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Population

I thought it might be interesting to share an article done recently for Greenpeace Business.

They have just told me that they can’t use it – too controversial, apparently. If ever an article’s core hypothesis (in this case, that environmental NGOs are both gutless and less than honest in addressing population issues) was borne out by its editorial treatment, then this has to be it.

Which element in the following quotation (taken from a report about climate change issued earlier this year by the Ministry of Defence’s internal think-tank) most powerfully grabs your attention?

"The Earth’s population has grown exponentially in the last century, and rapid climate change of the kind that we have seen before would have more dramatic human consequences, resulting in societal collapse, mega-migration, intensifying competition for much-diminished resources, and widespread conflict."

Unless you are part of that very small minority of environmentalists who put population right at the top of any league table of current crises, that reference to "exponential population growth" will have gone straight in one ear and straight out the other.

There are all sorts of reasons for this: fear of controversy (particularly linked to population's "evil policy twin", namely immigration); "religious sensitivities", in as much as some of the fiercest and most bigoted opponents of proper fertility management are Catholics or Muslims; inexcusable ignorance; an obstinate refusal to think beyond the historical abuses of human rights carried out in the name of "population control" in India or China in the past; economic anxieties that without constant population growth there won’t be enough young people paying their taxes in the future to keep us in the style to which we have become accustomed; and umpteen different shades of political correctness all the way through from “who are we to tell people in the third world how to live their lives?” to “it’s over-consumption in the rich world that’s the problem, not over-population in the poor world”.

Each of those requires proper refutation, but for the purposes of this article, I would like to focus on the "over-consumption versus over-population" debate. This is the argument most favoured by environmentalists who have never really looked into the issue, but are so incensed by the uncaring profligacy of the world’s richest one billion citizens that any other explanation of today's converging crises seems like an irresponsible distraction.

So let's get one thing absolutely clear: I have spent my entire life campaigning against that kind of uncaring profligacy, and no doubt will spend the rest of my life doing exactly the same. There may have been some excuse for the damage we did to the physical environment back in the 1960s and 70s (in that the evidence was often flimsy, and it somehow all seemed to be quite manageable), but today there is no excuse. The evidence is now in – on every count – and what we do today we do with full and shameful knowledge. There is no excuse, and this generation of politicians – in all the major Parties – already stand accused of the most heinous cowardice imaginable.

So I don’t need lecturing about the perils of excessive consumption, or the idiocy of relying on exponential economic growth – fuelled by increased per capita income – to secure a better world! But I’ve never been persuaded that that’s all we have to worry about – as if one mega-reality shaded out every other mega-reality that we are now having to face up to.

And the mega-reality I'm talking about here is carrying capacity: how many people can the Earth’s resources and life-support services sustain on an indefinite basis? The answer to that is obviously determined in part by the level of consumption of each individual human being. But even if, by some currently unimaginable miracle, the richest people in the world today learn to lead what WWF calls "one planet lifestyles", does anyone seriously suppose that this would work for the next 3 billion people aspiring to live in the same way – and the next 3 billion who will be staking a claim on those self-same resources and services before 2050?

It's fascinating to see how many environmentalists have woken up in the last couple of years to the phenomenon of peak oil – the likelihood that we have either already passed or are very close to the "half-way point" in terms of using up existing oil reserves. But I'm not at all sure that the full implications of this have really sunk in. Our near-total dependence on oil makes it very difficult for people to envisage a life without it; activists in today's Transition Towns movement are full of anecdotes of people’s horror as they become acquainted with this reality. Richard Heinberg (author of "The Party’s Over" and a leading activist in the Association for the Study of Peak Oil) likes to rub this in by reminding people that just three spoonfuls of oil provides the equivalent amount of energy as 8 hours of human labour!

Richard’s latest book is called "Peak Everything" – covering not just peak oil, but peak soil, peak wheat, peak rice, peak fisheries, peak precious metals and, perhaps most pressingly of all, peak water.

This is not just a question of more and more people at risk because of declining water resources. A recent report from WWF highlighted the invisible nature of the problem here in the UK. We ourselves are not "running out of water", so there is no direct threat to our current average water consumption of 150 litres per day. But each of us consumes on average thirty times as much "virtual water", which has been used in the production of food and textiles imported into the UK. Big exporting countries like Spain, Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Israel, Pakistan, South Africa and Uzbekistan are all facing acute water stress – and it’s quite sobering to be reminded that just one green bean from Kenya takes four litres of water to produce. As we work our way through more than 4500 litres of virtual water per person per day, because of these imports, are we, in effect, simply exporting drought?

There are of course all sorts of ways in which we can "fix" some of these problems. Hyper-efficient irrigation systems could reduce water consumption for agriculture by up to 50%. The next generation of solar-powered desalination technologies will bring some comfort to many coastal communities in water-stressed areas. If we had to, albeit at a massive cost, we could totally re-engineer our water and sewerage systems throughout the rich world to deliver exactly the same services for a fraction of current water consumption levels. All this is possible, but unbelievably difficult.

