How to Fix The Planet, The Easy Way
Scientists are facing the facts and reporting that there is an existential threat to life on Earth. 8 billion people on a planet with depleting resources and increasing CO2 is causing an epic slow motion disaster like no other. Climate-related disasters are coming a town near you, but as far as solutions go we’re only looking at one side of the coin while ignoring the other, because it starts with the letter ‘p’.
We’re making token gestures to try to fix the climate but it’s clear that we’re not doing nearly enough fast enough to make any real difference. This year is set to be the hottest on record, unprecedented fires are burning and Antarctic ice is at lows never seen before. We need to expect the unexpected as new disasters will take us by surprise for the foreseeable future. Our mind-numbing ignorance, daydreaming and complacency is pushing us quickly towards disaster.
The trouble is we can’t change. We’re pre-programmed to keep what we like and stick with the status quo. We like our flights. We like our beef. We like our cars. We like our air conditioning. We’re just not going to stop doing these things until real change is forced upon us and our choice is removed. A fundamental flaw with democracy is that we vote for things that make our lives better in the short term, even if this means disaster in the longer term. We won’t vote to give up luxuries voluntarily. Instead we have token fixes like electric cars and solar panels and kid ourselves that this is enough.
There is one simple answer that has been airbrushed out of our collective thought — we reduce our numbers.
Before you jump to any genocidal conclusions, consider the facts. Managing our numbers is simple, effective, easy to implement and is more cost effective than any other measure. Fewer babies being born is all that is needed. By reducing the global birth rate by an average of one child per family we would quickly see the benefits which would compound themselves as the years pass. Some people panic and argue that this isn’t going to fix the problem quickly enough. True, it isn’t a quick fix, but we’re not taking the measures needed to reduce CO2 nearly quickly enough as it is, so why not do both? Long term problems require long term solutions.
The benefits of a smaller population are everywhere. Food production would be easier without a growing population to feed. Would you like to see an end to poverty and famines? Charities like the WWF and Save the Children will never finish their aims until we stop and reverse population growth.
Reforestation could happen as beef production would reduce. Fish stocks would recover as demand fell, there would be less traffic on the roads, less pollution. Number one on the list of benefits: it helps fix climate change. Everything would be better — except perhaps profit margins. We’re doing almost nothing to make it happen, we don’t even talk about it. With simple policy changes and public support we could easily change and make the world a far, far better place.
We don’t consider our numbers for a number of totally spurious reasons. We are lead by growth obsessed politicians and business people who are out of touch with what is happening to the planet and to the answers so desperately needed. Governments have net-zero goals but they are farcical when they happen alongside high net immigration figures which wipe out the carbon reduction goals and overall adds more to emissions, not least from the hundreds of thousands more homes that need to be built as a result.
We are still adding 75 million people a year to the planet, another Germany, all needing water, food and shelter. A fertility rate cut by one child, to an average of 1.3 children from the current 2.3 would quickly see population growth stop and then begin to decline. The immense pressure that a growing population has put on planet for the last two centuries would ease. Things would gradually get better, eventually getting much much better, for everyone and everything.
With 8 billion people and rising, all wanting decent lives, a vast amount of CO2 is being emitted. Estimates for the number of people the planet can support varies, depending on standards of living. 8 billion and heading to 10 billion is unsustainable at current levels of consumption, with overdeveloped countries taking far more than their fair share. Estimates of a population that could be sustained in the longer term if average consumption levels were slightly reduced vary between 2 and 6 billion, so that there are at least 2 billion more people on the planet than can be sustained.
So either our consumption comes down or our numbers come down, or a combination of the two. We’re not changing our consumption habits and our overall numbers are still rising. We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. One, or both, will reduce whether we like it or not. We have a choice. We can either continue pretending the Elephant in the Room of overpopulation doesn’t exist, or we finally face the fact that The Emperor Isn’t Wearing Any Clothes and pro-actively encourage fewer births until our numbers come back down from the currently dangerous levels.
The silence on our excess numbers is the greatest and most cowardly collective tragedy and betrayal of modern times. Our numbers need to come down as quickly and humanely as possible before they come down the other way, which won’t be pretty. Mother Nature has had enough of this wantonly destructive species and is slowly turning up the heat and extreme weather dials. By the time the dial goes up to levels in the not too distant future it will be too late. The frog in the pot will be boiling and we will fight for our own survival, taking down more of the population and other species along the way. This is the default path and the one that we’re currently on.
Many countries already have low birth rates and they are falling gradually in most parts of the world, which is often used as a reason not to take any positive action. But when we can so easily manage our birth rates, why not do it pro-actively? We have the technology, Captain. All it takes is a condom, a pill or a vasectomy and no more babies. One entire lifetime of consumption and the consequences avoided at virtually zero cost.
Talk about population has been taboo for the last few decades. When you ask people what is the single most effective thing you can do to help the environment, the answers given will be to stop eating meat, stop flying, recycle, or one of the many usual suspects. Only a tiny minority of people will ever give you the right answer, despite the fact that adding another person to the planet is the most damaging thing you can do, by far. Birth rates are in our power as individuals to change, just by deciding not to have children.
Of course having children is the most fundamental and enjoyable part of being alive and we wouldn’t last long without them. For a relatively short time we should make a commitment for those very people who will be alive at the end of this century. We don’t appreciate the positives because we’ve never experienced them. If we could stop population growth, we would be able to stop building, as we just wouldn’t need to any more. This in itself would reduce emissions massively whilst also freeing up millions of people to do more positive work.
Governments are increasingly taking the opposite view, seeing a decline in population as a fiscal issue that needs changing to keep tax revenues high. Some are giving couples financial incentives to have children, saying that we don’t have enough people to look after the elderly. But these are false arguments when you consider that only 100 years ago most of us worked just to produce food. Today it’s a tiny fraction, meaning there are plenty of people with the time to look after the elderly.
Funding could be given to countries where people can’t afford contraception which currently traps them into a cycle of large families and continuing poverty. Given the ominous road ahead is it morally justifiable to bring another person to a world anyway? A terrible question to have to ask, but given the situation it is one that we must ask.
Fifty years from now some cities will be under water. If we aim for a reduced population the coming breakdown will be much easier to manage and could even be prevented. A world of 6 billion people would be happier and more content than the one with 8 billion A world with 6 billion would see that 3 billion would be even better. We could slide back down to safety instead of fall. We could still take a turn and avoid the iceberg, which is dead ahead, but for now the Captain is nowhere to be seen.
