Depopulation Panic Threatens Our Sustainability
This is no time to rest.
Headlines in recent years have heralded that today’s young adults are increasingly delaying childbirth, choosing to have fewer children, and even choosing to be childfree.
This is great news on an overpopulated planet — for humanity and for all species. While there is still work to be done, this ought to be cause for celebration by sustainable population advocates like me. It IS — after all — the beautiful, voluntary, ethical solution to our overpopulation crisis. About a dozen nations are already experiencing a contracting population. More and more will join their ranks this century.
Sure, it’s huge that China’s population will peak very soon, and begin to contract. But it’s just as important that we see the same thing in places like the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Our goal should be for every nation to move into this post-growth phase of correction.
I was about to break out the Champagne. But alas, a dark cloud has appeared around this silver lining:
policymakers in nations around the world are freaking out.
They, and the systems they protect, are addicted to growth. They can’t imagine a world in which human population is correcting itself down to a sustainable level. So depopulation panic is on the rise. What is truly a positive development is being described as “serious demographic headwinds,” “death spiral demographics,” and “demographic catastrophe.” We’re being warned it “threatens weaker economic growth.”
The growth addicts — big business and the policymakers beholden to them — are doing all they can to reverse the tide.
Unaware of the pain and suffering overshoot will bring, they are wringing their hands over declining birth rates, and pushing policy changes to incentivize population growth. This includes pulling out all stops to busy the women of our society incubating more workers, taxpayers and consumers. Yes, your visceral reaction to that is entirely appropriate. Proposing creation of human life for no other reason than to ring the bells on cash registers is repulsive.
All they’ve known is a Ponzi scheme — a world where each successive generation is larger than the last. That makes it easier to achieve aggregate GDP growth, which looks good to an electorate programmed to believe in the universal goodness of perpetual economic growth. It also makes it easier to balance government budgets. But it can’t go on.
Too few are alarmed by this panic and the efforts to undo the good that is happening. Too few are acutely aware that we’re in the midst of an overpopulation crisis and we should be welcoming declining birth rates.
So, we have more work to do than ever — countering the pro-growth dogma they preach.
We cannot rest. We must alert more and more people to the dangers of our overpopulation crisis. We must enlighten and educate policymakers, journalists and the general public about overpopulation. I implore you to join us, and to lend your financial support.
Please apply your year-end giving to the most critical issue of our time, ending human overpopulation. Support the vital work of World Population Balance.
This essay was also published at worldpopulationbalance.org
Dave Gardner is executive director of World Population Balance. He co-hosts the GrowthBusters podcast about sustainable living and The Overpopulation Podcast.
