World

Population Denialism is Reminiscent of Climate Denialism — Global Issues


  • Opinion by Kirsten Stade (st paul, minnesota, usa)
  • Associated Press Service

While the body of the study notes that rapid emissions cuts could dramatically reduce the number of people forced to live in unprecedentedly harsh conditions, it doesn’t address the obvious: our population reduction will have the same effect.

Not so long ago, the idea that human population growth led to both human suffering and environmental deterioration was considered common sense. That changed in the 1990s following a number of severe population control programs, from China’s one-child policy to mandatory sterilization in China, India, Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

Nowadays, just referring to population growth in relation to environmental protection or human well-being is considered “neo-Malthusian” or “eugenics”” – despite the fact that most efforts to reduce fertility, whether poverty reduction or let reduce pressure on resourceshas been based on rights and voluntary.

The most disturbing thing about this trait misrepresentation is that it diverts attention from the massive violations of reproductive rights that occur in the name of increased fertility.

Reproduction – social pressures, religious teachings and government policies designed to encourage people to have more children – has long been the most common form of forced reproduction.

Impressing people by family members, religious leaders and politicians pursuing racist, nationalist, military and/or economic agendas, reproductiveism emerges through ban abortion And message alert encourage childbearing for some ethnic groups. The general theme is to treat people as reproductive circuits for external agendas.

More than 218 million women worldwide who want to avoid pregnancy have Unmet need for contraception. This disturbing reality is the result of both the simple lack of availability of contraceptives and deeply rooted pro-reproductive attitudes – often held by husbands and other family members – that make women Females cannot use them.

When women are expected to produce large families regardless of their wishes, reproductiveism not only negates their reproductive autonomy; it also exacerbate poverty And destroy the environment. ONE new research of the Swedish Research Council rejected the persistent misconception that population growth has a negligible impact on climate change because it is concentrated in countries with low consumption.

In fact, research shows, population growth is the biggest driver of carbon emissions, and is undoing emissions reductions made through renewable energy and efficiency. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), population growth is one ofThe strongest driver of CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels over the past decade.”

Population growth and its consequences agricultural expansion drive water scarcity, land depletion, deforestation, land degradation and destruction of the ecosystems on which humans depend. The link between population growth and environmental impacts is clear, but often denied, and this denial has real consequences.

Since addressing population growth fell out of favor in the 1990s, international funding for family planning 35 percent off and far from meeting global demand.

Population denialism is reminiscent of climate denialism that disregards science and fails to acknowledge the suffering of millions. Population deniers cite Malthus and Margaret Sanger to invalidate population concerns by associating them with notorious sources, while ignoring reliable ones like the IPCC.

While the doom theory of Malthus and of Paul Ehrlich population bomb By failing to predict the new agricultural technologies that would prevent the famine and population collapse they had predicted, population deniers made the opposite mistake.

They obey a cornucopia believes that technology will magically solve our problems and assumes that new low-carbon energy sources and unproven interventions like carbon capture will fix everything.

They will not.

In fact, green technology seriously increases environmental and social issues its own. Solar and wind energy and infrastructure for transmission The power they create demands far more land area than fossil fuel plants, with consequences for wildlife and its habitat. Lithium-ion batteries in electric cars and e-bikes use cobalt Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by low-wage workers maliciously dumped and displaced.

Population deniers are rightly concerned with equitable development of impoverished parts of the world, but development means more emissions, more water use, more habitat destruction. than.

If current trends continue, the global middle class is expected to reach 5 billion by 2030. In order for all to achieve a reasonable standard of living without adding pressure to natural systems, we must make access to family planning for all a matter of national urgency. economic.

The good news is that doing so benefits not only the planet but human well-being as well. In every culture where birth rates have fallen, even the staggering government investment in reproductive incentives is insufficient to force women back to the high fertility they left behind – a sign that women have hidden desires for low fertility.

This suggests that the way forward lies in acknowledging both the human and environmental damage caused by high birth rates and consequent population growth, while at the same time giving women universal access, free with contraceptives and abortion care that will help them fulfill their fertility desires.

Kirsten . Stadium is a conservation biologist and NGO media manager Population balance

IPS UN Office


Follow IPS News UN Office on Instagram

© Inter Press Service (2023) — All rights reservedOrigin: Inter Press Service

news7f

News7F: Update the world's latest breaking news online of the day, breaking news, politics, society today, international mainstream news .Updated news 24/7: Entertainment, Sports...at the World everyday world. Hot news, images, video clips that are updated quickly and reliably

Related Articles

Back to top button