Earth summit: A Call For Action On Population Control
Rio+20 Earth summit: scientists call for action on population
Joint report by 105 institutions urges negotiators to drop political inhibitions and confront rising global population and consumption
The Rio+20 Earth summit must take decisive action on population and consumption regardless of political taboos or it will struggle to tackle the alarming decline of the global environment, the world's leading scientific academies warned on Thursday.
Rich countries need to reduce or radically transform unsustainable lifestyles, while greater efforts should be made to provide contraception to those who want it in the developing world, the coalition of 105 institutions, including the Royal Society, urged in a joint report.
It's a wake-up call for negotiators meeting in Rio for the UN conference on sustainable development.
The authors point out that while the Rio summit aims to reduce poverty and reverse the degradation of the environment, it barely mentions the two solutions that could ease pressure on increasingly scarce resources.
Many in the scientific community believe it is time to confront these elephants in the room. "For too long population and consumption have been left off the table due to political and ethical sensitivities. These are issues that affect developed and developing nations alike, and we must take responsibility for them together," said Charles Godfray, a fellow of the Royal Society and chair of the working group of IAP, the global network of science academies.
In a joint statement, the scientists said they wanted to remind policymakers at Rio+20 that population and consumption determine the rates at which natural resources are exploited and Earth's ability to meet the demand for food, water, energy and other needs now and in the future. The current patterns of consumption in some parts of the world were unsustainable. A sharp rise in human numbers can have negative social and economic implications, and a combination of the two causes extensive loss of biodiversity.
The statement follows a hard-hitting report by the Royal Society in April that called for rebalancing of resources to reduce poverty and ease environmental pressures that are leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future.
By 2050, the world's population is projected to rise from seven billion to between eight and 11 billion. Meanwhile consumption of resources is rising rapidly as a result of a growing middle class in developed countries and the lavish lifestyles of the very rich across the planet.
"We are living beyond the planet's means. That's scientifically proven," said Gisbet Glaser of the International Council for Science, who cited research on ocean acidification, climate change and biodiversity loss. "We're now at a point in human history where we risk degrading the life support system for human development."
The scientific academies stressed that poverty reduction remain a priority, but said action to promote voluntary family planning through education, better healthcare and contraception can aid that process.
"The P-word is not talked about because people are scared of being politically incorrect or alarmist. Even so, the the population dialogue should not just be about sheer numbers of people – that type of dialogue leads to finger pointing," said Lori Hunter, a demographer who was in Rio for a side-event. She said the picture was more complex and touched upon the need to consider factors that shape fertility decision-making. She mentioned that in some areas, scarcity of natural resources leads to larger families as families need labor. There are also high levels of unmet demand for contraception in many regions of the world.
"You need to push the levers that are shaping family size," said Hunter. "Basically, you can't save the environment without reproductive health policies and programmes." She also mentioned that processes such as migration, urbanisation, aging are important in considering the environmental impacts of future consumption.
The draft negotiating text of Rio+20 mentions the need to change "unsustainable patterns of production and consumption" but the US wants to delete passages that suggest developed countries should take the lead.
There is also little recognition in the text that economic growth might be limited by ecological factors. This is partly because although scientists talk about "global boundaries", there is no agreement on where they might lie.
The stock taking of global inventory is still a work in progress, but it may speed up after the launch on Thursday of a new scientific initiative – Future Earth – that brings together academies, funds and international institutions to co-design research related to sustainable food production and changes to the climate, geosphere and biosphere.
The picture might become clearer if proposals at Rio+20 to beef up the UN environment programme are accepted, along with a plan for a "regular review of the state of the planet."
Glaser, who is the lead negotiator for the scientific community at Rio+20, said there was still no agreement on the 80-page text.
"They're negotiating words rather than the issues behind the words. I'm afraid that if there's no miracle, there'll be a relatively low common denominator that just drops all the main areas of contention."
