Population control
Most of the environmental problems nowadays like climate change and biodiversity loss, have one thing in common, human overpopulation. According to United Nations the world populations will reach around 9 billion people in 2050 with their ever demanding need for food and fresh water [1], prospects are not looking good. Drastic measures need to take place and in the world we live in nowadays it looks like that is not going to happen. On the climate convention in 2009 in Copenhagen it was decided that temperatures should not raise any more than 2 degrees Celsius without any nations that really wanted to give in [1]. Instead of countries trying to bring down their CO2 emissions they’ve resulted in a global trade of ‘fresh air’ . Belgium for example has spent around 194 million euros on fresh air in order to meet the Kyoto norms [2]. Public awareness is simply too low for governments to take any drastic measures, in the Netherlands for example the green minded party GroenLinks, has since foundation in 1990 never been part of the government and at the last elections they only received 2.3 percent of the overall votes [3].
Democracy seems a great way to govern a country where everybody has an equal vote, but when it comes to affairs that are greater than the wellbeing of a nations inhabitants it seems like it doesn’t work. Every party that has some drastic ideas concerning the environmental preservation, doesn’t get a place in the government because people mostly don’t care, vote in regard to their own wellbeing and they cannot directly perceive the measures a party takes because it takes a long time to notice any environmental change, let alone some ideas about population control which has been established in China a communistic country [4].
Because let’s face it the best way to preserve our environment and wildlife is not by trying to lower our ecological footprint but to control human population growth and preferably make it decline but since that is not a priority in most western countries further boundaries need to be established.
References
1. www.un.org
2. http://www.hln.be België koopt «schone lucht» vooral in het buitenland. 20/11/2013
3. www.parlement.com GroenLinks
4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ What is China’s one-child policy? 30/9/2014
Very interesting topic you touch upon here! I have a bit more optimistic view than you after seeing this: http://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID27002813/hans-rosling-om-befolkningseksplosjonen
In this documentary, the doctor claims that we should not fear the increase in the worlds population as much as we do now, since most families choose to have only two children, when they can choose. There is alot of information to sum up, so you better just see it! We are still too many at the moment though…
Interesting theme but I think it can be a difficult one to handle. Population growth is interconnected with many different areas; biology, economics, and sociology (e.g. womens education, inheritance systems, cultural values). The systems that give rise to high population growth are complex, and hard to address with simple population control. For example, our economic system is dependent on growth – the ageing population in Europe and Japan as a result of stagnating growth has been a big economic concern, rather than being seen as an environmental benefit. Also, if control measures are introduced into certain societal conditions they can lead to unintended consequences – e.g. in areas where womens rights are not as respected as mens it could lead to skewed sex-ratios. I think also that the implementation of control – how it would be done, where, to whom, by whom – gives rise to some very difficult questions about human rights.
I agree with you Caroline in that this is a very difficult topic. And I don’t think it would be possible to implement laws or regulations regarding human population control without human rights being overlooked.
But, one thing that can be done is to increase support to work that concerns equal education rights so that children (and especially girls) everywhere would get the right to and the possibility for education. This is one of the Millenium development goals of UNICEF (http://www.unicef.org/mdg/education.html). Educated women and girls tend to marry later and have fewer children and in addition they are better able to care for the children they do have, so this is a very important goal for several reasons.
I think it’s very interesting and provoking what you have written, certainly there is something wrong with the way that western countries «meet» targets in order to not fail their environmental goals. Norway is guilty of this too I think, despite a small population if you look at per capita emissions Norway is not doing well, yet is still a goal for environmental policy. It could also be pointed out about possible contradictions about providing europe with oil and gas while resolutely not going near the stuff for energy production.
I think as others have pointed out, it’s very hard to find a balance between the needs of humans and conservation, and population control has such far reaching effects. Perhaps a greater emphasis on sustainable development and education could be good at striking that balance, it’s very easy to say that humans are destroying biodiversity, but at the same point if conservwtio results in the suffering of people, what is the right choice to make?