little pixels in the scheme of things.
It boggles the mind that so many are so greedy with a desire to consume ever more and more.
"One gets the feeling that many actually love standing in line to check out of a store, or having fun being in an overcrowded elevator, or getting stuck in traffic. All symptomatic of to many people"
No, all oversymptomatic of overconsumption. When people queue outside and Apple store to buy the latest Apple gadget, it is hardly a symptom of too many people. When people queue outside a walmart on some special shopping day, it is hardly a symptom of too many people.
"The world produces enough food only with the intensive use of petrochemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Those artificial stimulants are self-limiting and also destroying the biosphere upon which all life depends. "
Wrong. With agroecology measures, food production can actually be INCREASED:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/21-1
"he most optimistic credible estimates of a sustainable global human population is 1 billion (the pre Civil War population when we were still mostly rural). But the last time humanity lived in harmony with the web of life, when we were still hunter-gatherers, we were only 4 million"
Wrong. You're lying.
"This earth cannot sustain its current human population, even if we all lived at African levels of consumption."
yes it can. The current population levels are fine.
RFLOH- YES!!!! Thank you for opposing the chorus of misguided people here. It is not overpopulation that is the problem, your comments are very excellent- I Thank You. Please continue. I am learning, and you have much to share- it is valuable. I Thank You. PSA
So where did this the World can sustain only 1 billion people come from? If that's so [NOT] what do you propose to do w the other estimated [not counted via an actual Census head-count] 6 billion souls? What's your plan to eliminate 6 billion so-called 'excess' people?! I've asked this question repeatedly when this topic comes up & most duck giving a response. Those few that are bold enough to respond boil it down to- A globally enforced population controlled regime via World-wide surveillance [ala 1984] to enforce a 1 child per woman [of child-bearing age] policy- followed up by forced sterilizations & abortions [ala China's one child per couple policy]! But the fact is if you want a rapid roll-back of the population from the alleged 7 billion to 1 billion- these draconian globalized police surveillance state measures would still be inadequate! You'd have to resort to culling [IE: killing off] large portions of the World population to rapidly get from 7 to 1 Billion!
IMO This is where this seemingly arbitrary 1billion figure comes from. The population of the US = 310 million, of the EU = 735 million, of Canada = 35 Million, of Australia & New Zealand = 25Million. Total = about 1.1billion for all of the predominately white [IE: of European descent] nations! Every time I hear a pseudo-intellectual from one of these predominately white countries make this very suspect claim- I suspect that the REAL hidden message is that there's only room for mainly white people on the planet! Yet it is these so-called developed societies that has brought the World to the Brink of Econ, militaristic, environmental disaster!
AND- Yes there is enough food being currently produced to not only adequately feed 7 billion people but actually as many as 20 - 30 billion people [I'll even crunch the numbers if you doubt it - FYI: It's been projected that the World's population will level off at 9 -11 billion by 2100 & from there naturally slowly decline]! The problem is not how much food is produced but how it is being used [or misused] & distributed: IE: 80% - 90% of the soy & +50% & of the corn grown in the US is fed to fatten cattle [which are naturally supposed to eat grass anyway] instead of people. Another 25% of corn is used to make so-called 'bio-fuels' [a definite misnomer]. And the US simply wastes as much as 40% of its food supply. The main dietary problems in the US are OBESITY Related [half of US' population is over-weight or obese - IE: too many folks are eating too damned much] while in Africa the main dietary issue is mal-nourishment [IE: too many folks don't get enough to eat]. But for folks like this Sachs guy & the IMF, World Bank etc- the solution is to cut the numbers of Poor hungry Black & Brown folks, rather than the West cutting back on over-consumption & waste & redistributing their excess! The Earth can NOT Sustain EVEN 1 Billion Overly Greedy & Wasteful people who are more concerned about their creature comforts than about either their fellow man or the Eco-sphere!
