greenwash

By Brian McGavin, UK-based writer and analyst. 2013

Burning the candle at both ends
Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers.

For many decades now there has been a wilful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. A problem that is driving the astonishing growth of fossil fuel use and its depletion, climate warming, bio-diversity loss, the growing shortage of fresh water to meet human needs - and as a consequence of these changes - the prospect that agriculture will be unable to produce enough food to feed us.

Our children our facing a hugely challenging future. We are already feeling the changes – declining real wages, soaring commodity and energy prices, growing infra-structure pressures and overcrowding, driven by unsustainable population growth. Add to this a now faltering global economy based on the impossibility of endless growth and debt, with politicians throwing billions in taxpayers' money around to feed ‘business as usual’. This will need to be radically rethought to keep our complex society functioning.

In most countries today existing populations are not living environmentally sustainably, yet even if the UN’s assumption of birth-rate decline in developing countries happens, global population will rise to over 9.6 billion by 2050. Less reported is that if current birth rates persist, the United Nations Population Division warned in October 2011, that the world's population could more than double to over 15 billion in the lifetime of many people alive today.

In Africa, the UN admits that it won’t meet key Millennium Development Goals. Many countries in Africa already have massive unemployment and not enough food. How will they provide all the schools, jobs, hospitals and food to sustain populations that are set to more than double and in some cases triple in size in less than 40 years?

Governments will be struggling with millions of unemployed and hungry people attracted to violence and extremism. Look at the problems already in our news in countries like Haiti, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali, Yemen, Egypt and Afghanistan – all countries on food aid, with exploding populations and increasingly scarce resources, who export surplus people to North America, Europe and Australia – yet population growth is barely mentioned!

In a few years, we face major oil energy decline as global demand outstrips supply.

A huge problem is most alternative energy sources are poor net energy performers.

Professor John Beddington, former UK Chief Scientist, warned in March 2009 that: “Our food reserves are at a 50-year low, but by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water. They are dramatic problems, and they are all intimately connected.”

You can try reducing consumption all you want, but when you keep adding 100 million and another 100 million, you simply drive every human to a lower and lower standard of living. You cannot escape that reality.

Saving the planet and greenwash

Most environmental organisations tell us that ‘if only we each reduced our environmental demand, population growth would not be a problem’. But our economic system based on growth is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.

Demographic impacts were discussed sensibly back in the 1970s but since then a combination of political blindness and political correctness, an alliance of ill-informed religious dogmatists and an economic doctrine of 'out with limits', has undermined common sense and political backbone.

Climate change is heard, but many people, not least politicians, are in profound ignorance of the huge challenges we now face, nearly all linked to the relentless rise in human numbers and diminishing resources. Aiding and abetting this is a celebrity and sport obsessed media that cheers endless growth to prosperity and drowns out wider coverage on key issues impacting on our future.

Why would we think it better to create energy shortages, resource shortages, lowered quality of life, a housing crisis, lowered standard of living, more air pollution, grid-locked traffic, bio-diversity loss, and many more calamities caused by ever increasing population pressures?

If governments won’t talk population, then they are not serious about cutting emissions, managing the water supply, managing food supplies, and a secure quality of life for our people.

It is not a question of ‘either or’ and who needs to act. We are in this together. Rich nations are consuming too much and populations continue to rise. Legitimate aspirations to raise living standards in high population countries like China and India are consuming ever-more resources. In many developing countries with acute water and food shortages, populations are projected to double or triple in size within 40 years – driving social unrest and migration on a massive scale.

There are several key challenges we have to talk about and face. In particular, ensuring development aid from donor countries delivers fully accessible and properly funded reproductive health care for all, along with equal access to education for girls and women. In many countries there are still barriers to this. We also have to start incentivising welfare systems to encourage fewer births rather than more and aim for balanced migration.

Moral values?

Some people believe they have a right to have as many children as they want, whether they can look after them or not and fail to understand or just ignore the consequences of growing populations. Many commentators wilfully promote an ever-larger population in the name of freedom of choice and growth. There will be precious little choice left if we go on multiplying with no thought for the future.

Others claim their religion for actions that impact on others: Have large families "in the name of God" ; Over-consuming resources? "God will provide” - so we don't need to think about the consequences; and when the day of reckoning and collapse arrives - "It is God's will" – an opt-out from moral responsibility.