Given all that, one has to point out that it would be a great deal easier to do it for 3 billion people than for 6 billion, let alone 9 billion.

That was exactly the sort of thinking China’s leaders went through 30 years ago: that it might just be possible to sustain a population of around 1 billion on China’s limited land and natural resources, but completely impossible to do the same for 1.5 billion. The "one child family" policy introduced at that time has pegged China’s population at around 1.3 billion; according to the figures the Chinese government uses, it would otherwise have been 1.7 billion. That’s 400 million births averted.

This is where you have to start doing the sums. Per capita emissions of CO2 in China today are around 3.8 tonnes per person. An extra 400 million Chinese citizens legitimately going about their business of improving their economic standard of living, in exactly the same way that citizens of every single one of our rich nations have done over many decades, would today be emitting an additional 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2. When asked which country I believe is doing most about addressing the challenge of climate change, I’m only being partly mischievous when I tell my questioner that it is China.

But logic does not come easily to the hundreds of millions of people who are only just waking up to the threat of accelerating climate change. To be told that the best thing you can do by way of a personal contribution to the problem is to have fewer children (or enable the millions of women all around the world who would just love to have fewer children to do exactly that) comes as a bit of a shock. If, instead of 70 million additional people arriving every year, we had 70 million fewer, then we might still have a chance of arriving at a sustainable future for the whole of humankind. Without that, we are looking at very long odds indeed.

There's a double irony here. Every single one of the multiple socio-economic issues that preoccupy campaigns today would be eased by full-on, government-led interventions to help reduce average fertility – especially in the world’s poorest countries. And we know exactly how to generate that double dividend: massively increase funding for education for girls, for improved reproductive and other health interventions for women, and for ensuring access for women to a choice of reliable and cheap (preferably free) contraceptives. That's what successful family planning looks like.

Yet to listen to critics of family planning, you would still think it’s all about coercion and control. Whilst only too happy to regale you with the shocking statistics about compulsory abortions and sterilisations (let alone very high levels of female infanticide) in China, they know nothing of the success stories in places like Kerala, Thailand, Korea – and even in Iran. With the full support of Islamic leaders in that country, their total fertility rate fell from 6 children per woman in 1974 to 2 children per woman by 2000. And a brilliant education campaign was at the heart of this success story.

The wilful ignorance of environmentalists is one of the reasons why funding for family planning and reproductive healthcare has been falling over the last decade, instead of increasing, despite a rising number of requests for financial support from countries the world over. The other main reason is the vengeful fundamentalism of the George Bush regime, which decreed nearly 8 years ago that no organisation would receive US funding if it so much as acknowledged that abortion is a necessary (though always regrettable) part of any concerted strategy on family planning. Great company for such right-on environmentalists to be keeping.

This is not some abstract lament, detached from the reality of people's lives. In countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, there are tragedies unfolding in front of our eyes right now. In Kenya, the total fertility rate declined from 8 children per woman in 1979 to 4.7 children by 1998. Good news - but then, funding collapsed and average fertility is now on the rise again. If the downward trend had been continued, the population of Kenya in 2050 would have been 44 million. On current trends, it will be more than 80 million.

It's case studies like these (both good and bad) which persuaded the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health to re-engage in this debate in 2007. Its report, ("Return of the Population Growth Factor"), couldn't have been clearer in its overarching conclusion: "The evidence is overwhelming: The Millennium Development Goals are difficult or impossible to achieve with the current levels of population growth in the least developed countries and regions."

So what exactly is going on here? The governments of many of the poorest countries in the world are crying out for financial support for family planning, but are not getting it. The lives of countless millions of women are devastated by their inability to manage their own fertility, and hundreds of thousands die every year because of illegal abortions or complications from unwanted pregnancies. But their voices go largely unheard. On top of all that, every single one of the environmental problems we face today is exacerbated by population growth, and the already massive challenge of achieving an 80% cut in greenhouse gases by 2050 is rendered completely fantastical by the prospective arrival of another 2.5 billion people over the next 40 years.

Yet most environmentalists will still find this article offensive. They will go on banging their utterly inadequate "over-consumption drum", and somehow sleep easy in their beds that they are doing "a good job". I think not.

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on November 14, 2008 2:07 PM |

Comments (43)

I am pro life (anti abortion) but don't find this article at all offensive Jonathon. Just concise, well researched and well written and I regret that Greenpeace decided not to use it.

Your paragraph,

"There's a double irony here. Every single one of the multiple socio-economic issues that preoccupy campaigns today would be eased by full-on, government-led interventions to help reduce average fertility – especially in the world’s poorest countries. And we know exactly how to generate that double dividend: massively increase funding for education for girls, for improved reproductive and other health interventions for women, and for ensuring access for women to a choice of reliable and cheap (preferably free) contraceptives. That's what successful family planning looks like."

is so right.

We sit in our living rooms and watch on our TV's, like some awful voyeuristic reality show, as young woman in the Third World bring children into the world to die of starvation, when finances for the education and birth control resources they need are denied to them... madness...

