I am not an expert in the field, far from it, but I have been trawling through scientific papers on JSTOR (using the search terms “population growth AND irrelevant AND climate change”). My search returned over 2000 papers/articles, but so far I have been unable to find a learned paper that unequivocally supports your assertion, that population growth is irrelevant to climate change.
ABSTRACT. Reversing ongoing declines in human welfare and biodiversity is at the core of human development. Although numerous institutions and avenues are in place to reverse such trends, there seems to be limited consideration of population growth as an ultimate driver. I review recent studies showing how the issue of population growth has been downplayed and trivialized among scientific fields, which may in part account for the reduced public interest in the issue and in turn the limited will for policy action. Different sources of evidence suggest that population growth could fundamentally affect society, nature, and the climate. Although tackling the issue of overpopulation will suffer from major impediments including scientific motivation, public scientific illiteracy, religion, and media attention, ongoing neglect of this issue will increase not only the extent of anthropogenic stressors but also the struggle associated with strategies to reverse biodiversity loss and improve human welfare.
Key Words: biodiversity loss; climate change; debt; employment; population growth; public outreach
Of key interest were the two sentences I have highlighted.
Obviously my search has only scratched the surface, and I don’t doubt your sincerity, but I don’t have time to read all 2000+ papers, so I would appreciate it if you could point me in the direction of any published scientific papers that support your contention.
The author is quite clearly saying you should not need to talk about population at all. You can express the same outcomes by framing the issue in other ways.
You are quite clearly framing the issue as ‘population control‘. That’s the phrase you have consistently used throughout. Not only is the phrase itself loaded with unpleasant historical connotations, but as the article says in its central point, you don’t have to go there.
I would go further than the author and say that population is actually functionally irrelevant to the climate debate. It’s all about consumption. We don’t need fewer people. We need less consumption.
I appreciate that the author shares some ground with you. That’s why I shared it, and said it was somewhere between our views. That was a bit silly of me, because I should know by now that you think the objective of a discussion is to prove yourself 100% correct (regardless of whether you are or not) and destroy your opponent rather than find a middle ground and both learn something in the meantime. Hey ho.
The thing is, what you are framing as the middle ground between our respective positions is, in fact, my position as I have consistently set out. All the author of that article is saying is, “population is indeed a factor in environmental impact” and “mitigating some substantial percentage of [that] population growth would be one way to better environmental conditions in 2050 [and] would also have more impact than virtually any other climate policy” but that the discussion should be framed differently to avoid “unnecessary risks involved in talking about population growth”.
These risks have been more than adequately demonstrated in this thread. One mentions the need to address population growth (that the author makes clear would “have more impact than virtually any other climate policy”) and you’ll have an element inferring your position was directly or indirectly racist, thus distracting from discussing something of fundamental import to tackling both poverty and climate change. You’ve gone further and rather than take the author’s approach of talking around the issue of population growth (whilst nonetheless advocating steps to address it), you’ve stated that population growth is actually entirely irrelevant to the issue of climate change.
Let’s just be clear that the reason I posted that article was because it backs up some of my points, while also challenging some of my points. That’s OK. We all need a bit of that sometimes.
I thought I’d was a useful addition because rather than completely going against your points, the author shares some of your views and I thought it might be a good bridging point to find common ground.
That was a mistake, because you consistently approach debates like this in bad faith, your objective is to win and prove yourself right right, regardless of whether you are right. The article does not completely vindicate your views. It agrees with some of what you have said. It agrees with some of what I have been saying.
The population debate is all a bit moot really.
The top of the environmental damage mushroom is made up by 10% of the world’s population, mostly the western so called developed countries. The governments of these countries who are the only ones capable of driving meaningful change through legislation and policy directives are steered by the very rich who sit at the very top of the mushroom, who only gain from the very policies that need reformed wholesale if the environmental damage to this planet are to be halted or reversed. The very very very top layer of these are actually thinking of moving on to another planet anyway and leaving this shit heap behind ffs.
Until some other force or event convinces us to change our expectations, our way of life and our need for stuff, our long term future is doomed without doubt.
The planet will cough up some of our phlem for a few centuries after we’re gone and make a full healthy recovery though so it’s not all bad.
Other than saying don’t label strategies that address population growth as “addressing population growth”, where does the author differ from what I’ve said? He’s saying exactly the same thing isn’t he, just packaged differently? He’s effectively snickers to my marathon.
If there are any fundamental differences in how he and I are suggesting tackling climate change (and poverty) feel free to set them out. I don’t think there are.
I’ll preface by saying I don’t actually think we are massively far apart on what we each think. My interest in this is not really a debate around policy measures to mitigate climate change, as I think we’d probably agree a fair bit. My interest is in the ‘population control’ angle. I frame it as a climate change problem, and you are talking about it as a population growth problem, which I think is wrong for a variety of reasons.
