The world's biggest problem? Too many people

[Lionel Mandrake]

Op-ed in today's LA Times by Mary Ellen Harte and Anne Ehrlich

Mary Ellen Harte is coauthor of "Cool the Earth, Save the Economy." Anne Ehrlich is a senior research scientist at Stanford University. John Harte and Paul Ehrlich contributed to this piece. All are biologists involved in the study of climate change and sustainability.

"Our unsustainable population levels are depleting resources and denying a decent future to our descendants. We must stop the denial. ...

"Of NPR's sparse record of population pieces, just one or two actually address unsustainable population growth. But as the political right whittles away at family planning clinics across the nation, the latest NPR series, "The Baby Project," devotes a plethora of articles to pregnancy, with the most serious subjects the problems some women have conceiving and birthing. If there is even a hint of too many babies, it is well hidden. This, even though a 2009 NPR story on U.S. pregnancies reported that half — yes, half — of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended. That's a lot of unintended consumers adding to our future climate change.

"And that's what the right calls the "liberal" side of the mass media. The politically conservative U.S. mass media cover unsustainable population levels even less.

"That pretty much reflects the appalling state of U.S. public education today on population. The U.S. approach to population issues across all levels of government, in terms of such things as education, attacks on family planning and tax deductions for children, is an exercise in thoughtlessness. The ramifications, however, are far more insidious and brutal. Women are culturally conditioned daily to welcome the idea of having children — plural, not one or none. How to support those children economically is not discussed. Indeed, our abysmal lack of adolescent sex educational programs ensures there will be plenty of young women who secure their destinies, and those of their babies, to brutal poverty and shortened lives through unwanted pregnancies and lack of choice. The latest available statistics from the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan tell the story: 1 in 5 American children lived in poverty in 2008; 1 in 3 if they were black or Latino."

Read more:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-harte-population-20110721,0,715317.story

Some DUers think the real problem is overconsumption by rich folks. They are wrong and would do well to read up about demography, climate change, etc.

[ananda]

1. Ermm.

Is this the kind of report that people vested in ruining the environment
and exploiting its resources use to place the blame on poor people
who don't use birth control, particularly when women are so oppressed
financially and physically?

I know what I think.

[Speck Tater]

2. Last year we used up one year's supply of resources by August 21st

Each year we deplete more than the earth can replenish in a year. Each year we go deeper in the hole. The present human population is not sustainable, and regardless of anything we wish for, the current human population WILL crash. That's what "not sustainable" means. This is physical reality. I's not politics. It's not economics. It's physics. It's ecology. It doesn't matter how many care packages we send to Africa, or how many bills we present in Congress, or how many electric cars or wind turbines we produce, a massive human die-off is inevitable, and it is coming closer every year.

[jwirr]

16. Is what is currently happening in the Horn of Africa what you refer to

as a population crash? I do not think we can avoid a crash in many parts of the world which includes food shortages, epidemics, wars and millions of refugees. I am especially worried, as an American, about the possibility of this in Mexico. That does not mean we should just give up.

[Starry Messenger]

3. So who is volunteering to off themselves first?

The problem is uneven distribution of resources.

[BellaLuna]

4. I doubt those DUers who complain about 'overconsumption by rich folks'

don't also recognize overpopulation is killing the planet. It's this extreme black/white views of things that will get us no where when addressing these problems.

[Lionel Mandrake]

26. You are right.

I overstated my case. It makes for a lively discussion, but overpopulation and maldistribution of resources are both serious problems. There is room for more than one opinion as to which of these problems is the more urgent.

[Wetzelbill]

37. yup

[TBF]

83. It certainly is much more complicated -

I mean how many jets and hummers can one little rich person have?

The problem is not "overconsumption" really, it's an allocation problem. When all the resources go to providing luxury goods for the very wealthiest in the world (including the armies that protect the wealthiest folks' assets), there is nothing left over to take care of everyone else.

As for ignoring all that and just looking at number of mouths, I have no problem with setting a limit on how big families can be, and also providing free birth control for all. There shouldn't be programs or tax credits that "reward" folks for having kids, rather an apartment, job and health care should be a given for every person. Then folks could relax, work, and decide whether they want to marry and/or have children.

But don't make the mistake of thinking there are all these people and no resources - that is patently untrue - those resources are just being monopolized by a very small segment of the world population. As for land to put the people - all kinds of rural areas in this country where we could build housing and let people live. No worries there either.

[raccoon]

5. "Overconsumption by rich folks" you think isn't a problem?

THe average first-world citizen, you or me, probably uses from 25-50 times as much of the world's resources than the average third-world citizen, depending on which third-world country you're talking about.

[jwirr]

17. Some time ago I read that an average individual in the USA uses

as many resources in a day than a family of 14 in Mexico. That was not talking just about food issues though.

[BobbyBoring]

35. And

The average American wastes more resources than many 3rd worlders could ever hope to have~

[Newest Reality]

6. Gee, is it general

overpopulation that is the real culprit, or is it about who is consuming and hogging-up the resources for a certain kind of lifestyle? Yes, we should continue to do what we can about population vs. the environment, but I am concerned about missing data and where the finger should point.

http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=2

Look at the type of home construction we have here in the US. That alone is based on cheap and plentiful energy. Thermal mass, (cob, adobe, etc.) does not come into play in most cases. Your average, stick-built house is an energy hog when it comes to heating and cooling. That's just an example. We are not yet seeing a massive solar effort on homes and businesses because it the investment is still not valued as a long-term profitable upgrade.

I don't think that using less energy means living in third-world conditions, but it is obvious who is gulping down the resources, like a thirsty horse in the desert, and making the most waste.

We could start here, since our lifestyle, et al, has set the trend that is being replicated in other countries. However, we are heavily influenced, (controlled?) by corporatist notions of capitalism that promote a high consumption, energy hungry and inefficient model of "growth".

So, resource problems begin at home for us and when I hear about overpopulation, I consider the gross inequity that is overshadowed by pointing at developing countries as the main problem and thrust of the results we see. Corporate reality and business are Status Quo and represent the most significant barrier to the kind of rapid change we need to stop our incessant degradation of our environment and depletion of our resources.

We followed the "leaders" into a false and unsustainable paradigm, so we could also change our lifestyles in a way that inspires others, rather than focus only on who is having too many children. We even follow the feel-good "green" business model that makes money in return for feeling good about consumptive habits that will soon be impractical and, eventually, at the rate we are going, unaffordable to many.

[The2ndWheel]

7. Too many people doing too many things

It's not just a matter of having fewer people on the planet. Every institution we've built is centered around having more people.

[jwirr]

18. And more material possessions.

[The2ndWheel]

24. What organized effort doesn't require more people?

It's the whole point of organizing anything. The developed world still has a baby factory in developing nations, so we're not there yet, but when we get to the point where there actually are fewer people on the planet year after year, it'll be interesting how we hold it all together.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. Every article about population control fails in the second paragraph.

To the extent that it's a problem, it's not one for the developed world.

The US fertility rate (like all other developed countries) is below replacement. US population growth is entirely immigration from countries who don't have their population control act together.

