What if there were far too many people living on planet Earth, but no one had the courage to talk about it?
According to Global Population Speak Out, that is exactly our situation.
Consider that we repeatedly see news reports about scarce and dwindling resources (e.g., water, food, fish, fuel, topsoil), but these news reports rarely consider the exploding population on Earth as a major contributor to these problems. This refusal to consider the carrying capacity of Earth is truly staggering. As a thought experiment, consider how our “environmental” issues would be altered if each country had 25% fewer people than it currently does. Or 50%. Instead, we the human population of earth is at 6.5 billion, headed toward at least 9 billion by 2050.
When it comes to discussing sex, reproduction and birth control, we freeze up, even when out-of-control population growth threatens our way of life. Why don’t we discuss this important issue of overpopulation? We’re afraid that the conversation would get out of control and we’d insult each other. Therefore, we choose silence, thus continuing on our path to horrific environmental decay that is ruining our standard of living.
GPSO has a plan for dealing with our collective reluctance to discuss this critically important issue. The trick is that we all need to jump in at once to draw attention away from the vast number of trivial stories that currently swamping our “news.” Many prominent scientists and other people of prominence have already made their pledges. I sent in my pledge today and so can you. GPSO also offers templates for letters to the editor and blog content.
Here is the recent GPSO press release:
Scientists from around the world have pledged to speak out publicly in February, 2009 on the problem of the size and growth of the human population. Speaking out as well will be environmental and science writers, social activists, and representatives of environmental groups. The event, called the Global Population Speak Out (GPSO), aims to weaken a decades-long taboo against open discussion of population issues.
So far, GPSO has received pledges from scientists and others in 16 countries, all agreeing to speak out during February. Many will do so through the print media. Others are planning interviews, talks, and conferences.
Endorsers of the project include, Stanford University scientists Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Cornell University ecologist David Pimentel, and co-author of The Limits to Growth Dennis Meadows.
Those pledging to speak out include botanist and past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Peter Raven, Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, University of Delhi professor of community medicine Jugal Kishore, University of Tehran environmental scientist M. F. Makhdoum, and social activists Jerry Mander and Harvey Wasserman.
One of the project’s endorsers, Ohio State University anthropologist Jeffrey McKee, said, “If you look at the key issues and goals of our time — economic prosperity, clean water, sustainable energy, and biodiversity survival — they all have a common denominator. They all point to the need immediately and responsibly to stem the growth of the human population, and to return our population size to sustainable limits.”
But, said environmental writer and GPSO organizer John Feeney, “Despite its central role in nearly every environmental problem, many have for years viewed the population topic as politically unpopular. In fact, despite the urgent need for solutions, it’s become taboo to state publicly that population growth must be humanely stabilized and reversed.”
He added, “Environmental groups have been reluctant to talk about it because they know it will trigger criticism and may compromise funding. Scientists have hesitated too, knowing any mention of population is sure to stir controversy.”
GPSO is designed to make it easier for participants to raise the issue by bringing together a collection of voices so participants know they are not alone in speaking out.
The project grew out of a simple idea, said Feeney. “We wondered, what if a large number of qualified voices worldwide, many of whom might not have emphasized the topic previously, were to speak out on population all at once? With any luck it will nudge the subject closer to the center of public discourse.”
Another goal of the event, said Feeney, is to bring new voices to the population issue. “This is a matter of profound importance. There are experts, such as the Ehrlichs, who address it regularly. But we need many more voices. We hope GPSO might help bring a few to the world’s attention. Our hope is that after February it will be a little easier to talk about population and there will be more people doing just that.”
Consider, further, this link to Miniature Earth.
So many seem to think of procreation as a personal right, or a rite of passage. Often folks are caught up with continuing a family line, or making sure of the ability to transfer wealth, or needing the "experience" of having children despite the ramifications to the planet (or sometimes their own ability to follow through).
It really is a selfish stance, (one more in a long list of many such selfish stances). We as a species need to learn to think outside of our own self interest and experience and focus on the good of the whole. I think about Jonathan Edwards and his discussions in "The Nature of True Virtue", where he sees the highest virtue as an ability to think outside of simple self interest and work toward the benefit of being as a whole, which would certainly include our planet.
