New research (PDF) from the London School of Economics (LSE) says that, when it comes to fighting climate change, investing in contraception is five times more effective than technologies such as wind and solar power.
Meeting basic family planning needs along the lines suggested would save 34 gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of CO2 between now and 2050 - equivalent to nearly six times the annual emissions of the US and almost 60 times the UK's annual total.
In response to the report, some enviro-bloggers have called for "breaking the taboo" on linking population policy with environmental policy. Writes Lydia DePillis at TNR,
[I]t's simply about reducing the number of footprints as well as their size, through increasing access to reproductive choice--a key element of the development agenda, and something the Obama administration itself endorsed eight months ago, by scrapping the gag rule on family planning. Too bad it looks like that's totally off-limits in the American environmental discourse.
Now, I do understand that rapid population growth can exacerbate the impact of climate change. And I'm all for meeting global family planning needs. But linking these goals is problematic. I know the LSE report contains a prominent caveat that this is about non-coercive family planning, but using fears about climate change as a way to expand contraceptive use is eerily reminiscent of "population control" policies, some of which were coercive and all of which were rooted in the idea that certain people should be having fewer babies. (For some examples of the historically problematic use of "population control," check out this report from Hampshire College.) I wonder whether liberals who are favorably linking to the LSE research are aware of how close its rhetoric is to racist talking points about population. Some taboos exist for a reason.
Of course, the LSE report is carefully worded and clearly aware of this history. But it still doesn't sit right with me. I mean, the study was commissioned by a group called the Optimum Population Trust. Apparently "optimum population" is the new way of saying "population control." And it seems that Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, is one of the group's patrons. In the late 1960s, Ehrlich's book set off a panic that overpopulation would lead to mass starvation in the coming decades -- and spurred the U.S. to create its first global family-planning policies, which were not super feminist. (Read Michelle Goldberg's book for more on this.)
As Claire, guest-blogging at Feministe recently, asked, "Has science ever actually defined the number of people the world and it's resources can support, or is
this fear of a "population bomb" about something else, more to do with
which babies are being born than how many are being born?" (Emphasis mine.) Which is why I reject the "population control" frame altogether. Put another way, by Adam Werbach in a 2005 article about population and immigration,
We all understand that empowering women to determine their own reproductive fates leads to other benefits -- economic, societal, and yes, environmental. But given the history of population policy, to me the only acceptable international family planning policy is one that is motivated by increasing the empowerment and choices for women. Full stop. When we try to intervene in women's reproductive lives for any other reason, the potential for abuse is just too high.In the population-control frame, the number of people and their placement on the planet is the root problem that needs to be solved. But is that really the problem? Family planning has succeeded only where economic security has been improved for women, including access to food and shelter, health care, and education. With this as background, the real population problem may be the treatment of women on the planet.
For more, check out this report from Hampshire College, Rethinking the Link: A Critical Review of Population-Environment Programs (PDF). It looks at this question on a more local scale.
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I think the question of which children are being born matters greatly. I mean this not, (a very emphatic NOT at that) in the sense of which races should be having children or not, but in terms of nationality. I think it is a perfectly reasonable expectation to place upon American families/couples to have only two children; I am not in any in favor of enforcing women to have only two (or fewer) children but would support a new tax code whereby people can only claim two children as dependents to encourage smaller families. It has been estimated that fully seven planets would be needed to supply the resources to and support the lifestyle of the average American citizen. And very few people are evenly humanly capable of raising their children to be so resource-conscious so as to only necessitate two or three (let alone one) earths to meet our needs. Thus, the burden should be upon industrialized nations, rather than the rest of the world.
And yet, even with such a seemingly egalitarian and sensible approach, the burden within the U.S. alone (and I presume also in other Western industrialized countries) would fall disproportionately on people of color, since their birth rates are higher than rates for Caucasians.
Also, since the national average rate is something like 1.9 births per woman, a tax code encouraging no more than 2 kids would seem to have no net effect.
So I agree with Ann that we'd better be pretty careful not to link these two goals closely. Better education for women worldwide and better access to healthcare, including contraception and abortion, will have a positive effect on the environment without any corresponding policy to limit family size or even encourage smaller families through tax incentives.
"Better education for women worldwide and better access to healthcare, including contraception and abortion, will have a positive effect on the environment without any corresponding policy to limit family size or even encourage smaller families through tax incentives."
In every country where there is more of the abovementioned, the birth rate has fallen naturally on its own.
totally true.
since the national average rate is something like 1.9 births per woman, a tax code encouraging no more than 2 kids would seem to have no net effect.
Actually, that's not correct. The average rate is 1.9, which means that some women are having more than 2 children while some are having fewer. If fewer women had more than 2 children (while presumably no woman would decide to have more children because of the policy change), then the rate would decline.
Imagine it this way... in a group of 10 women, one woman has one child, one women has three children, and everyone else has 2. The average is 2. But if everyone stayed the same but the woman who would have had three children decided to only have two, then the average would decline to slightly less than two.
Good point. My other point still stands, however - that I think its a horrible idea to link the two ideas in policy.
"I am not in any in favor of enforcing women to have only two (or fewer) children but would support a new tax code whereby people can only claim two children as dependents to encourage smaller families."
How exactly is this not a kind of economic "enforcement"? This sounds an awful lot like the Chinese policy of fining you heavily for having more than the 'allotted' one child; fines which only thosewith certain levels of income can pay, by the way. This creates, just as Ann suggested, a class system for who is able to have children.
"And very few people are evenly humanly capable of raising their children to be so resource-conscious so as to only necessitate two or three (let alone one) earths to meet our needs."
I do not even know what this means, but I will take a stab and say that you mean that larger families can't negate their environmental impact just by teaching and living environmental consciousness within their own families.
To which I sy, I'd like to see the proof, cause it always amazes me that people think that's true. Anecdotally, I have seen families with five or more children who use fewer resources (gas, electric, water) and consume less stuff (junk food, meat, and prepackaged food) than my neighbor who has her 2 kids, two cars, and lotsa new electronics. And those children will carry that into their grown-up life, too, as a matter of course.