[indurancevile]

29. Resource consumption in the developed world outstrips that of the undeveloped world.

[Terry in Austin]

91. Population control

Didn't think there was any such thing. Sort of like weather control.

China tried, hardly made a dent.

[lumpy]

9. Adding to the problem in the US, too many automobiles taking

up space and polluting the planet.

[Starry Messenger]

10. "Who funds Anne Ehrlich?"

http://www.counterpunch.org/ehrlich.html

Sierra Club Board Member Gets Money from Chevron and Freeport McMoran
by Bernardo Issel

<snip>

Mrs. Ehrlich is the associate director of Stanford University's Center for Conservation Biology (CCB). The Center was founded by Mrs. Ehrlich's husband, Paul, who is current president of CCB. Since at least 1995, the oil giant Chevron has funded CCB. This is problematic to say the least.

Chevron operates polluting refineries in Richmond and Los Angeles, California. Its basic product oil is a major contributor to air and water pollution in California and elsewhere. Its product also contributes to global warming; and Chevron has been a supporter of the Global Climate Coalition, a leading global warming naysayer. Abroad, environmentalists have challenged Chevron drilling operations for despoiling the environment. A recent Human Rights Watch Report charged Chevron with involvement in severe human rights violations in Nigeria, including ties to "Kill-And-Go" death squads.

In an interview, Mrs. Ehrlich brushed off concern about the Chevron support, explaining that it merely funded a few graduate students and that the donation was given with no strings attached. Well it just so happens that Mrs. Ehrlich supports continued oil drilling to meet future global demand, a position that she failed to disclose in her Sierra Club ballot statement. One is reminded of the rationalizations by politicians receiving oil funding. If Chevron is quite happy to support the Ehrlichs, it raises questions as to why their environmentalism is acceptable to this environmentally noxious company.

In light of Mrs. Ehrlichs outspoken stances on population control and immigration restrictions, the fact that she is comfortable accepting funding from a company whose profits have been described as "blood money" is exceedingly loathsome. As an advisor to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, she supports tight controls on immigration into the United States, but is apparently comfortable taking funding from a company bringing in oil from abroad where it has despoiled the environment and violently repressed opposition to its operations, as in Nigeria. The Sierra Club has been at the forefront of criticizing Shell Oil's operations in that county, yet has been seemingly silent on Chevron, the actions of which have been viewed as comparable to that of Shell. It so happens that Chevron is headquartered San Francisco, California - the site of the Club's own headquarters and the Club's home state. It would seem that a Sierra Club campaign exposing Chevron's odious environmental and human rights abuses could fruitful results. Yet with Ehrlichs' funding from Chevron, one should not expect her to be supportive of such an effort.

<snip>

[shanti]

11. thank you for that

follow the money, everytime.

[Starry Messenger]

15. You're heartily welcome.

Bill Gates is also a big proponent of population reduction. Funny how it is rich people and the people who benefit from wealth who want to winnow out humanity.

[indurancevile]

30. good catch.

edit: wow, freeport-moran looks pretty shady!

"Significantly, Freeport-McMoRan, back when it was Freeport Sulphur, positively heaved with CIA and elite heavy-hitters--not to mention persistent whispers of its involvement in the recovery of plundered gold stashed in Indonesia, where Freeport had the world's largest copper mining operation. Over the years, the Freeport senior management has included such luminaries as Augustus 'Gus' Long, Chairman of Texaco, who did 'prodigious volunteer work for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital'--which has been described as a 'hotbed of CIA activity'. Another director was Robert Lovett, who has been described as a 'Cold War architect' and was once an executive at the old Wall Street bank of Brown Brothers Harriman. He also served as an Under Secretary of State, Assistant Secretary of War and Secretary of Defense. He was a best friend of Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman (and Warren Commission member) John J. McCloy.

The Chase Manhattan and Citibank connection to Freeport was further enhanced by the board appointment of Godfrey Rockefeller, brother of James Stillman Rockefeller who was appointed Chairman of Citibank (then known as First National City Bank, or FNCB for short) in 1959. (Note, too, that Chase Manhattan and Citibank are the exact same two banks that were to issue the Project Hammer documentary letters of credit.) Godfrey Rockefeller was a one-time trustee of the Fairfield Foundation that financed a variety of CIA 'fronts'. Meanwhile, Stillman's cousin, David Rockefeller, was Chairman of Chase Manhattan and regarded as the 'goliath of American banking'.

By a strange coincidence of fate, it was Robert Lovett and John J. McCloy who, together with Robert B. Anderson, formed Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson's team of financial experts concerned with tracking WWII gold looted by the Axis powers. Indeed, Lovett and McCloy were responsible for negotiating the secret agreement hidden behind the Bretton Woods Agreement concerning the establishment of the Black Eagle trust that was to make use of plundered WWII bullion in the postwar years." (Project Hammer Reloaded. By David G. Guyatt. Nexus Magazine Aug.-Sep. 2003;10(5 ).)

http://www.smokershistory.com/Schmidt.htm

[Starry Messenger]

31. Very shady.

Good catch there too indurancevile.

[indurancevile]

74. and so ironic to see it's some of the biggest polluters & human rights violators on the planet

funding erlich's spiel.

it's always about reproduction, it's never about resources, and the reason is that the folks who own the resources are the ones funding the population hypsters.

the rockefeller association with freeport moran is telling as the rockefellers & their buddies have been funding population hype & eugenics (including forced sterilization) since jd made his first million.

[Wetzelbill]

39. good find

[swilton]

61. Thank you also

We do have the technological solutions to face these and other challenges of our changing ecological dynamics and among others, global warming, the ozone hole, etc. But we lack the political will to change the power structures that are in place and resist innovative problem solving that challenge the status quo.

This reductionist approach looks at the data so closely, it fails in seeing the systemic flaws that are its causes.

[nessa]

12. Is Anne Ehrlich related to Paul Ehrlich of "The Population Bomb"?

[Starry Messenger]

14. His wife.

[jwirr]

20. I read that book back in the 70s. Was too naive to see it as anything

worth reading.

[Ikonoklast]

21. You didn't miss anything.

According to Erlich back then, we should all be dead right now.


Gloom-and-doomers always can find an audience in this world.

Religions are built on it.

[nessa]

25. Yea, I was fored to read it in high school and was not impressed.

.

[NickB79]

32. What saved us was the Green Revolution

Something the authors didn't see coming. With the introduction of hybrid crops, heavily dependent upon synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and factory farming techniques, Big Ag bought us an extra 40 years of food supply. All highly unsustainable in the long run, but a hell of a good crop booster in the short term.

Now that we've burned through much of our fossil fuel supply and initiated crop-killing global climate change through it's use, depleted the topsoil with all that plowing and synthetic fertilizer, and produced pesticide-resistant insects and herbicide-resistant crops, what will see us through the next 40 years?

[LanternWaste]

42. There is no world-wide population and none forecast?

There is no world-wide population; and all things being equal, it will never happen?

[GliderGuider]

51. You don't sound like you've actually read the book.

Let me guess, "Limits to Growth" was crap too, right?

[indurancevile]

75. yes.