Posted by FR. Peter | November 14, 2008 3:37 PM

Thanks for this Jonathon. It is indeed a question which I too often shy away from, but this is both educational and well written.

Casper

Posted by Casper ter Kuile | November 14, 2008 4:46 PM

Nicely done. Some resources I'd recommend:

Approaching the Limits www.paulchefurka.ca

Bruce Sundquist on environmental impact of overpopulation http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/

The Oil Drum Peak Oil Overview - June 2007 (www.theoildrum.com/node/2693)

...and of course the classic "Overshoot" by Catton

Posted by evasta | November 15, 2008 7:26 PM

Rampant population growth threatens our economy and quality of life. I'm not talking just about the obvious problems that we see in the news - growing dependence on foreign oil, carbon emissions, soaring commodity prices, environmental degradation, etc. I'm talking about the effect upon rising unemployment and poverty in America.

I should introduce myself. I am the author of a book titled "Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America." To make a long story short, my theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption of products begins to decline out of the need to conserve space. People who live in crowded conditions simply don’t have enough space to use and store many products. This declining per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.

This theory has huge implications for U.S. policy toward population management. Our policies that encourage high rates of population growth are rooted in the belief of economists that population growth is a good thing, fueling economic growth. Through most of human history, the interests of the common good and business (corporations) were both well-served by continuing population growth. For the common good, we needed more workers to man our factories, producing the goods needed for a high standard of living. This population growth translated into sales volume growth for corporations. Both were happy.

But, once an optimum population density is breached, their interests diverge. It is in the best interest of the common good to stabilize the population, avoiding an erosion of our quality of life through high unemployment and poverty. However, it is still in the interest of corporations to fuel population growth because, even though per capita consumption goes into decline, total consumption still increases. We now find ourselves in the position of having corporations and economists influencing public policy in a direction that is not in the best interest of the common good.

The U.N. ranks the U.S. with eight other countries - India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, Ethiopia and China - as accounting for fully half of the world’s population growth by 2050. The U.S. is the only developed country still experiencing third world-like population growth.

If you’re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, I invite you to visit my web site at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com where you can read the preface, join in my blog discussion and, of course, purchase the book if you like. (It's also available at Amazon.com.)

Please forgive the somewhat spammish nature of the previous paragraph. I just don't know how else to inject this new perspective into the overpopulation debate without drawing attention to the book that explains the theory.

Pete Murphy
Author, "Five Short Blasts"

Posted by Pete Murphy | November 16, 2008 2:30 PM

Good article, and I agree with most of it, but isn't part of the reason for emphasising overconsumption above population to make the point that we in the privileged, overdeveloped world need to put our own house in order, rather than blaming climate change and biodiversity loss on someone else? The population issue can very quickly become an excuse for personal inaction (e.g. "the real problem is there are too many Chinese and Indians, etc etc...")

I would be grateful if you could suggest some family-planning/reproductive health charities who are doing good work on this issue (despite the medieval views of the Catholic Church and US foreign policy). Perhaps in making decisions about charity donations, these should be near the top of any thinking person's list.

Posted by Ben | November 16, 2008 9:21 PM

It is nice to see that Malthus is alive and well, the maths are simple, population growth is bigger than the growth in resources necessary to feed the world, so the sums simply dont add up, the sooner we (the human race) correct this imbalance the better. The Article that you have written is an attempt to balance out the equation and in a way it is adressing the supply side rather than the demand side of the current crisis.

Unless we do something about both sides of this equation, the inevitbale outcome is that people will die simply because there is not enought to go round.
Just as Keynesian economics is making a comeback, I have a nagging feeling that there might just be something to Malthus after all, we cannot rely on technology ( which is the usual get out) to forever develope solutions , the inescapable fact is that we will run out of recources , probably later rather than sooner, we simply must stop this over populative self destructive tendency.

Posted by Len Jones | November 17, 2008 9:20 AM

Very pertinent and interesting article.

Having worked in Africa on an HIV prevention programme(which inherently has links to the issue of population) I would add that it is just as important, if not more so, to educate boys on the issues as well as girls, so that a culture of social acceptance and understanding is developed.

Posted by Ben | November 17, 2008 3:15 PM

Spot on Jonathon. Population growth is certainly part of the equation. It is essential that the issue is discussed widely, not least in the green movment!

Posted by Glenn Vowles | November 17, 2008 10:44 PM

Concise and direct. Pity it wasn't published (more widely).

The issue of population growth has been raised before and as I commented then, no politician seems willing to tackle it. Contraception, though I agree is a moral and ethical choice, should not be sidelined without discussion through the interests of religious / political opposition when it clearly needs to be debated.

And I find myself baffled why Greenpeace consider the article too controversial. And why are Greenpeace (of all the environmental organisations) shying away from this? Politics?

Posted by Ironspider | November 18, 2008 2:47 PM

Great article – should stimulate some debate!

Keep up the great work!

