environment

Citizens arrest

Tackling climate change is now a worldwide crusade - so what's stopping campaigners driving its simplest solution?

David Nicholson-Lord

Wednesday July 11, 2007

The Guardian

The simplest truths are sometimes the hardest to recognise. This month, according to the UN, world population will reach 6.7 billion, en route to a newly revised global total of 9.2 billion by 2050. The latest housing forecasts for England predict that we will need about 5m more homes in the next two decades. The economist Jeffrey Sachs devoted this spring's Reith lectures to a planet "bursting at the seams". And the most recent Social Trends analysis from the Office for National Statistics painted a picture of a Britain driven mad by overcrowding. Meanwhile, Gaia scientist James Lovelock has been warning about ecological collapse and world resources able to support only 500 million people, with many extra millions driven to take refuge in the UK.

In the midst of all these alarms is a very quiet place where the green lobby should be talking about human population growth. Today has been designated World Population Day by the UN, but you will not see any of the big environment and development groups mounting a campaign on population. Indeed, you will be lucky if they even mention the P-word. Earlier this year, Nafis Sadik, former director of the UN's population fund, berated such non-governmental organisations for being more concerned with fundraising than advocacy. Their silence on population, she observed, was "deafening".

Mainstream concern

So why isn't the green movement talking about population any more? In its early days, back in the 60s and 70s, population growth was a mainstream concern. Groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FoE), WWF and Oxfam took well-publicised positions on population issues - endorsing the Stop at Two (children) slogan, supporting zero population growth and publishing reports with titles such as Already Too Many (Oxfam). These days, Greenpeace declares that population is "not an issue for us" and describes it as "a factor [in] but not one of the drivers of" environmental problems.

FOE last year tried to answer some "common questions" on the subject, including: "Why isn't Friends of the Earth tackling population growth?" Oxfam, which as recently as 1994 published a report entitled World Population: The Biggest Problem of All, now does not list it among the dozen or so "issues we work on", and nor does it figure in the "What you can do" section of WWF's One Planet Living campaign.

The green lobby's main argument is that numbers do not matter so much - it is how we live and consume that counts. FoE even remarks that "it is unhelpful to enter into a debate about numbers. The key issue is the need for the government to implement policies that respect environmental limits, whatever the population of the UK". It is a statement that seems to treat population and environmental limits as entirely separate subjects.

There are two powerful counter-arguments to this. One is common sense: that consumption and numbers matter and that if a consumer is absent - that is, unborn - then so is his or her consumption. The second is the weight of evidence. Sir David King, the government's chief scientist, told a parliamentary inquiry last year: "It is self-evident that the massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on biodiversity than any other single factor."

The increase in global population over the next 40 years, for example, is roughly what the entire world population was in 1950. The UK, currently around 61 million people, is on course for 71 million by 2074, by which time England's densities will have outstripped those of South Korea, which, by some measures, is currently the world's second most crowded country - second only to Bangladesh.

The Optimum Population Trust today publishes a new report, Youthquake, that warns - echoing Lovelock - that environmental degradation caused by the number of humans may force more governments to follow China's lead and introduce compulsory limits on family size.

Many suspect other motives for the green lobby's neglect of the population issue. It is a sensitive subject, bound up with issues on which the progressive left, which most environmental groups identify with, has developed a defensive intellectual reflex. These include race and immigration - the latter accounts for more than 80% of forecast UK population growth, for example - reproductive choice, human rights and gender equality. Calls for population restraint can easily be portrayed as "anti-people" - surely people are part of "the solution"? It is far easier to ignore the whole subject; let somebody else - or nobody - deal with it.

Verbal contortions

This often involves intriguing verbal contortions. The 70s organisation Population Countdown, having morphed into Population Concern, in 2003 rechristened itself as Interact Worldwide - under its former name, consultants told it, its funders, and future, would dry up.

Faced with escalating forecasts of housing need - one recent government projection says we will need 11m more households in the UK by 2050, an increase of over 40% - the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) proclaims itself in favour of "development that protects the countryside and the environment" and ignores the fact that the main cause of forecast housing growth, responsible for 59% of the total, is population increase.

So why does the CPRE not campaign on the issue that poses the greatest threat to rural England? "If we did," says Shaun Spiers, CPRE's chief executive, "it appears unlikely that our actions would have any effect on population growth, and that would lay us open to the charge of misusing our charitable funds."

How to categorise such reactions? Pragmatism? Cowardice? Sensible tactics? Or an overdose of organisational self-preservation? Whatever the reason, it is infectious - the media (and politicians) take many of their awareness cues from NGOs so the silence on population becomes society-wide. As a result, family size is seen as an exercise in individual lifestyle choice: few people consider the consequences for the planet of their fertility decisions. That means fertility rates in the UK rise, and the population keeps on growing.