[alfredo]

13. Kick

[FLPanhandle]

19. Most people on the left stick their heads in the sand on this topic

It make them uncomfortable.

The right are even worse. They not only deny it, they quote the "Go forth and multiple" verse from the bible and say it's going against gods will to suggest overpopulation is an issue.

[cbdo2007]

22. Let me guess....she has 5 kids but thinks everyone else should only have 1?

Like Ted Turner.

Humans were made to reproduce. Get over it. That's what we do on the most basic level just like every other animal.

[JDPriestly]

23. K&R

[Snoutport]

27. too many RICH people

[indurancevile]

28. The total world fertility rate = 2.5 children per woman. Hardly the festival of out-of-control

breeding the story paints.

And the US TFR is at replacement.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world+total+fertility+rate#ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:USA&tdim=true&hl=en&dl=en

[NickB79]

34. A small annual percentage increase of 7 billion people is still adds up

We've built up a huge momentum of sorts with our massive global population, so that even a 1% growth rate per year adds up to tens of millions of new humans being added.

What needs to be asked is, are we above the sustainable carrying capacity of the planet? I've read numerous articles by ecologists arguing that, without such unsustainable inputs like fossil fuels, our true carrying capacity would be only 2-4 billion.

[indurancevile]

38. Regardless, on a world basis, there is no orgy of out of control breeding such as painted.

[GliderGuider]

48. Our TFR of 2.5 results in 80 million new people a year.

A new Egypt. Every single year. Right now it's a problem. Fortunately, it may not be a problem for long.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1539060&mesg_id=1540868

[Xithras]

33. The population problem is NOT rich vs. poor or west vs. east.

According to the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, the average westerner will use about 20x the resources of the average second and third-worlder during the course of his/her lifetime. If you factor out petroleum products (which aren't all that relevant to discussions about overpopulation), the ratio drops to about 8-1.

Europeans and North Americans make up about 16% of the worlds population, and if you include Australia and some of the other dispersed "western" nations, the number of westerners grows to just under 20% of the overall global population. Now keep in mind, we're not talking about millionaires in mansions here, but normal people in normal houses with one car in the driveway.

So lets do a little math. Lets say that each "westerner" uses 8 "resources" during their lifetime, while non-westerners use 1 "resource" (in keeping with the ratio above). A "resource" represents the minimum amount of resources required to live on this planet.

With 6.5 billion people, the 80% of the population in the poor countries use 5.2 billion "resources", while the remaining 1.3 billion westerners use 10.4bil "resources" during their lifetime, leading to a total usage of 15.6bil "resources" during the lifetime of the current generation. If we reduce the westerners to the same level of resources as the rest of the planet, we can cut that number to 6.5bil "resources", a whopping 68% decrease in global resource usage.

Of course, that means we all get to live like third worlders. Hopefully we're all ready to give up our cars, computers, televisions, multi-room homes, central heat and air, advanced medical technology, modern aircraft, Internet, iPods/Phones/Androids, and on, and on. We should all be willing to bury at least one of our children before adulthood (normal outside of the western world), and put up with a resurgence of disease and starvation.

Not willing to do these things? Well then, let's set a standard. Lets say that we want to cut our numbers in HALF. Noble goal, right? Instead of using 10.4 billion "resources", lets cut the western world to 5.2 billion. Surely, we can cut those numbers in half and still preserve our advances. Few would argue with that. Now, the western world consumes 4 "resources" per person, per lifetime, and the global resource consumption drops to about 12 billion "resources" during the current generation, cutting our global resource usage by 23% during the current generation (remember, the resources used by 80% of the population are unchanged). Not as great, but still a huge improvement. That's certainly sustainable.



But hold on one minute. What imagined deity decided that "westerners" get to have iPods and warm houses, while the rest of the planet goes hungry and does without modern medical care? That's bullshit, and any liberal worth his salt is going to fight hard to IMPROVE the living conditions of the people in the rest of the world and support global equality.

Soo... in no time at all, assuming no population growth, your world is now consuming 26 billion "resources" per generation.


If we cut western resource usage in HALF, and then push for a sustainable world, that number is unavoidable. 6.5 billion people, each consuming 4 "resources" per generation (half of what westerners currently use), will use 26 billion "resources" each generation. That is 66% HIGHER than modern global resource usage.

Of course, you DO need to factor in population growth. The UN actually gives three estimates of our population in 2300. The "crash" scenario (global meltdown and starvation) leaves 2.3 billion. The "humans wise up and limit family size" scenario puts the number at 9 billion. And finally, the "we keep doing the same shit as always" scenario puts the number at 32 billion. I don't need to do the math on those numbers to explain how they would impact resource usage.



If the western world were to reduce its resource usage by half, the only way we could have a just and equitable world while ALSO preventing global resource usage from exceeding todays already unsustainable levels would be to reduce our global population to THREE BILLION PEOPLE. Today. For the rest of the world to enjoy even half of the advancements that we do, we would either have to eliminate more than half of the human population, or more increase our rate of planetary destruction and resource consumption by more than half. And that's with a perfectly level playing field for everyone on the planet.

Yes, we westerners consume too much, but our resource problems are too big to point fingers at any one group. What it comes down to, ultimately, is that there's too damned many of us on this planet. We can either enforce a system where most of the world lives in poverty while a select few consume the resources, or we can reduce the overall population and develop a more equitable distribution of those resources on a global scale to compensate. There is no third option that doesn't also involve accelerating the destruction of this planet.

[FLPanhandle]

40. Very well done.

I'd only add the the resource total today is only available due to ecological "deficit spending" (such as overfishing). If we look at the resources available in ecologically sustainable world, it's far less than today's total. Most studies show a sustainable human population of 3-4 billion. We will go over 9 billion soon.

Deniers will continue to deny though.

[Xithras]

43. I know. It's easier to assume that it's someone elses problem.

But the numbers are pretty clear. If westerners cut their resource usage in half, and the rest of the world catches up with us technologically, medically, and socially, the world population would have to be reduced to 3 billion people in order to limit enivironmental destruction and resource consumption to current levels, which are already unsustainable.

It's not a political problem. It's not a social problem. It's not an equality problem.

It's a math problem. 6.5 billion people use a lot of resources, even if they each don't use many individually.

[FLPanhandle]

45. "It's a math problem" -- I like that statement

Like Global Climate Change, solutions can't be tried until deniers accept there is a problem.