I would not sterilize anyone involuntarily and would not kill off anyone, why are you so unable to grasp this concept? I advocate for individual responsibility as I explained. Beyond that, since you asked and in terms of U.S. policy, I would stop subsidizing larger families. I would eliminate the escalating deduction for each additional child. I would offer only one deduction for each family no matter the number of children they have and would offer a larger deduction for those that only have one child or no children and additional deductions for those that adopt children. Birth control and reproductive health would be free so that everyone that wished to limit their reproduction had access. I am pro-choice and as I do now I would support abortion for those that freely chose to end a pregnancy. I am sure that others would be able to contribute creative ideas that would help us accomplish Zero Population or even negative growth. As to your attempt at sarcasm, "...since water doesn't just fall from the sky and food doesn't just grow on trees...," you do, of course, realize that it just isn't that simple. Even now some of the water falling from the sky is contaminated and that with changing weather patterns that science has concluded is caused by human activity the natural cycle of fresh water may be interrupted. Additionally we are requiring more and more food production that depends on more irrigation that further diverts more water from what is available for direct human use. Food production, which may have already peaked, currently depends heavily on both fossil fuel and chemical herbicides, pesticides and massive amounts of water for irrigation. The water then picks up chemicals and that further contaminates our water supply. As to my "soapbox" I believe that each person is responsible for learning as much as they can and sharing it with others since we all must share the responsibility and the consequences of what happens in our world, I am sorry that somehow bothers you.
Quoting ExecutiveChick:"Flip" or not, what the OP is about is government intervention and population control. This means reducing, drastically the population of the planet and you said you support this. If "Mother Earth" is on such dire straights, and since water doesn't just fall from the sky and food doesn't just grow on trees, your little gesture of only having one more human to contribute to overpopulation and your decision to compost and re use tin foil isn't saving the planet or reducing the population.
So, why don't you step down off the soap box and answer the question posed to you and share with the rest of us what is an acceptable plan in your Utopian view to reduce the population?
Who would you sterilize or kill off first and what is your criteria for making those decisions?
Quoting GaleJ:You sound so flip, do you not understand what is at stake here? This is a serious subject and if you wish to be at the table you must go beyond the attitude that you present in your reply. We are facing significant issues and every responsible adult must decide for themselves whether or not they are willing to make the difficult decisions so that those that come after us, our children and grandchildren, will be able to have something more than a barely subsistence level life. My husband and I made a thoughtful decision to only have one child. We try to use resources wisely, recycle and reuse as much as possible, and are committed to conscious consumption, buying what we need in a way that takes into account the true cost to Mother Earth of those purchases. We believe that to do otherwise is to be selfish, egocentric, and irresponsible and we care too much for our son, our community, our beautiful blue and green planet to not do our part to care for it.
Quoting ExecutiveChick:Wow! Okay, so a couple here in favor of Population Control. So I ask, how do we do this?
Might I suggest a few options?
No more helmet laws, seat belt laws, No Socialized Health care, No insurance-No Cash-No Health Care, No more Welfare, Food Stamps, No more food bans/Food Police, Legalize Drugs, No more warning labels, ability to disable airbags, no gun restrictions, etc...
That should reduce the population quite a bit but I would love to hear what you think the right plan is.
Quoting GaleJ:Everyone who needs to breath or eat or drink needs to start paying attention...MOTHER EARTH AND HER PRECIOUS RESOURCES ARE FINITE...and there is no room for debate on that! I don't care if you are left or right, pro-choice or not, straight or gay, evangelical or humanist, all must come to grips with this. We are rapidly approaching the point where we will have done irreparable harm to the environment that sustains all life on this very small planet. We must immediately begin to limit population growth, in every country, and must reduce consumption. The choices we all make now will echo down the generations and if we continue as we are going our lives and those of our children and grandchildren will be dramatically reduced. There will be soaring prices for ever-diminishing commodities, clean potable water will be scarce and may well be something for which countries will go to war, and the ever growing numbers of people will not be able to feed themselves. If you want to picture this think of Haiti, a country stripped of everything and no longer able to sustain it's population. We cannot ignore "the elephant" in the room any longer and all of us must commit wholeheartedly to the two-pronged approach of population control and reduction of consumption and understand that if you aren't part of the solution you are indeed part of the problem!
