By Sunniva on October 7, 2009
We collected about 200 questions at the Zero Growth Economy conference in September, across a number of themes; however time only allowed us to put a minority of these to the speakers. We thought it would be valuable to share some more of the questions on this blog, starting with the issue of population growth, which we recieved many questions on.
Does population growth globally constitute a problem that needs to be solved soon? Why do people seem reluctant to discuss this issue?
44 Comments
Pam Lunn, of Woodbrooke (Quaker adult study centre in Selly Oak, Birmingham)has been blogging about population growth on the Woodbrooke Good Lives Project blog. See: http://woodbrookegoodlives.blogspot.com/
A well-informed report on this question on population is this recent publication from the new economics foundation “The Consumption Explosion” downloadable here
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?pid=299
They show evidence that the essence of the problem is consumption by a small minority of the global population.
Consider this extract:
One person in the United States will, by 4am in the morning of 2 January, already have been responsible for the equivalent in climate change causing carbon emissions that a Tanzanian would take a whole year to generate. A UK citizen would reach the same point by 7pm on 4 January.
There’s a spicy exchange between Jonathon Porritt and George Monbiot on this issue at:
http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2009/10/george_monbiot_the_guardian_po.html
and
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/29/the-population-myth/
Provides a quick briefing on one of the main debates around this important issue.
“We need to limit population growth because [other people]* won’t stop having babies.”
THAT is why limiting population growth is not a happy subject to talk about. Wealthy countries are already at less-than-replacement birthrates. It’s only the poor countries where people have darker skin (which is another way of saying that they live closer to the equator — and nothing more) which are still growing. So when *we* tell *them* that they need to save our standard of living by having fewer children, *we* commit an injustice.
Instead, we should help them to become wealthy capitalists just as we have.
*This word has been removed temporarily because the moderators are concerned that its use here (although clearly intended to be ironic) may be misunderstood and cause offence. Russell has been asked to rephrase this part of the post.
I don’t entirely agre with the previous poster regarding the necessity to limit population growth in what could better be termed ‘developing’ or ‘underdeveloped’ countries.
The capacity to feed/clothe/educate/employ such expanding populations is well within the capacity of even the poorest of countries. The problem of pressure on resources is largely related to large swathes of underdeveloped populations not having what has been referred to as an ‘entitlement’ to these resources. For example, analysis has shown that even during the worst famine eg Ethiopia in the 1980s, then there is always enough food available within the territory to theoretically feed all its inhabitants. However, large numbers of people cannot support an ‘entitlement’ to this food – which translates as ‘the government did not care about us and so we starved.’
If you want to look at this from a global perspective then the same argument can simply be scaled upwards. There are enough commodities to supply everyone in the world with a decent standard of living, but some countries are not ‘entitled’ to them – ie they cannot pay for them. As far as I can see this has nothing to do with skin colour, and everything to do with economics…
First, there is no problem with having a lot of people living in once place. If there was, nobody would want to live in New York, London, Tokyo, or Hong Kong. And yet they do. No, “overpopulation” is the term we apply to certain densely-populated poor areas in substitute for the real cause of their poverty. Unfortunately, that term points to a wrong solution: limiting births.
You are correct, skin color has nothing to do with behavior. It’s solely a function of protecting the folic acid needed to protect a baby’s growing brain against the destructive rays of the sun. No dark skin, no protection against the sun, no protection against the sun, no folic acid, no folic acid, brain-damaged babies.
This effect, by the way, is likely why arabic women are expected to cover themselves when they go outside.
So the real question that I don’t see anybody asking is “Why is proximity to the equator and poverty closely correlated”?
Oh, Magnus, I cannot agree with your use of the term “entitled”. Am I entitled to the fruits of someone else’s labor simply by existing? Or must I peacefully trade with them, value for value, in order to get what I need to live?
The problem with “entitled” is that it hides the mechanism needed to create that entitlement: violence and threats thereof. If you’re struggling with the right relationship between free markets and hampered markets, may I suggest that you look at Georgism?
Russell – the idea of ‘entitlememnt’ is not one that implies that you (or anyone else) are entitled to the fruits someone else’s labour by, as you put it, ‘simply existing.’ Quite the opposite. Entitlement is related to the manner in which modern economics requires humans to exist by providing the ‘means of production’ – this might consist of any action, provided is it possible to commodify it. ie as a bus driver my means of production is my ability to usefully transport people around a designated geographical area. My labour is thus exchanged for money, and my ‘entitlement’ exists because I am entitled to be paid for the useful act I have carried out. The point is (and we may be leaving the original discussion behind a little) that in underdeveloped regions of the world, which are nonetheless integrated into the world economy, a person’s ‘means of production’ ie labour is often not sufficient to gain them an ‘entitlement’ (money) on which they can survive.