[The2ndWheel]

56. A math predicament

[GliderGuider]

57. Predicament, indeed.

Nicely seen. :hi:

[pitohui]

100. unfortunately people who can do math are not the problem

people who can do math are not breeding, they may have one child or no child, once they crunch the numbers, for a simple look at fifth grade math will show that most couples can have a child or they can have a retirement but they cannot have both on modern incomes relative to modern costs

people who can think and plan ahead are not having all the kids, it's the people who can't do math, people who have babies based on emotions or accident or failure to think ahead, people who are in poverty where there is no decent routine access to family planning so they have to have the baby when it comes instead of at the time of their choosing and so on

do you really think people like octo-mom or the duggars have normal human intelligence? there's something wrong w. somebody who just breeds these...litters

western areas w. large educated populations w. a basic level of math literacy and access to family planning already have zero pop. growth

yes, it's a math problem but it's also an inability to do math problem

there is a lot of ignorance/stupid/deliberate mis-education out there (by deliberate mis-education i do mean the lies spread by religious groups to encourage their religionists to out breed the sane people)

this is more than just a math problem, the people of good will and thoughtful problem solving already take care not to have more child than they can handle, since it is just too expensive to breed like a freaking puppy mill, there is every financial incentive NOT to have kids

at some point, we will need a legislative answer because asking the stupid people nicely to stop making babies isn't working and it really can't work, you can't cure stupid by asking politely

if stupid could do math and figure out their own best self interest, we wouldn't have to give the "save the earth" argument, but a person who can't figure out what's causing all those babies to save herself from crushing poverty isn't suddenly going to figure it out to save a tree she'll never see

[Wetzelbill]

36. ugh

:puke:

[laureloak]

41. Greed is #1. Overpopulation #2.

[nolabels]

96. People - 0 Evolution - 1

We will all ( including offspring and relatives )lose in the end, the question is just how soon it happens. The insects will probably still be here but with our own stupidity about how much we don't know (and think we do) is what will probably do us in. If we behaved more like those six legged creatures we would know (at all times, with instinct) that future is always more important than the here and now. That need for immediate compensation or reward and conquest over our own is what is going to do us in (and pretty much how we got where we are now).

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

44. I agree that it's a problem involving education

I think Thom Hartmann has addressed this issue on several occasions. He's noted that when women are better educated and have opportunities to advance themselves in whatever society they live, they rebel against the patriarchal forces that want to keep them pregnant and submissive. The better educated they become, the more they choose to have fewer children and seek birth control. I agree that overpopulation in both the developed and undeveloped world is a major problem. At this point, I would hope that we could reverse the trend through small "d" democracy and women's liberation and not have to resort one day to enforced sterilization. But it might come to that if we don't stop multiplying. Otherwise, the population will eventually regulate itself as we run out of clean water and food and that might mean catastrophes involving millions of dead. We need global leadership on this issue.

[swilton]

46. We do have the technological savy to resolve some of the

problems created by over population - the problem is we have no political will. In the corporatist world that is increasingly dominated by special interests capitalism and the status quo reign - innovative thinking to solve problems such as over population, global warming, water, etc. etc. is frowned upon.

Articles such as this which blame the looming ecological disaster on the world's poor which are the most visible sign of over population are a distraction from the corrupt systemic problems that created this condition.

[indurancevile]

52. +1.

[Starry Messenger]

53. Precisely.

http://www.colorado.edu/Sociology/gimenez/work/popissue.html

Neo-Malthusian emphasis on birth control and family planning programs aimed at underdeveloped countries today repeat the same error that Malthus committed almost two hundred years ago. There is obviously (i.e., empirically available to common sense perception) a problem of "overpopulation" in the Third World if by that it is meant that a large proportion of their population is hungry, jobless, sickly, and dies very young. It also appears obvious that, given the situation of economic stagnation of those countries, lowering the birth rate might improve a little their situation. However, such arguments assumes that both private and public sources of investments whether national or foreign are ACTUALLY spending too much in services for the excessive dependent population (i.e., housing hospitals, schools, etc.) and that such funds would be automatically diverted towards productive enterprises if population size or, more specifically, if the dependency ration were to decline. Such assumption is not only naive but reveals lack of scientific rigor in the analysis of population within underdeveloped countries.

Birth control programs within the context of the capitalist mode of production amount to the same advice Malthus gave to the English working classes. What underdeveloped countries are told today is that the road to development is based upon population control and their underdeveloped condition is partially or totally blamed on their excessive rates of growth. To attribute underdevelopment to the operation of the Malthusian principle of population alone, disregarding the situation of colonialism and neo-colonialism under which those countries stagnate, the relationship between the plunder of their resources and the indiscriminate introduction of public health measures which drastically reducing the death rate CREATED the gap between birth rates and death rates and, therefore, the present "population explosion," etc., is again typical of the kind of analysis prevalent in academic circles. The inability of academic intellectuals to see the present historically leads them to an incomplete analysis of the problem and to policy recommendations (such as the implementation of birth control clinics and family planning programs) which contribute to the perpetuation of the problem they are trying to solve.

[Lionel Mandrake]

54. This Marxist "critique" doesn't make sense to me.

Malthus, on the other hand, made sense in 1798, and his essay is still very much worth reading.

[Starry Messenger]

55. It means that addressing the symptoms doesn't address the system which is the cause

of the "problem". You could "address" the "problem" of overpopulation to your heart's content, but there is a) no guarantee that the resources "saved" by such racist maneuvers (since these articles almost never address reducing populations in "developed" western territories, they are racially biased) would be funneled to the populace remaining, but would no doubt also find their way into the hands of wealthy exploiters. That is the nature of capitalism. b) the population problem is a result of exploitation, the theft of resources, and capital's need for a reserve army of labor to keep wages depressed and allow the populace to squabble over the remaining crumbs of resources. (Reserve Army of Labor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour)

That's the critique. Marx has this further to say on Malthus:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#n6

If the reader reminds me of Malthus, whose “Essay on Population” appeared in 1798, I remind him that this work in its first form is nothing more than a schoolboyish, superficial plagiary of De Poe, Sir James Steuart, Townsend, Franklin, Wallace, &c., and does not contain a single sentence thought out by himself. The great sensation this pamphlet caused, was due solely to party interest. The French Revolution had found passionate defenders in the United Kingdom; the “principle of population,” slowly worked out in the eighteenth century, and then, in the midst of a great social crisis, proclaimed with drums and trumpets as the infallible antidote to the teachings of Condorcet, &c., was greeted with jubilance by the English oligarchy as the great destroyer of all hankerings after human development. Malthus, hugely astonished at his success, gave himself to stuffing into his book materials superficially compiled, and adding to it new matter, not discovered but annexed by him.

[GliderGuider]

58. I absolutely agree that addressing symptoms doesn't cure the disease.

But are you sure you've properly identified the disease?

What if "the system" is itself just another layer of symptomology?

The inherent problem with Marxism is that it starts and ends simply with people - with human desires, human activities and human structures. Because of that myopia it commits exactly the same errors as every other non-ecological critique of the predicament we're in. All such anthropocentric frameworks fail to recognize that what seem to be problems are just more symptoms.

Until one arrives at the ecological view, in which all human structures arise dependently from the underlying web of natural resources and non-human life, most contemplation of "our problems" and "our solutions" is little more than analytical onanism. When one finally completes the Copernican Revolution - taking humanity itself out of the center of the universe and recognizing our intrinsic dependency on the natural world as the foundation for all human achievement - the true Jabberwock may be seen.

[Starry Messenger]

59. I'm not quite sure of your meaning.

Everything I've read in Marxism concerns humans in the context of the natural world. The central tenet of socialism is that our sole exception from other creatures is self-consciousness, otherwise we are animals that behave depending on our environment. Our "desires, activities and structures" are a result of our social dependency and the rising of different economic systems in different eras (*very* broad summary). It sounds to me like we would agree more than disagree on several points.