No, it was a serious statement. One person cannot support or even supplement the income of two people. If everyone "did their social duty" and only had one child, there would be no foundational support for social security. It's one of the problems of social security overall, people are having fewer children, so the rising generation has to pay more to support the retirees.
ETA: I had to check, because I was pretty sure I wasn't asking you directly. My question about social security was to someone who advocates only having one child as being the only responsible solution for an imaginary (IMO) problem. I think there are deeply personal reasons for only having only one kid, which is just fine. I certainly don't advocate having more kids than a family can afford simply to support a failing government program, even if the parents themselves support said program.
Quoting mehamil1:
Was that snark?
There are plenty of people here in the US. The millienial generation consists of 93 million people. The baby boomers stand at 76 million. Gen X a few million more. So there's plenty of working age people who can put into Social Security.
I have one child because having another would be the stupidest thing I could ever do. Condoms for the win!
Quoting godotherightthi:
So you support social security? Because only having one child is a very irresponsible move in that regard.
It indeed may be doable but we do not currently have the means, methods or ability to do it. Unfortunately food production, which may have already peaked, depends on massive amounts of insecticides and herbicides most of which are chemically engineered from fossil fuels and massive amounts of water for irrigation. Organic, sustainable farming may be able to meet increasing demands but the cost would be higher and the transition would be difficult and might temporarily reduce rather than increase the amount of food produced, we just can't know.
Quoting godotherightthi:There is room for debate. Look how far we've come with our abilities to produce food at a more economical and productive manner. It's doable.
Quoting GaleJ:
Everyone who needs to breath or eat or drink needs to start paying attention...MOTHER EARTH AND HER PRECIOUS RESOURCES ARE FINITE...and there is no room for debate on that! I don't care if you are left or right, pro-choice or not, straight or gay, evangelical or humanist, all must come to grips with this. We are rapidly approaching the point where we will have done irreparable harm to the environment that sustains all life on this very small planet. We must immediately begin to limit population growth, in every country, and must reduce consumption. The choices we all make now will echo down the generations and if we continue as we are going our lives and those of our children and grandchildren will be dramatically reduced. There will be soaring prices for ever-diminishing commodities, clean potable water will be scarce and may well be something for which countries will go to war, and the ever growing numbers of people will not be able to feed themselves. If you want to picture this think of Haiti, a country stripped of everything and no longer able to sustain it's population. We cannot ignore "the elephant" in the room any longer and all of us must commit wholeheartedly to the two-pronged approach of population control and reduction of consumption and understand that if you aren't part of the solution you are indeed part of the problem!
"Artificial" as in imposing birth limits, sterilizing certain sectors of the population, etc. rather than people feeling the effects of declining resources and adjusting their behavior accordingly.
Do you not have much faith in our ability as a species to adapt?
Quoting mehamil1:
Artificial population control? As opposed to "real" population control?
I'm not sure how 7 billion of us will adapt. It'll be interesting to see though. There's more poor people in the 3rd world than there are in the richer nations. Just keep that in mind.
Quoting JakeandEmmasMom:
If we are truly an adaptive species, we will adapt. There is no need for governments to be involved in artificial population control
We are here because of our ancestors ability to adapt. However, we are not them. We are not living in the conditions that made them who we are today.