Posted by Andrew Harmsworth | November 18, 2008 6:50 PM

Thank heavens for one authoritarian voice in tne Wilderness. To those who are as yet unaware, the one UK organisation working on this can be found at www.optimumpopulation.org
And, Ben, re "we in the privileged, overdeveloped world need to put our own house in order, rather than blaming climate change and biodiversity loss on someone else": that is exactly what the Optimum Population Trust campaigns for: a lower UK population so that we can a)survive b)exert a smaller footprint on the rest of the World & c)give space to all the other plant and animal spp that we are crowding out of existence.
Edmund.

Posted by Edmund Davey | November 20, 2008 12:41 PM

Indeed Jonathon - anyone for a peace inducing global testosterone replacement project - sorry chaps but...

Posted by Leslie Watson | November 22, 2008 8:14 AM

Thank you, Jonathon, once again for speaking out clearly about difficult but crucial issues when few others will. Environmentalists cannot afford to be One Trick Ponies. We will be sidelined far too readily unless we rigorously address all the big issues, however politically unpopular or morally challenging some might find them.

I recall you once explaining to Jeremy Clarkson the challenging notion of needing to hold more than one idea in his brain at any one time! Seems as if the environmental movement needs the same lesson. Shame on Greenpeace for not amplifying your views on this key subject, which is given appropriate weight in the excellent book, 'Plan B 3.0' by Lester R Brown.

David

Posted by David Paynter | November 24, 2008 6:06 PM

Ben enquired about Birth control charities. Marie Stopes International operates birth control clinics in the UK and several countries worldwide.Marie Stopes started it in the UK during the deprssion of the thirties.One of the most worthwhile of all charities.I think the URL is www.mariestopesinternational.org

Posted by Cecily Smith | November 25, 2008 6:50 AM

At the risk of seeming glib, one is tempted to sum this superb piece of writing up with the phrase "its the population, stupid!"

http://punkscientist.blogspot.com/2008/11/jonathon-porritt-points-out-that-its.html

Posted by punkscience | November 25, 2008 4:29 PM

How short-sighted of Greenpeace to refuse your excellent article. I urge everyone to read another excellent one in New Scientist 22 November 2008 page 20.

Posted by Elizabeth | November 26, 2008 3:00 PM

Great article. As a doctor and expectant father, the issues discussed raised some personal conflicts for me. Of course we need fewer children, but where does it start?

Do we focus on third world rates, and if so, with what justification? Do we target those who traditionally have large families out of poverty or religious beliefs (nice to see supposedly fundamentalist countries such as Iran leading the way), or, as with environmentalism, do we lead by exmaple and begin at home?

Do I choose to have a second child in the future (and what kind of future will they have?), or through my work do I continue to promote contraception and abortion on demand, at the same time as referring patients for subfertility? How do I influence the third world population growth? Through our eminently consistent and trustworthy politicians? I agree with JP's conclusions, but where to begin?

Posted by Maxwell Lewis | November 27, 2008 3:23 PM

For Ben, who posted on 16th November 08 at 9:21pm:

Ben, the organisation you should consider is Marie Stopes.

Jonathon

Posted by Jonathon Porritt | December 1, 2008 4:15 PM

Ben asks for the names of charities active in population.. There are several. Marie Stopes International, International Planned Parethood Federation, Interact Worldwide, amongst others, directly act to bring family planning to those who need it. Optimum Population Trust is a campaigning body. All are regisered charities. It's worth looking at UNPF, also.

Posted by Roger Plenty | December 4, 2008 8:14 AM

Excellent and timely article.
The OPT,to which I belong,is trying hard to reach a wider audience by writing letters,most of which are never published,let alone acknowledged.
The Guttmacher Institute's report on 'Unsafe Abortion:the Global Pandemic' is recommended.
Contact:mediaworks@guttmacher.org

Posted by wendy kellett | December 4, 2008 1:03 PM

Population is a tricky topic for environmentalists since it touches on an issue that is core to the human experience, and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to family life. I believe this difficulty is increased by a common public misconception of environmentalists, fueled by certain sectors of the mainstream media, as “hair-shirted tree huggers” – with all the anti-human sentiment that implies. Understandably, this results in defensiveness within the movement and a sensitivity to topics like population that could be used to portray us as "anti-human".

A population motion was debated this year at Friends of the Earth's annual conference. One of the speakers from the floor remarked: "The text of this motion, and FoE's approval of it, will be publicly available." It was quite clear he feared possible media and public reaction, and I think that fear resonated with many in the debating hall. The motion was defeated.

Posted by Ian | December 4, 2008 4:16 PM

Excellent article, in fact faultless. This is really no longer a controversial topic, it is just that a lot of environmental campaign organisations have been telling themselves it is for so long they cannot get out of the habit. Greenpeace's reaction to the article is pure knee-jerk.

People in the third world are crying out for family planning help, and don't see aid in that respect as remotely unwelcome. There is still areal problem of growth in many third world countries, including the UK and USA, but it is mostly caused by a small minority of people who are incompetent or irresponsible in general. Of course we need to put our own house in order, but that shouldn't stop us helping the third world.