[GliderGuider]

60. To a much greater extent than we like to think

we are very much "animals that behave depending on our environment".

One recent eye-opener for me was discovering the work of the anthropologist Marvin Harris:

In his work he combined Karl Marx's emphasis on the forces of production with Malthus's insights on the impact of demographic factors on other parts of the sociocultural system. Labeling demographic and production factors as infrastructure, Harris posited these factors as key in determining a society's social structure and culture.

I take Harris' ideas to mean that our cultural systems, along with our values and beliefs, are largely shaped by our physical and demographic circumstances. As the circumstances change, the human edifice built on them shifts in response. This has the unfortunate implication that we do not generally change our relationship with the infrastructure of resources and demographics proactively, as an "act of reason or will".

In other words, "Those things that must be done to avoid catastrophe are instead done only as its consequence."

[indurancevile]

76. Actually not.

Metabolic rift is a term developed by John Bellamy Foster and other theorists to refer to Karl Marx’s understanding of ecological disruption under capitalism. While Marx never employed the term itself in his writings, he did write of an "irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism" created by the rise of capitalism,<1> and developed a systematic critique of capitalist "exploitation" of the soil (in the sense of robbery, i.e., failing to maintain the means of reproduction). This rift, between human social systems and non-human natural systems, in particular the socio-ecological contradiction of the town-country division of labor, was seen as the origin of modern ecological degradation.

The concept of a metabolic rift, according to Foster, is the development of Marx’s earlier work in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts on species-being and the relationship between humans and nature. Metabolism is Marx’s "mature analysis of the alienation of nature,"<2> and presents "a more solid—and scientific—way in which to depict the complex, dynamic interchange between human beings and nature, resulting from human labor."<3>

As opposed to those who have attributed to Marx a disregard for nature and responsibility for the environmental problems of the Soviet Union and other purportedly communist states, Foster sees in the theory of metabolic rift evidence of Marx’s ecological perspective. The theory of metabolic rift "enable to develop a critique of environmental degradation that anticipated much of present-day ecological thought,"<4> including questions of sustainability.

In Capital, Marx integrated his materialist conception of nature with his materialist conception of history.<19> Fertility, Marx argued, was not a natural quality of the soil, but was rather bound up with the social relations of the time. By conceptualizing the complex, interdependent processes of material exchange and regulatory actions that link human society with non-human nature as "metabolic relations," Marx allowed these processes to be both "nature-imposed conditions" and subject to human agency,<20> a dynamic largely missed, according to Foster, by the reduction of ecological questions to issues of value.<21>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_rift

[readmoreoften]

64. +1. Thanks for being correct and pleasant about it.

I get tired of racist Malthusian arguments.

[Lionel Mandrake]

67. Marx's rant against Malthus

part of which you quoted, and similar comments by Engels and Lenin, represent an extreme view not shared by most sociologists, economists, or biologists. Marx lied when he called Malthus a plagiarist. The fact that Malthus was a clergyman probably fanned the flames.

Malthus was an important source for Darwin and Wallace (the discoverers of natural selection), and both of them acknowledged Malthus as an original thinker.

[Starry Messenger]

68. I would call wishing for the death of billions of people an "extreme view" n/t

[indurancevile]

80. You need to read more history.

In addition to being a leading theorist of political pragmatism and reason of state, Giovanni Botero has the notable but dubious distinction of being the first "Malthusian," the first bitter complainer about the alleged evils of population growth. In his On the Cause of the Greatness of Cities (1588), translated into English in 1606, Botero laid out almost the entire thesis of Malthus's famous essay on population two centuries later.

http://mises.org/daily/4214

Giovanni Botero, (1544-1615) is a major figure in the early history of political science...the "Malthusian" principle of population sprang fully developed from the brain of Botero...about two hundred years later, Malthus did little more than repeat it...

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1973491

Few ideas in the social sciences are original...Malthus's...is no exception. Among its many antecedents is the contribution of the Scottish political economist Sir James Steuart...

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2808126


The first author to deal systematically with the problem was Gianmaria Ortes, a Venetian friar, in a work entitled, "Reflessioni sulla populazione per rapporto all' economia nazionale." It appeared in 1790, eight years before the first edition of Malthus's famous work. According to Nitti: "Some pages of Ortes seem quite similar to those of Malthus; he comprehended the entire question, the geometrical progression of the population, the arithmetical progression of the means of subsistence, the preventive action of man, and the repressive action of nature" (Population and the Social System, p. 8). However, his book lacked the confident tone and the statistical arguments of Malthus; consequently it was soon overshadowed by the latter's production, and the Anglican divine instead of the Venetian friar became the sponsor of the world's best-known and most pessimistic theory of population.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12276a.htm

There are many more antecedents:

Other works that influenced Malthus

* Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations (1752) - David Hume (1711-76)
* An enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) - Adam Smith (1723-90)
* A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times (1753), Characteristics of the Present State of Great Britain (1758), and Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature and Providence (1761) - Robert Wallace (1697-1771)
* Essay on the Population of England from the Revolution to Present Time (1780), Evidence for a Future Period in the State of Mankind, with the Means and Duty of Promoting it (1787) - Richard Price (1723-1791).
* Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. (1751) by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_Population#Other_works_that_influenced_Malthus

[Jim Lane]

72. This is a completely wrong analysis of the cause of the population problem.

You write that "the population problem is a result of exploitation, the theft of resources, and capital's need for a reserve army of labor to keep wages depressed and allow the populace to squabble over the remaining crumbs of resources."

Human population has been increasing almost uninterrupted throughout history. Steady population increase predates the advent of capitalism, and for that matter predates the advent of wage labor in the modern form.

Human beings are biological creatures. If a species has a genetic bias toward reproducing and multiplying, then it's more likely to reproduce and multiply. A species without that hard-wiring would be more likely to die off. Thus, with innumerable species today, we see that its numbers will increase as long as possible. The number of individuals continues to increase until the population is limited by the food supply, by predation, or by some other external factor. A well-known example is the explosion in the population of when they were introduced from Europe. No malevolent capitalists caused them to reproduce so as to suppress wages with a reserve army of unemployed rabbits.

The key difference in the human population isn't capitalism -- it's intelligence, and more specifically technology. Humans have been able to continue this population expansion because we can reach new habitats (the rabbits couldn't get to Australia without human help, but we got there by building boats), increase food yields, kill off predators and cure diseases, etc. The result is that, although other species reached their population limits long ago, humans have not yet reached ours.

The end of the ride is now in sight, though. Human population growth will stop during the twenty-first century. The change may come gently and sensibly, through greater access to family planning along with economic security. It may come harshly, through widespread governmentally imposed limits on the number of children. If nothing like those alternatives occurs, then the end will come catastrophically, through mass die-off.

And if Marxists were somehow to take over the world, and arrange for the distribution of resources exactly as you would like to see it done, you would still need to see to it that population was stabilized (or, better yet, reduced).