Of course then you get into the discussions of who should have children, and who should get to consume more and pollute more and who wields more power…but aren't we having those discussions now, just not as openly?
Thanks for once again making me think, Erich.
Many years ago I had a rather heated argument with a young Catholic woman over the issue of moral response. I posited to her that if she knew, without doubt, that by having a child of her own she would be taking the food out of the mouth of another child somewhere else, she would be morally obligated to refrain from procreating. Her only response was a tear-filled "You can't tell me I can't have children! You can't tell me I can't have children!" We never got past that—although later she did say it was the responsibility of scientists to figure out how to feed everyone, no matter how many there were.
I myself have witnessed people caught up in the parent-urge. I confess to being clueless. I have never wanted to be a parent. Children make me nervous and the idea of being responsible for raising one unnerves me. So I never did. I was fortunate in mates, as I found a woman who was equally uninterested in procreation. Perhaps it is genetic, I don't know. The Darwinian Imperative seems tangible, real. But I really don't get it.
(This, of course, never affected my sex drive in this least.)
Excellent. It's far beyond time we as a species gave careful consideration to reproduction and the strains it will place (and is already placing) on our planet's resources. But it is a touchy subject – mention population control and people will automatically point at China's repressive policies and the troubles they cause, the Nazis, eugenics, 'social Darwinism', Huxley's 'Brave New World' and various other favourites of the paranoid.
What I think would be an important first step worldwise – a small step with possibly very large benefits – is proper, effective, unbiased education about birth control & contraception. It often seems like the poorest, least-educated communities in the world have the worst problems with population control. Many people for cultural, religious & educational reasons among others, simply aren't aware that they have a choice to not conceive children when they have sex and many are told it's a mortal sin to prevent conception. The Vatican's spreading of lies about condoms & HIV throughout Africa & elsewhere is a stark example of fear & potentially fatal misinformation in this area. Abstinence-only sex-ed, wherever it's practiced but especially in modern nations where responsible adults really should know better, is counter-intuitive, counter-productive anti-education of the worst kind – it's not just third-world countries that suffer from a culture of superstition & falsehoods.
Of course there are myriad other topics within this topic, but I think starting at the source, with effective sex education, could go a long way toward keeping world population in check.
I remember reading about a simple, humane solution for both global poverty and overpopulation several months ago on 3quarksdaily.com.
It's this: pay every family in the developing world a subsidy to keep their unmarried daughters in school to age 18. For the sake of equity and other considerations, subsidizing boys' education would probably be a good idea too – but only if the female children also stayed in school. Postponing marriage until 18 would decrease the birth rate significantly. Education means empowerment, and increased status of women leads to fewer but better cared-for children. Also, high school education would open other options for women for economic security besides marriage and child-rearing.
There are places like Darfur and Afghanistan where this program probably couldn't be implemented, but in regions like Latin America, India, Southeast Asia I think it could be successful. It would take a transfer of wealth from the global north to the south to start this virtuous cycle, and there's the rub. Heaven forbid that we give up our individualistic lifestyle (single person households and single occupancy vehicles) – much easier to complain about other people's children.
Lisa:
My husband and I had a child because we wanted the experience of having a child. We believe it was our personal right to make that choice. We both think our family lines are worth continuing.
26% of Americans live in single-person households. From a global perspective, that looks pretty selfish. Why not find ways to share space and resources with others, whether genetically related or not?
Mark:
Congratulations on making your acquaintance feel bad. You will never know if her kid ends up contributing more to the world than he or she takes out of it, not that anyone has the god-like perspective to make this judgment.
How many cars do you and your partner own? Can you balance the environmental impact of driving your personal vehicle with any commensurate social benefit?
Vicki
I appreciate and applaud folks who choose to bear and raise children mindfully. What I question is the mindless assumption that we should procreate and that it is an inalienable right that shouldn't be questioned.