We have higher intellect to understand the consequences of our actions. Do we plan for a secure and better life or do we carry on blindly toward a minefield of lethal limits?

Rights come with responsibilities. Society has a right to expect its citizens to act in ways that do not endanger others. We still have a choice. The world badly needs a grown-up, rational discussion on population - without blame, abuse and hysteria.

Our children will not thank us for being driven to an abyss.

Despite their claim to oppose the Wall Street agenda, pseudo-environmentalists remain supportive of one of its key elements----the unfettered migration of cheap labour across borders.

Where did Avaaz go in 2012?
Hopefully to hell.

They tried very hard to prevent Sun Media from gaining a licence to enter the Canadian cable/satellite TV market---for good reason. Sun Media has been to present politically incorrect truths that the Smear Network (Avaaz, Common Dreams, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, SPLC and CNC) have tried to prevent Canadians from hearing. At long last, people are learning about the corporate funding behind the David Suzuki Foundation, the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy and other green orgs on the corporate take. All of these organizations share one common thread. They are all "population-deniers" . None seem prepared to concede that if human activity causes climate change, then the number of "humans" must have something to do with human activity.

Read this month's issue of the Social Contract and you will learn part of what has been going on. The Green-Left are not our "friends". Their aim to is to exclude, isolate and marginalize population activists from the environmental conservation. Despite their claim to oppose the Wall Street agenda, they remain supportive of one of its key elements----the unfettered migration of cheap labour across borders. Despite their fixation on climate change, they fail to mention that immigrants, on average, quadruple their GHG emissions upon arrival to this continent, and that since 1991, immigration has been responsible for four times as much GHG emissions as the entire Alberta tar sands project, which Avaaz et al reviles. And when a couple in British Columbia gave birth to their 18th child, not one constituent of this fake green coalition thought to use it as a "teachable moment" to educate Canadians about the carbon legacy of having children.

The failure of Avaaz and their ridiculous petition to thwart Sun media was the highlight of my year. The CBC monopoly has been broken. The truth will out.

The idea that in gratitude for our support, greens will one day embrace Malthusian concerns is forlorn. Suzuki is a classic case in point. When it came to the crunch, on October 31st, on the eve of arguably the most significant day in human history----the birth of the 7th billion human---he wrote to say that population growth was not so important. So don't hold your breath for Avaaz.

Living smaller can’t offset an unsustainable population that’s growing bigger.

Distractions and Half-Solutions

There are many problems such as climate change, famine, ethnic strife, women’s rights, inaccessible health care and education, which command more attention than the underlying forces which drive them. However, if those underlying forces are not addressed, then any solutions to those problems can only be seen as half-solutions, and any focus on them as distractions. If jumping half-way across a chasm doesn’t get you to the other side, it is better to abort the launch and plot another course.

It must be understood that in an economy such as ours, which is so heavily dependent on non-renewable resources, zero-sum game conditions apply, and the decisive factor in determining scarcity is the number of people who are making a claim on that diminishing supply. It is much like a teeter-totter. As the number of people goes up, the amount of resources per person goes down--- except for one thing. Even if the number of people remained the same, the per capita supply on of non-renewable natural resources would continue to diminish---a ‘negative’ sum game condition which would eventually undermine even the most equitable distribution of resources and erupt in lethal conflict. Clearly then, standing pat with a human population level that is already unsustainable is not a solution. Mere population stabilization will not get us to our desired destination. Not by a country mile. The reality is, the scale of overshoot is such that we may have passed several tipping points already, and the planet will not wait for us to conduct modest population reductions at the leisurely pace some would prescribe.

Living Smaller Is Not A Significant Offset To Overshoot

One answer---currently fashionable in affluent societies----is “green living” or living smaller. It is a message that has gained currency even in commercial circles. As Al Gore advised us in his documentary, “The Inconvenient Truth”, if we all resolved to reduce our personal impacts and made more responsible consumer choices, the sum total of our sacrifices would add up to a sustainable society.

