Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for December 11, 2006

How to Slow Population Growth?

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Dr John Reid, a Melbourne neuroscientist, said on ABC radio yesterday, in a piece entitled ‘Apocalypse Now’, that population growth is a major environmental issue.

I agree.

He went on to suggest that,

“In the discussion of human impact on the biosphere, two separate but interactive issues are being conflated. These two issues are climate change, due to the emission of greenhouse gases, and the excessive demand for resources, due to overpopulation.”

So far, he’s making a little bit of sense.

But when it came to providing solutions to overpopulation, Dr Reid clearly had no regard for the rights of women in affluent societies.

He suggested that population growth might be controlled by putting,

“Something in the water, a virus that would be specific to the human reproductive system and would make a substantial proportion of the population infertile.

“Perhaps a virus that would knock out the genes that produce certain hormones necessary for conception.

“The world’s most affluent populations should be targeted first. According to the 2006 Living Planet Report, the six populations that have the biggest per capita ecological footprint live in the United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, Finland, Canada, Kuwait, and Australia.”

But hang on John Reid! Many women, in many affluent socieites, are choosing to have none, one or just two children.

Dr Reid stated,

“The urge to procreate and the innate belief that people have the inalienable right, if not the duty, to have children is too strong to be suppressed, just to save the planet.”

But many women like me, choose to only have one child for a variety of reasons, including quality of life, recognising that there are enough people on this planet already.

Perhaps John Reid is conflating “the urge to procreate” with the urge to have s-x.

Modern methods of contraception mean it is possible to have s-x without procreating!

You can read the complete and startling transcript here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2006/1807002.htm#transcript

Economic Growth Relevant, Even if Global Population Declines: A Note from Pinxi

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Many people are concerned by the current dominant global socio-economic paradigm in which economic growth is expected to continue forever.

I’ve commented at a previous thread that the associated issues, including resource depletion, may become “somewhat redundant” once global population starts to decline which many predict will happen before the end of this century.

A regular reader and commentator at this blog, Pinxi, disagrees. She writes:

“In my worldview, economic growth and resource depletion will remain relevant issues for the foreseeable future. These issues are not about to become redundant, regardless of whether we will achieve a declining (or stable) global population or decreased resource intensity.

I formed this opinion considering:

1) the large gaps in living standards (within & between countries) between the minority ‘haves’ & the majority ‘have nots’

2) the pressures and desires for continually rising living standards

3) that we haven’t decoupled living standards from resource throughput; we haven’t decoupled quality of life from materials

4) that looking at the rich countries with declining (& stable!) populations there is no evidence that economic growth or resource depletion has become redundant

5) MNCs see the huge populations in third and second world economies as massive untapped market opportunities – more sales needs more products & distribution needs more resources

6) more consumption means more resource use, and methods to reduce the linear nature of resource throughput require more energy for reuse, recycling, repurposing etc so there’s more entropy, less exergy

If global population is declining, you could have longterm negative economic growth but that doesn’t make economic growth redundant. Without a paradigm shift, economic growth is still relevant to our socioeconomic mechanics.

Industrialised societies are organised with economic growth at core and now expect continual improvements in living standards (and we get scared of potential threats to our way of life, such as global warming, peak oil, China, and cheap immigrant labour).

The paradigm will still persist unless we have a paradigm shift. What would bring on a paradigm shift (far-reaching disasters aside)? How would such a paradigm shift manifest?

We haven’t managed to decouple economic growth or maintenance of living standards from resource and energy throughputs yet. Until we do so, economic growth and associated resource throughput will remain an ongoing concern.

All those ‘other demanding people’ in ‘the other countries’ though want better living standards & cars, houses, coca cola & Maccas just like us. Meanwhile we still want to get one up on the Joneses, and marketers flog more must have items at us. All this requires resource throughputs.

A decline in birth rates in the third world is linked with education, health, food and women’s rights (self-determination, property, jobs etc) and while in some areas of the Millenium Development Goals we’re making percentile progress, we have huge improvements to make if we want real declines in the number of people living in poverty and dire inequality.

Basic human rights, and reduced risk and uncertainty in livelihoods and survivial, reduce population pressures. But that doesn’t by itself bring people up to speed with our first world standard of living. It simply means meeting bare minimum conditions for life for most people.

So even when/if population growth steadies, there’ll still be massive differences in quality of life and material standards, and bigger markets for marketing more unnecessary stuff that we all simply must have.