Also, to them, it's not about scary environmental scenarios (we have to do this or everyone will starve, children!!!!) but about fundamental ethics: being responsible stewards of their money, resources, neighborhoods, and the earth. Which is the true environmentalism, in my opinion, and not the lghtbulb changing that people do because they are suddenly scared that global warming is real or because "being green" is so fashionable.
Being fined for doing something and getting a tax break for something are two fairly different things. Our tax code current already rewards far less noble things, from having a compost pile to all the other (mostly ridiculous) tax write-offs that people get away with. I see no reason why we as a society cannot actively encourage people to have small(er) families.
What a meant by saying "very few people are even humanly capable of raising a child to be so resource-conscious so as to only necessitate two or three (let alone) one earths to meet our needs" is that literally everything we do from birth to death is taxing on the Earth's resources and very few people seem to even care. If you want proof (or even just statistics), you can calculate your own eco-footprin - http://www.myfootprint.org/.
Very few people may seem to care....but what OTHER people care about should NOT impact my right to have the number of children I deem fit to have.
Why does everybody always talk about population control through coercive social measures (which will inevitably end up as shame-campaigns against larger families)as the solution to overconsumption? Where is the shame directed at PERSONAL consumption? Why do we leap to talking about people's reproductive freedom...when there are about ten steps before that which could do more to help the earth's resources to be used wisely and fairly?
The earth can sustain a much larger population in non-apocalyptic parameters, if the population is more fairly and equitably using what it has in a non-greedy manner.
Some of which are suggested here. Here are two others, that seem very basic:
Launch campaigns to encourage better practices in food production-- which is where a large portion of our environmental waste is currently happening.
Teach your children and communities that consumption is a serious ethical issue, and anyone who doesn't treat it as such is a stupid greedy bastard.
Hey, I am actually FOR shaming the populace when it comes to such issues, as long as the shame is placed on the real root of the problem, which is behavior...and not on the basic human right to determine one's own family size.
(Which right, by the way, is closely linked to religious practices in much of the world and as such would be even greater an indignity if infringed upon.)
A more equitable use of resources is coming, and it will be an ecological cataclysm. Our recycling programs and fuel emissions standards and carbon control policies may make a dent in our production of waste, but the mechanization of the lifestyles of two billion Indians and Chinese is swamping any progress. The entire world naturally wants a first world standard of living, and that's going to be a bigger impact than everything we do in America.
Here's a novel idea - how about letting people have as many or as few kids as they want?
The whole "population control" movement is pure racism (because when they say "overpopulation" you know who they think are having too many babies!) - it's eugenics at it's worst and three steps away from what the Germans used to call "Racial hygiene".
That's not a novel idea at all. People have more or less always been able to have as many children as they want; indeed, throughout history people have had to have many children simply to perpetuate the human species.
Well, I think he was using the term "novel idea" facetiously. That being said, I don't think that saying overpopulation has a serious effect on the environment is one step away from Nazism. If one species has no natural predators (which for all intents and purposes humans do not), its population explodes, which has a negative effect on its ecosystem. Not to mention that advances in health care means humans live longer than we "should." This doesn't mean I believe in legally controlling the population (certainly not just for certain ethnic groups or socioeconomic classes) or limiting health care or unleashing starving bears onto the streets on a periodic basis, but I do plan on having no more than one biological child as a personal choice, and don't judge others for the choices that they make.
I wondered when you'd show up with the Nazi comparison.
How about you actually take a step further at the idea, rather than simply stating the obvious?
No one is arguing that people should have the autonomy to reproduce as they'd please, but the problem is that in underdeveloped country, overpopulation has a direct effect on the economy, women's lives, and the environment, which ultimately also affects women's lives, in terms of both health, and readily available resources. Deforestation, a direct effect of overpopulation, also greatly affects lives.
Overpopulation is not just a matter of the desire to have children - but also a lack of, and sometimes a rejection of, birth control and proper family planning, both of which NGOs are trying very hard to change.
Ultimately, it's not about racism or ethnic cleansing of any types, but rather, presenting options to those who might not have options otherwise.
It's funny, because no one screams racism when we talk about birth control for women of the Global North - but the moment we talk about birth control for women of the Global South, the race card comes out.
The point about people in industrialized nations not having more than an average of more than 2 kids is moot because no industrialized nations have an average of more than 2 kids.
All of the growth in the developed countries' population is from immigration from less developed countries.
For example in the US, according to the Census, there were 39 million foreign born residents. That is more than 12%. Assume one child per immigrant, that is about 78 million out of only 303 million US residents.
The US has had zero natural increase in the last 35 years. All increase is immigration.
As much as I think increased access to birth control for women in developing nations (or for all women for that matter) is a great policy, I also take issue with the environmental argument. When you think about it, it is the same justification that they use in trying to increase the birth rate in Western Nations. It is not about improving the quality of life of the women or children concerned, it is about increasing the number of desirable babies (i.e. White) while decreasing the number of undesirable ones (i.e. black, brown, etc.).
Who involved in this is advocating more white babies? The London School of Economics?
Every person on earth consumes resources and produces waste. People in rich nations have a much higher environmental impact than people in poor nations, but this is leveling as we institute environmental controls and the developing world builds more factories and drives more cars. Aside from the global impact, there's also harsh local consequences for overpopulation - Rwanda in 1994 being the most extreme and heartbreaking example.
yeah. while I suppose I can't say what racists would use this for, really, for population control to be the most effective as an environmental strategy, the ones who should have less children are the richer, generally whiter, people who can afford to give them stuff that use resources. also yeah, I think the article was pretty explicit that this isn't about more white babies at all. How can population control be about more of any type of babies. I know, it could be higher proportion of withe babies. but still not going to help the issue.