· David Nicholson-Lord is an environmental writer and research associate for the Optimum Population Trust. The Youthquake report is available at optimumpopulation.org

· David Nicholson-Lord is an environmental writer and research associate for the Optimum Population Trust. The Youthquake report is available at optimumpopulation.org

· Email your comments to society |AT| guardian.co.uk. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication"

Media release
Tuesday, 10 July 2007

Water crisis, housing crisis, transport infrastructure crisis, hospital crisis and continued destruction of open space and bushland are all the hallmarks that show growth is out of control in South East Queensland, say environmentalists.

A spokesman for Sustainable Population Australia - South East Queensland Branch, said that World Population Day_#fn1">1 is a time to focus on commitment and action to ensure our population is sustainable.

"However, SEQ's population is not only unsustainable, it's out of control," he said. "Every week the growth rate is driving water, energy and transport infrastructure and ecosystems deeper into crisis."

"What a way to celebrate World Population Day! SEQ is in a dismal state of affairs. It's a great example of what not to do," said the spokesman. ?While there are cries of climate change, falling fish stocks and loss of biodiversity, governments fail to tackle the root cause of these problems, unsustainable growth.?

"Never in the history of the planet has the Earth had to support a human population of over 6 billion," he said. "And neither has Australia had to support a population of over 21 million."

"A growing population demands ever increasing amounts of resources to supply it with the goods and services it needs. It also produces ever increasing amounts of waste," said the spokesman. "Our demands on the planet are depriving other species of their habitat and crippling the ecosystems that support life. Quite simply, we are living like there is no tomorrow. It is morally and ethically wrong."

"What is happening globally is being played out in SEQ. We struggle to support further growth and our lifestyle and environment degrades. If we are genuine about saving the planet, SEQ is a classic example of what not to do because growth in SEQ is out of control," he said.

For more information about this important issue:
Sheila Davis, Secretary, SPA-SEQ, Mob: 0423 305478

Sustainable Population Australia - SEQ Branch, Box 199, Mudgeeraba Qld 4213

Footnotes

1. World Population Day, 11 July, was designated by the United Nations in 1987 to raise consciousness about the impacts of overpopulation on the world and to mark the arrival of the five billionth person on the planet. Twenty years later, in 2007, there are an additional 1.6 billion people and the world is headed towards a population of 9 to 12 billion by 2050. The Earth's population has skyrocketed from 1 billion in 1880, to 2 billion in 1930, and now to 6.6 billion.

I have been a researcher for over fifty years. I am used to trying to look into the minds of writers to understand their views of complex operations. I know that even the brightest and most informed people have a limited zone of understanding. And this limitation is more restricted by the difficulty of converting the mental image into the written word. It follows that there is very appreciable uncertainty about what civilization has done to the operation of its life support system, the environment. Many different perspectives are put forward. Often they express opinions without providing the supporting arguments and facts. There is increasing concern amongst informed people about current trends, especially as the gulf between the rich and poor grows rapidly and climate change becomes more noticeable.

I know that any article I may write about the unsustainable nature of the current operations of society would contrast with many others, often seemingly authoritative because of the skill of the writers. I may be able, in my mind, to critically weigh up their selective arguments but that serves little useful purpose. The general view will roll on.

I decided some years ago that in view of my limited zone of understanding, I would concentrate on getting a sound understanding of what civilization has actually done to the environment. I have done that. It is summarized by what I call 'The Dependence on Nature Law'.

I then set out to explain why this sums up what human operations have done. It is quite long because I found it necessary to define many terms I use and to clarify many of the common misunderstandings. It presents some novel perspective that needs thinking through to appreciate. 'What went wrong? The misdirection of civilization' is my attempt to articulate what has happened in a form that the non-technical can understand while showing the scientific basis.

I believe it is unlikely that many will take the trouble to think through the message in 'What went wrong' in the near future. However, I do believe that it does make a major contribution to understanding of what has happened. I do expect that in due course it will be recognized as pioneering a novel view of the impact of civilization on the ecosystem. A view that will help some in society adjust to the decline ahead. I expect that there will be increasing bewilderment as over population, climate change, water supply problems, investment failings, food shortages, petrol price rises, health problems, a long lasting recession, more global conflict and natural disasters combine with other stress factors to dim future prospects. Those who gain the understanding in 'What went wrong' could well contribute to the Earth Revolution that eases the crisis.

