Too Much of a Good Thing

Global warming, or global swarming?

by ALICIA PRIEST

“There’s only one form of pollution,” my dad said a few years before he died. “People.”

Age has a way of loosening people’s inhibitions, not that my dad—an immutable misanthrope—ever curbed his tongue in order to spare anyone’s feelings. On this point, however, I had to agree.

All of our environmental woes—species extinction, deforestation, water shortages, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, frequent storms and floods, suburban sprawl, degraded agricultural land—and most of our civil and social troubles—hunger, infectious diseases, wars, the rise of fundamentalism, poverty, violence, and crime—come down to one thing: us. Or, to be more precise, our numbers.

Tellingly, we rarely hear anything about the root cause of all this mayhem. I suspect that’s because nothing drives excessive consumption better than an ever-increasing supply of consumers. And although greed is also a contributor, ultimately, it’s not the number of cars that is killing the Earth; it’s the number of people. If Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth lived up to its name, it would identify global swarming as the source of global warming.

Now, I enjoy the company of my fellows as much as the next Homo sapien. Babies, children, middle-aged folks, older people—bring ’em on, as long as quality trumps quantity. And just because I maintain that the adage “Small is beautiful” applies to human population numbers, don’t expect me to voluntarily lighten the planet’s load just yet.

But by anyone’s yardstick, the exponential growth of humans in a very short period of time is nothing short of alarming. Consider these frightening facts, all gleaned from the World Population Awareness website (population-awareness.org):

Until modern times, the world’s population grew slowly. Demographers estimate that in 1 AD the global population was 300 million. From there it took 18 centuries to reach one billion, and one century to reach the next billion. After that the population snowball was launched: three billion in 1960, four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999, and an estimated seven billion in 2012.

During the past 50 years, population growth has been greater than during the four million years since our ancestors came down from the trees. If we continue at the current rate, world population will double to more than 11 billion by 2035.

Every second, five babies are born and three people die—a net increase of two. That adds up to 78 million more people every year—the population of France, Greece, and Sweden combined.

Although birth rates are falling worldwide, death rates are declining even faster. The number of people aged 65 and older is projected to double from about 15 per cent of the world population today to about 30 per cent by 2050.

Think the population problem rests only with those teeming masses in Asia and Africa? Think again. We—the richest fifth of humanity—consume 86 per cent of all goods and services, while the poorest fifth consumes just 1.30 per cent. Given that our footprint occupies seven times more of the Earth than theirs, there’s reason for us to limit the size of our families (which to some extent, we are).

When explosive growth rates happen with any other species—rabbits, frogs, or lemmings, for instance—nature intervenes in the form of a shrinking food supply or a deadly disease. In fact, 14th-century Europeans living in dirty, overcrowded cities experienced just such a natural correction: It was called the Black Death, or bubonic plague, and it killed up to one-third of Europe’s citizens. Ecology has its limits.

It’s a lesson humans have yet to learn. Anthropocentric religions that urge people to reproduce, with commands such as “Be fruitful and multiply,” commit a great sin. Originally intended to enhance life, such edicts now threaten to destroy it. So does the current brand of American politics, which has cut funding for international family planning resources. Yet with unwanted pregnancies responsible for one-third of the world’s population growth, family planning in developing countries is desperately needed.

Ultimately, however, educating women is the key to achieving a sustainable rate of population growth. Research shows that even a few years of education has a great impact on fertility rates. And when women have sexual and reproductive rights and receive equal social and economic status, they choose to have fewer children. Everywhere that women have been empowered (including Thailand and South Korea), family size has shrunk.

For our children and grandchildren, and for all other creatures, we must put a brake on our breeding habits. If we don’t, nature will do it for us.

Alicia Priest is a Victoria freelance writer and mother of one who believes that when it comes to people, less is more.