The Verdict Is In: To Be Anti-Growth Is to Be Pro-Human

• Dr. Karen I. Shragg
• August 29, 2022
• Forum Papers
• Forum Paper
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The Verdict Is In: To Be Anti-Growth Is to Be Pro-Human
An NPG Forum Paper
by Dr. Karen I. Shragg
August 2022

“Life has taught me not to shoot messengers, no matter how bad and discouraging the news. It is more important to pay attention to those crafting the message!” – Louis Yako

Abstract: Current accusations of injustice and racism against those who work to tame overpopulation and its detrimental effects on the environment, the economy and quality of life are unfounded. Actually, the opposite represents the truth. Those who work on this overwhelming and difficult issue are motivated by a
desire for a better world for all species and a fear that ignoring it will be our downfall.

Key Words: Cancel Culture, Anti-Growth /De-Growth Activists, Overpopulation Activists, Social Justice
Warriors, Wokesters

THE ISSUE: THE CANCELING OF OVERPOPULATION ACTIVISTS

For too many years unjustified accusations have flown at those of us who have been beating the overpopulation drum. The worst of those, “The People Who Hate People,” (The Atlantic) inspired this paper. 1 At best our meager lot of degrowth and overpopulation activists are told we only care about trees and wildlife at the expense of human rights. At worst we are labeled racists and just plain anti-human. This is an expedient way to shut down a much-needed conversation, avoid the truth and any hope of solving what is behind our booming environmental crisis. It is a lazy discourse at best and environmentally damaging at its worst. Those on the far left of the spectrum point their self-righteous fingers at the antigrowth/overpopulation activists and shame them for blaming the poor instead of going after those in the developed world for living relatively luxurious lives. In so many circles, from academia to the major media outlets, it is now more politically correct to go after air conditioning than it is to wave the family planning flag.

Journalist and author Bari Weiss speaks extensively about the trap of cancel culture. She describes the damage it is doing to our democracy and its abuse of the first amendment’s guarantee to free speech. She describes this dangerous movement this way:

“Ideas are replaced with identity. Forgiveness is replaced with punishment. Debate is replaced with disinvitation and deplatforming. Diversity is replaced with homogeneity of thought. Inclusion with exclusion. Excellence with equity.

In this ideology, disagreement is recast as trauma. So speech is violence. But violence, when carried out by the right people in pursuit of a just cause, is not violence at all – but in fact justice. In this ideology, bullying is wrong, unless you are bullying the right people, in which case it’s very, very good. In this ideology, information that does not comport with The Narrative is recast as disinformation, its proponents as conspiracy theorists. In this ideology, education is not about teaching people how to think, it’s about re-educating them in what to think. In this ideology the need to feel safe trumps the need to speak truthfully.”2

This NPG Forum paper is a call for the need to create a safe discussion space for those who have a great depth of knowledge and concern about what our anthropocentric views and the untethered growth of the human enterprise is doing to the very possibility of even having a future on a planet we are systematically destroying…Continue reading the full Forum paper by clicking here.