David
Samways
Vol. 1, No. 2, Spring 2017
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DOI: 10.3197/jps.2017.1.2.5
Licensing: This article is Open Access (CC BY 4.0).
How to Cite:
Samways, D. 2016. 'Editorial introduction'. The Journal of Population and Sustainability 1(2): 5–10.
https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.2017.1.2.5
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While
the primary focus of this journal is upon the connection between human numbers
and environmental sustainability, it is impossible to explore this relationship
without considering a number of other interdependent factors. The environmental
movement has always encompassed a wide range of concerns. Arguably, the
publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 initiated popular
environmental concern around the issue of pollution as the side-effect of
“progress”. However, and perhaps more importantly, Carson made accessible the
idea that the human beings are part of and dependant
upon the ecosystem. Her critique of modern science found fertile ground in the
counterculture of the 1960s which would foster the genesis of the environmental
movement as we know it with a broad spectrum of concerns ranging from littering
through to a fundamental questioning of the benefits of “technological
society”. Somewhat ironically the greatest scientific and technical achievement
of the age, the Apollo space missions, furnished the environmental movement
with one of its most powerful symbols. Photographs of the Earth alone in space
conveyed not only its beauty but also a sense of finitude and vulnerability,
adding allegorical weight to the ideas of writers like Barbara Ward, Kenneth
Boulding and E.F. Schumacher. Indeed, both Ward (1966) and Boulding (1966)
would employ the concept of “Spaceship Earth” to convey the finite nature of
the planet.
Ward,
Boulding and Schumacher shared the view that human beings were outstripping the
planet’s ability to sustain humankind. Continuous economic growth based upon
the consumption of the Earth’s natural capital was creating environmental
degradation and human misery. Moreover, while the impact of human beings on the
environment was once localised, it had become global. A pioneer of sustainable
development, Barbara Ward emphasised that the distribution of wealth, global
justice and poverty reduction were central to any discussion about how to deal
with the issue of the survival of humankind on an ecologically finite planet.
The
future prospects for humanity on a finite planet were examined in probably the
best-selling environmental book of all time[1],
The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth (1972). Authors, Donella Meadows, Dennis
Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William Behrens developed a ground-breaking
computer-model of the future growth of human activities including:
industrialisation; resource depletion; pollution; food production; and
population. Extrapolating from trends between 1900 and 1970, under various
permutations the model showed that continuing material and population growth
would probably lead to overshoot and collapse sometime before the year 2100.
The model stressed the dynamic interdependence of the constituents of the
system: addressing one area led to a shift in another. Most importantly, the
report argued that there are natural limits to the planet’s ability to support
human population, provide resources and absorb pollution. Meadows et al
concluded that exponential material and population growth is not sustainable
and unless a managed transition to equilibrium is implemented at a global level
ecological collapse will, at some point, be unavoidable.
Limits
to Growth initially received a positive response from the political
establishment. However, a backlash soon developed, driven by short-termist thinking on the part of the business establishment
with profitability in mind, and voters fearing the effect on jobs and
affluence. Accepting that evidence and data regarding longer-term issues are
insufficiently motivating, in their new book, Reinventing Prosperity (2016),
Club of Rome General Secretary Graeme Maxton and one of the original authors of
Limits to Growth, Jorgen Randers, propose 13 policy solutions to the principle
environmental problem: climate change. They argue that these policies are
politically feasible in western democracies since they confer immediate
benefits to the majority of voters and simultaneously address persistent
unemployment and widening inequality.
In
this issue’s first article, Solving the Human Sustainability Problem in Short- Termist Societies, Maxton and Randers examine three of
their proposals: green stimulus packages to encourage renewable electricity
generation, electrification of transport and energy efficiency measures; heavy
taxation of fossil fuel production at source with revenues given directly to
citizens; and increasing the number of paid holidays to offset productivity
increases with leisure time whilst simultaneously decreasing unemployment.
However the “elephant in the room” as they put it, is human population. While
acknowledging that population growth in less developed countries (LDCs) must be
tackled, Maxton and Randers address the problem of population levels in the
rich world where per capita impact is many times greater than in poor countries
by proposing direct payments to women on their 50th birthdays who have had one
child or none.
In Population,
Climate Change, and Global Justice: A Moral Framework for Debate, Elizabeth
Cripps explores the interdependence of multiple ethical factors in the debate
about sustainability. She argues that questions of population and
sustainability pivot around issues of global, gender and intergenerational
justice. Critical to understanding these relationships is the observation that
increasing any one factor in the right side of the IPAT[2]identity
leads, other things being equal, to an increase in environmental impact. The
people of less developed countries should be able to improve their standard of
living, inevitably resulting in some increase in consumption which cannot be
sustainable in combination with a rapidly growing population. This needs to be
tackled, preferably through the use of choice- providing policies including
family planning, health care and education. Moreover, Cripps argues, because
current global consumption levels are already unsustainable, considerations of
global justice also support the case both for transfer of resources and
technology to the LDCs and for lowering consumption in the developed world.