[Starry Messenger]

73. That's kind of funny.

But thank you for typing all of that. Made for an amusing evening here in the Messenger home. Why were the fucking rabbits *there* Jim? Did the bunny fairy bring them? Did the Europeans think the bunnies needed a vacay? A mani/pedi?

[indurancevile]

77. LOL!

(I'm not sure the poster will get it though)

[Starry Messenger]

78. As long as one person did, my friend

:D

[Jim Lane]

86. I'm glad you were amused.

Frankly, though, you shouldn't rely on an amateur like me for your comedy fix. Go to YouTube and search for "George Carlin" -- you'll find much funnier stuff.

As for the rabbits, I fear that the importers' goals weren't quite so benign. They thought that having a few rabbits running around would afford the opportunity for some relaxing sport hunting. Read the article I linked if you want more details.

The more general point, of course, is that you shouldn't get hung up on that specific illustrative example. Just bear in mind that any species will tend to increase in numbers until it has filled its ecological niche. This applies to nonhuman species and to humans in precapitalist societies, as well as to humans during the last several centuries. It's simply not true that population growth can be completely explained by reference to capitalism. In fact, modern welfare-state capitalism, as in the U.S. and Western Europe, is arguably a brake on population growth, as people no longer feel a need to have many offspring to care for them in their old age.

That last point illustrates that there's really no reason for us to be arguing. A more equitable distribution of resources would bring more people into the higher economic status that tends to produce a decline in the birth rate. In much of the Third World today, people still want large families for purposes of economic security. Thus, the resource misallocation that you rightly decry from the point of view of social justice is also bad from the point of view of population stabilization.

[Starry Messenger]

101. The rabbits were there because the humans from Europe brought them there.

I knew that, I just wanted you to acknowledge that here. There is a reason the Europeans were in Australia *at that point in history* that is not just hand-waved away with biological determinism. There is a reason the Europeans were spreading: why they were spreading and the effects that they had on the populations of other people are interesting questions that Marxism gets at. Your post about the rabbits amused me somewhat because it is a perfect example of the sort of thing that capitalism caused and causes. A society with a short-term goal for their amusement and profit thoughtlessly imported an invasive species to a land that could not support them. As we know, they spread and became a menace on the entire continent. There's some irony in there for critics of imperialism.

I don't think I stated that population growth was explained by capitalism, but I may have expressed myself unclearly. In my defense, I was actually originally replying to someone else in the subthread. What I was trying to get at is that the "population problem" as framed by Malthus and his forbears was a) not really a population problem *at all*, but a way of talking about restrictions to resources by blaming people who didn't have access to these resources. b) the reason there were a lot of poor people wandering around and having families despite the fact that they had no land, was mostly because they had been kicked off of their ancestral lands by the acquisition of the territories by force of arms or force of law. The transition from feudalism to private landownership caused a great migration of many former peasants who were now "free" to try to earn wages. Or not. In the meanwhile, huge tracts of land were kept free of humans to raise sheep or what have you in the name of greater profits. Sheep were cheaper. The rise of these displaced people and their discontent began the literature of "population problems" from those who were lucky enough not to be "surplus people". The transition to capitalism didn't happen overnight, but was part of a definite historical process. This is what I was trying to say. Yes, there have always been people having children, but how did a bunch of them suddenly get labelled "not needed"? This is what we look at in analysis.

I'm glad we both agree that getting rid of billions of people very nearly instantly is a bad idea. There are others in the movements like authors in the article in the OP who have some rather sinister motives, which is why I jumped on this thread.

[LooseWilly]

79. The "population problem" isn't a population problem at all... it's a resource problem.

People may like to call it a "population problem" to foreshorten the entirety of the argument, but the problem of increasing population is, at heart, a problem of not enough resources to go around for such a large population.

The population itself, in a vacuum, as if such a thing could exist, is not a problem.

Thus... your argument that a Marxist examination of the issue of distribution of resources isn't relevant, because: "Human population has been increasing almost uninterrupted throughout history. Steady population increase predates the advent of capitalism, and for that matter predates the advent of wage labor in the modern form." makes no sense... because paleolithic methods of resource distribution weren't problematic precisely because there were always more resources to be found "over there".

If there were still more resources to be found "over there" then there wouldn't be a "population problem"... because there wouldn't be a resource-limitation-on-supportable-population-problem.

Now that there is a resource-limitation-on-supportable-population-problem, however, the issue of systems of distribution/allocation of resources becomes... a very viable avenue of problem-solving-analysis.

You say: "And if Marxists were somehow to take over the world, and arrange for the distribution of resources exactly as you would like to see it done, you would still need to see to it that population was stabilized (or, better yet, reduced)."

I say: If Marxists were to somehow take over the world and arrange for the distribution of resources exactly as Marx said he would like to see it done... then the resources on the planet would support a greater population than under the current global monopolist-capitalist system.

Your inference that a Marxist analysis of the current population and concomitant resource distribution issues somehow suggests an argument that Marxism will allow every woman on the planet to bear 47 children just for the fun of it is a subtle, yet gargantuan, strawman.

A Marxist economic distribution system will support a larger population given a finite amount of resources... so the planet's population had better go commie (and stabilize soon), start exploiting more planets in order to satiate Wall St. greed while supporting an army of surplus laborers, or brace themselves for the death tolls that result from denying human beings access to the resources they need to live.

Or... as an alternate solution, may I parrot A Modest Proposal: "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout." (Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html)

[GliderGuider]

88. Improving the distribution of resources does not increase the carrying capacity of the planet.

Improving the distribution of resources simply reduces the inequities of resource availability and material consumption within the existing population. You can find proof for this assertion in the various global "average" figures available online:

Global average per capita GDP: $11,000 - similar to Brazil or Serbia
Global average per capita electrical power: 300 watts - similar to Argentina or Romania
Global average per capita oil consumption: 0.6 tonnes - similar to Brazil or Romania
Global average per capita concrete consumption: 0.5 tonnes - similar to Thailand or Vietnam
Global average per capita steel consumption: 0.2 tonnes - similar to Brazil or Mexico

So for the sake of comparison the world's average material standard of living is represented by Brazil. If resource and money distribution was perfectly equal, everyone on the planet would have the standard of living of an "average" Brazilian. We would have no rich and we would have no poor, but we would have 7 billion Brazilians (if you'll pardon the expression).

If we then introduce a million more people to the planet and keep the assumption of perfect distribution, we can only maintain our standard of living if we find more resources. If we do not cannot find more resources then the average material standard of living must fall.

The point is that even with perfect distribution we can't support "more people with the same resources" if we want to maintain the same standard of living. We can reduce resource wastage by improving distribution, but that's a relatively small percentage of global consumption. We will be able to kick down the road a few years by becoming less wasteful, but Marxism doesn't hold a solution for either the population or the consumption problem.

[Jim Lane]

104. Allocation of resources matters, but so does population, especially population growth.

I agree with GliderGuider's response and will add to it.

You argue that, with ideal resource distribution, then the available resources would support a higher population (at, implicitly, the same standard of living).

That's true but you could just as accurately flip it around: For any given socioeconomic system and consequent resource distribution, the standard of living will be higher with a lower population. The Marxist-run world of three billion people would be a better place than the Marxist-run world of nine billion.