Thus many of us, in the developed world, heeding this call for personal responsibility, resolved to conserve and recycle, change to more efficient light bulbs, and drive more fuel-efficient cars, to reduce our personal footprint. Little attention was given, unfortunately, to the number of “feet” that have erased the gains made by this behaviour. As Kate Galbraith reported in the New York Times, if a hypothetical American woman who switches to a more fuel-efficient car, drives less, recycles, installs more efficient light bulbs, replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving models has two kids, “her carbon legacy would eventually rise to nearly 40 times what she had saved by those actions.” (“Having Children Brings High Carbon Impact”, August 7, 2009) She cited a study conducted by Paul Murtaugh and Michael Schlax of Oregon State University that was published in a peer-reviewed journal called “Global Environmental Change19 in 2009 (pp 14-20). Murtaugh, a statistics professor, and Schlax, an oceanic and atmospheric science professor, both at OSU, found that having children greatly swells the acreage of one’s footprint.

“Clearly, the potential savings from reduced reproduction are huge compared to the savings that can be achieved by changes in lifestyle. A woman who adopted the six non-reproductive changes in Table 3(as summarized by Galbraith above) would save about 486 tons of C02 emissions during her lifetime, but if she were to have two children, this would eventually add 40 times that amount of C02 (18,882 tons) to the earth’s atmosphere.” (p. 18)

In other words, not having a child dwarfs all other green “lifeway” shifts. They added that using the “constant” emissions scenario between more pessimistic and more optimistic projections of future C02 emissions,

“...an extra child born to a woman in the United States ultimately increases her carbon legacy by an amount (9,441 metric tons) that is nearly seven times the analogous quantity for a woman in China (1,384 tons), but because of China’s enormous population size, its total carbon emissions currently exceed those of the United States.”

While acknowledging that “lifestyle changes” are essential, they emphasize that they “must propagate through future generations to be effective and...enormous benefits can be gained by immediate changes in reproductive behaviour. They conclude that “ignoring the consequences of reproduction can lead to serious under-estimation of an individual’s long-term impact on the global environment.”

“P” is the decisive variable in IPAT

In the so-called “IPAT” equation, the foundational formula of the environmental movement, where “I” (environmental impact) equals “P” (the population level) times “A” (or per capita consumption) times “T” ( for technological inputs), the conventional wisdom is that the “P” factor carries equal weight with the “A” factor. The Murtaugh/Schlax study, however, demonstrates that “P”, our population level, is by far the decisive variable. Murtaugh even noted that their calculations are “relevant to other environmental impacts beside carbon emissions-for example, the consumption of fresh water, which many feel is already in short supply." The fact is, climate change is not the only metric of overshoot, nor necessarily the most urgent. Our crushing population level drives and magnifies every one of the multitude of synergistic disasters that are building into “the perfect storm”. This is the real “inconvenient truth” that the environmental establishment is wilfully ignorant of. More than that, some so-called environmentalists like the “Hartmannites” and the “Eco-socialists” have not only downplayed the role of population in environmental degradation but denied it. This is a sin of omission and denial of even greater scale than that of the climate sceptics they revile. And it is a sin that cannot be expiated simply by acts of self-righteous self-abnegation, frugality or “green living.”

And as population expert Dr. Jack Alpert remarked,

“...we do not know if these ‘responsible’, ‘green’ behaviors, when combined with all our other behaviors, actually reduce our footprint.  3000 miles of airplane travel per seat consumes the petrol an efficient car consumes in 4 months. Take three or four family members on the plane and your family’s footprint is the same as if you drove an extra car.  Take three family trips a year and your family burns enough petrol to run four cars. If we do not increase the size of our homes or take more energy intensive vacations, and we take aggressive conservation measures, we can indeed reduce our personal footprint---by a few percent. However, if we eat a more healthful diet and exercise, and it extends our life by that same percentage – how then would we reduce our footprint at all? If we capped the consumption of all individuals; if each person in the world, accepted ‘middle American’ limits to his or her consumptive practices; if we limited the number of children so global population stopped growing; if we changed to a coal economy and sequestered all the carbon dioxide, total human footprint would still increase by a factor of four to allow the "have-nots’" consumption to catch up with that of middle class "haves".   We would empty our reservoirs, diminish our forests and fisheries, and poison and destroy our environment 4 times faster than we are today.”

It should become apparent that curbing personal consumption will not prevent rapidly expanding scarcity, dislocation and, conflict and an ensuing dark age. We must reduce the human population as quickly and radically as we can to preserve the human experiment by allowing human ingenuity the time it needs to buy the time we need to achieve a more graceful transition to our ultimate destination. To believe that we can jump across the chasm to a sustainable existence without rapid population decline is more than a leap of faith. It is suicidal.