If you’re struggling (sorry, but you started it) with the correct interpretation of ‘entitlement’ then may I suggest Amartya Senn?
The whole concept of ‘entitlements’ relates to the debate because the point is there are sufficient commodities for increased populations to survive on – the challenge is to find a method by which people can legitimately (and I don’t mean handouts) define their own ‘entitlement’ for them.
It seems to me like you think that people can define their own ‘entitlement’. I’m dubious of how that would work in the larger society — what if I decided that arguing on web pages was my own personal ‘entitlement’? But it’s certainly not how we Quakers do things. If you have an idea about what God is telling you to do (arguably your entitlement), you don’t just go running off to do it. First you take it to the meeting and if necessary they constitute a committee to address your concern.
Your entitlement is not your own to decide. It must happen in the context of the larger society, so that some people get to be doctors, movie stars, and college teachers, and some get to be garbagemen, politicians, and street sweepers — and in a free market society nobody is forced to be one or another but instead must be persuaded.
“entitlement”
To what are you entitled?
By being born we surly are entitled to life within the family of man with all the freedom to make the necessary choices for one to live and flourish.
That is the role of the family , society, and mankind to decide within the structure of regulations it has built up over the centuries, family, religion, and governments.
We must if we are to be compassionate and want to live in relative harmony with each other have the respect for the individual and societies regulations, it is when these begin to have no meaning that conflicts arise.
We must therefore if we are to reduce population bear all this in mind and reward for good behavior in terms of reduced family size, maintaining the health and unity of the family unit.
Colour is a red herring as is the length of someone’s hair , surely we must look beyond this.
I was astonished and frightened by the lack
of concern expressed by the speakers at the
Zero Growth Conference when asked about the
menace of over-population. Each speaker
seemed to wish to spend their answer time
talking about what topics needed to be
be considered before one could confront the population issue (for instance the topic
of equality for women).
What seemed to be wrong was that the
speakers all seemed to regard overpopulation
as a problem for the future, whereas in
fact it is a problem right now – human
numbers are 2 or 3 times as great as what the planet can sustain without the use of
fossil fuels to do now-essential tasks such
as : working the land; pumping water for
agriculture; providing chemical feedstock
for artificiail fertilisers; and transporting
fertilisers and produce. As the fuel
runs out or becomes sequestered by those
who control it, there must as a matter of
arithmetic arise widespread drought and famine affecting billions (sic) of people world-wide.
That is, there is a PRESENT problem of
overpopulation, rather than a future threat.
For the gory details refer to the website of
the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) at
http://www.optimumpopulation.org .
This includes a striking front page showing the amazing rate of increase of the world’s opulation even as one watches the display change.
Norman Marsh (Birkenhead Meeting)
CONGRATULATIONS IRISHMAN you have hit the nail on the head, population, energy use and money all need to be reduced now before its to late .
I did not go to the Zero Growth Conference but as the topic already suggest we need to do it now , not think about in 10-20 years time when it will really be all past and gone ? and we will be gone also!
Copenhagen is now a damp squib and the opportunity lost by all account so we as individuals have to pressurize the governments to make it happen.
Yes Sunniva, the issue of population growth needs to be addressed. What others (e.g. Susan Seymour) have said about a very small number of the rich consuming so much more than massive populations of the poor is true also. That issue also needs addressing i.e. over-consumption by the rich and surely that is more our business because it is us! The trouble is too that the poor aspire to consume as we rich do. Making poverty history, if it were possible, would do nothing to help the global environment. Quite the reverse – as the industrial development of China and India is proving. Already in the third world the rich minority of the population (like the politicians) do so. Often they become rich through corruption. The country’s infrastructure, physical, social, and educational, is starved of investment because the money has gone into private offshore bank accounts.
I would be interested to know from Magnus Taylor what analysis it was that showed that even during Ethiopia’s worst famine in the 1980′s there was enough food within the territory to feed all the inhabitants. What is true is that even during that period Ethiopia continued to export food to Europe to feed our farm animals. That’s another problem – the same problem that has led to the devastation of the Amazon rainforest to grow soya for Europe’s pigs, chickens, and cows. That comes back to us also! But when I lived in Ethiopia for 18 months in the 1990′s (not a famine period) constant convoys of lorries were transporting western food aid – flour, rice, vegetable oil etc. – from the port of Assab to Addis Ababa. Was this unnecessary?Ethiopia has now been deprived of that port of Assab by Eritrea through war and has to import via Sudan over very long and difficult roads and terrain. So population growth may well be a factor in Africa’s problems but other problems are even greater; corruption, tribalism, civil disorder, crime, and war, being among them.
The real question is not whether these problems exist but how can they be resolved? If they can indeed be resolved.
Neville, yes, we in the west consume lots of resources. We also produce lots of resources. The only way that people are willing to give us the resources to consume is because we are willing to give them more resources than we’re consuming.