Furthermore, your position is based on a completely static analysis -- looking at the situation at one moment in time. You write, "the problem of increasing population is, at heart, a problem of not enough resources to go around for such a large population." That's arguably true as to the problem of a large population, but increasing population is different. The Earth's resources are finite. Therefore, for any given socioeconomic system and minimum standard of living, that system will eventually be unable to provide everyone with that standard of living if population keeps increasing without limit. No application of political theory can get around that mathematical fact.

The issue can indeed be addressed in part through political change, just as technological fixes can help. You err, however, in dismissing population so completely. It is always part of the equation.

[indurancevile]

82. don't worry; the banksters are taking care of the problem by shutting down production & jobs,

getting rid of health care, & starting wars on every continent.

you'll soon get your wish but not sure you'll like the results.

[Jim Lane]

89. I agree with you that they're indirectly promoting the worst option -- the mass die-off.

I'm not sure, though, why you write that "you'll soon get your wish...." This is the option that I said would halt population growth "catastrophically".

In case I wasn't clear, that means that this option is not my wish.

My key argument is that the sensible discussion is only about how population growth will end. There's not point in arguing about whether it should end. The scenario of continued boundless growth in the human population is simply not possible.

[GliderGuider]

47. Overshoot and IPAT

We are now 50% into planetary overshoot based on our average ecological footprint.

If everybody on the planet had the material consumption rates of Cuba or Azerbaijan, we would not be facing an ecological crisis (at least not yet).

I=PAT. The impact we have on the planet is a product of our population and or activity levels (or per-capita affluence). We can lower our impact by lowing either of those two factors, or by lowering both together.

Despite a falling fertility rate, the world population is still rising by 80 million people a year. That's a new Egypt every year.

Those new mouths need to be fed. Agriculture is the single most destructive thing we do.

Despite improvements in the energy intensity of the world economy, the amount of CO2 we put into the air is increasing every year (except during the recession of 2009).

We are putting over 30 billion tonnes of CO2 into the air every year, more than 100x as much as all the volcanoes in the world. That number continues to rise.

We are facing a convergence of crises in: oil production (we hit Peak Oil 5 years ago); regional food production due to weather shifts caused by climate change; rising food costs due to supply/distribution difficulties and rising energy costs); excessive complexity in our solutions to global problems (e.g. the American response to 9/11); and an impending destabilization of the global economic/financial system.

This convergence is going to do two things: it will lower our global level of activity (due to cyclical global recessions or depressions); and it will cap and begin to lower our numbers faster than current UN estimates suggest. As the economic situation worsens, more and more people will choose to remain childfree because they can't afford them and don't want to bring them into a worsening world situation.

the point is that overshoot situations like the one we're in right now always clear themselves up, no matter whether the species if foxes, voles or human beings. We won't clear it up ourselves by rational planning, because we don't really do much of that (all human conceits aside). Instead "natural" forces have already begun to intervene and put things right.

It's going to be OK. I expect that our population will peak at about 8 billion, and our level of average per-capita activity will begin dropping quite soon. By 2100 I expect the problem will be fully sorted out, with both consumption and population back to truly sustainable levels.

Good luck to all of us.

[cherish44]

49. I stopped at one kid

so I can bitch about this :)

[GliderGuider]

50. Yep, many of us are under-reproducers.

I've been married three times, and neither I nor my wives ever reproduced. That's four mouths that won't be around in 30 years.

[OnionPatch]

62. We did a survey of our entire family, all the cousins, etc.

My generation, my siblings and cousins haven't even replaced ourselves. Quite a few are childless or have only one child. (My husband and I have only one.) My husband tallied up his side of the family and it's the same in his family. I don't think we're all that abnormal. I have plenty of friends with no children as well. It gives me hope.

[readmoreoften]

63. Yeah, let's kill a bunch of people with our environmentally friendly weapons.

This neo-Malthusian crap has been refuted a million times over. Let's start with stopping PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE, weapons manufacturing, plastic packaging, and the shipping of Chinese vegetables to the US for the sake of profit. After that we can talk about "population."

[Name removed]

65. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lionel Mandrake]

70. Alternatively, we could propose a lottery

along the lines suggested by Shirley Jackson.

"Response to the story was negative, surprising Jackson and The New Yorker. Readers canceled subscriptions and sent hate mail throughout the summer. The story was banned in the Union of South Africa."

read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lottery

[LooseWilly]

71. A lottery isn't really a lottery when more than 80 million have to win each year...

It's more like handing out trophies to every kid that shows up on the field.

Speaking of which... we should definitely "serve" young athletes to the poor—studies show that a diet of lean meats goes a long way toward reducing health risks.

Maybe a lottery for some older "winners" might be called for though... and the money of the "winners" could be appropriated to help defray the expense of shipping and preparing all that meat.

The bureaucracy required to administer this lottery would also help provide jobs for the unemployed here in the First World, making it a win-win. A "platinum lottery" could also be administered—we can put the names of anyone making more than $250K in wages, capital gains, etc. into a big hat... draw out a name and cook that "winner", as well as his/her whole family, up to feed the Lottery Staff (think of it as a company picnic)—and appropriate all of the wealth of the "winner" in order to pay for the entire bureaucracy.

You know, tax the rich.

[CreekDog]

92. Yeah that sounds fair --now that you've had your children

:eyes:

[Mimosa]

66. Heck, saw it coming 35 years ago when I was a KID

Too many people. Limited resources. *DUH*

[some guy]

69. Well, it looks like

the rich are trying to do their part to reduce the population - austerity budgets for every one (except them selves) should help reduce the numbers. Privatize resources, like water, and that will also help to cull the population.

Secretly (or not so much) fund stories like this to help scare young people, and maybe they won't reproduce.

A little here, a little there, it all adds up.


I think the insatiably greedy are well aware of the conflict between population and resources, and have decided on their response.

[LooseWilly]

81. I still suggest A Modest Proposal

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.

...

The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. ...

...

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. ...

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal, 1729

Sure... the numbers need to be updated, as global population approaches 9 billion rather than the mere 1.5 million mentioned in the Proposal... but I think this is the only truly reasoned response to the Malthusian Question.

Obviously, as it has been mentioned that the population of the Developed World consumes 8 times the resources of the Under-Developed World... it will only be proper to factor that into the new numbers, and fricassee 8 times as many Developed World One-Year-Olds... just to be sure that the math works. ;)

[robcon]

84. Nonsense. The world has never been as well-fed, well-clothed and well-housed.

There are plenty of resources to support the population of the world.

In any case, the worldwide middle class (mostly in China/India and parts of South America) is growing tremendously. There is no safer prediction in social science than the reduction in birth rate as people enter the middle class.

[ZombieHorde]

85. There is no nice cure for this.

We won't stop fucking and we won't stop consuming.

[LWolf]

93. There are some cures that are less objectionable than others.

To begin, though, the need has to be acknowledged. As long as the greater population won't, we're going to continue down the current path of planetary destruction and species suicide.

With acknowledgment, though, we could turn to some familiar tools:

1. Public service announcements/education...if the message were as ubiquitous as...for example, the message that teachers are the nation's worst enemy, and the war on terror keeps us safe...

