Many environmentalists believe that environmental destruction is a

product of “overpopulation”, and that the world is already “full up”. So

are population reduction strategies essential to solving the climate

crisis?



At best, population control schemes focus on treating a symptom of an

irrational, polluting social and economic system rather than the causes.

In China, for instance, such measures haven’t solved that country’s

environmental problems.



At worst, populationist theories shift the blame for climate change onto

the poorest and most vulnerable people in the Third World.



They do not address the reasons why environmental damage, or even

instances of overpopulation, happen in the first place and they divert

attention away from the main challenge facing the climate movement — the

urgent need to construct a new economy based on environmentally

sustainable technologies and the rising of living standards globally.



Full article at http://links.org.au/node/736



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There is never the less a population element to the climate crisis.

Work done by Mathis Wackernagel identifying the ecological footprint

resulting from our lifestyle and the global carrying capacity

demonstrated clearly that we have already passed the ecological

limits. The reason China has a problem is not due to population

control, it is due to rising prosperity and the reason it is so hard

to make in-roads into the problem of hunger etc. in East Timor is not

due to rising prosperity it is due to increasing population (East

Timor has a very high birth rate).

Can you envisage where China would be if it had not implemented the

one child policy?

It is simply not possible to provide the current world population

with a standard of living similar to ours with the world resources

available.

So there is a stark choice - a fortress economy in a world riven by

fear hatred and violence or a world where we recognise ALL the

problems and start fixing them on the basis that we do not have

limitless resources and that everyone deserves a fair share of the

pie. ZPG is important & should be the aim of every country.



jo











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