But you are correct to focus on the problems rather than trying to make them go away by telling some people that they should not or cannot have more children.
Natural resources are freely given by mother earth, but we only have one chance of using them, As we are mining, drilling and growing the resources, at a far faster pace than mother earth can regenerate them especially as we are starving the natural resources to enable the natural forests to grow and thrive, with the lack of water.
Reforestation of all lands around the equator and temperate zones should be our priority and can be done, if the will is there.
We need to value all natural resources a lot more highly and we should tax them depending in there environmental impact.
This would, if high enough and other taxes abolished would change the mindset on the use of these natural resiurces and make us really think about reuse, recycle, product life etc.
It is then that we would be helping the poor by providing goods that do have longevity and could be repaired rather than the throw away system we have at present.
Look at the third world and the products they use, they are all repairable goods like old motorbikes and even the new products are made that are easily repairable by relative amateurs.
This shift if our behavior and mindset would provide the drive to invent and make products with low carbon footprints over their lifespan.
This shift can be done as shown by the recent budget in Ireland and the French prime ministers tax incentives in France(see link)
http://www.gouvernement.fr/gouvernement/une-nouvelle-fiscalite-environnementale-au-service-de-la-croissance
“We need to limit population growth because [other people]* won’t stop having babies.”
and “No, “overpopulation” is the term we apply to certain densely-populated poor areas in substitute for the real cause of their poverty”. I appreciate that Russel Nelson is being ironic, but I am not quite sure how far his irony extends, and therefore am unsure of what he means.
However, the idea that concern about population is the rich West trying to impose something unwelcome on the developing world is so widespread that I shall try to answer that idea.
According to the United Nations Population Fund, there are over 200 million couples who would use family planning if they had access to it. They also observe that about 40% of pregnancies world wide are unintentional, and the result of this, according to WHO, is some 20 million unsafe abortions annually which result in over 800,000 deaths and over 2 million permanent disabilities.
If, as many say, it is wrong to tell women how many babies they should have, we should take note of the fact that by denying them the means of planning their families, we are indeed telling them they have got to have rather more babies than they would choose, and this is a part of what keeps them in poverty.
I’m sure that it is right that we should do all we can to reduce consumption in the west, but we must not use this as an excuse for disregarding the population issue
I have no doubt of the need to curtail consumption
When talking about limiting population growth its often levelled at the underdeveloped countries as where this should apply.
This is totally spurious, a child born in Manhatten for example uses around a 1000 times the worlds resources than one born in Bangladesh.
It is a matter of life and death for many in the underdeveloped world to have more than one child, yet for us in the developed world it would mean little threat to our way of life and indeed would benefit us all.
It is a sobering thought to realise that if each woman was limited to one child the population would halve in 40 years. Imagine half the cars on the road half the people in the supermarket,hospitals and schools.The reduction of our encroachemnt on the environment. Such a move would benefit us all.
This posting has been an extraordinary success. It dates from 7 October last (just over 8 months ago), and has attracted (as at 9 June) 395 ‘hits’ and 17 comments. The next most popular – with 244 hits and 6 comments – has been “Against being positive!” (3 November).
But everyone has tiptoed round the question: How, exactly, is population growth to be limited? The last comment (John Leeson, 8 June) proposes that every woman be limited to one child, and suggests that “… such a move would benefit us all”.
But how would this limit be enforced? Any method I can think of goes beyond what is ethically acceptable. So, I put it to you, Friends; Is this topic a distraction from the real issues of our time?
I’ve had the book Peoplequake by Fred Pearce recommended to me. I understand he demonstrates that global population growth is slowing faster than predicted and will peak naturally. Societies, especially in Europe will suffer problems of ageing populations, not too many births.
John (Leeson), lower population doesn’t equal less environmental degradation. Consider that the Amerinds of North America had a really low population, and they used to deliberately burn forests in order to create browse for the animals they needed to hunt.
“overpopulation” doesn’t exist. There are a bundle of problems which we identify as “overpopulation”, however since they weren’t caused by too many people, reducing the population isn’t likely to solve them.
This posting is – clearly – addictive! It’s now had over 400 visits and, in spite of myself, I am drawn back to it.
But – with the present range of issues about which we should be concerned: budget deficit hysteria, the state of the public sector, unreformed banking, increasing inequality, … – I ask again: is this topic a distraction? Is it perhaps, in relation to what we might be able to influence, an ‘empty box’?
Today’s recommended reading: David Orr, Down to the Wire (OUP, 2009).
I think we need some more figures.
It took about 200,000 years for the human population to reach a million, which it did in about 1804 (UN figures). The second billion took about 123 years, to 1927. The third billion arrived by 1960, the fourth by 1974, the fifth by 1987, the sixth by 1999. We are currently adding a number equal to the world’s entire popuation in 1800, every twelve years. In the 20th century, population doubled about every forty years, i.e. exponentially.