I think the problem is that there is no way to implement this without it having racist or classist repurcussions.
Not to mention that feminism believes that it is fundamentally wrong to try to control or punish reproductive decisions...
So is overpopulation not a problem, or is it a problem not worth confronting because of the racist and classist repercussions? Because the consequences of not dealing with it are going to fall pretty hard on poor, nonwhite countries.
Actually, I am a advocate of helping out those poor, non-white countries no matter what the state of the environment is. And doing it first, before anybody would ever consider limiting the reproductive freedom of others.
It seems to me that you allow people freedom to choose their family size, without punishment or coersion, for the same reason that you work to help the poor, or fight racial injustice.
The reason is that humans are free and autonomous beings who deserve recognition for their inherent dignity as free beings. That must be preserved and upheld in whatever way possible....not sacrificed as soon as we start to feel the pinch of all our previous greed.
In other words: the solution to generations of greedy overconsumption is NOT to panic and start taking away human rights -- even if "temporary" or "limited" or "only in case of emergency."
The solution is to GET A GRIP ON YOUR GREEDY SELVES and stop wasting shit. Now. This second.
yes, and limiting the amount of children that we're providing wasteful shit for is an important part of that.
Go ahead and limit your family size! Talk others into it, too!
Just keep your laws and your societal shaming tactics the hell out of my womb and my family!
but if you're a middle class western woman, most likely you are part of the problem. and no amount of whining about freedom is going to give back the resources that are being taken from poorer countries.
No, no, no. It's the rest of us who are selfish.
I don't know that myself is any greedier than yourself, but regardless I think a campaign to educate people on the dangerous of enormous families is actually a bit less of a human rights violation than waiting for more Rwandas where we slaughter each other over insufficient land and dwindling resources. I guess it's just the greedy racist in me.
You work on a viable solution that'll turn around decades of globalization and the advancement of technologies, and then you let us know, eh?
Until then, you're preaching to the choir, and worst, not presenting us with any concrete solutions.
At the end of the day, feminist values, and saying that we ought to stop being so "greedy," is great, but that's hardly a solution - it's what college freshmen who have just found their values and compassion often say.
Actually, I have suggested other solutions frequently on this thread. But I thank you for your amusing condescension, anyway. I haven't been compared to a college freshman in...years....almost since I was one...15 years ago..
But I agree that the problem of "solutions" is extremely thorny. I write my comments here not to suggest that I have come up with them all, but to critique the idea that it you can even SOLVE a problem like environmental damage with a cavalier approach of coerced population control. The inherent problems of implementation are too great because the attack on personal freedom (religious, philosophical, reproductive) and the inevitable unequal outcomes for the poor, disabled and otherwise marginalised is too predictable.
My critique is also of the idea the you can completely "solve" the problems of growth, technology, and the environment.
As I keep saying, "Population Control" is easy to call for, and impossible to implement without coersion or oppression. Tout it as an individual choice all you want. Just keep the government the hell out of it.
first off-not all feminists believe the same thing. personally, I believe it would hurt more of women for me to have lots of kids because as a white, middle class United Statesian, my kids would probably use a lot of resources, resources that would have to be taken from somewhere-and generally it's going to be poorer, browner countries/people that are going to lose out in that deal
secondly-assuming racism(or classism)=privilege+ power, how exactly is it racist or classist to say that richer, whiter people need to think as a group how to not use up all the earths resources-and that less children should be part of that? it's a-not really possible. where does the power fall on the side of the less rich? nowhere. and b-seems like if you're going for the argument that the privileged should get all the resources that they want in the name of choice to be a more progressive and feminist position.
I could not agree more. I know
that historically the racism
towards "undesirable" people
having babies has left a bad taste
in most people's mouths....as it
should. However, population
control is VERY necessary. It does
not matter that you drive a hybrid,
teach your kids to walk most places,
have solar panels on your house, you
are still leaving a huge carbon
footprint. Here is a thought, why
not make birth control free and
available to all women, provide
ample educaiton for all women,
teach people to slowly move
away from over-consumptive
lifestyles (and make it easier for
them) and encourage people to have
smaller families. Why is this so
controversial and novel? Don't
implement China's policies but
certainly encourage smaller
families, as a way for those kids
you do have to live better,
healthier lives and not ones of
extreme struggle which is fairly
certain if we don't do something
now. The way we have learned to
live and the sheer number of
people on the planet is not
sustainable, I work in climate
change so I do have a clue.
I am not trying to be an ass here, but are you trying to write a poem, or do you just enjoy hitting ENTER numerous times? It's not a problem - I am really just wondering.
My guess is that she was writing on a netbook or a pda or iphone or something with a small screen.
I'm confused...
Feminists are all about making sure that women in all countries have access to sexual health services, including information, medicine, condoms, etc. We want women all over the world to be able to make informed choices about their reproductive health, without coersion or undue burden.
But as soon as anyone points out that what we want would have the additional benefit of helping the environment... then suddenly it's racist?
I really do understand that "population control" is often about "controlling populations that we don't like," but in this case, I think the report was pretty careful to say they are NOT talking about coercive means. Just because it sounds similar to something bad doesn't mean we should just disregard it outright.
Right. There's pretty much no branch of science or policy without a racist history.
My broader point is not that they would try to implement this coercively, but that many of the assumptions behind the need to control the population are, in fact, racist. The purpose behind the policy matters. If the effort to broaden family planning access is undertaken with the ultimate goal of helping the environment or, say, bolstering the economy, it stands a MUCH greater risk of going awry than if it is taken for the more straightforward goal of simply empowering women with access and options.
Ann, I totally agree and I am so glad you posted this.
Even the development of birth control has been problematic in that nearly every method has been "tested" on unsuspecting or poorly-informed women in lesser-developed nations. To this day, they send the stuff that can't get approved for safety reasons in this country to other, poorer ones.
And lots of well-meaning people who want to help those women and the environment, think that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that because the "ends justify the means."