If you insist on rolling the population back to 1860s levels [IE: 1 billion - a mark that most Malthusians of that era thought was too many] then lets roll back the clock on EVERYTHING! So what would that World look like- No Jet-planes, no automobiles [so why have a paved road hi-way system], no hi-speed rail, no PCs & Internet, no TV, no Radio nor most of the myriad of modern electronic gadgets... In fact no electric power grid- thus no electric lights, no refrigerators, no washing-machines, no air-conditioning nor central-air & heating, etc... Plus no indoor plumbing thus no indoor running water- toilets & showers, no gas stoves, & on & on, etc, etc... Is that what you're proposing [FYI: 1.7 Billion+ people in Africa & the so-called 3rd World are still currently forced to live without many of these most basic 'conveniences' that most folks in the US & EU take for granted.]??!! IMO: Certainly not for yourself nor those who are most like you!!!
Siouxrose: "a new responsible consumer ethos"
Nothing could be more oxymoronic. We used to think of ourselves as citizens (which, itself, is problematic in that it narrows identification and loyalty to a nation-state), but now we blithely accept the label of "consumer".
A cancer is a consumer. A parasite is a consumer. A plague is a consumer. We have no hope of survival as a species, let alone responsible sustainability, as long as we identify as consumers.
No one is talking about extermination just control. Like Hispanic-origin population in the US would contributed 32 percent of the Nation's population growth from 1990 to 2000, 39 percent from 2000 to 2010, 45 percent from 2010 to 2030 (They are only 16% of the total population), and 60 percent from 2030 to 2050.
Need a LITTLE control there wouldn't you say?
Flanders is way off the mark on population. Population growth is one of the worst forms of greed... devouring ever more with each successive generation. Poverty is ultimately driven by over population. 7 billion + is far too many people for our mother Earth to sustain. And six million more are being added each month ... the population of an average US state... while productive land is rapidly disappearing. . Earth's life support systems are being pushed beyond capacity, and we are causing a 6th great extinction of non human life on Earth. We need to drastically reduce family size for the sake of all future generations.
Flanders has it right we need not only to focus on population but on alson on consumption. For example how about a limit as to how many cars a family can have. And she knows, as does every development person who has studied the problem, that the answer is to educate women and give them some economic choice. Then the birth rate goes down. But the idea of rich folks who have caused the problem and who consume far more than their share telling us its poor women and their children who must deal while the rich continue to destroy the earth is ridiculous and that's what Laura is trying to get across. Clearly there are some thick skull here that don't get it.
Excellent comment!
China was headed toward overpopulation disaster before they instituted their one child policy. Across the globe the countries with the highest population growth also tend to be the poorest countries. Satellite photos show cities to be creeping grey cancers consuming the blue green Earth. Many natural wonders have been destroyed and forever lost. Population greed is destroying our natural heritage.
But you have a cultural problem where procreation is just a habit. Having as many children as you can have is a religious edict. "Be fruitful and multiply."
Then you get this - Hispanic-origin population in the US would contribute 32 percent of the Nation's population growth from 1990 to 2000, 39 percent from 2000 to 2010, 45 percent from 2010 to 2030 (in 2009 Hispanics only represented 16% of the total population but 42% of new population growth), and 60 percent from 2030 to 2050.
Flanders is correct. Overconsumption is one of the worst forms of greed..devouring ever more with an unending appetite for ever more.
"Poverty is ultimately driven by over population. 7 billion + is far too many people for our mother Earth to sustain"
Really? So, there was no poverty when the global population was at 1 billion? No poverty during the medieval ages?
And there are no people nowadays, who have tens of billions of wealth?
"while productive land is rapidly disappearing. ."
Yet the world still produces enough food, and will produce enough food for what the global population is projected to be.
"nd we are causing a 6th great extinction of non human life on Earth."
Yes, with our greed for ever bigger houses, ever bigger cars, ever more perfectly edible food to throw away as garbage (in wealthy western countries, estimates are that 40-50% of food is thrown away) etc ad infinitum.
"We need to drastically reduce family size for the sake of all future generations."