I have no confidence in Fred Pearce’s statement that growth will be less than the UN prediction of 9.2 bn in 2050. In any case this is a middle projection of three, the highest being about 11 bn (lowest 7.4bn). We are in the early part of the sixth great extinction, and recent articles suggest that the world will have to increase food production by getting on for 70% in the next few years. In the face of climate change, how realistic is that?
As I have already explained, there is a huge demand for family planning. Why don’t we see this, and just do something?
Roger, different countries have different demographics. In general, the rich countries are losing population, and the poor countries are gaining it. Now, in this situation, do you think we in the rich countries should be telling the poor people how to run their lives?
You don’t make poor people better-off by taking away the choice THEY think is best, and forcing a different choice on them. Not to mention that it’s not very Quakerly to be forcing anybody to do anything (aside from, of course, using force themselves).
You also have to look at cultural issues. Who wants the family planning? The politically powerful or the politically weak? If the latter, just exactly how do you plan to get them this family planning when they’re not the ones calling the shots?
The best and highest contribution we Quakers can make to people’s lives is advancing peace: by making sure that all the choices they make are made peacefully, without threats and without government-led compulsion.
If peace isn’t important to us, then how are we different from anybody else? Our Quaker Grey dress? Going to meetings, not churches? Our plain speech? How are we different from any other do-gooder if we lack a consistent peace testimony?
And speaking of which, the title of this topic sets me right off. “The need to limit population growth?” It just reeks of using the violence of the state against people who merely want to have kids. Because obviously, if people aren’t having kids — if they’re limiting their own reproduction — then there’s no “need to limit population growth”. So the very premise of this posting is: “How do we save the world for our children by forcing OTHER people not to have children?”
Am I being unfair? I think not. The statement of a problem dictates the range of solutions to be considered.
Russell, I don’t know if it’s your fault or mine, but you have managed to represent my views in a way that is almost diametrically opposite to what they actually are. Will you please look at my two contributions again and tell me where I advocate forcing anyone to do anything? On the contrary, I have made it clear using UNPF and WHO figures that there is a huge unfulfilled demand for family planning. This answers your question ‘who wants family planning’. Do you think that UNPF and WHO figures are not to be trusted? (this is not a sarcastic or rhetorical question: do you actually have grounds for doubting them?)
As for how to get them this family planning, I suggest that you look at the sites of such organisations as IPPF or Marie Stopes International, who operate clinics where needed, and typically make use of locally trained people to communicate with the communities they are operating in. No coercion or patronising there. The common experience is that they cannot meet the demand. No organisation nowadays (except the Chinese Govt.), advocates coercion, so that fulfils your requirement that ‘the choices they make are made peacably, without threats and without government led compulsion’.
You state ‘You don’t make people better off by taking away the choice THEY think best, and forcing a different choice on them’. Of course! But people cannot make choices about family size in the absence of the means and information. The provision of that makes choice possible, the same ability that you and I have. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to deny them that. As is often said, it is wrong to tell women how many children they should have, but if one denies them the means of making decisions about this, that is what one is doing: telling them they should have many more than they want.
Sorry, Roger, I didn’t mean to imply that YOU were trying to make choices for other people. The trouble is that the entire goal of “limiting population growth” is full of people who are sure they know how to run other people’s lives.
This conversation is so male! The world is over populated as is England, and virtually everyone knows it. Over most of the world women struggle to bear, feed, and educate their familes. I think we need to work communally on creative solutions and not argue whether there is a problem or not. Of course our first world lifestyle must be curtailed as well, but both must be tackled not one or the other.
Recently Peace Direct invited me to an event for International Women’s Day. The very impressive speaker was Rasha from Sudan, who was a real inspiration. This is the right way to foster peace – small is beautiful!
However the thing that really came across to me is the looming pressures due to the expected population increase. The UN statistics show that the population in Sudan was 8 million in 1950, 35 million in 2000 and is predicted to be 84 million in 2050. Jonathon Porritt pointed out in his presentation to the Cheltenham Science Festival in June 2008 that overall HIV/AIDS activities aid has increased at the expenses of family planning aid, which has been cut drastically in recent years. In 1995 the respective donor percentages were HIV/Aids 9%, F P 55%, in 1999 23% and 37% and in 2004 54% and 9%.
Roger Plenty has pointed out that about 40% of pregnancies world wide are unintentional, (that is family planning not available to women). It is encouraging that Amnesty International (sensitive to violence against women) and others have promoted their Manifesto for Motherhood. Every child must be a wanted child!