"Has science ever actually defined the number of people the world and it's resources can support..."
Actually science has estimated the carrying capacity of humans to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 billion. I don't think it is wise to post a quote about population dynamics from someone who obviously does not know much about the subject.
Just saying.
The carrying capacity of earth depends on how much of earth's resources each human uses.
Earth can't support 6 billion people living the way Americans do now, but it could support 15 billion people living more efficiently.
Sorry but what is your point? A limit is still a limit and sooner or later we will reach it. What a wonderfull gift to give to our grandchildren.
Right, there's still a limited number.
My point is that the number could be quite different, depending on how we use our resources.
If wealthier countries commit to using resources more efficiently (and developing countries stop expecting to be able to achieve the standard of living that Americans have now), then there will be less of a need for population control.
On the other hand, if we're committed to the idea that every human on the planet should have a high standard of living (including automobile and air travel, foods imported from far-off places, etc), then we are going to have to make sure that future generations are smaller than our own.
Obviously we need to do both -- use resources more efficiently, AND make sure that no woman is ever forced to have more children than she wants. But it's up for debate whether we should focus on increasing standards of living (and decreasing population), or vice versa.
10 to 15 billion humans and pretty much nothing else, I imagine.
We're already stripmining the oceans and bulldozing habitats left and right, by that point there'll be virtually no large animals left on Earth...
So, pretty much they are saying "by CHOOSING not to have an abortion you're destoying the planet, so be a good little girl and abort or use better birth control?"
That's what I take from this.
No. This report is not saying that any individual should make the choice about whether or not to have a child based on the environmental impact of the child.
The report says that if more women had CHOICES, then the world's population would stop growing so fast, because more women who do not currently have access to birth control and abortion (or even abstinence) might choose to have fewer children if given the choice.
and that's generally how it works out. women get the option to control how many children they have, overall the number goes down-some women obviously still want big families, but many don't.
That's because women are generally the ones who must carry the burdens of pregnancy and child rearing. When men, particularly political, religious, or economic leaders, get to make the decisions they will almost always push for population increases because it increases their power and profits. If you lead a country you want more people to work and build your country, to go to war, to pay taxes. If you are a religious leader your power and wealth is determined by the size of your flock. If you are an economic elite your company profits when there is excess labor in the labor market and people become desperate for work, taking lower paid jobs.
Of course, for the mother whose life is spent raising children, only to watch them die in wars or struggle in jobs that do mot make ends meet, none of this provides any comfort. No mother wants to spend her entire life raising children only to see them suffer, struggle, and die, yet this is exactly the fate many of us face. As the planet becomes increasingly destabilized by deforestation, soil salinization, desertification, species loss, pollution of the land water and air, we are poised to witness the greatest era of human suffering in history.
As a woman, it saddens me to have to choose between bringing life in to the world (knowing that my children's generation will have to struggle more with less resources and less hope than my own), or not having children. I have agonized over this decision for about five years and finally come to terms with my chosen solution. I'm going to work as hard as I can to make the world a better place and then I will adopt when the time is right. I will adopt two or three children that no one else wants, preferably older, possibly traumatized females who are at high risk for being abused. I'll be the best mother to them that I'm capable of being and I'll feel good about my accomplishments and contributions. I can't think of how else to go about it, knowing what I know now.
That's because women are generally the ones who must carry the burdens of pregnancy and child rearing. When men, particularly political, religious, or economic leaders, get to make the decisions they will almost always push for population increases because it increases their power and profits. If you lead a country you want more people to work and build your country, to go to war, to pay taxes. If you are a religious leader your power and wealth is determined by the size of your flock. If you are an economic elite your company profits when there is excess labor in the labor market and people become desperate for work, taking lower paid jobs.
Of course, for the mother whose life is spent raising children, only to watch them die in wars or struggle in jobs that do mot make ends meet, none of this provides any comfort. No mother wants to spend her entire life raising children only to see them suffer, struggle, and die, yet this is exactly the fate many of us face. As the planet becomes increasingly destabilized by deforestation, soil salinization, desertification, species loss, pollution of the land water and air, we are poised to witness the greatest era of human suffering in history.
As a woman, it saddens me to have to choose between bringing life in to the world (knowing that my children's generation will have to struggle more with less resources and less hope than my own), or not having children. I have agonized over this decision for about five years and finally come to terms with my chosen solution. I'm going to work as hard as I can to make the world a better place and then I will adopt when the time is right. I will adopt two or three children that no one else wants, preferably older, possibly traumatized females who are at high risk for being abused. I'll be the best mother to them that I'm capable of being and I'll feel good about my accomplishments and contributions. I can't think of how else to go about it, knowing what I know now.
As I thought with an earlier article about one-child policies, so I say here:
it is true that world population can be reduced by the long-term goals of establishing equality and freedom of choice regarding reprodution.
However, the kinds of environmental pressures we're in danger of at this time are such that I don't think we have time to wait for them to work.
Of course, we must not give up on them but in the short term, sweeping measures like this - applied to EVERYONE - might be our only hope.
Achieving equality will be a great day, but what good will equality do us if our lands are exhausted, our seas are dead and our air is unbreathable.
Yeah. I have a MA in sustainable development and two graduate certificates, one in demographics and one in environmental policy. I'm here to tell you that environmental impact = population * consumption * technology. We have a few ways we can reduce our environmental impact: lower our consumption, change out technologies, and reduce our population. I realize that past attempts at "population control" came with racist and classist intents and I realize that the issues surrounding reproduction are deeply private, even sacred, but if we really do care about people, then we are going to get a grip on all three, population, consumption, and technology. We may not like it, but believe me, the alternatives we are facing make the apocalypse look pretty. Mature, compassionate people sometimes have to make difficult decisions - like having less children, having no children, and/or accepting a lower standard of living. It's just reality. I will continue to encourage affluent populations to both reduce consumption and population and to move toward more benign technologies, and of course, in the developing world we also need to reduce population, but we need to, in some cases, prepare for increased consumption by implementing the most benign technologies (and reducing population). They may not need hummers in the developing world (who does, really?) but they do need clean water and let's face the facts, we live on a finite planet with finite resources. We cannot sustain an exponentially increasing population. That's just math and the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. It's reality. Let's deal with it.
