Telling and Selling the Overpopulation Issue: Why Climate Change Gets So Much More Attention
- Dr. Karen I. Shragg
- June 25, 2019
- Forum Papers
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Telling and Selling the Overpopulation Issue: Why Climate Change Gets So Much More Attention
An NPG Forum Paper by Dr. Karen I. Shragg
Abstract
Search the literature; read the news; comb the mission statements and recommendations of various environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and it will become obvious how climate change dominates the public discourse leaving the overpopulation issue behind. The average global per person carbon footprint is 4.9 metric tons per year according to the Global Footprint Network. Multiplied by 82 million, which is the number World Population Balance says we add (net gain) to our planet every year, and one gets a low estimate of almost 402 million metric tons of carbon added to the planet. These numbers indicate that the per person impact matters when it comes to climate change. Numbers matter when it comes to resource and wildlife and general quality of life as well, but for the purpose of this paper I will explore why these two very connected issues have been separated to the detriment of us all.
The Hurdles Before Us
Why is the story of overpopulation so hard to tell and sell? Why has the climate change story been so much more successful in becoming a dominant – if not the dominant – environmental issue of demonstrators, major media and NGO’s? Why are there so many guilty parties in the deliberate and collective silence on this issue? From mainstream to alternative media, from environmental NGO’s to political candidates, from meteorologists to immigration and peace activists, overpopulation remains a decades-long taboo.
Both issues paint such a horrific future for humankind and wildlife, yet only one is truly on the table. The very existence of human-caused climate change is still controversial to some, but at least it is being discussed. A quick Google search of NGO’s addressing climate change produces a lengthy list, a longer one than a similar search for overpopulation groups. My favorite is called Climate Reality. It is Al Gore’s pet project and it is not truly teaching the reality of climate change because you will not find any reference to the overpopulation issue on its plea for a reduction in the use of fossil fuels.
What I want to examine in this forum paper is why climate change gets almost all of the ink devoted to big issues threatening the planet while overpopulation remains an issue which is largely ignored. Why do overpopulation groups discuss climate change but climate change groups largely ignore overpopulation? One would be hard pressed to find even one reference to overpopulation on 350.org, or other listed climate websites. There is a different story on overpopulation websites. The World Population Balance website, www.worldpopulationbalance.org, helps viewers make the critical connection between the two. They say: “Adaptation to climate disruption will be much easier with a much smaller global population.”
I do not want to contribute to any conversation about which issue is more important. Competition between these two critical issues is not productive. They are intimately and inextricably connected and both important. Ideally every paper, NGO, activist and journalist would never speak of one without discussing the other. I want to explore why this is not happening in our divided world.
At first blush, climate change is just easier to discuss. It comes with less baggage. In my own life I recall holding a forum for 125 people at my nature center on what was then called Global Warming. I had a state senator come in to discuss what government could do about it. That was in 1988. It took me another four years to realize that there was more to the story of human- caused planetary destruction. What I came to understand is that if climate change were to magically disappear as a threat to life on earth, overpopulation would remain as an existential threat to our existence. Because we live on a limited planet with a fragile biosphere, we would continue to suffer from scarcity and the issues that it perpetuates: poverty, lack of fresh water, war, traffic, and loss of species. Furthermore, each of us cannot help but contribute to our carbon footprint with our diet, use of water, energy and need for shelter as well as transportation and other products. One million people are added to our already overpopulated planet every 4.5 days. If climate change is the fire, overpopulation is the fuel.
Economists carry a lot of weight in our culture yet their over-arching perspective is damaging to both the issues of climate change and overpopulation.
According to Dennis Meadows, author of Limits to Growth, in an interview with Alan White in 2015 entitled, Growing, Growing, Gone: Reaching the Limits:
“The economics profession is based on the assumption that continual growth is possible and desirable. Likewise, most politicians have a predisposition for growth because it makes the problems they address—unemployment, poverty, diminished tax bases—more tractable. Instead of having to divide a fixed pie, which gets you in trouble with some constituents, you can grow the pie so that nobody has to make a sacrifice or compromise. So there was—and is—a set of vested interests in the notion of growth.”
Buying into the growth model does satisfy Wall Street investors, but it becomes a barrier to getting at the source of the planet’s current predicament.
A quick Google search of articles on Climate Change produces over 473 million choices. The same search of overpopulation produces a bit over 2 million hits, more than I would have guessed.
Climate change marches are happening all over the world. With chants like, “What do we want climate justice, when do we want it NOW” they march against the inertia of getting off fossil fuels. Students leave their classrooms to protest with signs that say everything negative about our reluctance to change, everything except deliberately reducing our numbers. If I were a betting person I would challenge anyone to find overpopulation mentioned on any protest signs at any of these worldwide rallies. I have searched hundreds of climate protest signs both at rallies and on the Internet and none referred to overpopulation and its role in our collective carbon footprint.
In this paper, I will explore some of the reasons why I believe climate change is an issue on the table, albeit woefully ignored with any effective actions, whereas overpopulation is virtually absent…
Continue reading the full Forum paper by clicking here.
Dr. Karen I. Shragg is an overpopulation activist, speaker, and author of the new book Move Upstream: A Call to Solve Overpopulation (Free Thought House Press, 2015). A naturalist and director of Wood Lake Nature Center in Richfield, Minnesota, Dr. Shragg is also the author of many other titles including the Nature’s Yucky children’s book series.