In answer to my questions at the Peace Direct event Rasha said that there is conflict over resources now, and that the family planning aid has been cut. Peacemaking will become harder and harder if Sudan’s population does more than double in the next 40 years. It is shameful that the aid agencies are not doing more about this now. They seem to be spooked by the problem of proposing family planning aid to donors of fundamentalist religious beliefs (of course George W Bush played his part here). But arguably availability of family planning has a bigger contribution to make to world peace than any other issue. This is the elephant in the room. Otherwise Rasha, and others like her, will be trying to do the equivalent of pushing water uphill.
Religion, The Problem?or Solution.
I think we have to really address the core problem of why access to family planning is so slow in poorer countries especially.
The stance of the Catholic on Family Planning and Abortion are at the core of the problem and from a historical point that it has been so influential for so many years and still remains as one of the biggest obstacles today.
The various denominations that prescribe suck doctrine should really ask the question of where it all will lead if the world becomes overpopulated? and then ask if we are all happy to accept the demise of the present civilization as we know it?
The real debate in this area has yet really to begin to make a real effect on societies that have little choice in this important area of their lives.
So Where do the Quakers stand on this issue? Any penalties for large families?
Responsibility starts at home, but it is the responsibility of governments and institutions to guide the way, and therefore as a religious group, the Quakers as well as the mainstream religions all should play an active role in this important area of social co-hesion.
Should we all pay the price of the problem or should society penalize the ones that are causing the problem, and what do we say when states promote population growth?
No easy way out, but we need to be actively questioning the old doctrines to save us all from extinction.
Brigid, I do my best to be male. It *is* my gender, after all. Sorry, but no, not everyone “knows” that the world is overpopulated. There are a bunch of problems of poverty, which we collectively call “overpopulation”, but no one of which would be resolved by having less people alive.
That’s why it’s pointless to talk about “overpopulation”. No such thing exists. (Yes, I realize that this will probably frustrate you, because you can see CLEARLY that there are too many other people, and too few of you to do all the good works that need to be done. I will apologize for being different from you. You could help matters by realizing that I’m right and changing your mind so you agree with me. I don’t hold out much hope for that, but a guy can dream, can’t he?).
I had always hoped that Friends might come to see the relevence of this issue, (and some have), and take a lead, but it looks as we have been beaten to it. I have received an article from an Australian paper, ‘The Age’, headed ‘Thou Shall Not Breed: Anglicans’. ‘The General Synod of the Anglican Church [presumably Australian] has warned that current rates of population growth are unsustainable and potentially out of step with church doctrine’.
I’ve tried to run this down on the web, and I think that I have it on http://candobetter.org/node/2027 ‘Prepared by the Public Affairs Commission
of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia’. It gets into its stride on popuation in Section 3, and later on has this comment-
‘Remaining silent about population issues, although one has concerns about them, is little different from supporting further overpopulation and ecological degradation. If people are not prepared to speak up, these things will happen. Given the high risks from global and national population growth, can any of the above reasons justify saying nothing while numbers continue to climb? Out of care for the whole Creation, particularly the poorest of humanity and the life forms who cannot speak for themselves, this paper argues that it is not responsible to stand by and remain silent.’
Argh. More blather about “overpopulation”. There is no such thing. There is only “underwealth”. If everyone was wealthy, everyone would want a clean environment with plenty of space left over for the birds and the bees. (Documented fact, not just my opinion, but note that up to a certain level of income, people are willing to tolerate MORE, not less pollution. Our job should be to help them get past that hump as quickly as possible. Once we do that, increasing wealth == cleaner environment and less resource abuse. Maybe THEN we can stop talking about overpopulation as if it were a problem?)
No sex please, we’re lofty intellectuals!
Here we go again…..another male/European skewed discussion about (black) women having too many babies. I first entered this debate about “overpopulation” in 1975, when I was part of a campaign to stop NHS Doctors injecting birth control drugs into Black and Asian women against their will, in east London. Since then, I have observed that this is largely a concern of men from all political persuasions and the arguments put forward have remained largely the same as they were then; scurrilous, unreconstructed Malthusian policies forged in the white heat of 19th and 20th century fascist Europe and getting yet another airing as part of the climate change debate. In this, the climate hasn’t changed one jot.
The human rights of women are at the core of this issue. A woman’s right to self determination and control of her own body and reproduction. Please ask yourself, why the same people who argue for birth control of people in poor countries also talk of the “problem” of low birth rates among white Europeans – in the UK, Europe and north America. Recently, the Chief Rabbi decided that low birthrates among “indigenous” Europeans was such an important issue he made it the subject of his thought for the day on radio 4. Why do we need to have more white babies and fewer black babies in the world? This is merely another eugenics policy.
“Overpopulation” is expressed as variously; a problem of women having too many babies, hapless poor having no self control, a problem of lack of birth control, lack of “entitlement”(a new one on me!!?) and “unintentional pregnancies.” What do all these have in common? None of them address the issue of sex and the conditions of conception. We all learn about the “facts of life “ version of reproduction taught in schools. What we are not taught to consider, is what role unequal power between men and women plays in how babies are born.