But my main point is around racism, and this was my primary reason for pulling that article. I think the population argument is racist, and you don’t. The article at least acknowledges that the population hypothesis on climate change has it’s roots in pretty racist tropes, and it’s very often used by people for less than savoury reasons. The author explains why this is, and expressly states that the main reason he doesn’t talk about population is that the is a high liklihood for that (rightly) to be misconstrued as racism.
As my jumping in point for this debate, that’s quite important.
Personally I’d go further than the author, and say that I think advocating population control in those terms is racist. We’re ultimately three white people arguing the toss over whether something is racist or not. Bottom line is that I’ve heard enough people of colour arguing that it is racist, and that the impacts are real (that it supports the myth that climate change is the fault of foreigners - usually Africans - for having loads of babies), to feel that it isn’t our determination to make - and as we advocate exactly the policy measures that a debate on population control invariably leads to (empowerment of women, education and economic growth) why go near population at all? If people are saying that it’s racist, and you can make the same points and reach the same end goal without touching on that issue, why keep mentioning it? The only reason is stubborn bloody mindedness.
You said that he has merely repackaged your point in a different way. That might be true, but how you say it is important.
The core message of the article is don’t talk about population because you don’t need to. You can make exactly the same points without. Whereas you have consistently referred to the need for ‘population control’ and dismissed the idea that to do so might be considered racist. That’s quite a significant point of disagreement.
Secondly, and a bit less importantly for the point I’ve been trying to make, the article has a section titled ‘some population unit’s consume and emit more than others’, which largely supports my view that consumption is the most important factor. Particularly high end consumption, and the emissions of the wealthiest 10%. It might be beneficial to arrest population growth in the few places that population is actually growing, but if we don’t do something about the impact of the wealthiest 10% it’s all a bit pointless.
Where I disagree with the article (and that’s OK - I didn’t post it to ‘win’ the debate. I just thought there were interesting points being made, even though some of them weren’t exactly helpful to my argument) is that I think
he overstates the population issue. As I said before, the UN projection of an 11bn global population is looking quite shaky now, and there is an increasing body of academic opinion that global population will top out at about 9bn by 2040 before beginning to decline.
It’s also worth acknowledging that when I say population is irrelevant, I’m talking about from a policy and campaigning background (my own professional background, by the way). For Lowton Red’s benefit, I appreciate that academically it does matter. In those raw numbers terms of course it does. But in terms of setting policy and going about the business of trying to save ourselves from an apocalypse, I don’t think we get anywhere by framing this as a population problem. You don’t need to, and it’s actually harder to get to the end point we need if you do. If high consumption countries keep talking about population, with the inevitable subtext that this isn’t our fault, it’s their fault, then there is less chance we do what is really necessary and address our own lifestyles. And it risks alienating people that need to be part of the response.
I’ll get back to you if it isn’t on Netflix France. Fed up to the back teeth with posters on here sayig something is on Netflix and it isn’t for me. Oh! sorry wrong thread thought I was in 101.
I got to see it, a bit jumbled but the message was recieved by me. I wasn’t surprised that Unilever got mentionned, disgusting company. also noticed Ben and Jerry’s is Unilever, boycott Unilever!
I don’t eat fish always felt the industry was horrible, that when the big ships used to go all the way to Canada and scoop up enormous monsters and now all they get is miniscule tiddlers just was too much for me to take. Solution have bigger wholes in the nets so they take only adults (the smaller ones don’t survive as they are crushed in the mass but who cares). A completely unsustainable industry backed by multinationals and governments (eating fish is healthy for you just don’t bother mentionning the planet!).
A lot of the UK is still covered by a combined system whereby all surface water and foul water is sent to the same place. In extreme weather the volume is simply too high.
More extreme weather events
Outdated treatment plants that simply struggle with the volume.
In Wales we now have SuDs in place which basically puts a massive bonus on developers to design drainage systems that keep surface and foul water seperate. You don’t get planning permission without it.
We have very little treatment facilities for sewage & industrial wastes. So naturally all sewage, industrial waste and rainwater ends up in the wetlands or rivers. One of the rivers on the fringes of Dhaka, Buriganga, is pretty big but it still looks like a sewage canal for 9-10 months of a year. Only after on set of monsoon there’s any life in the river.
Sewage robs the river of any oxygen as well as having all sorts of other stuff in it that people just flush down the toilet. In @Iftikhar’s example post monsoon when the river is in spate you’ve got a large influx of fresh water and oxygen into the system.
Feels a bit wrong (for the environment) that there’s internet there but no basic effluent treatment.
years ago, when we had water restrictions and people were asked to ‘if its brown flush it down, if its yellow let it mellow’ the sewer systems actually satrted to block up (along with the explosion in popularity of fucking wet wipes) and became a massive issue for sewage treatment plants.
its amazing how finely balanced our infrastructure is, if the UK have the same inverts and treatment for stormwater AND sewage then id imagine alot more infrastructure spending will need to happen prior to seperating the treatment systems.
