World population

[JasonMckerra]

I was reading this weeks Economist, the topic of falling world fertility, "How the population problem is solving itself", is the cover story.

I hardly expected to read anything like this in the magazine of capital:

"Forcing poor people to have fewer children than they want because the rich consume too many of the worlds resources would be immoral"

It's odd, because so often in the discussion of the worlds environmental crisis I encounter a peculiar type of green racist, the type of person who wants to limit the aspirations of the poor because "if the whole world wanted a hot shower every day, we'd be doomed".

Population isn't the problem, over consumption in "the west" is.

[Zachary Klaas]

This is something I do cover in my geography classes.

I certainly agree overconsumption in the West is the issue, but I'm not convinced population isn't.  I just don't blame world population growth on the countries where there are population increases.  We have plenty of countries in the world where the population is actually decreasing which are telling their citizens to have more children locally to make up for the "shortfall".  The population of the world is still increasing by around 7 million people per month, but countries (mostly in Europe) are telling their people to have more babies.  That's nuts, in my view.

The alternative for countries losing population is to admit immigrants from the places that are overpopulating.  It makes all the sense in the world, so of course it must be opposed, I guess.  Why reduce the burden on some country swimming in people if it means you have to interact with someone whose customs and beliefs may be different than your own?  It's so much easier to blame those people for their overpopulation problems and pat yourself on the back for helping to keep your country ethnically and ideologically pure.

(*evident sarcasm*), of course.

[JasonMckerra]

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that over consumption by the wealthy is the primary problem.

80% of the worlds resources consumed by 20% of it's people.

[Zachary Klaas]

Casting it that way might make sense, except that it leads possibly to the conclusion that things would be better if other world nations were permitted to waste resources the way we do.

One of the things I teach about in my classes is the Chinese argument about Kyoto (essentially the "You guys got rich despoiling the environment, we should have a fair crack at doing the same.")  This was a plausibly egalitarian enough argument to get China a special dispensation for more carbon emissions in Kyoto, but how does one allow China to get away with this stuff now but then rein them in later to the same carbon rules the rest of us nations are following?

That's the thing about these kinds of (intended to be temporary) measures is that they are sometimes taken to be permanent by those they benefit.

A similar issue we talk about is that of the Mik'maq fishers in Atlantic Canada, who have argued for the right to fish over quota levels because this is traditional practice for the Mik'maq and because the extreme overfishing in Atlantic Canada wasn't their fault, but the fault of big fishing corporations, European fishers, etc., etc.  Whereas it's true the decimation of the cod stocks in that part of the world wasn't the Mik'maqs fault, the overfishing that went on have led to a crisis situation for fish populations in that part of the world.  My own view is that, their fault or not, traditional practice or not, if they care about the fish population, they should follow the quotas.  Perhaps (and this wouldn't be popular in Atlantic Canada) a proper claim can be made that, if the Mik'maq want to fish more than that, this can only be allowed if the other Atlantic Canadians' quota is proportionally dropped.  But fishing more overall because of a claim of fairness to this or that culture seems to me just to be an end run around the facts of the environment.

Anyway, your point about "green racism" is well taken, but I do get a little nervous when I hear more broadly-painted "this group gets to ignore the quota because of past injustices" arguments.  I find that I'm on side giving China temporary leeway with carbon emissions to "catch up" economically, as long as this is not considered a blank check, and that perhaps the Mik'maq can be accommodated, as long as this does not serve as an excuse to watch the cod population in Atlantic Canada become extinct while rival bands of humans argue about which group should be able to harvest more of them.