Chris Padley

Posted by Chris Padley | December 4, 2008 8:07 PM

I have a horrible feeling that the population curve will follow the oil / energy curve, it certainly seems to have done this so far (broadly).

As the energy curve descends in the future it would be better to have voluntary population reduction through education and family planning than through wars and famine.

Posted by Stuart Jeffery | December 5, 2008 7:45 AM

Excellant article.But not surprised they wouldn't
publish it.Most of the organisations that claim to care for the environment are suffering from population denial.
Chris Gough OPT member

Posted by Chris Gough | December 5, 2008 10:33 PM

This is an excellent article Jonathan.
It is not offensive at all to me, nor to some people I know in FOE. Unfortunately though, there are still far too many in FOE, and most other NGOs as you say, unwilling to tackle the issue head on!

Our local FOE group put forward a motion on population to the Annual Conference this year. It actually got through the prioritisation ballot and reached conference -which is first! But at conference it was defeated by around 3 to one.
Members do tend to follow the lead they are given.
The real problem as I see it is chiefly at the top of all of the environmental NGOs - amongst the leaders and board members and the people who count members numbers and measure their income. They are afraid of losing support and destabilising the established order. Let us face it - the whole of our Capitalist system and the Free Market economy, which is now global, relies on an ever-increasing consumption which means it actually relishes an ever-increasing population with an ever-increasing wealth and greater depletion of resources to pay for that consumption!

Fortunately, an ever increasing band of grass roots members (at least within FOE) are becoming aware of the need to tackle this overpopulation issue head on.
As I am also a WWF supporter, I have even tried a perfectly logical and well-reasoned argument with them. Basically, I put it to them that if we humans were to be treated by WWF in exactly the same way as they would treat any other form of wildlife - that was overunning the planet and overconsuming its natural resources like we are - what would they advise doing about it?
You see!
We just choose to set ourselves above other forms of wildlife - justifying this chiefly by claiming our superior intelligence. Some of us even claim to have some special authorisation by a supreme being to behave as stupidly as we do. Taking up this position of superiority is now so ridiculous it is laughable!
This has to stop.

Posted by Bill Dowling | December 7, 2008 8:57 AM

Many thanks for that Jonathan.
I finally clocked the crucial importance of population by reading "Collapse" by Jared Diamond about a year ago.
BUT even then I still have to do the hardest thing, which is change my habits of thought: Last week I gave a talk on climate change to sixth formers, and on my copy of the presentation I added things to remember to cover. First I only added population at the last revision, and then on the day I forgot to mention it!
I think I will write P for population on the back of my hand to remind me.
Martin Normanton, FoE Walsall

Posted by Martin Normanton | December 8, 2008 4:25 PM

Hi Jonathon,
Great to read you. In Australia, in fact in most English speaking countries, our government policies to grow population despite environmental degradation, are producing exactly the same conditions in the so-called 'rich world' as exist in the so-called 'third world'.

Living through this I find that we have the same lack of choices as those in the third world; we are losing access to land and direct contact with stable communities which had feedback mechanisms to limit population growth via many different methods. People here (in Australia) are so disorientated that they believe the government when it pays them to have babies and imports enormous quantities of people because - it tells us (a lie) that our birth-rate is lower than our death rate.

I am a population, energy and environment sociologist and the study of who and what drives population growth is my specialty. I just edited a book (Sheila Newman, The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, 2008) of in depth articles by specialists and iconoclasts on trends in oil, coal, uranium and theories on a variety of technologies, inc. fission, fusion, terra preta, plus scenarios for a number of different countries, inc. Japan, France, Australia post fossil-fuel depletion. The problem of population growth is treated in nearly every chapter and there are ten science-authors. This is really a work that accepts depletion and Dunlap and Catton theory, and departs - I hope (as editor) from within the new post-exhuberant paradigm, instead of just resending the initial alert message.

The TFEC site above is located at the more politically punchy candobetter.org/ site which constantly criticises population growthism, in the context of land-tenure, democracy and environment, in Australia and elsewhere.

Would you authorise us to republish your article there please?

Sheila Newman

Sheila Newman, The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, UK, 2008

Posted by Sheila Newman | December 12, 2008 8:08 PM

Great article, thanks Johnathon. Please God (if there is one, which of course there isn't) for more people like you to stand up and be counted.

This year in Australia our wonderful new Prime Minister held a "2020 summit" at which the idea was supposed to be to challenge accepted wisdowm and invite some fresh thinking.

One of the subject areas for the Summit was population and sustainability but guess what? All submissions on population were ignored and on the day the delegates were told basically that population growth was inevitable and not for discussion!!! The Environment Minister, former Midnight Oil singer Peter Garrett (a Christian, like the Prime Minister - what is it with these Christians?), completely rejects population as an issue and the Rudd government has increased immigration from its previous record high levels.