We need to drastically reduce wastefulness for the sake of all current and future generations.
Excellent comments and ripostes, rfloh.
We need to drastically reduce the number of rich people to zero, in my opinion. If we truly believe in the American ideal "that all [humans], are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," then we must eliminate disparities in wealth.
But instead, for thousands of years humans have lived in societies dominated by a few, and today it has gotten worse than ever before. We have 7 billion people and a few thousand people own almost the entire planet.
And these few thousand people desire more and more wealth at the expense of this most perfect of all worlds.
Ok, let's just return to the time when technology did not intervene, in the form of fossil fuels and scientific interventions. There would be about 6 billion fewer people than now.
In even the for-the-time advanced England of Dickens' and Marx's day, only some 160 years ago, the average citizen, the 99% of the day, simply toiled for a meager sustenance, and actually was far worse off in sustenance calorically than tribesmen in Borneo of the time (because there were A LOT MORE English people, then and now) or even the Romans of Roman Britain. In some places, even in the mid-Nineteenth century, the AVERAGE British lifespan of an adult was 17 years, and the majority of the babies died!
That sad situation slowly came to an end with modern transportation, modern agricultrure, and the rise of the modern world. Today, the average Chinese citizen is now actually better off than was the average English citizen of even as late as the 1950s! Sure, all people are far better off now, but there are still a lot of human problems to solve, and one is the equilibrium of the human population of this planet, with our technological life-support civilization, with the fixed and natural finite limits of this one planet. They must balance for life to continue, most especially for decent human life to continue.
This ascent of the common life of humanity is primarily due to the harnessing/enslavement of fossil-fuel energy by technology, and through good government intervention (socialism, agriculture reform, wage and health laws, free education, stable economy; that is, government serving the needs of all the people).
But the figurative 'eating' of fossil fuels will soon come to an end. What then for most people? And how many people are too many anyway? Are 20 billion living people too many? 30 billion? What then? What about the 7th generation? And what of a future amount of people after that, and each justly wanting a car (transportation) and a home (house)?
And if we descend in lilfestyle to accomodate more, just how 'poor' should all of us live? Every child should be dear, and every life should be good. But with more and more people, how will this be accomplished on a finite world? By having everyone live as paupers in shacks, scratching out meager gardens, no medical care, and going virtually nowhere? By cutting out that very expensive option, free education, of any kind? All that ideological reality has already been tried - see Pol Pot's Cambodia.
And remember, War exists because it has been and remains ALWAYS Cheaper to kill someone than to provide for someone, always cheaper to take something than to pay for it. A killing machete chop to someone's head is cheaper than it is to provide just ONE meal to that same someone. Just ask Rwanda, the nation that ran amok because of internal population pressures, which led to a genocide by one tribe against another, in a thinly-veiled land-and-resources-grab from the decimated tribe. It's the same as when Hitler justified his war because he felt his own tribe needed more living space - lebensraum- on a crowded planet... crowded even back then. And a ten-cent bullet to the head is always cheaper than a prison sentence... and, for instance, would save America tens of billions of dollars per-year versus the price paid to keep 6 million people locked-up... but morally... ?
So population pressures play a big role in all other problems, no matter where, including a big role in lead-ups to wars. Especially wars for resources. Which all wars are.
So these are moral and ethical questions too.And it's not about just keeping warm bodies alive, simply for the sake of saying they are 'alive'. People, especially these days, psychologically need more than just sustenance and dire poverty, and all hope for a better life for their children, not just the same dire poverty for everyone. There are physical and also psychologic questions as well. The madding crowd does have an effect.
But what about simple sustenance? Raw Numbers of people do have an effect as well. Just ask Africans who hunt wildlife to extinction for bushmeat. Just ask Americans that need to import oil from around the world in order for its economy to just limp along.