Significantly, Cripps points out that the complexities and interdependencies of
the issues are such that already the collective action required for a
sustainable outcome will not be possible without facing up to some morally hard
choices including whether to introduce incentive changing procreative policies.
While,
as Maxton and Randers observe, the environmental impact of each new individual
born into the developed world is up to 30 times greater than those in
developing countries, absolute population increases in the LDCs is an issue for
both environmental sustainability and, importantly, the quality of life
experienced in those countries. The greatest increase in population is
anticipated in Sub-Saharan Africa – a 120% rise between 2015 and 2050. This
compares with a 20% increase in Asia – the same as the expected rise in North
America. “The future size of world population”, John Cleland observes, “depends
critically on what happens in sub-Saharan Africa”: his paper focuses on the
prospects for fertility change in the region.
Like
many commentators on population growth in the LDCs, Cleland notes that
socio-economic development, education and the availability of contraception
have a positive effect. However, rates of fertility for African countries with
the same level of development as those on other continents are about one birth
higher. One critical factor which distinguishes sub-Saharan Africa from the
rest of the developing world is the stated desire, by men and women alike, to
have large families. Identifying the unique historical, cultural, political and
economic factors which may explain attitudes to childbearing, Cleland is
nonetheless cautiously optimistic about the possibility of attenuating the rate
of population growth – especially in east Africa. A reinvigoration of
international interest in family planning programmes and a shift in the
attitudes of African political leaders are possible sources of hope. The
examples of Rwanda and Ethiopia which have both had rapid declines in their
birth rate due to determined government initiatives show that a deviation from
the UN projections is possible.
Many
have argued that the impact and domination of our planet by Homo sapiens should
be described as the Anthropocene or “the age of humans”. However, the
distinguished biologist E.O. Wilson (2013) has put it more strongly describing
the current level of species extinction as potentially leading to what he terms
the Eremocene: “the era of loneliness”. While, in the
interests of clarity, Liz Cripps’ paper restricts itself to the impact of
population growth on human interests, our final two papers explore issues
relating to species extinction caused by pressure of human numbers.
Niki
Rust and Laura Kehoe’s paper is a call for action on the part of conservation
researchers to study the empirical effects of population dynamics on species
diversity. While the rapid pace of species extinction is widely acknowledged by
conservation scientists, the causes cited are usually proximate rather than the
ultimate drivers of global change: human numbers and resource consumption. Rust
and Kehoe postulate that conservationists’ lack of direct engagement with the
population issue is possibly due to the subject being seen as controversial.
They argue that a multidisciplinary approach is required where conservation
researchers work with NGOs to study the effect on biodiversity of programmes
addressing female education and improved access to contraception.
Fred Naggs sees no possibility of averting the human-caused 6th
mass extinction. While in the longer run a reduction in the human population
will undoubtedly occur, by that time the devastation of biodiversity will
already be so great that the era of loneliness will be upon us. Naggs tempers this by outlining methods that allow the
creation of a 21st Century Noah’s Ark to preserve viable cells of species in
order to repopulate the natural world at a point when human numbers have been
reduced. He calls for the establishment of a coordinated international project
to collect and store living diversity as a means of escaping the species
solitude that awaits us.
[1] Over
30 million copies sold in 30 languages (Norgard and Ragnarsdottir 2010).
[2] I=PAT:
Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology.
Boulding,
K.E., 1965. The meaning of the twentieth
century: the great transition. London:
George Allen & Unwin.
Boulding,
K.E., 1966. The Economics of the coming spaceship Earth: environmental quality
in a growing economy. In: Jarrett, H., ed. Essays
from the sixth RFF forum, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. pp.3-14
Carson,
R., 1962. Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company
Maxton
G. and Randers J., 2016. Reinventing
prosperity – managing economic growth to reduce unemployment, inequality and
climate change. Vancouver: Greystone Books
Meadows,
D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and Behrens, W.W., 1972. The limits to growth. Washington DC: Universe Books.
Norgard, J.S., Peet, J., Ragnarsdottir,
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one earth: the care and maintenance of a small planet. London:
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E.O., 2013. Beware the Age of Loneliness. The
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<http://www.economist.com/news/21589083-man-must-do-more-preserve-rest-life-earth-warns-edward-o-wilson-professor-emeritus>
[Accessed 1 March 2017].