Introduction
If ever there was a measure of the green movement’s confusion, it is that so many environmentalists honestly believe that by soberly intoning that there are just “too many people” they somehow cut across all the moral and political agonies of globalization, of rising human migrations, mass extinctions, atmospheric instability and all the rest of it. In fact, “overpopulation” explains none of these things, and as long as we cling to it we remain the confused citizens of an incomprehensible world.
We face an environmental crisis of unprecedented scale and scope. Global warming has received the most attention, but human activity is also poisoning rivers, lakes, and seas, exhausting fresh water supplies, destroying fertile soil, killing other species by the thousands, and overwhelming the fundamental ecological processes that have maintained a stable biosphere for millennia. If these trends continue, our world will be irrevocably changed. If they accelerate, as they appear to be doing now, much of human society, and perhaps humanity itself, will be in danger.
One of the world’s most respected climate scientists, James Hansen, tells us the time for action is short:
Our global climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear, and there is a potential for explosive changes with effects that would be irreversible—if we do not rapidly slow fossil fuel emissions over the next few decades . . .
Only in the past few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency—our planet really is in peril. If we do not change course soon, we will hand our children a situation that is out of their control, as amplifying feedbacks drive the dynamics of the global system.
2The harsh truth is that it’s already too late to stop climate change completely. Even if all of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change stopped today, humanity would still live with the consequences of past emissions for centuries. The task now is to prevent the crisis from turning into a catastrophe, to head off runaway climate change that could make much of the world uninhabitable. Some scientists believe that we must completely change course by midcentury; others say we have ten or fifteen years at most.
With a few very honorable exceptions, the world’s governments have shown little interest in solving this crisis. Politicians make fine speeches, but their inaction speaks much louder than their words. Forty-one years after the first Earth Day, the environmental crisis is worse than ever. Greenhouse gas emissions are higher than ever, and the latest agreement proposed by the world’s richest nations is even weaker than the toothless Kyoto Accord.
It is painfully clear that diplomacy and backroom deals aren’t working. The powers that be will not act unless they are forced to: the only force that can move them is mass democratic action in the streets—a people’s campaign for a sustainable, ecological society. The mass demonstrations in Copenhagen in 2009 and the global meeting of left-greens, indigenous activists, and anti-imperialist movements in Bolivia in 2010 are hopeful signs that such a campaign can be built and win.
To build this movement, climate activists must understand the causes of the environmental crisis and the changes needed to prevent catastrophe. This book focuses on a critically important debate on that subject: the “population question.”
Many sincere and dedicated environmentalists believe that a fundamental cause of environmental destruction is population growth— that there are too many people on the earth and that no real solution is possible unless humans somehow reduce their numbers. The widely circulated “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity,” published for the World Earth Summit in 1992, supported that view:
Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth.
3In addition, a growing current in the environmental movement in rich countries argues for immigration restrictions on populationist grounds. Noted Australian environmentalist Tim Flannery made that argument during a debate on immigration policy broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
Growing Australia’s population has a much greater impact than growing the population of a poor country. We are the heaviest carbon users in the world, about twenty-three tonnes per capita, so people that come to this country from anywhere on the planet will result almost certainly in an increase in carbon emissions . . .
4In Too Many People? we argue that the “too many people” and “too many immigrants” explanations for climate change and other forms of environmental destruction are wrong.
Environmentalists who promote birth control and/or anti-immigration policies as solutions to environmental problems profoundly misunderstand the nature of the crisis. Adoption of their proposals would divert the movement from real solutions.
We strongly favor universal access to birth control, abortion, and other maternal health services, and we agree that it’s essential to find a balance between natural resources and human needs. We were motivated to write this book by our deep concern about global warming, resource depletion, deforestation, species extinctions, overfishing, expanding deserts, declining water supplies, and all forms of pollution. Those are all major problems, but they are not caused by “overpopulation,” and they won’t be solved by birth control and immigration restrictions.
As US immigrant rights campaigner Patricia Huang says, “The relationship between population growth and environmental destruction is shaped by how we use our resources, not by the number of people who use them.”
5This is not an abstract or academic issue: by drawing attention away from the social and economic causes of the environmental crisis, the populationist argument makes it harder to find and fight for genuine solutions. Populationist policies focus on symptoms, not causes. Worse, they shift the blame for climate change, and the burden for stopping it, onto the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.
They divert attention away from the main challenge, the urgent need to build a new economy based on environmentally sustainable policies and equitable social development.
As renowned US ecologist Barry Commoner once said, populationist solutions to environmental destruction are “equivalent to attempting to save a leaking ship by lightening the load and forcing passengers overboard.” Instead, we should ask “if there isn’t something radically wrong with the ship.”
6Debates about populationism are usually framed as disagreements between people who are concerned about the environment and people who are not, between the populationist claim that overpopulation and resource depletion are humanity’s biggest problem and the business-as-usual claim that more people will create more wealth and unlock more resources.
We hope Too Many People? will help the movement to break away from that sterile framework. Our goal is to promote debate within environmental movements about the real causes of environmental destruction, poverty, food shortages, and resource depletion.
To that end, we contribute this ecosocialist response to the new wave of green populationism, in particular as it is expressed today in the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia. We strongly disagree with the populationists and have had no qualms about expressing our views forthrightly. But we also have tried to present their views fairly and to distinguish between the reactionaries who promote population control to protect the status quo and the green activists who sincerely view population growth as a cause of environmental problems.
Too Many People? is divided into five sections.
• In “Blaming People” we discuss a key debate on population that took place in the early years of the modern environmental movement, a debate that raised issues that remain relevant, and we outline the major currents of populationist thought in the environmental movement today.
• “The Failures of Populationism” critiques key assumptions and arguments of modern populationism.
• “Control and Coercion” holds the human rights record of population control programs up to scrutiny and asks whether non-coercive population programs are possible.
• “Greens versus Immigrants?” examines the supposed ecological arguments for reducing or stopping immigration. We argue that scapegoating immigrants for environmental damage takes the pressure off the real environmental vandals and makes it harder to build strong environmental movements.
• “Production, Consumption, Revolution” looks at the root cause of environmental destruction, an economic and social system that is based on ceaseless growth and that thrives on endless waste. If human civilization is to survive, anti-ecological capitalism must be replaced with a pro-ecological system that can promote sustainable human development. Populationist ideas hinder this cause.
The appendixes provide four articles and statements that elaborate on the arguments in this book.
• “The Malthus Myth,” by Ian Angus, examines the ideas of Thomas Robert Malthus, the nineteenth-century clergyman and economist who is often described as the founder of populationism.
• “Who Causes Environmental Problems?” by Donella Meadows, lead author of the famous 1972 report The Limits to Growth, explains why the frequently cited IPAT formula obscures solutions to ecological problems.
• “We Refuse to Shut the International Door” is a stirring call for solidarity with migrants, written by the great US socialist leader Eugene V. Debs in 1910.
• “Climate Justice and Migration” is an important analysis of and program for the growing climate refugee crisis.