But let's take numbers. Let's, say, provide everyone on Earth, all 7 billion of them, with a 'good' pair of shoes and a 'good' pair of sneakers each year. Let's say these cost $100 each. Ok, so that is $1.4 Trillion EACH YEAR in cost. But with such demand, of course, the price goes up. So that is now, say, $3 Trillion in cost. But that is Each year, so that needs a trust fund to pay that $3 Trillion each year. SO that will need a trust fund of $300 TRILLION dollars, using CDs for the income. Just to provide a couple pair of shoes to each person each year. NOTHING ELSE. And with no population growth AT ALL.
So yes, numbers of people DO count, no matter how impoverished they are. We as a species ALREADY TODAY kill and eat about a BILLION animals EVERY DAY, to feed 7 billion stomachs - chickens, fish, frogs, sheep, cows, insects, etc! And 'the rich' eat very, very little of this amount, comparatively speaking. How may more people should we then have to provide for, and of course, and this without even elevating and enriching lives to a decent level?
No, people who deny overpopulation are denying gravity. They have another agenda, perhaps anti-choice, perhaps something else. All Goals of justice, peace, equality, freedom from fear and want, and environmental stewardshiop become MUCH MORE DIFFICULT to achieve the more the population expands, no matter by whom, why, where or how.
This does not mean that our world can't be more just, more peaceful, more equitable, far less greedy, and more ecologically-sound. It must become so. But ALL these issues must be addressed together, as they are all inter-connected, INCLUDING overpopulation, or all the progress and good that will be hard-achieved will be drowned out in a sea of more and more people, with real material needs that super-stress our planet's environment, the environment we depend on to survive.. and super-stress people, too.
To enable ALL people living today to have a better life, and not just have everyone live in squalor together on a 'planet of slums', population numbers MUST be a big consideration. Especially as this brief candle called the fossil-fuel era winds down. Then, out, out, brief candle! And back to the caves we all go! Yeah, that'll work!
"Ok, let's just return to the time when technology did not intervene, in the form of fossil fuels and scientific interventions. There would be about 6 billion fewer people than now."
*yawn* Strawman. I made no such argument that we should return to a time before "technology" whatever you mean by the term.
"And how many people are too many anyway? Are 20 billion living people too many? 30 billion?"
Another meaningless strawman. Global population levels are projected to peak at around 9-10 billion.
"hey have another agenda, perhaps anti-choice, perhaps something else. All Goals of justice, peace, equality, freedom from fear and want, and environmental stewardshiop become MUCH MORE DIFFICULT to achieve the more the population expands, no matter by whom, why, where or how."
Utter bollocks.
The problem with you neoliberal overpopulation ranters, is that you come up with a whole passel of meaningless strawman arguments. You make up things in your head, then argue against them. When you are interested in talking about the real world, we can talk.
Reply to FVHorn, Mar 18 2012 - 5:46pm:
The problems with Britain of "Dickens' and Marx's day" had started much earlier due to successive enclosures. And the enclosures themselves had a lot to do with raising livestock. From "Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture" by Jeremy Rifkin,
>>The British enclosure movement had displaced thousands of rural English families, creating a cheap new labor pool to fill the unskilled jobs in the industrial factories of London, Leeds, Manchester, and Bristol. Shortages of foodstuffs and rising prices were fueling discontent among the new working class and middle class of the cities, threatening open rebellion. British officials and entrepreneurs quieted the masses with Scottish and Irish beef. Historians of the period point out that were it not for the Celtic pasturelands of Scotland and Ireland, it might well have proved impossible to quell the growing unrest of the British working class during the critical decades of British industrial expansion. Historian Eric Ross says that the hunger for cheap beef "lay behind England's impulse to procure Scottish and Irish meat and in the end, to base their own industrial growth on the relegation of these peripheral regions to an ancillary role as pastoralist food reserves." By 1850, says Ross, "Much of the meat in London's market was imported from England's Celtic fringe." Even today, 140 years later, Scotland and Ireland remain largely a grazing land for the British beef market.<<
From Wikipedia,
>>There was a significant rise in enclosure during the Tudor period. These enclosures largely resulted in conversion of land use from arable to pasture – usually sheep farming. These enclosures were often undertaken unilaterally by the landowner. Enclosures during the Tudor period were often accompanied by a loss of common rights and could result in the destruction of whole villages. ...