That attempt to catch up, and the never ending consumptive drive, will demand more resources.

Thankfully I still have my resource shares!”

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This is a slightly edited version of a comment originally posted here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001779.html at 3.22pm on 11th December.

John Howard: Trying for Balance on Climate Change

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Yesterday, on the same day long time anti-nuclear campaigner Peter Garrett was given the job of Shadow Environment and Climage Change Minister, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, announced the establishment of a joint government businesss Prime Ministerial Task Group on emissions trading.

He said, “As a world community we need to find new practical global solutions to climate change that include all major economies and emitters and that take account of national goals for economic prosperity, energy security and environmental sustainability.

Australia is blessed with abundant coal, gas and uranium reserves and significant renewable assets. In assessing Australia’s further contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions these advantages must be preserved.

While there is no one single solution to the global climate change challenge we need to maintain the prosperity that our abundant fossil fuels have given us while at the same time exploring options for global climate change solutions and accelerating the development and deployment of low emissions and clean coal technologies.”

Today, the Prime Minister made comment that:

“In all of our policies we seek a sense of balance.

In health, we strongly fund, through the Government, the Medicare system and that is balanced by private incentives for health insurance. In education, we support both government and independent schools. In social security, we achieve a sense of balance by avoiding, on the one hand the harshness of the American approach and also the over indulgent, nanny-state approach, of many European countries.

It’s crucial that in the important area of climate change we achieve the same sense of balance. We must play our part in responding to the challenge of growing greenhouse gas emissions, but we must do it in a way that does not damage the industries such as the coal industry and uranium, which have given us a competitive advantage.

The Task Group I announced yesterday brings together industry and government people to give us the way forward in relation to a global emissions trading system that will respond to the greenhouse gas challenge, but in a way that does not hurt Australia’s competitive position. In this way, once again, we in Australia can achieve that sense of balance which is so important in many areas of public policy.”

What might the Task Group actually recommend?

Peter Garrett: Carbon Trading without Uranium Mining

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Peter Garrett, once rock star in Australian band Midnight Oil, then President of the Australian Conservation Foundation and board member of Greenpeace International, then parachuted into federal politics, and now, following the elevation of Kevin Rudd to the position of leader of Australia’s Labor Party, the Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change.

On ABC radio this morning Garrett talked about the need for “targets and timelines” to address climate change. He didn’t mention alternative energy sources.

Some say that the only real greenhouse neutral alternative to coal, for baseload power generation, is uranium. The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, recently commissioned an inquiry into nuclear energy and is likely to make nuclear power an election issue next year. Interestingly Peter Garrett has always been an ardent critic of nuclear power and uranium mining.

Few would dispute that climate change is likely to be a focus for the next federal election. Is Garrett, as shadow environment minister, going to limit the potential for the Labor party to do anything except back carbon trading and Kyoto? Furthermore, how effective is carbon trading likely to be, if there are no realistic carbon neutral sources of energy generation in Australia?

It is also interesting to ponder the extent to which Peter Garrett has been an integral part of the Australian environment movement. In June 2004 I explained in The Land that:

“Perhaps the best kept secret is Garrett’s significant contribution to building and giving impetus to the Australian environment movement through the Mittagong Forum.

Peter Garret was President of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) from 1989 to 1993 and then most recently from 1999. It was in 1999 that the ACF Strategic Plan announced the need to ‘broaden and strengthen the environment movement in Australia’.

The concept was realized through a series of meetings held in Mittagong in the Southern Highlands.

Garrett also lives there. He played a key role in getting the big environmental organizations together including Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature and State conservation councils.

Early discussion included methods to increase movement wide collaboration on issues and campaigns, along with understanding emerging issues and developing potential strategies to tackle them.

In 2000 ACF received a substantial grant from a philanthropic trust and directed the funds towards the Mittagong Forum, which has met at least 14 times since 2000.

Its vision is to, ‘develop capability, generate strategic insights, and to work collaboratively, to enhance the effectiveness of Australia’s Environment Movement.’

‘Fundraising to increase independence of organizations and for the Mittagong Forum’ has also been a key goal.

The forum recognizes that different environmental groups will not ‘necessarily agree on issues’, but says by working together they can more effectively achieve broad and specific environmental conservation outcomes.”

Garrett has always been outcome focused… and he has always opposed uranium mining. An interesting combination for a potential Environment Minister given the current overwhelming concern about global warming.