Overpopulation or overconsumption
Like many others I sat down to watch David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet on Netflix this week and was moved by his emotional explanation of how our ecosystem is being destroyed… by us! Attenborough describes with great clarity how the rapid growth of the human population has coincided with the rapid destruction of our planet’s wilderness. He shows how, without carefully balanced natural habitats, the climactic stability of the holocene, which allowed human beings to thrive, will come to an end. He foresees the death of coral reefs, crashing fish stocks, extinction of pollenating insects and large areas of the planet that are too hot for human habitation; all within the next 100 years.
Attenborough has long argued that the planet is overpopulated by humans. That is to say that there are simply too many of us. Since his birth in 1926, the human population has surged from around two million to almost eight billion and is predicted to continue to grow. This is indeed very problematic. Those eight billion people need spaces to live and they need food to eat. And this means less space for wilderness. Less space for rainforests and wild animals. As Attenborough points out, a staggering 50% of the fertile land on earth is now used for farming and the amount of wilderness on the planet has halved during his lifetime. When wilderness is lost, the planet’s capacity to absorb the carbon emissions created by humans is reduced and the environment continues to heat up. So, clearly, it might be better if there were not quite so many of us.
However, centring our discussion of climate change on overpopulation rather than overconsumption tends to push the focus and the blame onto countries where populations are still growing (these are typically what is called developing countries and it’s where the people are overwhelmingly brown and black). It also shifts the blame away from those that are consuming the vast majority of the planet’s resources and creating the vast majority of its waste and pollution. The poorer you are, the less you contribute to the climate crisis. The poorest half of the world’s population create about 10% of global emissions while the richest 10% are responsible for half!* People in so-called developing countries are on average poorer than those in the US and Europe and they therefore consume way less. That means that the overconsumption that depletes the planet’s resources, destroys its wild spaces, and generates carbon emissions that lead to global heating is overwhelmingly the fault of people in the rich countries (where populations are typically quite stable).
Urbanisation as a result of expanding populations certainly leads to the destruction of wild habitats but the amount of fertile land used for farming livestock and for growing food for that livestock is a much bigger problem. And guess who’s eating all that livestock? HINT: It isn’t poor people of colour in developing countries. If everyone in the world stopped eating animal products, global carbon emissions would drop by an estimated 70%. Furthermore, the land currently used for farming animals and for growing the food to feed farm animals would be freed up. Sure, some of it would be needed to grow vegetables for us to eat, but a good deal could also be rewilded so it could absorb even more carbon dioxide. A meat-eater’s diet requires 17 times more land, 14 times more water and 10 times more energy than a vegetarian’s, according to research published by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
So, yes, overpopulation is problematic but focusing on that while ignoring the massive overconsumption of a minority of rich people (most of us in Europe and US) is somewhat problematic. And by centring the conversation on overpopulation we are focusing on the wrong people as the villains of this story.
David Attenborough describes two ways in which we can tackle the issue of overpopulation. Namely better education for girls and better access to healthcare for everyone. Of course, these are good things to do from a humanitarian perspective. And, if they happen to slow population growth too (which they likely will) that’s no problem. But, he also mentions several other ways in which we can help to restore balance to our natural world. First among these is to stop burning fossil fuels and move to renewable energy sources. Next we should eat less animals, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also free up land for rewinding. Finally, we should protect our seas from overfishing by creating marine parks. These three suggestions are heavily interlinked but also eminently achievable. However, they rely on rich (over) consumers to change how they (we) consume. They therefore require a little more effort than simply blaming others!
*These statistics were taken from an Oxfam study published in 2015.
Cover image by @yourenotpayingattention on instagram