From as early as the 12th century, some open fields in Britain were being enclosed into individually owned fields. In Great Britain, the process sped up during the 15th and 16th centuries as sheep farming grew more profitable. ...
Sir Thomas More, in his 1516 work Utopia suggests that the practice of enclosure is responsible for some of the social problems affecting England at the time.
[Quote]But I do not think that this necessity of stealing arises only from hence; there is another cause of it, more peculiar to England.' ... 'The increase of pasture,' said I, 'by which your sheep, which are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, may be said now to devour men and unpeople, not only villages, but towns; for wherever it is found that the sheep of any soil yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men, the abbots not contented with the old rents which their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture, destroying houses and towns, reserving only the churches, and enclose grounds that they may lodge their sheep in them.[End quote]
The loss of agricultural labour also hurt others like millers whose livelihood relied on agricultural produce. ...<<
In "Beyond Beef", Jeremy Rifkin says,
>>The enclosure of the American plains was not unlike the earlier enclosure movements in Tudor and Elizabethan England and on the European continent in its impact on native populations and the environment. In Tudor England, in the early sixteenth century, the landed gentry joined forces with the newly emerging merchant class to force peasants off their ancestral commons to make room for sheep, whose wool was beginning to fetch a high price in the new textile markets. ...
In America, millions of Indians were driven off their ancestral commons on the great American plains by ranchers, the federal government, and the British noblemen and bankers to make room for the pasturing of cattle to serve the burgeoning new beef markets of America and Europe and the leather-tanning and tallow industries. The buffalo was exterminated and Indians were forced onto reservations, where, half starved and weakened by the white man's diseases, they were provided with meager government rations, barely enough to survive. ... <<
My point is that focusing on what appears to be overpopulation today, and trying to "solve" that problem, while ignoring all that went on before which led to this situation, is not going to help much. Tackling underlying causes will automatically lead to an "appropriate" level of human population, IMO.
You mention Rwanda and Hitler when talking about genocide, but there are estimates of the death of 90 to 95% of the native population of the "New World" caused by Old World diseases such as smallpox and measles.
You write,
>>"... people who deny overpopulation are denying gravity. They have another agenda, perhaps anti-choice, perhaps something else. All Goals of justice, peace, equality, freedom from fear and want, and environmental stewardshiop become MUCH MORE DIFFICULT to achieve the more the population expands, no matter by whom, why, where or how."<<
I'm not sure of others, but I do not deny that there a lot of humans. But I do not accept that as THE major problem.
And I also look for a bit of credibility from those who talk of overpopulation. That is, do these people understand that overconsumption is the bigger problem? Do they understand the concepts and the numbers associated with ecological footprint, carbon footprint, water footprint, etc.? Do these people understand the impact due to livestock raising, meat transportation, storage, etc., on the environment, deforestation, climate change and water depletion?
So, what is YOUR agenda here? And the agenda of all those who talk about overpopulation, but mostly remain silent about overconsumption? If you care about habitat loss for other species, do you know of the role of beef production in deforestation? What do you think of overfishing PRIMARILY to feed western (and the handful of rich countries elsewhere) appetite?
Since you mention killing and eating about a billion animals everyday, it appears that you have thought about this issue. But have you looked further into the numbers? About drastically cutting down on meat and dairy, and what that would do in terms of freeing up farmland, water, and stopping further deforestation?
And finally do you know that the population growth rate is actually DECLINING? Please see my other post:
Alcyon, Mar 17 2012 - 5:05pm
Rwanda, ran amok due to population pressures? LOL. After reading your post again, I have realised just what kind of neoliberal imperialist lying scum you are. Trying to handwave away the decades of racial divide and conquer strategy practiced in Rwanda by the Belgians and the French. And that you make such a claim, reveals your true racist colours.