Tim Murray
July 19/2011

In a shocking announcement outside his San Francisco office, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune,---who only succeeded Carl Pope to that position less than two years ago--- told surprised reporters that he was stepping down in favour of an android developed by technicians attached to an Artificial Intelligence laboratory financed by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. The android will replace Brune and everyone else on the Sierra Club payroll.

Introducing Robo-Pop(e), Mark II

It seems that even the bloated bureaucracies of mainstream environmental organizations are feeling the pinch of the Great Recession, forcing labour-saving economies on even the richest of them. The latest move by the Sierra Club therefore makes sense. Since their high-priced front men have given us robotic answers to perennial questions, why not replace them with a bona-fide robot who will work on the cheap, as American workers have been forced to after the influx of 12-20 illegal immigrants which the Sierra Club has refused to oppose? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce "Robo-Pop(e) Mark II, designed using long-term Sierra Club director Carl Pope as a template.

Robo-Pop(e) (pictured at right), who goes by the anthropomorphic Christian name of “Carlos”, has now become the sole voice of the Sierra Club, the flagship organization of the environmental movement.

Shocking announcement

In a shocking announcement made before a hastily assembled press conference outside his San Francisco office, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune,---who only succeeded Carl Pope to that position less than two years ago--- told surprised reporters that he was stepping down in favour of an android developed by technicians attached to an Artificial Intelligence laboratory financed by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. The android will replace Brune and everyone else on the Sierra Club payroll.

Response to criticism

The move apparently came in response to long-standing criticism that the bloated $100 million annual budget of the Sierra Club was consumed by an expensive bureaucracy of careerists intent upon growing the Club by continuing to ignore the root cause of America’s environmental degradation (overpopulation). As long immigration-driven population growth remains unaddressed, critics noted, a growing myriad of environmental problems would afflict the country and citizens would turn to the Sierra Club for help, thus ensuring a steady stream of donations and membership dues. Rather than return to its former policy position of favouring restricted immigration, however, the Board of Directors elected to cut costs by appointing an android who would perform all the duties hitherto assigned to the President, the Vice-President, the Treasurer, the Executive Director, the Executive Chairman, the Secretary , the Fifth Officer and ten directors.

      
Michael Brune and  Executive Chairman Carl Pope, are now both out.

Efficiency move

 In “decoupling” the Sierra Club from human guidance,  the outgoing Board has effectively supplanted the robotic control of one entity, the Executive Director, with another ---Robo-Pop---- as well as a dump the salaries and benefits that accrued to employees,  including medical, dental, vision, life insurance options, flexible spending accounts, an employee assistance program, free Sierra Club membership, discounts on Sierra Club outings and books, long term disability insurance, generous holiday and vacation policies as well as a 401k pension plan. As Robo-Pop will work for nothing and live beyond human extinction, the Sierra Club hopes to cut its overhead by 99% and offer proof to its corporate benefactors that it can screw the working class as well as they can.

Carlos speaks Spanish, but that's not all ...

It should also be appreciated that Robo-Pop, or “Carlos” as he is affectionately known  to outgoing staff-----a name made to appeal to illegal Hispanics whom the Club hopes to recruit in gratitude for its stand in favour of porous borders and unenforced federal immigration law---- has been designed to integrate corporate priorities into its deepest thought processes, so that the Club’s donor base can be secured.

 In addition to an amazing array of attributes, which include the ability to take dictation and type at 3,000 words a minute while answering 100 incoming phone calls simultaneously----Robo-Pop  is programmed to speak Spanish and Arabic to appeal to the growing demographic the Sierra Club hopes to pander to as the United States hurtles toward a population of a half billion by mid-century. Nevertheless, Greenwash will remain as the Official Language of the Club, enabling it to network with other mainstream environmental NGOs on the corporate take. Moreover,  Robo-Pop, it has been learned, will also have a regular column with Huffington Post.  Technicians were careful to hardwire ‘progressive’ political cant into its neural circuitry, so that it can lace its doublespeak with words like “diverse”, “inclusive”, “vibrant”, “cooperative”,  “sustainable”, “just” and “equitable”.

