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The third rail of environmental debate [1]

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Date: 2022-08-01

Using historical examples, a recent DK post raised alarm about the disastrous consequences that can occur when the growth of human population outpaces the availability of its food supply (Welcome To the Anthropocene — The Age of Human Die-offs, 7/27/22). The applicability of these examples to our current conditions are obvious, but the author seemed to shy away from articulating and emphasizing the most logical conclusion – the need to address the level and growth of the world’s population.

This is not unusual. The reluctance or refusal to acknowledge and discuss the role of population level in discussions of threats to our planet are common. At the website of the Friends of the Earth, nothing is said about the issue of human population. In some cases, there is strong hostility toward such discussions. Greenpeace on its website, for example, says that the “flawed, dangerous idea of population control redirects the blame for societal problems to those with the least power to address them.” The Sierra Club says that “calls to reduce stress on Earth’s resources must be to stop destructive consumption and to create environmentally responsible societies, not to slow global population growth.” On its website, the World Wildlife Fund’s statement about human population is limited to saying that we are expected to use the equivalent of 2 Earths of renewable resources per year by 2050, with overuse resulting in a growing scarcity of resources, such as water scarcity.

It should be obvious that population level and growth significantly affects, and magnifies, all of the problems that threaten our planet. These are not limited to the issue of greenhouse gases, but include issues such as toxic waste, habitat destruction, mass extinction, and exhaustion of nonrenewable resources (e.g., aquifers). Nevertheless, one response to this is to deny that this is a problem that requires any attention at all, because other actions will take care of it (e.g., all of us reducing our carbon footprint). Another is to acknowledge it as a problem, but rule out any discussion of solutions, under the assumption that all possible solutions are reprehensible. Both types of responses implicitly leave the solution of the population problem to nature, with the most disastrous potential consequences likely falling on the most vulnerable groups and countries.

There is an alternative, which is to do more to call attention to this as a problem in and of itself, and do more to explore and discuss actions to address it that are consistent with progressive values. Our choice.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/1/2113883/-The-third-rail-of-environmental-debate

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