And the entirety of the rest of your pathetic rant is the usual neoliberal lie that there is not enough wealth, not enough resources, and that for people not to live poor and starving, population must be decreased. Talk to me about not being enough wealth, when there are not individuals worth tens of billions. When the vast majority of global wealth is not held in the hands of a miniscule minority.
Don't shoot the messenger. I don't care who delivers the message that we have a problem here on Earth regarding overpopulation of human beings because no matter who decides to tackle this unpopular discussion, the fact is "there are too many people on Earth!" I understand the need to be careful about the putative "whos" at whom this message is delivered. How about across the board? It doesn't matter what one's socio-economic status is, limits must be implemented NOW. (That's the real dilemma, how is population control going to be enforced?)
In the mean time, yes, we in the West consume way too much and use far too many of Earth's natural resources. I'm guilty myself. But Nature doesn't care about the hows and whys with regard to who is plundering Her. A simple "we as a species" suffices. Whether it's the Kennedys, the Romneys or a family living in poverty, limits to procreation are necessary if all the other species on Earth are to stand one inkling of a chance at survival. Anyone remember the Dodo or the Passenger Pigeon?
There is one part of this equation regarding socio-economic status I DO get: people with wealth and advantage like a Kennedy or a Romney or a Santorum have every imaginable resource available when it comes to limiting numbers of children. (except foresight apparently). The person living in poverty does not. And if the Republicans get their way (and our spineless Democrats, too) there won't be any family planning and/or means to birth control available to anyone. We'll be back in the Dark Ages seeking out back alley abortions.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for a good post.
It's encouraging to see that even though a lot of distasteful people are associated with the "population control" message, most everyone here recognizes that doesn't change the fact that exponential population growth on this planet is a massive ecological disaster. We're already in over-shoot in terms of long-term sustainability (e.g., what happens when the cheap fossil fuel runs out?). Adding another 5 million every month (every month!) is unsustainable.
The best way to reverse that unsustainable trend: empower women politically, socially, and economically throughout the world.
There is no "exponential" population growth. Ergo, since there is no "exponential" population growth, it is not a problem.
"We're already in over-shoot in terms of long-term sustainability (e.g., what happens when the cheap fossil fuel runs out"
What happens is we consume less. Duh.
500,000 circa 1500.
1,000,000 circa 1820.
2,000,000 circa 1930.
4,000,000 circa 1974.
7,000,000 in 2011.
Which part of "exponential" don't you understand?
Did you forget some zeros? It would have been simpler to type "millions" and "billions". I guess you put in the zeros "for effect"?
Anyway, please see my post below:
Alcyon - Mar 17 2012 - 5:05pm
The population growth "rate" in the last 50 years has been DECLINING. I suggest you make sure you understand what "growth rate" is, before you post back. "Growth rate" has been declining, expected to become "zero" by 2050, after which the total population may start to decline.
Whoops, you are correct sir. Add three more zeros to each of the above!
Yes, the rate of growth has been declining in the last fifty years. That doesn't change the fact that we have ADDED more people in the last 50 years (just two generations) than existed on the entire planet 50 years ago (after some 10,000 generations).
This does not give me great comfort. I've been to many countries on this small planet of ours, and I have yet to visit a single one in which population growth is not pressuring the remaining wild habitat, the fisheries, the soils, the clean water, the remaining rare species, and/or the forests that existed just a couple of generations ago. Have you?
Donny-Don, since YOU brought up numbers, let me ask you this:
Have you looked at the per capita numbers for ecological footprint for various countries? Are you even familiar with the concept of "ecological footprint"? It is expressed in the units of "global hectares per person".
The average ecological footprint (i.e., per person) in rich countries is several times that of the poorer countries. So, even if the entire population of some poor countries were to be wiped out (God forbid!), UNLESS the consumption and the pollution levels in rich countries go down, there will be hardly any difference.
