Overpopulation is not a new issue, but somewhere along the line it lost its sexiness. Perhaps the setters of prevailing opinion decided that improving technologies would ultimately save us from having to worry about the impact growing numbers of people have on the Earth (and each other), and so pushed the issue to the back burner. But that trend in thinking might be starting to turn back, as it seems the population prognosticators are gradually finding their public voice again.
Witness Monday's lead story on OneWorld's Daily Headlines newsletter. [Subscribe here.] The article from Inter Press Service about the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment--a four-year, $22 million, four-volume research project compiled by 1,360 experts from 95 countries--notes that "humankind is pushing up against natural thresholds and increasing the likelihood of abrupt changes--especially when there are three billion more people in 2050."
The nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations recently released a report calling for a more comprehensive and strategic U.S. approach toward Africa, which, according to a press release from the Washington, D.C.-based NGO Population Action International (PAI), "highlights the pivotal role that slowing rapid population growth must play in U.S. policy toward Africa and the subsequent need for increased U.S. involvement in international family planning programs." (Want to help make that happen? Sign up to be a part of PAI's Action Network.)
And Earth Policy Institute founder/environmental guru Lester Brown has long been pontificating on what it means for global ecosystems that the world's most populous nation is beginning to resemble the U.S. and Western Europe in its citizens' desire to consume (and consume and consume and consume). Here's a glimpse from one of his recent eco-economy updates: "China has replaced the United States as the world's leading consumer of most basic commodities, like grain, coal, and steel....If China's meager annual consumption of 27 kilograms of paper per person were to rise in 2031 to the current U.S. level of 210 kilograms, China would need 303 million tons of paper, roughly double the current world production of 157 million tons. There go the world's forests." (Is it that unrealistic to project that the Chinese will live 24 years from now at approximately the level Americans are at now? Probably not, and Brown explains why he uses that projection in his piece as well.)
© Shehzad Noorani/Developing Images / Changemakers.net
Many other U.S.-based NGOs are working to ensure a stable world population at levels that can be sustained by our natural resources. These include the Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), which supports community-based programs in developing countries; Population Media Center, which uses soap operas and other "entertainment-education" strategies to improve the health and well-being of people around the world; and the Center for Heath and Gender Equity (CHANGE), a Washington, D.C.-based group focusing on shaping U.S. policy on global health.
Across the pond, professor of demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine John Cleland said last week that population growth "outstrips AIDS" as a threat to poverty reduction and called the issue's neglect in discussions about international aid "an utter scandal." According to Daniel Nelson, who reported on the event for OneWorld
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has long come under fire from population control advocates for it fundamentalist favoring of abstinence-only programs--even in countries where the cultural realities make this approach increasingly unrealistic--and its continued withholding of U.S. money earmarked by Congress for the United Nations Population Fund--which works in 141 countries--despite the debunking of charges against the group of complicity in forced sterilizations in China.
But most recently President Bush has been admonished by a host of groups promoting international health and population around the world for his recess appointment of Ellen Sauerbrey to the post of Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration. The move has been widely criticized as a "crony appointment" and Sauerbrey's lack of relevant experience for the job has drawn striking comparisons to former FEMA director Mike Brown.
But this is not--and doesn't have to be--a story of gloom and doom. As the Environment News Service reported Monday, one of the lead authors of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Dr. Steve Carpenter, remains bullish on the planet's prospects, assuming key policymakers prove willing to listen and take action."Despite what looks like steady global decline, this is a story of hope," Carpenter said. "We have the tools we need. If we have the political will, we have the ability to implement them on a global scale."
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