Sierra Club tradition of 'smart growth' continues

To test the new “broom”, we phoned the Sierra Club head office and sure enough, Robo-Pop replied in Spanish monotones. Then, after pressing “3” for Greenwash, Robo-Pop spewed out a string of green buzzwords and oxymoronic phrases like "smart growth", referred us to the website for inquiries about population policy and then promptly hung up. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Tim Murray
October 17, 2011

(Photo courtesy of Gallery of Beltway Schmoozers and Useless Tits)

Robert Engleman
Know-it-all
World Watch Institute
Washington, CP (City of Players)

Are you vexed by human population overshoot? Is 7 billion too much for you? Well you have come to the wrong place. If you want to find help to reduce our population from 7 billion, forget it, because we have already resigned ourselves to 9 billion. But if you want to settle for Plan B, then call our Help Line.

Call 1-800-LESTERBROWN

Voice mail recording:

“Hello, welcome to the World Watch Institute Help Line. All of our representatives are currently busy boring people on the Washington cocktail circuit with bland and ineffectual palliatives to overshoot so that the problems they are hired to solve remain unsolved. Please stay on the line because although your call is not important to us, your donation sure as hell is. We accept Money Orders, Visa or Mastercard and but not any criticisms of our underlying assumptions. However, criticisms of the Chinese One-Child-Per-Family Law which each year has saved humanity from an extra 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are welcome.We are insistent that all human rights must be respected except the right of our species to survive this century if survival means violating our current cultural and ethical guidelines. Things are bad, but not that bad. Just because we have increased our population by nearly 250% in the last half century is no reason to believe that emergency measures are required to deal with our emergency. It's incrementalism or bust baby.

To receive our automated reply to all of your inquiries press 1 followed by the number sign....... You have dialed "1", The World Watch Institute Help Line For Those Looking For Politically Correct and Inadequate Answers To Human Overpopulation Whose Solution Can Only Be A By-Product Of A Social Justice Agenda as approved by a panel of Hartmanite Feminists, Eco-Socialists And Monbiotists Who Couldn't Care Less How Many People There Are.....

Hello, I'm Bob Engleman and welcome to the World Watch Institute’s Demography-For-Dummies-In-A-Nutshell line.

Here it is stupid----- all we want you to know. The Conventional Cant which if repeated often enough will convince polite company that nothing you think is dangerous---to them or their funding sources. Are you ready? Now repeat after me:

Educate women, educate women, educate women.......

Voluntary family planning, voluntary family planning, voluntary family planning........

Women everywhere want only two children, women everywhere want only two children, women everywhere will want only two children....

Stopping at two will do, stopping at two will do, stopping at two will do..........

Chinese methods are stupid and unnecessary, Chinese methods are stupid and unnecessary, Chinese methods are stupid and unnecessary........

If Kerala, Thailand and Bangledesh can do it, so can everyone else, if Kerala, Thailand and Bangledesh can do it, so can everyone else, if Kerala, Thailand and Bangledesh can do it, so can everyone else.........

The Demographic Theory of Transition is a fact, The Demographic Theory of Transition is a fact, The Demographic Theory of Transition is a fact............

Prosperity is the best contraceptive, prosperity is the best contraceptive, prosperity is the best contraceptive......

Sustainable development is not an oxymoron, sustainable development is not an oxymoron, sustainable development is not an oxymoron......

We must find a way to feed 9 billion, We must find a way to feed 9 billion, We must find a way to feed 9 billion......

The birth rate is dropping, The birth rate is dropping, The birth rate is dropping.....

Forget demographic momentum, forget demographic momentum, forget demographic momentum......

2 billion is sustainable, 2 billion is sustainable, 2 billion is sustainable.......And we can take our sweet time in getting there.......And we can take our sweet time in getting there....And we can take our sweet time in getting there......

Don't criticize Green Icons, they are on our side and above reproach......Don't criticize Green Icons, they are on our side and above reproach.....Don't Criticize Green Icons, they are on our side and above reproach........Spare your criticisms for the enemy......Spare your criticisms for the enemy.......Spare your criticisms for the enemy...

For further information, contact our foundation grant-makers who will supply you with all the politically correct solutions that we advocate to satisfy their stipulations.