Denis Frith
Melbourne
Australia
17 June 2007

#DependenceOnNatureLaw" id="DependenceOnNatureLaw">The Dependence on Nature Law

The freedom of humans to be creative and innovative is acclaimed - by us. This is the positive side of the uniquely human attribute. There is, however, a negative side that is not generally recognized.

Humans employ a huge range of transient operations they have installed that invariably involve using and abusing natural resources. Each of these operations provides something deemed of value to society during its lifetime. Each of these operations incurs an irrevocable, un-repayable ecological cost. We are irreversibly drawing down on the irreplaceable natural bounty.

I argue in 'What went wrong? The misdirection of civilization' that this Dependence on Nature Law is soundly based but that society generally does not weigh up worth against eco cost realistically. A natural law is the summation of what invariably happens during natural operations. It is therefore appropriate to classify the dependence of the material operations of civilization on what is available from the environment as a natural law. Natural operations are also dependent on what is available but generally they draw down on natural bounty income only. The consequence of society's exuberance is unnecessarily rapid degradation of our life support system, the bounty available from the ecosystem. There are too many people consuming too much of what nature has left to offer and then providing irrevocable waste. This holistic consumption predicament is exacerbated by the demands on the bounty to maintain the aging foundations of civilization. It is made worse by the gluttony of the powerful. The spree is unsustainable. It is a plague coming to its end. Catabolic collapse can only be avoided by a wise power down. Even then, there is the problem of maintaining cultural benefits even as the population declines.

The conventional economic growth paradigm is based on the fallacious argument that the materialistic structure and operations of our civilization can occur without exacerbating this holistic malaise, consumption of the natural bounty. So growth is being fostered even as the available bounty is declining more rapidly. This is an unsustainable double whammy exacerbated by the need to look after the structure of civilization.

The Dependence on Nature Law really does under lay the operation and maintenance of the foundations of our civilization. Appreciation of that fact makes it much easier to understand how it is that current trends are based on false premises, so are unsustainable. It explains what went wrong.

Conservation groups throughout South East Queensland are asking the State Government to review the SEQ Regional Plan so that it reflects environmental concerns and sets sustainable levels for dwelling targets and habitat protection.

Gecko – Gold Coast and Hinterland Environment Council spokesperson, Lois Levy, says that members have concerns that the projected figure of 1.2million residents has not been updated to reflect the carrying capacity of
South East Queensland.

"The projected Gold Coast figures show that we are being asked to accommodate the second-highest growth figures in the region," said Ms Levy, "when considering the biodiversity of the area, the Gold Coast is already overpopulated."

"The targets in the SEQ Regional Plan are based on past poor planning figures conceived in the early 1990's," said Ms Levy. "They do not take into account current knowledge about the biodiversity of our region nor do they consider climate change and its ramifications.

"Further, recent mapping of fauna and flora habitat does not reflect the extent of encroachment by development into these areas and the amount of habitat needed to sustainably support flora and fauna in South East Queensland," said Ms Levy.

The Queensland Government requires all 18 local governments in SEQ to prepare Local Growth Management Strategies under the Plan to accommodate by the end of June; however, many have been deferred pending reviews of state interests.

Media Release Tue, 26 June 2007* Residents of Mudgeeraba and Reedy Creek still don't know how their suburbs will grow following a public meeting on the Gold Coast's Local Growth Management Strategy held in Mudgeeraba last week. The meeting, attended by representatives of Queensland's Office of Urban Management and the Member for Mudgeeraba, State MP Ms Dianne Reilly, was to coincide with the release of the Gold Coast Strategy for public comment; however, due to the number of changes required to the draft following the State Interest check, the Growth Management Strategy has been deferred until later this year. Sheila Davis, spokesperson for the Mudgeeraba Community Association, which hosted the meeting, said that the level of development planned for these suburbs, the Gold Coast and the whole of the South East Queensland region over the next 20 years must be reconsidered in light of recent studies. "Warnings in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, released earlier this year, that continued development in South East Queensland puts more people at risk from flooding and storms as well as studies that show the Gold Coast has the highest nature conservation values of any city in Australia are being ignored," said Ms Davis. "If we are to protect what remains of the region's dwindling biodiversity, our subtropical lifestyle, the tourism potential of our region, and also adapt to climate change," Ms Davis said, "we must not overdevelop beyond our carrying capacity." Attendees at the meeting expressed concerns about destruction of wildlife habitats, degraded creeks, potential flooding, the social impacts of high density housing and the loss of natural resources through dam building and quarrying for infrastructure projects. "Residents want to know whether an additional 4000 homes are going in our forests or on our floodplains," said Ms Davis. "State government representatives said that the details are up to the local government, but confirmed that the growth target for the Gold Coast in the South East Queensland Regional Plan is an additional 135,500 new dwellings, and that under State laws the local government has no ability to prohibit development anywhere." The Mudgeeraba Community Association will be hosting another public meeting when the Gold Coast's Local Growth Management Strategy, which implements the Plan into the planning scheme, is put on display later this year. "We are urging all members of the community to have their say about the level of development we want for our city," said Ms Davis. "We should not be tied to the figures decided nearly 20 years ago before we had the knowledge that we have today." "These planning targets must be reconsidered in light of predictions of lower rainfall, increased storm activity, considerations of protection of nature conservation values and ecological services, and provision of open space and other needs of residents," said Ms Davis. "While the SEQ Plan is a step in the right direction," said Ms Davis, "these targets are clearly unsustainable given the need to provide resources and to protect the high biodiversity and steep landscape of our City." For more information: Sheila Davis, MCA Secretary 07 55306600 or 0423-305478 Dino Crestani, MCA President 07 5559 0250 Russell White, MCA Treasurer 0408-981-242 Mudgeeraba Community Association Inc, PO Box 552, Mudgeeraba Qld 4213