Australia now has third-world population growth rate of 1.7 per cent - and every new Australian becomes a high consumer.

The fact that Greenpeace wouldn't publish your article doesn't really surprise. I don't know what drives them, but I have never found their propaganda intellectually convincing, and I have known them at times to be deeply dishonest.

They once mounted a raid on the harbour of a steelworks in Australia (Port Kembla) in rubber duckies. They were attempting to convince the world that the harbour was toxic with pollution. (there had been mild pollution of the harbour but the steelworks had actually done fantastic work on improving its environmental performance and it was even then in very good shape).

They played of course to the TV cameras, wearing wetsuits and making a great fuss of washing themselves off with "clean water" if they happened to spill any harbour water on themselves. Of course, off camera, they were actually quite happy to stand/swim in the water with not a moment's hestitation.

They might claim that it was "journalistic licence" to get a point across but for me its main effect has been to make me highly suspicious of anything they say or do. Their rejection of your article does nothing to make me change my mind, and I continue to ignore their requests for donations. By comparison with population growth, the Japanese meddling in whaling is of course a total sideshow and I have occasional moments of paranoia to the extent that they actually exist in order to distract global attention from the real issues!

If anyone would like to they can read my submission to the Summit at
http://www.australia2020.gov.au/submissions/viewTopic.cfm?id=237&count=1

Posted by Tom Gosling | December 13, 2008 12:12 AM

Mainstream "Green" organisations become dependent on donations, often from the corporate sector or government. The original volunteers allow salaried employees to take over the running, policy and marketing of the organisation. Even where organisations have large memberships, the people who have taken charge tend to pretend that those memberships will be turned off by talk of population, whereas they could lead policy on the subject. No-one gets important corporate or government money for arguing against growth - in population or in production. I have observed quite extreme harassment of people who have attempted to bring about changes in policy about population numbers in the 'Conservation' organisations.

Posted by Sheila Newman | December 13, 2008 12:55 AM

Right on - but not hard enough

I live in the rain forest - the trees produce hundreds of thousands of seeds - were all of these to 'attain their potential' there would be a solid wall of timber - no crevices, even. Less than 1/1 million seeds actually gets to create a tree.
Our modern culture has a view that, if not every sperm is sacred - then at least every egg is. Even in humans, on average over 60% of conceptions abort. Naturally.

If you, for one reason or other cannot have children -then you are in good company and accept it.

We have so disconnected ourselves from the natural world, that we cannot conceive of natural limits to fertility - our forebears had vast numbers of children (if they could) - because like the forest trees - only a small percentage reached adulthood. Now - we have the possibility of 100% reproductive success. A bit of a rarity in the biological realms.

What I'd like to see - the issuance, on birth, of a coupon (tag, whatever) for 1/2 offspring. When you decide to procreate - then this, and your partner's coupon becomes nullified. If you don't want children - then you can sell the coupon to the highest bidder - or give it away. However, there is a cost - if you have your baby at an age under 20 - there is xx thousand dollars/pounds tax and if you have the baby after say 35 years - there is no tax. Look at at demographic tables - the later a child is born, the less impact it has on the total demographic.

I agree with an earlier poster - that contraception (and 'morning after' medications), should be completely free, and most importantly readily available. Abortions should be completely free (but availability of RU 486 should be readily available), which should reduce the need.

It has also been suggested - a tax on couples with children - a reverse to the baby bonus that is being enjoyed in Australia.

Unless we adopt a 'let down lightly' attitude to our populations - let natural atrittion through death exceed the birth rate - we are stuffed.

Hugh

Posted by Hugh Spencer | December 13, 2008 12:00 PM

Hi Jonathon,what a timely article surely for countries in the so called third population areas.Iam a Uganda,and a nurse by proffesion who has always confused at how some people regard others un equal as if we are not created by the same God!!Is it selfishness?,Greed,cowadize?Orunhuman minds!! I can assure Jo,i have failed to get the right words because our population growth of 3.5% versus resources coupled with claimate change on which we entrely depend leaves us ;especially women motionless and in tears especially when majority of our crops have dried in the fields prematurely and we don't know what to feed our children the next six months to come.Hardly can you find a family without two to six orphans who depends on the survival of two or one elderly person ,all or one seriously ill with HIV/AIDs.Civil Wars displacing thousands of innocent civilians trying to resettle but as i write reports from the war areas say atleast more than 150 people have died in the hands of Kony others are running back to the camps,poverty is on an increase that a man would rather beat his child to death due to stealing or child having lost the father's $0.5 or his spouse being killed for the same offence!! Also Children's body parts sold for financial gains instead of all this,why not control population and target increase on resources of a population you can plan for and reduce all the bad effects mentioned instead of shying away with the blast that is alread warning!!!! to blast soon. Grace.keep it up.

Posted by Grace Mbabazi | December 27, 2008 9:50 PM

I am an OPT member and appreciate the informed commonsense in this article, and the opportunity this blog offers.Population reduction, together with a massive "green shift" is absolutely necessary to minimise global warming,and save life on the planet. It is a global emergency.