Starvation doesn't keep people from screwing and getting pregnant. Lack of anything doesn't keep people from screwing and getting pregnant. I know that much. Acting accordingly is assuming people have agency that they really truly do not have. Also, you have cultures that go back thousands of years based on having as many babies as possible because so many of them die before they reach 5. They have been living on the edge of everything for a very long time but manage to survive long enough to hit puberty and reproduce before dying. That is still happening. Even today. They feel the effects of declining resources and without access to "artificial" means of birth control, there's not a damn thing they can do about it even if they wanted too.
Quoting JakeandEmmasMom:"Artificial" as in imposing birth limits, sterilizing certain sectors of the population, etc. rather than people feeling the effects of declining resources and adjusting their behavior accordingly.
Do you not have much faith in our ability as a species to adapt?
Quoting mehamil1:
Artificial population control? As opposed to "real" population control?
I'm not sure how 7 billion of us will adapt. It'll be interesting to see though. There's more poor people in the 3rd world than there are in the richer nations. Just keep that in mind.
Quoting JakeandEmmasMom:
If we are truly an adaptive species, we will adapt. There is no need for governments to be involved in artificial population control
You use the word "may" too much to sway my opinion in this matter. I would never advocate a position on something this serious based on hypothetical presumptions.
Quoting GaleJ:
It indeed may be doable but we do not currently have the means, methods or ability to do it. Unfortunately food production, which may have already peaked, depends on massive amounts of insecticides and herbicides most of which are chemically engineered from fossil fuels and massive amounts of water for irrigation. Organic, sustainable farming may be able to meet increasing demands but the cost would be higher and the transition would be difficult and might temporarily reduce rather than increase the amount of food produced, we just can't know.
Quoting godotherightthi:
There is room for debate. Look how far we've come with our abilities to produce food at a more economical and productive manner. It's doable.
Quoting GaleJ:
Everyone who needs to breath or eat or drink needs to start paying attention...MOTHER EARTH AND HER PRECIOUS RESOURCES ARE FINITE...and there is no room for debate on that! I don't care if you are left or right, pro-choice or not, straight or gay, evangelical or humanist, all must come to grips with this. We are rapidly approaching the point where we will have done irreparable harm to the environment that sustains all life on this very small planet. We must immediately begin to limit population growth, in every country, and must reduce consumption. The choices we all make now will echo down the generations and if we continue as we are going our lives and those of our children and grandchildren will be dramatically reduced. There will be soaring prices for ever-diminishing commodities, clean potable water will be scarce and may well be something for which countries will go to war, and the ever growing numbers of people will not be able to feed themselves. If you want to picture this think of Haiti, a country stripped of everything and no longer able to sustain it's population. We cannot ignore "the elephant" in the room any longer and all of us must commit wholeheartedly to the two-pronged approach of population control and reduction of consumption and understand that if you aren't part of the solution you are indeed part of the problem!
I think that as access to education improves worldwide (someone else mentioned specifically educating the girls -- and I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment) it will get better. I have faith in humanity. After all, we've made it this far.
And I think that a lot people are making a real effort to be conscious of their impact on the environment. And I totally get that this may not be as obvious in certain parts of the country. For example, I live in the Pacific Northwest. Recycling is a way of life here. It's so ingrained in us, that we don't even think about it, we just do it. We've had curbside recycling for over 20 years. When we moved to Florida for about a year, not only did they not have curbside recycling, but when I asked around about where to take my recyclables, people didn't know what I was talking about. That was 5 years ago. I think that awareness about the environment has really increased since then. Certainly there is a lot more money being spent on alternative energy and the like.
IDK...I think we'll be all right.
Quoting mehamil1:
We are here because of our ancestors ability to adapt. However, we are not them. We are not living in the conditions that made them who we are today.
Starvation doesn't keep people from screwing and getting pregnant. Lack of anything doesn't keep people from screwing and getting pregnant. I know that much. Acting accordingly is assuming people have agency that they really truly do not have. Also, you have cultures that go back thousands of years based on having as many babies as possible because so many of them die before they reach 5. They have been living on the edge of everything for a very long time but manage to survive long enough to hit puberty and reproduce before dying. That is still happening. Even today. They feel the effects of declining resources and without access to "artificial" means of birth control, there's not a damn thing they can do about it even if they wanted too.