The per capita carbon emissions of the USA is more than 50 times that of Bangladesh. Now, Bangladesh CLEARLY has a population problem. There are already about 20 million Bangladeshi refugees (mostly economic migrants) in India, and Bangladesh is the country that is rated to be most vulnerable to climate change. India is the second most vulnerable. So these countries clearly have a problem.
HOWEVER, my question is this:
Why is that every Tom, Dick and Harry imagines himself (to be fair, many women too) to be an expert on overpopulation and cannot answer simple questions about ecological footprint, carbon footprint and water footprint?
From the article,
>>"At the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development world leaders pressed by women’s groups agreed. As Radhika Balakrishnan, feminist economist, director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers puts it, “how population behaves is more important than how it grows.”<<
And I think that quote is absolutely right on! There is a way to manage the crisis in all countries: it is high time that people become conscious of their own consumption and ecological footprint. And to DEMAND that those who consume far more than the average person to STOP consuming so much.
Please check out this link:
"Livestock and Climate Change"
www.worldwatch.org/node/6294
As per this source, "livestock and their byproducts account for 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions." That's a huge, huge number.
And then check out this site (and the "Products footprint" link inside):
www.waterfootprint.org
It takes, on average, more than 15,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of beef, and more than 1,000 liters of water to produce 1 liter of milk. So, if people everywhere (but particularly in rich countries) would significantly cut down on their meat and dairy consumption, suddenly there would be a lot more farmland and water available, and no more forests need to be cut down. In fact, some farmland may even be allowed to grow back into forests RIGHT NOW, without waiting for major decrease in human population.
I agree that other species need to live. But the major factor in deforestation, environmental destruction and species loss is NOT human overpopulation, but overconsumption. In particular, large-scale meat production. There are other environmentally destructive production and consumption, too. For example, 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity from a coal power plant, by the time it reaches the consumer, is responsible for 1 kg of CO2.
By reducing consumption levels, it will be possible for ALL people to improve the quality of life, and at the same time free up land for the other species to recover.
When people's quality of life improves (and that includes equal rights for women and freedom to choose when and if to have children), population numbers usually go down. It's a historical fact.
On the other hand, even if the poorest 1 billion people were to die off today (once again, God forbid!), it will not make much difference to the environment unless those consuming too much change their ways.
Once you start paying close attention to numbers -- that is, the numbers that truly matter, I am CONFIDENT that you'll agree with me.
Important insights, Alcyon.
War--cars--meat eating are probably the 3 items that collectively take the biggest bite out of the global ecological "apple." After that I'd say profligate waste, and all the empty egos that need homes as large as castles, added to all that goes into their energy upkeep, not to mention the indigenous wood products used for furniture, etc.
An elegant simplicity ethos is more needed now than ever.
Alcyon- As I've posted above [we've had this conversation before] 80% - 90% of soy [which has the same level of protein as meat without any cholesterol & significantly less saturated fat] & +50% of corn in the US is used to fatten cattle [which are naturally supposed to EAT GRASS] than feeding people. Another 25% of corn is used to make ethanol. This has helped to push the trend towards GMO mono-crops & CAFO animal factory farms. CAFO's are dens of extreme animal cruelty, disease breeding grounds [ala: Salmonella, E Coli, swine & bird flu, etc], & sources of huge amounts of noxious & toxic waste! If Western societies were to dramatically cut their meat consumption [rather than exporting the SAD meat centered diet]- as you've indicated- that would go a long way to resolving the hunger, fresh water, land use & deforestation problems. But how many who keep screaming population control as THEE solution to all that ails the World, are even willing to consider cutting their meat consumption??!! Furthermore- Personally it seems rather hypocritical of those who claim such concern for other species [IE: over-population is destroying the habitat of the animals] & yet be so hooked on the SAD diet that they refuse to even consider moving away from it!
And what about a family of 2 adults & 2 children having 4 cars [1 car can comfortably seat 4-5 adults & underage children can NOT drive legally] -or- a family of 2 adults & 1 child living in a 6 bedroom house [= 2 bedrooms per person]. All of this adds up to wasteful over-consumption! Lets get serious about cutting this kind of misuse & waste of resources before insisting on drastic measures to cut the population of people in Africa & the so-called 3rd World!