I would like a government to have the courage to do the following:-
1) Remind girls at menarche,(accompanied by their mothers or female guardians), that girls and women have a choice,whether to engage in sexual activity or not,and have a right to control their own fertility, supported in Law.Many young girls have such fragile self concepts that they do not recgnise, at this stage, that they can say "No".
2)Inform them both, about the country's (and the Planet's) overpopulation,and giving them printed, current information about birth control options,and their advantages and disadvantages.
3)Offer the girl a contract.This acknowleges her approaching responsibility as an adult,when she will be able to enter contracts and be expected to live with the consequences of her actions.She and her Mother can accept or refuse.

The terms of the contract would be:
1) That she delays the birth of her first child until she reaches the age of [(1/3 women's life expectancy)+ 2 years]
2) That she has two children,or only one.
3)That she has a tubal ligation before she leaves hospital after the birth of her chosen last healthy baby,that is confirmed by a laboratory report.

Once all three terms of the contract are fufilled,she would receive a significant cash payment. If the young girl sees a cash payment at about thirty years of age as"pie in the sky",her guardian might recognise it as an incentive,and support her in signing the contract and adhering to it.The delay in childbearing would enable partners to save a "nest egg",before they start a family.

This contract would be offered to all girls in the population at puberty,to avoid concerns about discrimination.
This would build in a gradually increasing delay in the replacement of people coming to the end of their lives,as Hugh proposes.It would rebalance generations by "spacing them out" to compensate for increasing life expectancy.Another generation would be ready to enter the workforce,when each generation retires.This would reduce economists' and politicians' fears that there would not be a tax base to fund retirees pensions.It would reduce the demand for housing, and make it more affordable,and reduce the cost of living in general.The cash payment,at the time when a second child might cause a need for more living space,would be helpful.A tubal ligation would avoid the necessity of followup care to monitor any side effects of long-term hormonal birth control.

What is also important-it would minimise the amount of hormonal breakdown products entering water bodies from sewage outfalls,which disrupt hormones and reduce fertility in fish and wildlife unable to avoid them.Drinking water for humans may also be affected.It is no good trying to solve one problem by creating others.

Teenage pregnancies-boosting population, as Hugh points out, and not good for mothers or babies, might also be reduced by such contracts.

Population reduction to a level where Britain can feed her own people,would avoid spending millions abroad daily for food imports,and reduce the cost of living, so that people might be able to save for their own old age, instead of relying totally on taxes on the next generation.

Giving underprivileged women sole ownership and control over a significant amount of money would empower them in their families, and in society, overnight All women should be educated, certainly, but that would take a generation to reduce fertility levels. We don't have that much
time.

A cash payment to avoid having children may seem unethical to some people, but surrogate mothers are already contracting to bear children, for money.
These efforts, together with equalising immigration and emigration, might be acceptable, and would be humane, and not coercive.They would be expensive,but a reduced cost of living and a reduced proportion of elderly people,might compensate for this.An impossible fantasy?

Posted by Cecily Smith | January 5, 2009 7:19 AM

Thank you for helping us think more thoroughly into this issue. Your concept of a mega-reality has intrigued me, I certainly agree that there is no mega-issue which autmatically trumps others, and to engage in any debate about which issues count biggest is a distraction unless it takes place within a larger context.

The context which seems to enfold all concerns is one in which environmental sustainability, spiritual fulfilment and social justice are seen as three necessary, interlinked and inter-related goals. Simple as this sounds and easy as it is to agree with, the acceptance of these, together, as the guiding principles by which we can evaluate and make decisions is a key step.

Is this the mega-context? Well, from this place we can begin to bridge the divides and differences which you refer to in the article and to see the common values and shared responsibilities we have. A path of collaboration then appears before us.

Jonathan you are a model of speaking truth to power, please continue to be as errudite, unflinching and controversial as the moment requires.

Posted by Jon Symes | January 7, 2009 9:57 PM

Excellent piece Jonathon. I admire your patience in being prepared to keep producing such well couched work, when so many of those who really should be taking notice just refuse to listen.

Younger FoE members and others might like to note that FoE at least did originally have a population campaign, and I have in front of me a copy of 'Losing Ground' revised ed Jan 1975, by Michael Allaby, Colin Blythe, Colin Hines and Christopher Wardle of "Friends of the Earth Ltd - Population Stabilisation Ltd for Earth Resources Research Ltd."

FoE has clearly been infiltrated and steered backwards since then! I would imagine, that as the org has grown it has become more concerned with its own survival than with the survival of the planet which was the original idea for those who started it and were unafraid to confront the real issues.

Bill Dowling: loved the idea of asking WWF what they would think if any other species grew and behaved like us!

Grace Mbabazi: A very moving contribution. Your piece should be published alongside Jonathon's wherever it appears.