Quoting JakeandEmmasMom:
"Artificial" as in imposing birth limits, sterilizing certain sectors of the population, etc. rather than people feeling the effects of declining resources and adjusting their behavior accordingly.
Do you not have much faith in our ability as a species to adapt?
Quoting mehamil1:
Artificial population control? As opposed to "real" population control?
I'm not sure how 7 billion of us will adapt. It'll be interesting to see though. There's more poor people in the 3rd world than there are in the richer nations. Just keep that in mind.
Quoting JakeandEmmasMom:
If we are truly an adaptive species, we will adapt. There is no need for governments to be involved in artificial population control
My family has always recycled. it's a way of life here too (chicago).
And that was me. I was the one who said the girls need to be educated.
I have hope for humanity as well.
Quoting JakeandEmmasMom:I think that as access to education improves worldwide (someone else mentioned specifically educating the girls -- and I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment) it will get better. I have faith in humanity. After all, we've made it this far.
And I think that a lot people are making a real effort to be conscious of their impact on the environment. And I totally get that this may not be as obvious in certain parts of the country. For example, I live in the Pacific Northwest. Recycling is a way of life here. It's so ingrained in us, that we don't even think about it, we just do it. We've had curbside recycling for over 20 years. When we moved to Florida for about a year, not only did they not have curbside recycling, but when I asked around about where to take my recyclables, people didn't know what I was talking about. That was 5 years ago. I think that awareness about the environment has really increased since then. Certainly there is a lot more money being spent on alternative energy and the like.
IDK...I think we'll be all right.
Quoting mehamil1:
We are here because of our ancestors ability to adapt. However, we are not them. We are not living in the conditions that made them who we are today.
Starvation doesn't keep people from screwing and getting pregnant. Lack of anything doesn't keep people from screwing and getting pregnant. I know that much. Acting accordingly is assuming people have agency that they really truly do not have. Also, you have cultures that go back thousands of years based on having as many babies as possible because so many of them die before they reach 5. They have been living on the edge of everything for a very long time but manage to survive long enough to hit puberty and reproduce before dying. That is still happening. Even today. They feel the effects of declining resources and without access to "artificial" means of birth control, there's not a damn thing they can do about it even if they wanted too.
I am not trying to sway you, I am only sharing some information that is available from standard sources, you must make decisions based on your own reading and research. The reality and the problem with such "global" science is that we simply cannot know for sure how our behaviors will interact with natural processes so even the very best science isn't absolute. Science can only take the data available, continue to gather data going forward, and then construct models to try and understand how it might all work out. But using the best models patterns do emerge and we can then use them to make logical assumptions. Given that the health of the whole planet may, there's that pesty "may" again, depend on what we can all come to agreement on we probably shouldn't wait until the system crashes before we do something.
Quoting godotherightthi:You use the word "may" too much to sway my opinion in this matter. I would never advocate a position on something this serious based on hypothetical presumptions.
Quoting GaleJ:
It indeed may be doable but we do not currently have the means, methods or ability to do it. Unfortunately food production, which may have already peaked, depends on massive amounts of insecticides and herbicides most of which are chemically engineered from fossil fuels and massive amounts of water for irrigation. Organic, sustainable farming may be able to meet increasing demands but the cost would be higher and the transition would be difficult and might temporarily reduce rather than increase the amount of food produced, we just can't know.
Quoting godotherightthi:
There is room for debate. Look how far we've come with our abilities to produce food at a more economical and productive manner. It's doable.