Yes, Nixakliel, it becomes a matter of credibility when someone harps on human overpopulation, but is silent on overconsumption and the associated numbers. Overpopulation, like poverty, is most likely a symptom of other causes. So, talk about "controlling" overpopulation is like "controlling" poverty. We have some idea of the underlying causes, and so it's best to focus on the underlying causes. And they include extreme inequality, too much influence and control of organized religions, western imperialism -- which actually **empowers** religious fundamentalists in poorer countries, and which impoverishes other countries, and keeps corrupt rulers in place. All of these go on to make life miserable for the ordinary people, adds to their already existing internal problems due to history and religious conditioning, and keep women subjugated.
I am not saying all the problems faced by people in poor countries are due to outsiders alone, but exploitation and control by outside powers most definitely makes the problems that much worse.
When people have a basic, decent life and livelihood, and where women have access to good healthcare and birth control, and when young girls can feel hopeful of their future, and when organized religion stays in its proper place, "solving" the "problem" of overpopulation should be a piece of cake. In fact, no one has to do anything to "solve" that problem - it would go away on its own. What won't go away on its own is the environmental destruction due to overconsumption, unless people really do something about. Whether it is a systemic change or making better choices or BOTH, something has to be done.
There are all kinds of statistics that show how many planets we would need if everyone lived like the average American or the average western European. And we have only one planet. And we have an emergency due to climate change. Overpopulation cannot be "solved" in a hurry. But it is possible to change other things, and in a short time.
Point: dietary cholesterol does NOT matter. Serum cholesterol for the VAST majority of people is NOT affected by dietary cholesterol.
Nor is all serum cholesterol undesiereable. It is vLDL cholesterol that is bad. HDL cholesterol is desireable.
Reply to Donny-Don, Mar 17 2012 - 7:22pm:
>>Donny-Don wrote: "I've been to many countries on this small planet of ours, and I have yet to visit a single one in which population growth is not pressuring the remaining wild habitat, the fisheries, the soils, the clean water, the remaining rare species, and/or the forests that existed just a couple of generations ago. Have you?"<<
Donny-Don, if you are stopping by to read this, I want to say that I did not mean to dismiss this point you make, even though I was insisting on focusing on overconsumption.
You are right - that there are certain countries where there is a problem even with very low per capita consumption. And I know it is a tricky subject to bring up by an outsider, without giving rise to certain suspicion of the motive behind.
And this kind of an article is indeed the right place to bring it up. Because, in the past, I have told people who would throw the "overpopulation" argument at the drop of a hat to do so in the appropriate context. I suppose this article provides that context, and therefore it would not be right for me to dismiss any and all mention of overpopulation without taking the time to understand what the other person is saying.
That said, even in these cases that I have in mind, I think the real problem is that of inequality, extreme religious conditioning that seriously restricts the woman's right to choose, and poverty brought about by multiple factors. But these countries also have people of great intellect and it is certainly within their capacity to move to a sustainable society without much external help. In fact, stopping external interference would be a big help. Anyway, just wanted to make that clarification. :)
I suggest you go look up what the word exponential means. Since you clearly do not understand what it means. We can talk after if have fixed your ignorance.
The fact is there are NOT too many people on Earth.
How about this across the board, regardless of one's socio-economic status, limits on CONSUMPTION must be implemented.
NOW>
"In the mean time, yes, we in the West consume way too much and use far too many of Earth's natural resources. I'm guilty myself"
RIght. So, it is hardly surprising that you are not calling for limits on consumption, eh?
Rfloh, we'll count on you to explain to the tens of millions of new middle-class consumers emerging in countries like Brazil, China, India, and Russia every year why they should just forget about their interest in acquiring more cars, motorcycles, refrigerators, air conditioners, central heating, and meat in their diet. I for one will be fascinated to watch your skills of persuasion.