I really like your solution in your first post – that would provide awareness, opportunity and a flow of resources that is essential. And also sharing resources with folks who are not related is ideal. That is part of a reason my girlfriend and I sold our house and now share a roof with an unrelated friend.
But it should be okay to question the assumption that having children or having large families is always the thing to do. I don't mean a ban on procreation, or god forbid forced sterilization, but just questioning procreation as an essential part of the meaning of life could be helpful. I do think some people have children just because no one told them they could imagine a different life. My experience as a childless person of course informs my perspective, and I admit to feeling like a minority childless person amidst a lot of families, but I love the most all of the parents I know, and most all of them chose to have children with a great deal of forethought.
I do think that we will as a species adjust to a more sustainable practice of living gradually and willingly or we will experience some dire consequences that might put the "right" to bear children into question in a drastic way.
Vicki writes:—:"How many cars do you and your partner own? Can you balance the environmental impact of driving your personal vehicle with any commensurate social benefit?"
Is that question directed at me?
We own two cars. Our work situations are such that it would be destructive for us to try to get by with one—which we did for several years, from 1989 to 1997.
As for social benefit—let's see, Donna's job is in the global soybean industry, directly in the side of it promoting green uses and an expansion of the food base. My job…well, it's part time until I sell a couple of novels for enough money to quit, at which point my vehicle becomes an errand machine.
I've noted this problem for some time now, and it ties in closely with our exploitation of the environment. We are rapidly approaching a point where we will deplete one or more limiting resources. When that time comes, there will be a massive reduction in the population, through war, disease, and famine on a complete global scale.
It would be nice if we could voluntarily reduce the population, but if you know any thing at all about social psychology, you will see that as a futile idea. We are as lemmings rushing headlong to the the cliff.
I've often heard that food problems are due to bad distribution and not scarcity. And the greatest waste of ressources probably can be found in the industrialized nations. Of course, if the rest of the population on earth catches up with the consumerism here, you will have a problem. You probably could start reducing the population in order to maintain your lifestyle or you change the way you live.
I would have told you to get lost, Mark. 😀 In less nice words though, which I can't write here, because it's a familyfriendly site.
Proj: You are right to highlight the option. We can either have fewer people or those of us who live resource-extravagant lives can cut WAY back. Or maybe we'll need to follow both options to maintain some semblance of our standard of living and to maintain some semblance of political order.
Lisa:
I appreciate your comments. I just don't think the reasons you listed are bad or frivolous reasons to have kids. Even the idea of having kids in order to pass on wealth – it sounds materialistic, but what's wrong with caring for some asset, like farmland or a house or a business, in order to pass it on to your children better than you found it? With farmland especially it's a time-honored way of encouraging sustainable practices.
Thanks for attributing "mindfulness" to my decision to bear a child, but I don't know that it was especially. I just wanted to, that's all. I like watching things grow. From the point of view of timing, it was a pretty bad choice, but it worked out. It's been both intense and immensely enjoyable.
In our family, we do try to make consumption choices mindfully, but I don't feel the need to separate altruistic from selfish motives for our choices. Basically, we would hate to live in a McMansion in a dreary suburb where car ownership is de riguer. We choose to be car-free, mostly vegetarian locavores living in a 900 sq. foot cottage by the beach for the pure hedonistic pleasure of it.
Mark writes:
"Our work situations are such that it would be destructive for us to try to get by with one (car)"
In what way destructive? Destructive of what?
If your partner works in the "global soybean industry", I'm guessing she must work for a fairly large employer. Why isn't that employer encouraging alternative transportation options, such as bike lockers and showers, transit access, flexcars for company travel, etc. If you work part time, why not take the light rail/bus/bike? If transit/bike options suck for your work commute, why? Why do you let local elected officials get away with car-centric, wasteful, sprawlaholic urban planning? If you really can't let go of that car for your work commute, how about sharing it with a transit commuter who only needs a car on weekends? That way, he can sell his car, and you won't be tempted to use yours just because it's there, and you'll probably get more exercise and feel better.
I just don't see how the question of population can be addressed without addressing the larger issue of social justice and resource use.