Agreed!
Also there are a zillion kids in the world without homes that couples who want kids could adopt.
As you say, if the goal is to for people in the developing world to have a higher standard of living, then the world will have to have fewer people to handle the per capita demand for resources...
Not to reiterate everything you say, it's just I wanted to say these sorts of things and you did much better at it :)
Sorry to be a broken record, but I just love that there doesn't seem to be a "live and let live" attitude for some people when it comes to this.
There are always plenty of so-called feminists who come out of the woodwork to judge other people's choices to have kids-- whether it is how many they have or that they have them at all.
Live and let live with regards to population may not be something humanity can afford with our demands on the earth straining it beyond its capacity, at least not for a few generations.
Once the judgment is "people should probably not have big families otherwise we might ALL DIE" there's an argument for it being valid.
how is it judging to say that we as a species need to consume less resources?
Quick note: I think that all of us here are in favor of you having your sixteen children or whatever just as long as they don't take up eight times as many resources as our two. Why do you have a right to more resources?
You don't understand, because you're selfish. St Catherine and her children don't use resources like selfish people do. They don't shower, they stand out in the rain to preserve water. They only eat vegetables they grow themselves using their own waste as fertilizer. They don't use electricity or fossil fuels, but they also don't physically exert themselves more than they can possibly avoid in order to minimize their need for calories or water (caught in rain barrels of course).
Awesome comments by Lily and Deva. This is way, way too serious to let "one time some racist people supported this idea" or "I'm uncomfortable about this for reasons I can't define" get in the way. This is one of the levers we have and we need to use it. Everyone benefits when there's fewer of us; if we don't curb our population intentionally then nature will do it for us and it will be ugly. And you can bet that when that happens, it will be the poorest and most oppressed people who will be hurting most.
Some people still need to make babies from time to time, of course. I suggest a substantial and progressive tax on children in first-world countries, with the proceeds going to help poorer countries with population control.
I think the problem is not linking the issue but that even though the LSE study specifically included the US as well as the developing world no one is talking about unmet need for family planning in the US. Why is that? This is when the report specifically showed the disproportionate amount of CO2 emissions that came from just the US need for unmet family planning.
The problem with Westerners talking about this issue and what ultimately makes it racist is that they seem to magically ignore all the things that point to their own irresponsibility. Why is it more palatable to promote family planning in the developing world but not in the US? It's the double standard that's racist not the fact that population is linked to climate change.
To say that racism is a problem of the past is not accurate because just the selective coverage of the reports findings points to the fact that racism is subtle but still very much alive in the approach to these issues.
All of this ignores what economist knows and everyone understands intuitively. Access to birth control tends to lead to drops in fertility and RISES in consumption. So, I fail to see how promoting birth control as a solution to climate change makes sense. What we need to do is rethink economic development and how we use resources.
Awesome comments by Lily and Deva. This is way, way too serious to let "one time some racist people supported this idea" or "I'm uncomfortable about this for reasons I can't define" get in the way. This is one of the levers we have and we need to use it. Everyone benefits when there's fewer of us; if we don't curb our population intentionally then nature will do it for us and it will be ugly. And you can bet that when that happens, it will be the poorest and most oppressed people who will be hurting most.
Some people still need to make babies from time to time, of course. I suggest a substantial and progressive tax on children in first-world countries, with the proceeds going to help poorer countries with population control.
Thank you! The feel-good scientific illiteracy that surrounds these issues constantly grates on me. People are already dying, by the thousands per day, simply because the quantity of waste humans produce (to be clear, that's not consumer products, it's excrement) is more than can be processed without contaminating aquifers or subsistence-mandated fishing saltwater. (Slate and NYT have articles in their archives.) There have ALREADY been scorched-earth wars, locally, precipitated by sheer overpopulation rather than resource use, and it's naive in the extreme to think that they won't spread. Either the people who have the food and clean water kill to protect it, or those who lack kill to get it (or both). And yeah, women get the hardest hit. Less consumerism, etc., would help a lot, but as long as people consume food and go to the bathroom, we're a few billion over the maximum supportable. Privileged Western pieties about the absolute supremacy of personal choice over all other considerations ring hollow - wealthy people in lower-density, rich-soil, high-water areas will be the last to suffer, although 1) we will suffer eventually, and 2) we are contributing to others' suffering.
Let's also realize that women are going to suffer disproportionately when the the environmental crisis becomes acute and drastic coping measures are taken.
Women all over the world who have access to education and family planning resources tend to have better lives because they are aware of their choices and more capable of making them.
This isn't about race, it's about consumption. The United States uses most of the world's resources and generates much of the world's C02 emissions per person, simply because of the way we live. And our quality of life isn't that different from people in Europe, who have less of an impact than we do.
Obviously this shouldn't be about "controlling" populations - because no one entity should be allowed to mandate that. But we should open up a discourse about how having children, even in this country, is a stereotype (how many heterosexual couples who get married have to start fending off "when are you going to start a family?" questions, as if two people couldn't be a family?), and that it doesn't always have to be this way.
Once we hit carrying capacity (which we already are in some areas), quality of life diminishes for everyone - that means whole ecosystems, not just people, not just one country.
Personally, my rationale is this: If I have a child right now, considering the state of the world, what is that child going to say to me in 15 years? I certainly wouldn't want to be born right now. If I have a choice in that matter, that's empowering. Everyone should have that choice.
Because, as has been demonstrated on this blog and several others, adoption as a process never hurts or exploits women and is completely without ethical considerations.
I'm adopted myself, and completely in favor of the notion of adoption and the practice when it is approached thoughtfully carefully. But let us not pretend that Westerners adopting children from less "developed" nations is without its own host of issues.