S

Posted by Spamlet | January 25, 2009 4:43 PM

With this terrific piece of writing and others like it as our basis, I humbly suggest that we collectively move the ball forward by:

1. Broadcasting these materials as widely as possible to stimulate discussion.
2. Discuss the population topic in a way that gives our elected officials permission to join in and consider various policy solutions.
3. Begin offering constructive approaches to population control, such as: adjusting government policies to encourage people to have children a few years later in life, and framing the issue as one of national average fertility rate and less of birth control.
4. Request that our economists use different measures of progress in place of or in addition to GDP, such as domestic product per person, which is more relevant to the quality of life of individuals.

Thank you all for continuing the discussion in a courteous and intelligent manner. I think we may be getting somewhere.

Hal Sprague

Posted by Hal Sprague | February 1, 2009 4:12 PM

I am horrified with the neo-marxists lining up to sterilise the rest of us........ um since when was living in poverty that bad that is was better to be DEAD? I think people with these views need to really look at why they are so worried, the cards are on the table and because europe's population is due to decline so much in the coming years the only solution will be immigration on a massive scale (and even that won't stop the decline probably). Time to face facts, the reason it is quoted as growing is that people are living longer, we haven't been replacing ourselves in the UK for decades.

Posted by Horrified | February 1, 2009 8:59 PM

I was heartened to hear this article being debated on national T.V this morning, and for the host to be fully in favour of redcucing population growth. It is the side of the environmental debate that has been ignored. The fact that Johnathon's 'going public' with this article has brought it into mainstream discussion is fantastic. Working to reduce our population, rather than reward and encourage it's continued escaltion, might be poo-pooed and cause angry counter-arguments. However, the important thing is that the debate has begun. I believe the problem is in the lack of breadth of our thinking. We tend to think no further than our own and at most our own families best interests. For example, we do not consider the impact on the wider community of our actions, this includes the impact of having a larger family.

We are human focussed, 'Protect the human', at the expense of the natural world, the decline of which makes existence worth less and less. If any other species had reached the numbers that we have, we would have carried out a cull, as such population imbalance threatens the existence of all other species (animal, vegtable and mineral). Human life ceases to become precious at the current levels. I believe that the greatest polution we are creating right now is children. This saddens me almost to the point of crying to say this now, because I love children, but it is none the less true.

I believe that the way to control our population is through our taxation and benefits system. We can reward and encourage low birth rates, and make it financially challenging to have large families. This would not only bring down the population, but would mean the children born would mostly be wanted (but this is another issue). I am addressing Europe. Johnathon's call for investment in educaion and access to free contraception in the 3rd world is the way forward in developing counries.

Population control is an idea who's time has come!

Nick Waugh

Posted by Nick Waugh | February 2, 2009 12:42 PM

Finally! I wish we would have politicians in Belgium who speak up. Although I don't agree with a maximum of two children, it should be one. At least the issue is in the open in the UK! Congratulations! I don't know what your other opinions are for example on animal welfare, but this point of view is also essential to animal welfare. Overpopulation of human species is the basis of a lot of problems with animals, environment, traffic. I find it quiet surprising the environmental movement is avoiding this issue.

Posted by Ann | February 2, 2009 5:32 PM

Readers and contributers to this blog may know that this February is the month of "Global Population Speak Out" when eminent scientists, academics, environmentalists,and socially concerned people have pledged to bring the global overpopulation issue to the attention of the public everywhere, as an issue of environmental and human survival.The BBC has it on their "Green Room".One can also find it on"Google", with the introduction by John Feeney PhD.So we are in good company, and we should join our voices with theirs.Perhaps they will give the environmental charities some nerve.Thanks to Jonathon for his courage and eloquence.Cecily Smith.

Posted by Cecily Smith | February 11, 2009 1:39 AM

Yes i could not agree more, i too, absolutely love children but think also think that you have a very good point about introducing a tax and benefits systmem which would actively discourage large families and challange them to look after and appreciate what they already have instead of wanting more for what ever the reason. They actually do not need more only want more at the expense of everyone and everything else!

Posted by sandy | February 23, 2009 10:22 PM

The problem with your thesis is that the very technologies required to lift the developing sector out of poverty, and thus reduce birth rates, are the ones that you luddite greens are busy denying them - like NUCLEAR POWER!

Posted by John Morton | March 25, 2009 5:04 PM

China attributes its economic leap forward partly to its one child policy, which came first. Large numbers of women previously concentrating all their energies in staying alive with their children, were able to become employed.

Posted by Cecily Smith | March 26, 2009 2:24 AM

I think it is hopeless. Over the years I have noticed a coldness come over the room if I take my courage in my hands and mention that another 3.5 billion people just might be a wee bit of a problem. You can see people tense, reading their minds, 'oh, God, we have a fascist among us'.

If any one bothers to respond at all, there is a brief lecture dripping with condescension, along the lines of one or all of the versions of right on, political correctness that Porritt describes.

It is madness; what could be more politically correct than giving women control over their own bodies. It will take decades to change these mindsets by which time it will be too late.

Posted by David Nicholls | May 15, 2009 2:50 AM

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