2. Personal gain: turn our national tax structure on it's head. The biggest deductions, FOR LIFE, for no biological children whether custody is retained or not, a smaller deduction for one child, zero deductions for two biological children, and a hefty carbon tax, FOR LIFE, for every biological child after two, whether custody is retained or not.

3. Since tax solutions only work for our country....get rid of NAFTA/CAFTA/Free Trade. Return to trade agreements based on stringent environmental, labor, and civil rights standards AND strict population control policies. No trade OR AID without those in place and regularly verified.

4. This one is perhaps more objectionable, but I'm going to offer it up anyway. As a public school teacher, I've been blessed to work with the public's offspring for almost 30 years. The masses of children in bad situations, with no legal recourse for rescue, influence me in this direction. Require a license for reproduction. Require a solid education, job training, and evidence of having created, and sustained, a stable life in order to receive a license. My liberal mother has, for most of her 72 years, wished that all adolescent males would be given routine reversible vasectomies until such a state of adult stability was reached. Males, because the procedure is safer and less invasive. She would include all females in that if a better procedure were available.

5. To go with # 4: Universal free public preschool-college or trade school education, universal free public health care, to equalize the playing field.

It's uncomfortable to type this, even though I support it. It will probably spark some hot responses. I stopped being affected by, or even paying attention to, attacks from DUers years ago, though, so I'll go ahead and speak up. Protecting individual liberty is also important. I remember a statement made by my political history professor 3+ decades ago. He said that individual rights were sancrosanct...until they reached the end of our nose. When our individual rights and freedoms interfered with those of others, they could be limited. And, in my opinion, SHOULD be limited.

[ZombieHorde]

97. I'll go through each item separately.

1. Sounds great.

2. I think you would could only give the childless tax deduction to those of a certain age; e.g., 40-years-old and older. Otherwise, people would say the tax was attacking new families, and very few would support it. In order for a plan to work, people have to support it.

3. I don't think the current form of the Democrats or the Republicans supporting this. The first step would have to be either dramatically changing the parties, or replacing one of the main parties.

4. I think a less oppressive version would be to pay 18-year-old men $200 to receive a reversible vasectomy. Those who chose to have the vasectomy reversed would have repay the $200 (plus handling fees), in addition to any other normal cost if we don't have single payer health care.

5. I love it, and I think this may be more likely than the other four. Though even this probably won't happen for many years.

[LWolf]

98. #2? Agreed.

Anything like this could not be retroactive.

I like your version of #4! Although I'd like a way to make it happen younger. Maybe an automatic scholarship, or the money in an interest-earning account turned over on their 18th birthday, with a voucher for a reversal after finishing an education and establishing an independent adult life, if # 5 doesn't happen.

I have to admit, I'm still feeling a bit scorched around the edges. I teach middle schoolers. A small school, and a small, non-traditional group.

Two years ago, I sent a small group of 8th graders to high school with dread in the pit of my stomach. They were challenging, to say the least; more troubled youngsters in one small group than I'd ever experienced. They'll be juniors this fall; those that actually go back to school. 69% of them. Two have already had babies. No dads in the picture. Babies born to extremely dysfunctional mothers. IN BOTH CASES, the pregnancies spurred the end of their mothers' current marriages, not to their natural father. In both cases, with the step-dads out of the picture, the girls and babies are being supported by their mothers, and living in poverty. Two have been in and out of rehab. One is homeless, living in a local shelter. And 31% have already dropped out. :(

On one hand, I know I did everything I could to connect and help them. On the other, I can't help but feel like we failed. Too many pregnancies happen before 18.

[GliderGuider]

103. Keep in mind that "the greater population" is global, not just American.

The USA is not a big part of the population problem (though it is a big part of the consumption problem). Suggestions of cutting population growth in those places where it is still growing significantly (i.e. countries with a TFR over 2.4 or so) run smack into the third rail of racism. 45 of the 50 countries with the highest fertility rates are in Africa and South Asia.

The countries that are most interesting to me are those with both poor socioeconomic conditions and low fertility rates. Countries like Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Croatia, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus: all of which have TFRs ranging from 1.2 to 1.8, well below replacement. The common characteristic I see among them is that they have all fallen into socioeconomic disrepair from previous states of relative prosperity. This shift supports Dr. Virginia Abernethy's fertility-opportunity hypothesis which states that fertility follows perceived economic opportunity. The implication is that if (as I expect) the world as a whole is now at the beginning of a long period of worsening depressions and recessions (due to widespread economic failures, and rising energy and food costs due to the effects of Peak Oil and climate change) fertility rates will plummet world-wide in response. This would happen even in countries that currently have very high TFR. We should look for a steepening decline in world TFRs over the next 20 years, well before the UN-projected stabilization point of 2050.

Although I am extremely sympathetic to the "education and policy" approach to fertility reduction, I think that external forces will have far greater influence, and will take effect much faster.

[ZombieHorde]

105. Maybe I was wrong. Check out this thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1559926

[blindpig]

87. High reproductive rates are a result of poverty.

Poverty is a result of Capitalism.

The solution is obvious.

[GliderGuider]

90. I wasn't aware that middle ages feudalism was capitalistic.

There was lots of poverty in China in the 13th century, but no capitalism.
There was lots of poverty in Europe in the 14th century, but no capitalism.
There was lots of poverty in Russia in the 20th century, but no capitalism.

Blaming "capitalism" is facile. Dig a bit deeper.

[blindpig]

95. It is the ruling system of our times.

If we were discussing other times it would be different.

20th century Russia? After the Civil War the Soviet Union had the greatest improvement in the condition of the working class in history.

Capitalism brings poverty where ever it goes, starting with forcing self-sufficient peasantry off of their land into the ranks of workers dependent upon the whims of capital. It started 300 years ago in England and continues today throughout the '3rd world'.

[GliderGuider]

102. Yes it is.

And before we go about replacing it, we'd be well advised to have more than sloganeering to back up our new choice.

Re: 20th century Russia, I'm Ukrainian by heritage. I traveled through Russia by private car in 1968, from Czechoslovakia up to Leningrad, including a memorable trip 20 km off the approved highway to a tiny village where my great grandparents were born. Don't talk to me about "great improvements" until you've seen an authentic 18th century peasant village eking out an existence just off a 20th century highway.

And about "forcing self-sufficient peasantry off of their land", Stalin committed one the greatest examples of that with the forced collectivization of 1929.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_the_Soviet_Union

[snooper2]

94. That's why we need more darwin awards

:P

Come on folks, climb on slippery rocks in slippers, try to beat that train, get that pet bear you always wanted :P

Put that JATO rocket on the roof!

[Zax2me]

99. After the footage I've seen today from Norway....

I would choose something else as the worlds biggest problem.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

106. Remember the plagues during the dark ages?

That is why they happened. Complete overpopulation. It'll happen again. The Earth will balance herself. That is why we are having earthquakes and tsunamis and tornadoes.

[Fire1]

107. "overconsumption by rich folks" is B.S. Middle and low income

americans are "THE consumer" class.