That should have been a response to DalekSec.
I hear that, but I wasn't suggesting that adoption be all about Westerners adopting non-Westerners a la Brangelina. Westerners could adopt other Westerners, Japanese families could adopt Western kids, Australians could adopt Americans (I'm just making these combinations up at random, but you see what I mean) or have, just for example, Kenyan families adopt Kenyan orphans, or whatever.
You're quite right that the patrician aspect of overseas adoptions is worrisome, but if we accept that it can go in other directions then it's a useful element in reducing the global birth rate.
population control? you mean adequate access to health care and putting reproductive decisions in the hands of women?
That's part of the solution.
There is no, but no, way that non-coercive population control will ever be practised, except as a side effect of economic development involving women.
Just like one poster said over here, it's hard to predict how policies like these can be used against you until they actually are. And by then you're in trouble.
It's easy to predict the consequences of a continuously rising population, especially as resource use per capita is also rapidly rising. I'll take legitimate science over vague fears that they will find some way to be racist/sexist.
What I find troubling about population-control initiatives like these is they seem to reek of the anti-human, "save-the-planet-by-getting-rid-of-people" mindset associated with the radical environmental movement. Most people do not share the extreme beliefs of "deep ecologists" and others, but I do think the attitude that the human race is a menace to be curtailed has crept into our culture in subtle ways.
It sounds like this initiative takes for granted that the threat of overpopulation is real. We're still taught to think that way, as but any social scientist would tell you, the world's population growth rate peaked in the 1960's and has been steadily falling since - and the world's population is expected to begin shrinking in absolute numbers by mid-century. Some other commenters here have pointed out that the real issue we face today is not the number of human beings, but distribution of resources. That's where we ought to be focusing our energies, rather than telling people to have fewer children than they're already having.
Yes, if there's any ideology creeping into our culture about what species should be dying, it's totally about the humans. Definitely not the hundreds of billions of farm animals we eat per year or the literally countless forms of life from all six kingdoms that we're erradicating every day... We need to remind everyone that humans are important!
/sarcasm
Any environmental initiative is supposed to show hatred for humankind. Save the owls, kill the people, etc. It's an element of Rush Limbaughism that has crept into our culture in not especially subtle ways.
As someone who's family is involved in environmental initiatives, this statement is utter GARBAGE. Environmental initiatives are about learning to live with the world, not live off of it. It's motivated by a care for humanity and a wish to see it flourish sustainably, as part of the biosphere, as opposed to treating nature as a bunch of inert 'reosurces' that we guzzle up until there's nothing left and we starve to death.
I am really insulted by this comment - especially comparing dedicated, intelligent environmental activists to RUSH SODDING LIMBAUGH.
Read it again.
I take it you're being sarcastic too? Bollocks. My bad.
In which I paraphrase/explain the anti-Environmentalist view:
"Any environmental initiative is supposed to show hatred for humankind. Save the owls, kill the people, etc."
In which I explain why people like Ryan say and believe such ridiculous things:
"It's an element of Rush Limbaughism that has crept into our culture in not especially subtle ways."
*sigh* It's been a long day. Sorry friend. Clearly we are inded on the same side here.
S'cool. Tone doesn't carry well in text with strangers.
Sounds fine in theory, but even distribution of resources among over SEVEN BILLION PEOPLE would leave very little per person or the destruction of most of Earth's biosphere to provide plenty for all, and then it wouldn't last long.
Fewer humans is essential to taking the strain off our resources. People always seem to confuse'Reducing population' with 'extinction.' It's not like they're going to have everyone draw lots and then cull the excess people. We're just talking about future generations being smaller.
Seven billion people trying to live off ONE planet, now there's a key to extinction!
I think it is misleading to call what is suggested in the LSE report an attempt to "intervene in women's reproductive lives." Providing contraception is not intervention, it's offering another choice. If the only "acceptable international family planning policy" is one that promotes increasing choices for women, this passes muster. The report doesn't suggest any kind of pressure; it simply points out the meeting women's desires for contraception would also benefit the environment. Yes, obviously we should already be doing so in the name of reproductive justice--but since we don't have that yet, maybe we shouldn't dismiss support from environmentalists out of hand.
In addition, I don't this it's bad for people to be aware of the environmental impact of children, as one of many considerations going into how large a family they want and if they'd adopt. I think issues from the environment to hunger are pretty good reasons to overcome the stigma against adoption and chose to care for someone already living rather than adding another human being to the world.
Skepticism is natural and praiseworthy whenever discussing population size, given the certain nefarious population control agendas of the past and present. But just because the LSE report is discussing population size doesn't automatically mean it should be condemned as along the same lines. For one thing, the report makes it clear that the carbon foot print from a developed nation is far larger than that of a developing one. Racist population control agendas generally demonize the problems of the non-white developing world, so the LSE's scrutiny of whiter developed countries bespeaks a different agenda.
I don't love the creepy-sounding name of the "Optimum Population Trust," but also don't know that it is a racist institution. Furthermore, even if it is, even if it tries to manipulate the findings to justify a racist agenda, that doesn't taint the integrity of the LSE's study. Most materials are open to misuse, but this study has a pro-environmental perspective that I think also happens to overlap nicely with a pro-reproductive justice stance.
Finally, regardless of this report or the agenda of the Optimum Population Trust. Claire's question as to whether science has defined exactly how many people the earth can support is also off-base. It's clear that we are in a bad situation in terms of global warming, that it is a man-made occurrence, and that the more people contribute the bigger our collective footprint is. If climate change progresses, the scientific answer to how many human beings the earth can support is going to rapidly head toward zero.