From www.expatica.com, 22 June 2007 BRUSSELS – The European Parliament condemned Spain for the environmental damage which over-development had caused in Madrid and along the Mediterranean coast. In a motion, it said the mix of lax building laws, greedy developers and corrupt politicians had had a ‘disastrous effect’ on the country’s environment. The Spanish daily El Pais reported on Friday the EU said: “The massive urbanisation projects do not respond to real needs. They have had disastrous environmental, historical and cultural effects.” The motion, passed by 327 in favour and 222 against, with 35 absentions, came after EU parliamentarians visited Madrid, Valencia and Almeria to probe complaints of over-development. It is the second time Spain has been condemned by the EU – the last occasion was over the so-called ‘land grab’ law in Valencia. Fifteen thousand residents, many EU citizens, signed a petition complaining about the law. Next week Spain has to appear before the European Court to answer charges relating to the land grab law. If found guilty it could face massive fines. The land-grab allows developers to seize land which has been re-classified from rural to urban. The Valencia regional government is to defend its position in Luxembourg by claiming the law has been modified. [Copyright Expatica]

29th September is Save the Koala Day but what is there to celebrate about? Since the beginning of the twentieth century we have placed koalas survival at risk. In Queensland there was several open hunting seasons, 1915, 1917 and 1919, with one million taken in 1919. In 1927 the Queensland government allowed 584,738 koalas to be taken for skins. By the 1930s the koala was extinct in South Australia and since then we have had tollways and now urban expansion, with the SEQ koala declining from Common to vulnerable. But isn't the koala safe under new state planning laws setup to protect the koala, Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 and Management Program 2006 - 2016? Well! Since 1995 there has been many state planning policies setup allegedly to protect the koala. State planning policy 1/95 : Conservation of koalas in the Koala Coast. State planning policy 1/97 : Conservation of koalas in the Koala Coast. State planning policy 1/05 : Conservation of koalas in Southeast QLD. SEQ Regional Plan. Interim Guideline: Koalas and Development. However, in the last seven years during the time of these plans and within the Redland Shire, the heart of the Koala Coast an area supporting one of Australia's most significant koala populations, the koala population has declined by 47% in urban areas and and total drop of 31% in the Koala Coast. During this time the SEQ koala has gone from common to vulnerable. Will the Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 and Management Program 2006 - 2016 stop the decline of koalas? Mr. Baltais spokesperson for the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland Bayside Branch said, "No, the Koala Plan will not stop clearing of koala habitat or the significant death toll of koalas due to cars and dogs." "The new plan is almost silent on dog control. The new plan provides no evidence that effective safe wildlife crossings will be implemented but it appears standard 1.5 metre high dry culverts will be used, these are next to useless." said Mr. Baltais. Mr. Baltais said, "In the Koala Conservation Area, the area with the alleged greatest protection, 100's of hectares of bushland will be lost to urban development, quarries and road upgrades. In one residential estate alone 168 hectares of koala habitat and Endangered Regional Ecosystem will be cleared for houses." The Koala Plan says it will allow development though albeit sustainable and sensitive to koalas. Mr. Baltais said, "We are in numerous court appeals trying to stop inappropriate development promoted as sustainable by developers and supported by the state government. These claims are far-fetched nonsense claiming development can enhance the natural environment." Mr. Baltais said, "Will the Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 and Management Program 2006 - 2016 stop the decline of the koala? No it will not." Simon Baltais Wildlife Preservation Society of QLD Bayside Branch Mb: 0412 075 334