PS If your concerns relate to climate change, please be advised that Bill McKibben can no longer be reached at 1-800-350.ORG . His new number is now 1-800-400.ORG because that was the only politically realistic number that he could negotiate at the present time. Note, he will not talk about over-population because it is irrelevant---all we need to do is find a way to "de-carbonize" an economy of 9-15 billion people. Appeals can be made to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund at 1-800-1SKY350.ORG

If you find the forgoing offensive and unfair, then please phone in your complaint to:

Tim Murray
1-800-GETSERIOUS

Hello, you have reached the 1-800--GETSERIOUS line. BTW, WTF are you playing at? This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill. We are facing the end of our civilization and/or human extinction---get it? The politically possible is not the ecologically necessary. So make the necessary possible---- or get off the stage. Are you in it for the game---or the result? Then go with the science and let the political chips fall where they may. EFA doesn't tell half the story. It is not about renewables, it is about NON-renewables. Forget for a moment about bio-capacity and start thinking about carrying capacity, the precarious carrying capacity of a global industrial civilization enabled by a diminishing supply of fossil fuels, metals and minerals. Start thinking about how we shrink the population fast enough so that the per capita share of this shrinking resource base does not become so low as to trigger civil massive unrest and global conflict. Can't be done? Fine. Then stop shopping your green delusions and half-measures, shut up and let logic and hard numbers do the talking.

Population analyst, Brian McGavin, writes about the silent crisis in our midst, of overpopulation. "Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers. For many decades now there has been a willful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. Rather than providing solutions and leadership, "More and more developed countries offering new ‘baby bonuses’ make it even less likely that we will achieve the lower figures being quoted in the media."

The Silent Crisis

Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers.

For many decades now there has been a willful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. A problem that is driving the astonishing growth of fossil fuel use and its depletion, climate warming, bio-diversity loss, the growing shortage of fresh water to meet human needs - and as a consequence of these changes - the prospect that agriculture will be unable to produce enough food to feed us.

Nothing to celebrate

In 1950 world population was barely over two billion. As we pass seven billion at the end of October, it is nothing to celebrate.

In most countries today existing populations are not living environmentally sustainably, yet even if the UN’s assumptions of birth-rate decline in developing countries happens, global population will rise to 9.3 billion by 2050. Less reported is that if current birth rates persist, the United Nations Population Division warned in March 2009 that our population will exceed 11 billion in just 40 years.

More and more developed countries offering new ‘baby bonuses’ make it even less likely that we will achieve the lower figures being quoted in the media.

We have to start thinking about a ‘genuinely sustainable’ rather than ‘endless growth’ economy – an economy that is already faltering around us. Politicians focus on reviving economic growth and stimulating spending, but in an era of rapidly depleting resources, the ‘business as usual’ economy will need to be radically rethought to keep our complex society functioning, with a transition to a dynamic, self-supporting economy that satisfies our needs.

Growth Lobby

The growth lobby is pushing two great myths: That our ageing populationwill be a disaster unless we have higher birth rates and, despite rising unemployment, there is a terrible shortage of labour that only high immigration can supply. Both claims have been repeatedly shown to be either false or grossly exaggerated. They have huge long-term costs on our infrastructure and environment. Young people get old too and have higher dependency costs. Politicians don’t emphasise this.

In Africa, the UN now admits that it won’t meet its Millennium Development Goals but fails to explain the underlying causes for pessimism. Many countries in Africa already have massive unemployment and not enough food. How will they provide all the schools, jobs, hospitals and food to sustain populations that are set to more than double and in some cases triple in size in the next 40 years?

Governments will be struggling with millions of unemployed and hungry people attracted to violence and extremism. Look at the problems already in our news in countries like Haiti, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan – all countries on constant food aid, with exploding populations and increasingly scarce resources – yet population growth is never mentioned!

In Australia, mainly arid and with a water crisis, the population is set to double every 33 years, fuelled mainly by high immigration. America, Canada and the UK’s already high environmental impact is also increasing due to demographic pressures.

Saving the planet and greenwash

Most environmental organisations tell us that ‘if only we each reduced our environmental demand, population growth would not be a problem’. But our economic system, predicated on growth, is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.

You can try reducing consumption all you want, but when you keep adding 100 million and another 100 million, you simply drive every human to a lower and lower standard of living. You cannot escape that reality.

Most experts now agree we will pass ‘peak oil’ production in 2012 and production of all liquid fossil fuels will drop within 20 years to half what it is today. Yet, forecasts project energy demand will grow by 60 per cent between 2002 and 2030. (Sources: (US) Energy Information Administration and chief executive, BP oil).

