A thoughtful thread from George Monbiot on the always-arising question of overpopulation:
Prompted by the shocking falsehoods in [the Michael Moore-produced film] Planet of the Humans, this thread asks why so many people in rich nations claim that the biggest environmental problem is population growth. The conclusion will enrage some people, but I think it’s unavoidable.
Let’s take this step by step
There’s no question that population growth exerts environmental pressure. It’s one of many issues about which we should be concerned. But the global impact is much smaller than a lot of people imagine.
First, the headline figures. Global population growth today is 1.05%. That’s half the peak growth rate, reached in 1963 (2.2%). In other words, population growth is not, as many claim, exponential. The rate is falling rapidly.
By contrast, until the pandemic, global economic growth had been hovering around 3% for several years, and was expected to stay there. In other words, it *was* exponential. After the lockdowns, governments will do everything they can to get it back on track.
Does this mean population growth has 1/3rd the impact of economic growth? Not at all. It's overwhelmingly concentrated among the world’s poorest, whose lack of purchasing power ensures they each tread much more lightly on the Earth than the rich.
Many of you know the formula for predicting environmental impact: Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology. Among the poorest, there’s little A or T to multiply the P. The impact of population growth on climate, resource use etc is MUCH less than 1/3rd of rising consumption.
As Our World in Data notes, “Even several billion additional people in low-income countries … would leave global emissions almost unchanged. 3 or 4 billion low-income individuals would only account for a few percent of global CO2.”
Undoubtedly, rising human numbers can have important local effects: pressure on housing, green space, wildlife, water quality etc. And it’s essential that all women have full reproductive choice, full control over their own bodies and full access to family planning.
But I see population growth repeatedly blamed as THE MAIN CAUSE of climate breakdown and other global issues. This is flat wrong.
There’s something else to note. The great majority of the world’s population growth is happening in countries where most people are black or brown.
So why do so many people in the rich world (the great majority of whom, in my experience, are male, white and quite affluent) insist, often furiously, that the “real” global issue, the “elephant in the room”, is population growth?
The first part of the answer is deflection. Blaming other people for your own impacts is a familiar means of avoiding responsibility and shedding feelings of guilt. But why point to the birth rates of the poorest people? Why not to consumption by billionaires?
It’s clear to me that generalised deflection is an insufficient answer. This is a particular variety of deflection. What we see is white people pointing the finger at black and brown people, saying “It’s not us. It’s Them”.
In different ways, this has been happening for a long time. Throughout the colonial era and after, the rich nations portrayed themselves as the “civilised”, virtuous actors, while their colonial subjects were “inferior”, “barbaric” and “degenerate”.
There was – and is – a long-standing moral panic about the reproduction rates of these “inferior”, “barbaric” and “degenerate” people. If something was not done, “They” would overwhelm “Us”. The human species would decline as “inferior” people took over.
It was this terror of being “outbred”, “outnumbered”, “diluted” that inspired the eugenics movement. A similar set of claims persists to this day, and is popular among white supremacists. It’s called the Replacement Theory.
We all absorb belief systems of which we are only vaguely aware (or sometimes entirely unaware). We reproduce ideas unwittingly, often in new contexts. Unless we think for ourselves, we obliviously mouth other people’s words.
So what is the disturbing conclusion to this thread? The answer to my question - “why do so many people in rich nations claim that the biggest environmental problem is population growth?” - is … Racism.
I’m not saying this to cause offence. I’m saying it because it appears to be the most likely and parsimonious explanation of a bizarre phenomenon: affluent people with enormous impacts pointing the finger at poor people with tiny impacts.
Nor am I claiming that most of those who over-emphasise population are intentional racists. I think it is possible to entertain subconscious racist beliefs without actively wishing to discriminate against people of colour.
But I also believe we should call it out for what it is.
More thoughts on this here: link to a Guardian article by Monbiot on the film Planet of the Humans.
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