Vicki
I couldn't agree more. Issues of population and social justice and resource use can't be separated. I don't mean to say that all people in North America should stop having children, but I do think that the "right to bear children" *can* be entangled with entitlements that are not dissimilar from resource use. When I mentioned the issue of discussion sustainability and population concerns to different folks I consistently heard "it isn't my problem", "no one can tell me how many kids I can have", and that "it is sick" to even talk about the issue. I find the those reactions as interesting as the issue itself.
One problem is how developed nations have completely raped places like Africa of its best people and its natural resources, many times over and over throughout history, leaving the countries there with no way to build infrastructure or regain their natural resources. its easy to point fingers at the weakest among us on the planet, and blame them, but the population problem is, in most ways, a direct result of first world privilege. I just think we should look at this issue and related ones with that perspective and question the entitlements that seem to exacerbate these issues.
Vicki,
I will answer you.
Destructive because she works 20 miles away and I work in the opposite direction. The light rail system in St. Louis comes no where near where we live. We would have to get up earlier than we do if I were to take her to work, then drive me to work, then drive out to her work to get her, and she is simply not home when I have to go to work, so there is no way to car pool. We live nowhere near any of our fellow employees in either case, so carpooling is out of the question. We would end up driving more miles on one car in order to facilitate the semblence of an "efficient" model.
As for bicycles, in my case it would be practical, in hers' not at all. But I would also have to ride my bike through at least three neighborhoods wherein I would risk a small but not irrelevant chance of having it stolen out from under me. I get quite enough exercise otherwise, thank you very much.
Finally, while I agree in principle with many of the proposed policies of a less car centric economy/environment, I like my car. Donna likes her car. And "lending" ones car to someone not in your household in order for that someone to sell theirs? I;m sure the insurance company would love to hear my explanation for that. Besides, no. It's my car.
I'm working my tail off to get my "job" to be in my home. That will suffice as far as I'm concerned.
As for your last point, I have exactly the opposite take—social justice and resource use are directly affected by population, not the other way around.
Joclen Elders, who I admired when she was Surgeon General, once said (among other marvelous and inflammatory things) that "America has to get over its love affair with the fetus."
Driving cars many of us don't need is not driving population growth.
Oh, sorry. I forgot one thing, Vicki. Destructive of what you asked. Destructive of what free time we have, which would be detrimental to our relationship, and ultimately have a negative impact on the quality of our lives.
Mark:
I see that you you "need" two automobiles because you and the officials you help elect have made some poor choices with regard to land use and transportation policy. Those poor choices, multiplied across thousands of transportationally backward cities and citizens, have clear, demonstrable negative impacts on my child's future and the future of every child now living. And that's not a social justice issue?
Finally, do you believe that women are entitled to reproductive freedom, or not? There's every evidence that given the right economic incentives, access to family planning resources, and freedom to make her own choices, women choose to limit the size of their families. Trust me, I think you'll find that very few women have such an intense "love affair with the fetus" that they want to go through the experience of childbirth 10 or 12 times in order to have a shot at economic stability and the survival of one or 2 children to adulthood.
Birth rates are falling or stable in many areas of the world, quite dramatically in some places like Thailand, where births per woman fell from 6 to 2 *in one decade.* The rate of car ownership, on the other hand, is growing astronomically in places like China and India. Exporting your attitude of casual entitlement to private car ownership and car-centric infrastructure is going to have *huge* impacts on resource use in the foreseeable future.
I don't think stigmatizing fetuses or pregnancy or childbirth is going to have any impact on population growth, social justice or resource use, my dear. The attitudes that need changing are the attitudes that limit a woman's control over what goes into and out of her uterus, and the attitude of most first-worlders that they get first dibs on any resources going.
Oh, btw, the CIA World Factbook is a great source on population and birth rate by country:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worl…
Vicki writes:—"Finally, do you believe that women are entitled to reproductive freedom, or not? There’s every evidence that given the right economic incentives, access to family planning resources, and freedom to make her own choices, women choose to limit the size of their families."
