From a conversation on social media I had with an adherent of the "Human Population Problem" who posted this excerpt from the Population Matters website:
"I have been at any number of conferences where people talk of various dangers that we are facing, such as water and environmental conservation, but what pains me is, no government wants to address the most fundamental problem – population. In the early 20th century, the world’s population was 1.6 billion people. Today, a century later, we are 7.2 billion people. We are projecting that by 2050, we will be 9.6 billion people. I think this is just irresponsible reproduction of humanity. In India, in 1947, we were 330 million. Today, we are 1.2 billion. It doesn’t matter how many trees you plant, how many policies you change, what kind of technologies you bring, there is simply no solution unless we put a cap on human population".
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I responded with: I'm still waiting for someone--ANYONE--to prove, rather than assume, that there is in fact a human "population problem". Seems like a case of activists/activist scientists (of the Ehrlich, Hansen, and Attenborough stripe) selecting the conclusion they wish to "find", then working backward to support that conclusion (by hook or by crook).
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She replied: Population growth is unprecedented, and we are destroying previously untouched swaths of land in order to sustain it-- just look at China and India to see undeniable over population. Because the majority of humans see no problem with eating animals, crops are continuously being usurped to feed said animals and we cannot feed the many starving populations around the globe with that reallocated corn and wheat. Overpopulation is a reality for much of the underdeveloped world, and it's a very western mentality to question that fact.
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I responded with: But unprecedented population growth isn't an argument, it's an observation, and it's not necessarily a relevant one. Unprecedented doesn't mean bad or that there's any cause for concern. The Cambrian explosion was an unprecedented explosion of life that literally spawned a world of complex organisms/species. At one point life was unprecedented: should we have acted to stop it and strangle it in its cradle or control it because it was anomalous? I'm glad we didn't exist then with our modern minds to ponder that question and enact legislation to "take care of it"...
As for the developing countries of China and India--if it's undeniable, then what are the proper population numbers for territories of that size, endowed with those resources at their current stage of development? In both China and India, life expectancy, material quality of life, and health have risen dramatically in spite of extreme levels of coal smog (a situation analogous to 18/19thC Britain). Shouldn't that give room for discussion on this "undeniability"? If its the poverty angle you're emphasizing, I think that the Chinese and Indian governments are more responsible for cementing the poverty crises in their countries than is any other factor, and possibly than all other factors combined.
More importantly, if it's undeniable, why isn't South Korea on anyone's list (it ranks #20 on the population density list, while India sits at #33, 3 slots higher than Belgium, and 5 higher than Japan). Singapore, one of the per capita richest countries in the world, sits at #2. 3 cities in France have higher population densities than any city in India. I'm pointing out that our understanding that there are too many people is an assumption we search to substantiate that leads us to eagerly swallow a whole host of other assumptions: that high population causes a poverty trap, that we are raping, destroying, and poisoning the planet, that humans are unnatural, etc.
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At this point she seemed to draw back from her earlier statements, with: I see what you're saying about high population not necessarily equally high poverty but it is an absolute fact that the more people there are on earth, the more of the earth we consume.
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My response: Ignoring the issue I have with the use of the term "consume", your statement is true of life in general. But so then is the converse: the less life, the more there will be to consume. The problem is that there will always be too many humans if we use that standard. In fact, using that standard there will always be too much LIFE. 5 billion is better than 7.4, 1 billion better than 5, 100 million better than 1 billion... I don't agree. Why wasn't 92,435,622 the magic number, or 452,568, or 12.36 billion? In terms of biomass, this planet is ALL bacteria with a few sprinkles of other species thrown in. Environmentalists don't worry about that because they believe that nature, sans humans, is balance and harmony. It isn't. At all.
Nature is not some harmonious, balanced, mother of life. Nature is a brutal creator: it's dirty, unhealthy, and supremely destructive of life and local ecosystems (though it is beautiful to us). 99% of all species that have ever existed on this planet have been snuffed out by "nature" (changes in climate, weather, evolving predators, viruses, ice ages, bacteria, famine, oil spills, drought, etc etc). Imagine a mother who births 100 children, then leaves a series of weapons, traps, etc, that will likely kill all of them and yet one of them, somehow, survives. Good mother? Balance? Harmony? Senseless, selective terms created by humans to reify and deify nature and to indict anything human.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not arguing that we shouldn't care or protect our environment...I'm suggesting that there is nothing inherently, objectively wrong in our transforming it into a human environment. I'm also arguing that, in fact, that transformation IS objectively good for humans.
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This is where the conversation ended, and she regardless seems to feel the same as she did pre-conversation. That, to me, was rather interesting. Thoughts?