Rebuttals to a few common objections to population limits

“The birth rate is dropping in Europe and Japan! Our social support systems depend on each generation being as large or larger than the last! The system will collapse!”

First off, it’s true that when birth rates fall, there will be a dearth of support from younger people as the present bulge of population ages. I haven’t been able to identify any remedy for this that won’t make other problems worse.

However, that is no justification for allowing the population graph to continue to curve ever upward. The World Wildlife fund’s Living Planet Report 2008 notes that if we continue to grow at our present rate, …"by the early 2030s we will need two planets to keep up with humanity’s demand for goods and services.” ¹

Increasing our population at the present rate will set us up for a crash of infinitely larger proportions, meaning that suffering will be on a huger scale than that experienced by the under-supported ‘bulge’ of boomer geriatrics. Of whom I myself will be one. No, I’m not looking forward to it. But we got ourselves into it…it’s up to us to be brave, and not drag the entire future of humanity down with us…just so we can have a nice old age.

The fact is, we’re way, way over the carrying capacity for the earth to support us RIGHT NOW. Population levels need to drop enormously to become sustainable. Sustainable carrying capacity means human population numbers low enough that our resource use (of water, of soil, of air, of fish, for example) impacts the environment only to the extent that the environment can retain its integrity and ability to renew itself. Estimates² place this population number at between 1.5 and 2 billion people….for the entire planet.

So yes, there’s going to be a collapse of social security, very likely. The main choice that I see facing everyone, whether we like it or not, has to do with relative levels of human suffering. Do we wish to minimize human suffering and trauma? Or are we willing to tolerate conditions temporarily more comfortable, more convenient, and in so doing, inflict a much larger level of suffering in the (not that distant) future?

“Government interference in our personal choices about the number of our children is tantamount to socialism, communism, totalitarianism.”

Most of the laws and policies that regulate how we act in our society are developed and put in place to protect lawful citizens from being harmed by those who are out to take more than their share. Laws are in place to keep rapists, grifters and murderers from being free to ply their trades. Do these laws represent totalitarianism to you, or are they a welcome sign of a civilised society?

Secondly, do you accept that a sufficient supply of water, for drinking but also for agriculture, is necessary for sustaining life on this planet? Do you also accept that clean, breathable air is necessary for sustaining life? How about food? I think we can all agree that these are necessary to sustain human life on this planet.

There is a finite amount of farmable land on the planet at this point. There is a finite, and quickly shrinking, supply of fresh water³. These two factors determine how much food can be produced per year on the earth’s surface. These numbers have shrunk steadily for the past 50 years, and they will continue to shrink for the forseeable future – until the demand upon them is dropped down to a sustainable level.

Having more than one, or at most two, children in a family amounts to reckless endangerment of not only your own future grandchildren, but everyone’s. How would you feel once you understood that you have to starve your own future grandchild so you could have one more baby now? At what point do we realize that we are robbing our own children – doing them a grave disservice by cramming and crowding our families, our planet?

Right now, in terms of reproduction, we are in a state of anarchy. I suggest that we go from anarchy to state of lawfulness, to pull us back from the brink of destruction.

Conditions now are radically different than they were when we were children – and even more radically different than when our parents were children. What our parents taught us, what our schools taught us, about our planet and reproduction is no longer true. Our planet and its resources are not limitless. It can be damaged, it has been damaged, and we need to put a tourniquet on what very soon will be mortal damage – inflicted on natural systems by overuse.

What we’ve always thought was our right – to reproduce at will, to the extent we wish – this right, if exercised, now has the potential to damage our environment to the extent that it cannot recover. If that happens, we will all suffer and eventually perish.

It’s been demonstrated time and time again that a majority of individuals will not willingly limit their personal behavior for the good of the group. Though a minority of conscientious individuals may limit their reproduction voluntarily, the majority of irresponsible and short-sighted individuals will not do so. That is why there needs to be some legal structure in place that creates the incentive – both with the carrot, and the stick if necessary – for ALL individuals to limit their reproduction.

I don’t believe that is totalitarianism. People are used to thinking that unlimited reproduction is, quite literally, their ‘birthright’. However, this concept dates from another era. It was true for our parents, and their parents; but it can’t be true for us. Actions that cause environmental disaster must be made illegal, as illegal as thievery, assault, or murder.

Notes:

1. Published in October 2008 by WWF–World Wide Fund For Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund), Gland, Switzerland.
2. 
   Ferguson, AR. Intractable limits to a sustainable human population. Medicine, Conflict and Survival Apr-Jun 2005; 21(2):142-51.
3. 
   Brown, LR. Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. New York: W. W. Norton & Company; 2006.