Quoting GaleJ:
Everyone who needs to breath or eat or drink needs to start paying attention...MOTHER EARTH AND HER PRECIOUS RESOURCES ARE FINITE...and there is no room for debate on that! I don't care if you are left or right, pro-choice or not, straight or gay, evangelical or humanist, all must come to grips with this. We are rapidly approaching the point where we will have done irreparable harm to the environment that sustains all life on this very small planet. We must immediately begin to limit population growth, in every country, and must reduce consumption. The choices we all make now will echo down the generations and if we continue as we are going our lives and those of our children and grandchildren will be dramatically reduced. There will be soaring prices for ever-diminishing commodities, clean potable water will be scarce and may well be something for which countries will go to war, and the ever growing numbers of people will not be able to feed themselves. If you want to picture this think of Haiti, a country stripped of everything and no longer able to sustain it's population. We cannot ignore "the elephant" in the room any longer and all of us must commit wholeheartedly to the two-pronged approach of population control and reduction of consumption and understand that if you aren't part of the solution you are indeed part of the problem!
I dare say I am approaching this from a developed-country perspective...but the "American" part does play a role, because many countries are becoming more like America in their consumption habits. We just moved from Switzerland last year after living there 3 years and even there, in a highly disciplined culture, there is still the encroaching signs of overconsumption...A few months before we moved, my Swiss neighbor offered to give us some clothes...she sent over three large 100-liter trash bags full of clothes, and they were ALL girls size 5-6! And she HAD a daughter that size, these were just the ones her daughter wouldn't wear anymore. She has 2 girls and they go through a ton of stuff.
In other words, the relationship between consumption and family size is not as proportional as some might assume, so reducing population won't necessarily reduce median household consumption levels.
Remember that the entire point of overconsumption IS that if more of the developing nations produce a middle class even resembling a modest fraction of American-level use, there will come a point when current capacities to meet demand will fail.
There is something very interesting in the correlation of education and reduced fertility. I would caution being too sure about causation. As you've said, you think consumption will decrease if those women become more educated and have less babies. In fact, they may indeed have less babies because their education allows them to consume more and that prohibits their family size.
Quoting mehamil1:
You are approaching this from an American perspective.
The United States consumes the most "stuff". Other places just use the most basic things, like land and water and the food they grow.
Even in many parts of Europe, it's not unusual for a child to only have a few toys. My son has a bedroom and living room full of toys. All of it bought for him at birthdays or christmas. Other nations are not so consumed with consuming. So women in the third world becoming more educated would not lead to getting more "stuff". Not in the sense we know it.
Quoting Meadowchik:
I don't know if, generally, lessened consumption would coincide witht he trend of decreased birthrates...remember that the decreased birthrates correlate to women with higher educations and incomes, which may typically mean more stuff. It may be quite possible that all that stuff is what fills up the days and obligations so much to inhibit more child-bearing. In a way, we could be replacing babies with things, or, more specifically more babies with just 1 or 2 babies who each require lots and lots of things. If we could live on less stuff, lots of us might go ahead and have more babies.
I actually think that the resources of humaneness and intelligence is the most important thing we should worry about conserving, which is why I do appreciate your suggestion.
:)
If we keep those two, IMO individuals will be more likely to make good choices...take away either, especially the first (since the 2nd is already associated witht he first, anyways) then individuals are much likely to go nuts, not surprising if their basic humanness is being micromanaged by bureaucrats. Some of these other well-intentioned "solutions" will IMO result n the demise of humanity or any of the progress we've achieved in the past 10,000 years.
Quoting mehamil1:
This is something that has been on my mind quite a bit.
Here's one solution: Educate girls. The more educated a woman is, the fewer children she has. The longer she is in school, the longer she puts off child bearing. The more educated she is, the more economic power she has. The more powerful her voice is.
That's one of many solutions. This is a problem that MUST be dealt with if we are going to survive on this planet.
The most pressing social issue today is the economy
Bill Ayers: Obama Should Be Tried For War Crimes
Sarah Palin - love her, hate her, don't give a F***?
- ExecutiveChick
on Jun. 14, 2012 at 4:43 PM