Let’s hear some debate and concern about the CONDITIONS OF CONCEPTION rather than birth rates. I ask you all on this forum to think about that. WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS OF CONCEPTION?
One of the countries with the highest birth rates is the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Optimum Population Trust is particularly fond of citing the DRC as a country that should have development aid linked to declining birth rate. More money for fewer births. The DRC has about the same population as the UK and according to the International Energy Agency, the carbon emissions in 2008 for the DRC were 2,200 tons CO2 per annum, while the UK’s emissions were are 568,520. Is this a problem of their over population or our over consumption? It’s true the DRC has one of the highest birth rates in the world; it also has systematic and institutionalised rape and abuse of women and children. Is this what is meant by “unintentional births? The UN has raised this as a concern, they are also concerned that donor countries are NOT concerned, including the UK and US, who fund a lot of birth control services in that country. Just 3 weeks ago, we heard news on the BBC that UN “peace keeping” troops stood by while 500 women and children were raped. They did not know that crimes were being committed! Competition for minerals for mobile phones from the DRC fuels the wars that fuel the rapes that produce “unintentional” births.
The rapidity with which neo Malthusians jump to solutions that require some other person to make the changes is so far from Quakerly that I can hardly believe I’m reading these arguments on a Quaker forum!
Asking the least powerful to shoulder the responsibility for change and ignoring these crimes against humanity is frankly despicable.
As Quakers, we can campaign for a shift in UK funding to DRC, from birth control to supporting victims of rape and re-education of men. We can expose the double dealing of our high tech industries who fuel the wars around the world. We can shift the depersonalised way this issue is discussed and humanise the debate. Unpack these offensively impersonal terms and Speak Plain. That’s what Quakers have traditionally been quite good at.
As Quakers, we ask first, “What can I say? What can I do?” The fact is, we all consume too much. Especially we well heeled Quakers! Our greed is our problem, our addiction. If we are genuinely trying to live the testimonies, to be patterns, to live adventurously, etc, etc, we could start by giving up some of the unnecessary extras we enjoy, the production of which are killing off our neighbours and our planet. Go forth and simplify!
Try looking at ‘Unreported World’, on Channel 4, Fri 15 Oct. The subject is Manila, ‘one of the world’s most overpopulated cities’
I think overpopulation IS something we need to discuss, if only because so many people use it as an excuse to carry on over-consuming. I’m only just catching up with this debate, but from a quick reading I can see two facts that ought to be brought into it:
Fact 1: high birth rates go together with extreme poverty. If we tackle poverty, we tackle population growth. Jeffrey Sachs in “The End of Poverty” is eloquent on this: “the answer is that a concerted effort to end extreme poverty in Africa would be the best guarantor of ending today’s population explosion, and doing so quickly, voluntarily, and in a way that empowers households to meet their personal objectives of human betterment”.
Fact 2: the Earth CAN support the current population, and more, provided we can solve the problem of distribution. World vegetable production is 4,600 calories per person per day. That’s at least twice what is needed to keep us all healthy. But we feed 1,700 calories to animals to produce 500 calories worth of animal products. Let’s eat less meat. Let’s not displace food production with bio-fuels. And most of all let’s eliminate the grossest inequalities between countries and between groups within countries.
Enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed….
Hi Phil.
You make some important points. The problem I have with the debate on overpopulation is mainly with the people who make powerful rational arguments, backed up by masses of research to show why someone else needs to change rather than talking about how they themselves will change their own lifestyle. We only have control of our own lives, noone elses. So why not start with No.1? In this year when we are preparing for 2011 Yearly meeting gathering on sustainability, wouldn’t it be useful to begin developing our ideas and reflections on how to make a uniquely Quaker contribution to the challenge of our times? Please, lets not have a conversation about cardboard recycling or I might lose the will to live…
Hi Miriam Yagud
I totally agree with your sentiment that action should start with oneself , but I find it difficult to square this with the urgent need for action on a bigger and faster scale, maybe the tortise will win through but in this fast moving world of uncertainity I feel we all need a push in the right direction, and to this end I have been advocating the need to for a carbon tax which would replace eventually all other taxes, this would change the mindset of everone to make better use of energy and resources and keep some for our chidren. Everyone would start to thnk about the really best way to use energy in all that we act and do.
The purchasing power of consumers is very powerful and if all goods and services were priced dependent on the embedded energy and that priced in terms of its environmental impact, then the true cost and impacts of all purchases would be driven home to all.
At present most goods and services are priced at the going rate , but is supported by massive subsidies and grants from all directions to distort the real price of these goods.
At this time of sustainability thinking, We need to really address the core value of energy and its role in society and what costs are we prepared to accept; up to now society has been willing to accept the environmental damage caused to the atmosphere , land and water in the name of enabling a cheap food policy to occur for the last millennia. Surely we need to decide societies piorties and then work backwards from there, and if it is population, carbon, water or land, that need to be controlled and rationed, these are the decisions that we as a society must make.