A huge problem is most alternative energy sources are poor energy performers because they need a high-energy input to provide a given energy return. Wind and solar power are intermittent, while Hydrogen is only as clean as the fuel source used to produce it and provides only a quarter the energy as the same volume of gasoline. Ethanol, from corn or sugarcane, contains 33 per cent less energy than the same amount of oil and competes with food production. Already, 18 per cent of U.S. corn now goes to producing ethanol, but provides only one per cent of the liquid fuel used in the U.S.

Charles Hall, professor of Environmental Science at the State University of New York, warns that apart from bicycles, there are virtually no functioning forms of transportation that are not powered by oil. Most products are made with petroleum and most jobs would cease to exist without it. Renewables (other than hydropower or wood) currently provide less than one per cent of the energy used in the world, but the annual increase in the use of most fossil fuels is far greater than the total electricity production from wind turbines and photovoltaics.

Governments now plan to spend billions by substantially increasing nuclear generation. Apart from potentially critical contamination risks, even doubling the number of reactors across the world could see commercially extractable uranium ore run out in just 20 years.

According to some energy analysts, the energy commitment required in mining, waste storage and disposal will shortly make the nuclear industry a net user of energy, just when the energy famine begins to hit hard. Unless there is an unlikely breakthrough with fusion power and we drastically cut demand, we are on course to exhaust the energy we need in the lifetime of many people alive today.

Professor John Beddington, UK Chief Scientist, warned in March 2009 that: “Our food reserves are at a 50-year low, but by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water. They are dramatic problems, and they are all intimately connected”

Water

The Stockholm International Water Institute calculated in 2008 that 1.4 billion people live in regions where existing water cannot meet the agricultural, industrial, municipal, and environmental needs of all and only 2.5 per cent of the world’s water is fresh. Today, one person in five across the world has no access to safe drinking water, and one in three lacks safe sanitation.

Around 19% of US energy demand goes into food production. Fossil fuels to meet this demand are declining and many regions are already reaching the limits of their water resources, according to the UN’s World Water Development Report in 2009.
And then there is the impact of climate change. The accelerating icecap melt will make at least a metre rise in sea level probable by 2100 - threatening the world's major cities and fertile crop-growing deltas. Freshwater glaciers that feed major rivers used for irrigation are shrinking.

If governments won’t talk population, then they are not serious about cutting emissions, managing the water supply, managing food supplies, and a secure quality of life for our people. We can secure a way to genuine sustainability and a fairer use of resources, but we have to recognise the problem and act quickly.

It is not a question of ‘either or’ and who needs to act. We are in this together. Rich nations are consuming too much and populations continue to rise. Legitimate aspirations to raise living standards in high population countries like China and India are consuming ever-more resources. In many developing countries with acute water and food shortages, populations are projected to double or triple in size within 40 years – driving social unrest and migration on a massive scale.

There are several key challenges we have to talk about and face. In particular, ensuring development aid from donor countries delivers fully accessible and properly funded reproductive health care for all, along with equal access to education for girls and women. In many countries there are still barriers to this. We also have to start incentivising welfare systems to encourage fewer births rather than more.

Moral values?

Some people believe they have a right to have as many children as they want, whether they can look after them or not and fail to understand or just ignore the consequences of human population growth. Many commentators wilfully promote an ever-larger population in the name of freedom of choice. There will be precious little choice left if we go on multiplying with no thought for the future.

Others claim their religion as an excuse for actions that impact on others: Have large families "in the name of God"; Over-consuming resources? "God will provide” - so we don't need to think about the ecological consequences; and when the day of reckoning and collapse arrives - "It is God's will" - a religious opt-out from moral responsibility.

We have superior intellect to understand the consequences of our actions and the ecological and social devastation that will run like a scourge of misery for billions if population keeps increasing. Do we plan for a secure and better life or do we carry on blindly toward a minefield of lethal limits?

Rights come with responsibilities. Governments ‘incentivise’ many aspects of our lives for a common good, but the more crowded we become the more governments will police our behaviour and restrict our activities. We still have a choice. The world badly needs a grown-up, rational discussion of the population issue - without blame, abuse and hysteria.

It would be a tragedy if population growth became a catastrophe - a catastrophe we were too polite to talk about. Our children will not thank us for being driven to an abyss.

Originally submitted as, "The Silent Crisis,"
by Brian McGavin, writer and analyst, dated September 2011.