Of course I do. And I agree. However…
Hmm. In this country, at least, we do have a "love affair" going on among certain young females who seem to think it is cool to have a baby, in or out of wedlock. It doesn't seem to be a resource issue, because the demographics are all over the map (though predominantly in the lower middle class). Even with access to birth control, they are choosing to have babies, for a variety of reasons that can be handily lumped under Psychological. It may be that the one resource they lack is the kind of complete attention a baby seems to supply. Perhaps this is a short term anomaly.
But I find it interesting that while we don't do much about all the romanticizing of sex, whenever a program is instituted in a school that deals with it objectively, some loudmouthed faction raises enough stink that the program gets crippled. For instance, in several schools a few years back a program was instituted that procided kids (male and female) with robot "babies" that had to be taken care of. The robots cried at unpredictable times and had to be changed or fed or rocked. The kids pretty quickly came to see this as a major pain in the ass and according to the stats caused them to delay first sex and, when they did start, use contraception. Major protests shut this down in many of those schools.
What is that? What is it about sex that makes certain people so reactive against anything that might give people some control over it? I don't know.
As to the bad policy decisions of my city officials…
I gather you don't live in St. Louis. We have an urban area that includes the City and the County and the divide is deep and not to be healed. This is a leftover from the 19th Century and causes unbelievable and ridiculous problems. Getting our light rail system in the first place was a struggle of epic proportions because the people in the County didn't want the (assumed) bad people from the City to have that kind of access to their pristeen communities. We're arguing over extending it now and a vote on funding just failed because of that division AND because for the last several years the Metro system was horribly mismanaged (and perhaps pillaged) by a supervisor who is no longer in charge and under investigation.
Point being, the "fix" will take a lot longer here than in most places because of long historical circumstances in combination with voter apathy and communal suspicion.
As to our "need" of two cars, if I wasn't clear before, let me be so now: we would spend as much gasoline with one as with two as our circumstances stand now and have less personal freedom. Not everyone who lives like us is doing so out of selfish unconcern for larger issues.
Mark, I have lived in St. Louis, with and without a car, maybe even in one of the neighborhoods you're afraid to ride your bike through. It's a shame about the light rail scandal and defeat of the funding measure. I'm sure you're doing everything you can to turn that around by going to public hearings, supporting your local sustainable transportation advocacy groups, and stuff like that, right? No? Well, maybe you need to spend less time worrying about what teenage girls are doing with their bodies and more time showing up at the meetings where important decisions get made about the future of your community. 🙂
About teenage girls in the US choosing to have babies, I'm sure partly its for the same reason that young men have traditionally gone into the military and more affluent young people choose to go to grad school: because it solves a number of thorny existential problems at one fell swoop. Of course, being a mother, a warrior or a scholar can all be noble and fulfilling life choices. But if these choices are being made because a lack of other meaningful options, that's a problem. I happen to think that the aimlessness and anomie felt by young people today are byproducts of the typical consumerist, car-centric, individualistic American lifestyle, just as much as pollution and global warming.
Do you have any evidence, other than anecdotal, that the trend you mention is having any impact on the birth rate in the US? Or that stigmatizing pregnancy and birth ("getting over the love affair with the fetus") will have any effect on population? After all, Thailand and Italy seem to have made the demographic shift to less than 2 births per woman without sacrificing their culture's positive, life-affirming attitude toward babies and young children.
Meanwhile, unless you live in a very small, solar-powered house, eat a mostly vegetarian diet of locally and sustainably grown foods, and rarely travel by air, your household's ecological footprint is probably pretty close to the national average of 9+ hectares per person. That means that the ecological footprint of your 2 person household would probably sustain my three-person family (7.2 hectares), as well as an African family of 6 (9.6 hectares).
See, isn't it annoying when people get all judgmental about your personal choices? 🙂
I don't understand why some people make such a fuss about the right to have sex, but disapprove of others feeling the want to have babies? And sex is just a means of nature anyway to make people have babies.