While population growth isn't the only problem--and, as the LSE report points out, providing contraception where there is unmet need wouldn't impact climate change for a generation--and maybe there has been too much over-population fearmongering driven by a racist agenda, we probably aren't afraid enough of the environmental destruction occuring now. And yes, the size of our population is a part of our massive carbon footprint.
adibranco.wordpress.com
The problem with trying to cap family size, of course, is that in so much of the developing world daughters are not valued and sons are prized. Even if you don't have a problem with aborting girls, a hugely gender imbalanced generation of young adults sure is. I bet China's neighbors are pretty worried about the coming of age of the One Child Policy generation. Even without legal or social incentives to reduce family size, people often keep having children until they get boys, which drives population growth. So trying to raise the status of daughters is a key element to population control.
I'm an ecology graduate student and it's environmentalists like the 'tree-huger' "contraception..." writer that make me stress that I am a conservationist and not an environmentalist.
I think the biggest threat due to our increasingly limited resources is the loss of our humanity that seems to plague populations during crises. We haven't seen a fraction of what is predicted to come, and already, progressives on this site are talking about tax incentives to curb population. What do you think the average population will start suggesting when the shit really hits the fan?
At this point, it is too late to stop many of the disasters predicted for this century. To me, that means we need to stay calm and figure out how we are going to handle up-coming pockets of famine, drought, and the wars and genocide that seems to follow (Arab nomadic herders and non-Arab farmers got along fine until drought limited resources to nothing).
Yes we need to work to decrease the damage, but even if we do everything within our power we are things are going to get worse before they get better and we need to prepare for that and not lose our heads. Human populations have dealt with disaster repeatedly, sometimes they make it and sometimes they don't. But I for one think it would be better to die out with dignity then save ourselves by sacrificing all our ethics.
I don't think the LSE paper is racist or wrong. And I don't have a problem with understanding the relationship between population size and resources. But though improving family planning access is good, and reducing global anthropogenic harm is good, I believe linking the two together with policy is dangerous. I agree with Ann that historically placing worth to the amount of children a women has ultimately leads to the coercion of women. And having this mindset, when things get really ugly (and I think they will), so is the response that follows. When the amount of children a woman has is equated within a social context, it leads to coercion of women. So lets better the situation of women worldwide, an effective way to lower birthrates, but lets do it from a place of social equality and not greed and fear.
If you think the end is going to come with "dignity" and "ethics" you should read up on Rwanda and what happens when too many people share too few resources. Try Jared Diamond's "Collapse" to see how societies die. It's not pretty.
I'm sorry, I ignored your opening paragraphs to reply to : But I for one think it would be better to die out with dignity then save ourselves by sacrificing all our ethics.
So obviously you know how bad it'd be. But then I don't understand what you mean by die out with dignity and ethics intact?
"Has science ever actually defined the number of people the world and it's resources can support?"
Actually, yes. In fact, there's an entire scientific non-profit dedicated to this subject called the Global Footprint Network. They're really awesome, I really recommend browsing their website. You can even take a quiz that lets you calculate how many earths we would need if everyone lived like you.
I love Feministing, but the knee-jerk anti-science and anti-environmental tone of this post is really rubbing me the wrong way. Thirty seconds of googling could have answered that question that you posed, and it's clear that very little research went into this post.
Yeah. I've noticed people love science until it becomes inconvenient.
If it makes anyone feel any better, birthrates are falling in every country. According to UN data, each year there are fewer children in the 0-4 age bracket. Peak population estimates have been lowered several times and estimated to come sooner at each revision.
After 2040, population will fall precipitously. Those few insular religious groups that maintain very high fertility until after 2040 will grow rapidly as a percentage of the population as the self limiting groups decline. Some observers predict that will be the end of the western liberal democracies and the rise of fanatic religionists. We'll all be gone, but our 1.2 kids will live to see it ; )
Whatever happens, we have got
The atom bomb, and they have not
I think some of the commenters here are being rather naive with their responses...
There are far more dynamics at work than simply wasteful and greedy westerners and exploding populations in the third world. Geography is extremely important, some regions of the world currently experiencing the greatest growth simply cannot, in the foreseeable future, support its resident populations. Regions like Australia (check what has happened with the Murray River), parts of Africa (Somalia for instance) and parts of Asia will inevitably suffer the greatest as the population grows.
And I think the point made about how no one has the right to tell anyone how many children they may or may not have is grossly misrepresenting the situation and making a fundamental mistake by putting this as a human right. If at some point having an unsustainable number of children recklessly endangers the lives of others through placing excess strain on already strained resources, then that IS unfair on others.
I think that the concept of "unsustainable number of children" is the problem, actually.
What does that mean? If we work to properly educate people about consumption and struggle mightily to change the way resources are used, as I said above, in food production and distribution, that would make a huge difference.
Also, as already said above, when you improve education and access then populations naturally choose to limit family size.
Those are all moral solutions. Of course, how many children an individual fmily wants to have can, in theory impact others. But society has to choose how much it will regulate private activity, and the impact on others has to be very compelling and the regulation has to be as hands off as possible, imo.
There is no way to regulate other people's family size without taking away too much human freedom. And, franly, I think that those who suggest such a thing are taking the easy way out. It is a far more difficult path to transform your ethical lives in such a way that will protect the environmen WITHOUT getting into people's homes and wombs. But, we never want to do the hard stuf, do we?
The easy way will be more than difficult enough. I'm not sure why the sheer implausibility of convincing the earth's entire population to live at sustainable levels (which will constantly get lower as the number of people grows) somehow makes it a better plan.
Obviously neither plan is sufficient, nor are they mutually exclusive. The world can't handle the level of resource use and waste production we have now. Yet the population is rising and huge numbers of people are increasing their per capita impact.
The question of how many people the Earth can support often begins with the assumption that what we take for granted will somehow continue forever. But our whole world agricultural system is based on cheap fossil fuels, which are not in infinite supply. If you go to websites like the www.oildrum.com or www.energybulletin.net you will get a far more bleak view of what tomorrow will bring. Basically, while the world is not running out of oil or natural gas, we have hit a point where producing more is becoming well-nigh impossible and by 2013, production of these vital fuels will be in decline. Given how much we depend on oil and natural gas for fuel for tractors and irrigation pumps, moving food to market, and as feedstock for fertilizers and pesticides, the world will soon be able to support far fewer people. I would venture to guess that by the turn of this century, world population might be down to 300 million people, a 95% reduction! We will either do it voluntarily or Mother Nature will do it for us via mass starvation, plagues and her ally, war.