I believe that this really is to big an ask for society to arrive at this consensus and short cuts will have to be made somewhere, or am I wrong?
Have we time for this discussion ?
What should the parameters be for such discussion?
I personally believe we should discuss this and as you mentioned the cardboard box, can we really debate the carbon and energy use in a objective way, as from my standpoint I see MONEY=ENERGY , and this simple formula is essential if we are to understand the real interaction between energy usage and its effects on man and planet and atmosphere.
When ever we buy anything we make a choice, between colour, texture, smell, the benefits it provides etc, and we may well also include moral and ethical issues in the buying process. All these factors are all related to the MONEY=ENERGY formula .
Let me explain
If i buy a tee shirt of similar quality (whatever that is), we could buy one for £5 or £50, this is the choice? The tee shirt weighs the same, similar colour, has a different label describing it birth credentials, one is made in China and 100% cotton, produced by labour that has a very low energy input and do not have high energy use lifestyles, while the other is locally produced, and it to is 100% cotton, and made with labour with high energy lifestyles with high marketing, packaging,advertising and selling costs, whist the low cost one is sold without these costs on a street market. Which should we buy to have a low energy footprint? The cheapest in terms of longevity, it will have the lowest energy impact by a factor of 10.
This does not take into account the moral and ethical issues about the way the items were made and sold. These issues raise all the moral and ethical concerns that modern society has striven to resolve for humanitarian reasons, but these all add to the cost in terms of energy and environmental damage.
To what level should any leveling of the exploitation and health and safety of labour occur within the global market place?
It is the western cultures and economies that have led the way into the masss consumption of resources and it is the way we run our economies that have resulted in the state we are in at present , and surly only fundamental root and branch reformation is required and will start to question all the assumptions we have held in the past.
Difficult decisions ahead!
I agree with everything that everyone says about consumption. It goes without saying that the developed world is far too addicted to consumption.
Having said that, the subject under discussion is population. Why are these two subjects considered mutually exclusive? In discussions of this sort the position is often taken that because people in the developing world consume less than those in the developed, we need do nothing about them. Tell that to the inhabitants of the developing world! Fred Pearce, for example, observes that if a woman in one of the poorest countries has ten children, and they each have ten children, the resulting family still consume less than a wealthy American. But what about her thousand great grand children, the ten thousand, hundred thousand and million in succeeding generations? And does this not assume that the family remains in the same state of poverty as it started in? And has anyone asked this hypothetical woman whether she actually wants ten children? We all, I assume, want to help her family out of poverty, so that they will become consumers, perhaps as big as in the developed world (and who is to say that they shouldn’t?) at which point the argument falls apart.
A while ago, the centre spread photograph in The Guardian was of a woman sitting in a landfill site. She was of uncertain age, perhaps not more than thirty-five or so. A small child was by her, apparently picking nits out of her mother’s hair. The woman’s expression was one of defeat, exhaustion. The caption told us that her work in the landfill site was all she had to provide for her family of ten children. Ten children! What hope has anyone in that family? Would any of us be prepared to tell her that we are sorry, we couldn’t help her, because we were busy with the question of consumption in the developed world?
Population control is a discomforting subject to talk about, but two short abstracts from a recently released book, It: The Architecture of Existence*, should be enough to give an inkling of the enormity of the challenge at hand.
1. “Approaching the close of the twentieth century the rate of population increase worldwide was about 1.8 per cent per year (down from 2.0 per cent in 1970). For the then population, brinking 6 billion, this translated to an annual increase of 108 million people, equivalent to a new city the size of New York every 25 days, or a new state the size of Mexico each year.
By this account an event comparable to the bombing of Hiroshima, where 60,000 lives were lost, would offset the rate of population increase for a mere five hours, and to World War II, when 60,000,000 lives were lost, for just 200 days.
Without going into the logistics of support, it can be seen that this phenomenon rapidly reaches crisis proportions. If this rate of increase was to be maintained the numbers would compound like interest in a savings account until, a little before the year 2600, there would be one person per square metre (or square yard) of land surface on earth. Upon learning of this projection, architect/philosopher Paolo Soleri, a tireless advocate for redressing the problems inherent in accommodating burgeoning populations, responded with a twinkle in his eye: ‘Standing room only!’ Upon reflection, a span of six hundred years only takes us back to Geoffrey Chaucer!” (p.161).
2. “What worries those who worry about man’s destiny is the general denaturing of nature under man’s tutelage whereby fewer and fewer forms of life can be sustained, an exponential progression towards the sterilization of the living world. The irony of this situation arises from the practical effects of an over-abundance of human life that, like a cloud of locusts but worse, an epidemic of cancer, ravishes its host to deplete and exhaust the very resources that are essential for its survival.