Vicki,
I get the feeling I pushed a button. My anecdote about the young woman who refused to let anyone tell her she couldn't have babies was meant to be illustrative of mindset. I wasn't in fact judging her, I was positing a moral dilemma as part of a conversation. I pushed the example in her case to an extreme because she posited that there were no circumstances under which having a baby had an inherently negative consequence.
The trend in the United States as in most developed nations is close to a flat birth rate. Our population has grown mainly from immigration over the last 30 years. (Italy, I believe, is in negative growth.)
The thing that does get affected by American policy toward birth control is our stance regarding aid to developing countries. Since the religious right more or less hijacked Republican policy….well, maybe that's too strong. Since Bush came to power, funding for family planning for third world countries has been granted only to organizations promoting abstinence only policies, just like here. Attitude here affects policy there. Obama, I expect, will reverse that, just as Bill Clinton reversed it when Reagan/Bush imposed similar restrictions. Not only does this affect birth control education in those countries, but a lot of these organizations offer sub-standard medical care period.
Under no circumstances would I advocate "stigmatizing pregnancy and birth"—we used to do that in this country when it was out of wedlock and it drove a wedge between people. Nor would I advocate legislation limiting births per family like they do in China—for me, it's all about the freedom to choose.
But how can one choose anything out of ignorance? What teen-age girls do with their bodies is—should be—their business. How we provide them the means to make rational choices, that's another matter.
As for community activism….don't preach, even by implication. I put my efforts into other aspects of the community that I deem equally important. There are others better informed than I am who tend to what you seem to feel is important. The one thing I will not support is any kind of litmus test for what kind of citizen I am or should be. We all of us do the best we can with what we've got and when possible we do more.
As to my being judgmental of other people's choices…don't we all privately? Just that some of us admit it and talk about it. It's partly how we decide what we ourselves will or will not do. We look at others and see how it works for them and those around them. Which, of course, means that not all judgment is necessarily negative.
Mark, what do you mean when you say you feel like you pushed a button?
All I've done is posit the moral dilemma posed by your petroleum habit. Between 1950 and 1970, the number of cars in the US increased by 4 times the population rate. The same thing is happening in other areas of the world right now. Every gallon of petroleum that goes up in smoke from your car's tailpipe means we have less time to reduce the human population by humane methods.
You say:
"Driving cars many of us don’t need is not driving population growth"
But that's not the point is it? The point is, population growth is raising the specter of the collapse of Earth's life support system. The fact that a minority of Earth's population is driving the process (pun intended) of environmental degradation needs to be addressed if we're going to have a conversation about population and environment.
The mindset that modern life requires everyone to have their own private weapon of mass extinction needs to be exposed and examined, The mindset that the consequences of car culture are for other people to fix needs to questioned. The mindset that apathy is an acceptable response to poor transportation options should be on the table too.
"While I agree in principle with many of the proposed policies of a less car centric economy/environment, I like my car. "
In other words, despite the rationalizations you've given, your attachment to your car can be "handily lumped under Psychological," i.e. the proverbial American love affair with the automobile.
Vicki writes:—"In other words, despite the rationalizations you’ve given, your attachment to your car can be “handily lumped under Psychological,” i.e. the proverbial American love affair with the automobile."
Okay.
Thank you for your post on overpopulation.
Given the imminent arrival of our 7th, 8th, and 9th billions between now mid-century, and the humanitarian, biospheric, and civiliational calamities that such numbers portend, our current demographic tidal may constitute the greatest single risk that our species has ever undertaken.
One key “misperception” that prevents too many policymakers and world leaders from appreciating the true dangers of our current demographic tidal wave might be called “the open space hypothesis.”
This erroneous hypothesis, which is largely held unconsciously, causes many to suppose that human population growth and overpopulation cannot really be a very severe problem so long as “vast amounts of open space remain.”
This breathtaking and dangerously-erroneous hypothesis is formally addressed at “Humanity’s Population Train Wreck” which is posted at http://rocky.xviii.tripod.com
Some of your visitors may also be interested in "What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet" (Anson, 2007) which is an ideal population/environment primer for educators, students, journalists, policymakers, new presidents, and every world leader.
Cheers!