I don't usually comment on anything but this post really bothered me, like gnashing-my-teeth-in-frustration bothered me. It's this kind of automatic reaction without actually taking the time to understand the science that is making sustainability so hard to achieve. So I was glad to see a lot of good points made in the comments and hopefully the poster will take them into consideration.
I just want to say I've been studying environmental science for a few years now and I'm no expert but I do know that overpopulation is one of the biggest contributers to the environmental crisis. And never in any of my classes or in any of the literature I've read have I heard anything about forcing people to limit their family sizes or even implementing taxes. In fact, the one thing that I'm told over and over is that educating women is the most effective way to reduce population size. Isn't that a good thing? The fact that it's being done for environmental reasons only means that there'll be more incentive to start education programs and that's good for everyone. And Paul Ehrlich was right, there are more than 1 billion people starving right now, that's 1/6th of the population.
We can't shy away from taking action just because some people are uncomfortable about associations with the past. This is a completely different issue and is being handled in a completely different way than those past 'population control' efforts.
Great post, I just gotta point out one thing...
Yes, one billion people are starving right now, but that's not because we can't produce enough food for them. The Earth right now can produce more than enough food to meet everyone's nutritional needs, but resources aren't being distributed equitably.
Eventually if the population keeps growing at its current rate we won't be able to feed everyone no matter how hard we try to distribute resources... but we're definitely not there yet.
Oops, I should have read the whole thread first. But right on.
While there's no denying that overpopulation has been used as a cover for racism in the past, the truth is that there are too many people on this planet right now. Humans have the unique ability to alter their own carrying capacity by increasing the availability of the resources that we need to survive. We're driving out other species left and right, decreasing the diversity of life and stability of the ecosystem of the planet. We need to stop having so many children. All of us. There are estimates that if every couple on earth had two children--replacement value, now--we'd still end up with 9 billion people by 2150. The earth can't support 9 billion humans. Eventually the fossil fuels that we use to feed our food production will create enough CO2 in the atmosphere that we reach the tipping point in climate change. All these new people that we're making all willy-nilly are going to suffer increased drought and will have to attempt to live in an ecosystem that will eventually no longer be able to accomodate their needs.
All that to say that this is a serious problem, and while people have taken this issue and twisted it in the past, it's something we'll have to face, whether we're comfortable with it or not.
Exactly, although I think the 9 billion by 2150 is actually 9 billion by 2050, last I heard. Which is even more scary. Plus, the impact of CO2 will be negligible once the massive pockets of methane currently trapped under the (rapidly thawing) ice in the arctic are released, as methane is 20 times more potent than CO2 in terms of global warming effect. Those levels of methane will cause even more global warming, releasing more methane - something we do not want to happen. Earth has already reached a state where it could never recreate life as we know it, if life were to be wiped out somehow, due to the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. If these methane pockets are released, it won't be able to support life, period.
Think about that. Life as we know it could disappear completely and never regenerate, EVER, if we don't change our habits.
I don't think that policies or goals for population control are racist or classist or sexist or any of that. I think they are survivalist - survival of our species, as a whole. We can talk about protecting the rights of families to have as many or as few children as they want in order to avoid allegations of discrimination, but if we don't do *something*, there won't be any humans left whose rights to protect. The sooner we face that, the more progress can be made to slow (and maybe, one day, reverse, but that is very wishful thinking at this point) global warming and hopefully still have a livable planet around for generations to come.
I think the problem is not linking the issue but that even though the LSE study specifically included the US as well as the developing world no one is talking about unmet need for family planning in the US. Why is that? This is when the report specifically showed the disproportionate amount of CO2 emissions that came from just the US need for unmet family planning.
The problem with Westerners talking about this issue and what ultimately makes it racist is that they seem to magically ignore all the things that point to their own irresponsibility. Why is it more palatable to promote family planning in the developing world but not in the US? It's the double standard that's racist not the fact that population is linked to climate change.
To say that racism is a problem of the past is not accurate because just the selective coverage of the reports findings points to the fact that racism is subtle but still very much alive in the approach to these issues.
All of this ignores what economist knows and everyone understands intuitively. Access to birth control tends to lead to drops in fertility and RISES in consumption. So, I fail to see how promoting birth control as a solution to climate change makes sense. What we need to do is rethink economic development and how we use resources.
OK, most of the arguments I would have made directly in response to this have been made, so I'm going to go ahead and speak for all of us tree-huggers out there. It really, deeply saddens me that people are thinking about this and arguing for it in terms of Earth's "carrying capacity," rather than pointing out that hey, we might not want more babies because of things like--well, guys, a PLASTICS GARBAGE DUMP THE SIZE OF TEXAS WRECKING THE OCEAN'S LIFE. Non-human life has value-- for humans, and for its own sake. Full stop. WHY is this missing from this analysis?!
I want children of every race to enjoy the stars, and THAT is why I will not have biological children. It is also why I think having less children is a moral imperative. Just because the conditions of having large families tend to involve third world countries does not make me racist. Actually, women from third world countries can probably afford more babies than me; I just know that in my privileged situation, no babies and strictly regulated consumption is the way to go.
People equating "freedom of reproduction" to "all reproduction is made equal" are wrong, just as people who equate "freedom of speech" to "I can say whatever I please without consequences" are wrong. If you use hate speech or you say something inflammatory and rude, you deserve people chastising you and thinking you're wrong. If you have as many children as you please, I'm against it. Doesn't mean, necessarily, that I would deny you that right or disrespect you as an individual. But it does mean I think you're wrong.