What is the nature of human nature that precludes the pursuit of man’s ultimate interests? The answer to this question is complex; but if we are to stem the tide of pernicious events we need to identify and rank the critical anachronisms in our behaviour in order that we can systematically redirect the thrust of our life forces towards expunging our self-effacing tendencies.
If we do not redress critical imbalances between needs, resources and opportunities, our prospects will become progressively more unstable. If this equation is not resourcefully resolved, our expectations of survival become unsupportable. Too late is always too late!
High in these priorities are our needs to control our procreative proclivities; to place absolute limits upon growth and consumption on the basis of inventorying resources and maintaining variety in all that exists; and to question our self-righteous presumptions concerning the correctness of our religious precepts, particularly those that fantasize about phenomena that cannot be demonstrated to exist or that assert a privileged status. Failure to meet these minimal goals will soon reveal that God and the Devil are one and the same, that he is critically shortsighted, and that he is only human! (pp. 799-800).
As a rational idealist I would like to believe that there is a humane solution to these problems. Indeed there is a single, simple, painless, bloodless and possible solution, but the probability of this course being implemented is about six billion:1 against! The solution: A voluntary, world-wide, abstinence from human reproduction for thirty years.
* Check out the early reviews on Amazon.com
Gary, I’m glad that you’ve restarted discussion on this site. The subject is too important to ignore, and too full of misconceptions. I hope discussion will start up again, and to start with I’d like to draw Friends attention to a talk given by David Attenborough to the RSA about population. This is on
http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2011/rsa-presidents-lecture-2011
Attenborough is a patron of Population Matters, which is the new name of Optimum Population Trust
I wrote to the Dept. of Health via my MP Norman Lamb to try and persuade them to set up a domiciliary Family Planning Service ,to go into the homes of women whos lives are too chaotic, through drugs, illiteracy, or just having to deal with too large a family to organise themselves a family planning appointment, and also who are unable to actually manage contraception without some help. The reply was just a spiel about the government believing it is the responsibility of individuals to decide how many children to have, how contraception is free and easily available and it is up to the young to say NO. I was writing to them about the people who are unable to take responsibility for their own fertility and have unwanted babies who end up neglected, abused and damaged . I had a letter published in the Independent and had a letter from a retired family planning consultant who had run a DFP service in Haringey for 35 years until it was stopped so it is possible and also very effective. It would help reduce population growth.
This is the year of 7 billion population, and, unless I have missed it, there has been no article in The Friend and it has only been mentioned in one or two letters. I would have thought that Friends would have responded to this, but there is so much misconception about it that it is difficult to get it across. I have tried to bring it to the attention of my own meeting, and had a response of mild interest, but no-one has taken it up, and I don’t think I can take it any further. The fact that this discussion site has all but folded is an indication of the lack of interest. I cannot understand it when the situation coincides with many of the causes that Friends undertake, and when there is so much that can be done without coercion or putting people under pressure, but only by providing them with what they are already asking for.
Elizabeth, I saw your letter in the Independent, and tried to get in touch. Did you hear from me? I realise it was an unsolicited approach, and I apologise for that, but PM has gained several members by getting in touch with people who have written in the press.
I agree with Elizabeth. As a proxy for stupidity, a disorganized household justifies forced sterilization. I don’t understand why we let these people vote, much less breed.
Nelson, I consider your remarks entirely out of order, especially in a Quaker context. It cannot be said too often or too emphatically that coercion is not the way to go, and the attitude of mind that talks about ‘these people’, as if they were not worthy of consideration, has no place in any Quaker discussion. And I must say I can’t see anything in Elizabeth’s post that can be interpreted in that way.
Well, Roger, if you think we need fewer people on the planet, why not start with yourself? (The obvious answer is that if all the enlightened people who realize that there are already too many of *other* people go kill themselves, that will leave only the unenlightened.)
But why is an unborn child a fair target for elimination simply because it doesn’t exist yet? This is a child that will have family, friends, will live, and love, and for all we know will be another Mozart, Degas, or Edison. Why do you want that person dead?
Yes, yes, yes, of COURSE everyone is worthy of life (except their children), and of COURSE there should be no coercion (by Quakers) except that the title of this section talks about “limit”s, so obviously somebody thinks that somebody else should have “limit”s. That, my Friend, is a prescription for coercion.
The trouble is that as long as someone wants to have a child, and can afford that child’s upkeep, there aren’t too many **of that child** on the planet. And there’s not really a damn thing that you can say which has any bearing on that matter.
My paternal grandfather fathered sixteen children. I fathered one. Does that mean that I have killed fifteen children that I could have had but didn’t?
Please try reading up some of the literature on population growth, and find out what is really being said. And look again at my posts on this site above. You haven’t answered any of the points I have made. A bit of reasoned discussion would be welcome.