Postmodern Environmentalism: What can be done to save the world without limiting human population growth?
If there were 1000 million people on the earth there would be scarcely any news about ecosystem collapse or global warming. There would be large areas of wild land, there would be open landscapes and peace within a few miles of any home.
There are now 7000 million people on the earth. The most striking feature of the various reports on the huge damage this population growth has caused, such as the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and the UN's IPBES press report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’, is that they assume that population growth is unstoppable. Compared with all the factors considered in these reports population growth itself is probably the easiest variable to control. Population growth is never tackled and it appears that the agenda behind the politician's approach to global warming and ecosystem damage is to find a way to preserve population growth. The various reports on global ecosystem damage should be entitled: "What can be done to save the world without limiting human population growth?".
From the viewpoint of a person who rejoices in diversity and the beauty of nature those people who prevented any meaningful population control over the past 50 years are dripping evil. Their apparatchiks who produce reports on how the world can be tormented by squeezing in millions more people without it resulting in total collapse of the global ecosystem or by geoengineering are beneath contempt.
Who are these crammers of people into ever smaller spaces, these crushers of nature? From the viewpoint of the natural world the solution to our global environmental problems is to gather these vermin together and put them in cages along with those who believe there should be no limits to population. They can be fed their reprocessed excrement and provided with AI interfaces to entertain them. The rest of us can then have small families and roam this beautiful world at leisure. Fortunately for the "vermin" the natural world is unable to single them out.
Why am I so angry about this? If we look at the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (2011) it asks: "How can we secure and improve the continued delivery of ecosystem services?". To be charitable this question could be some childish attempt by ecologists to ingratiate themselves with commercial and political overlords but if that is really the case the ecologists should stop and think. Anyone who regards the natural world solely in terms of the profits of their commercial enterprise will destroy that natural world without conscience if it fails to deliver "ecosystem services". The best they will give the rest of us is a temporary reprieve. It is well worth calculating the cost of destroying ecosystems but these ecosystems are not "services" laid on purely for the benefit of growing human populations and commercial psychopaths. These ecosystems are the world.
There are now 7000 million people on the earth. The most striking feature of the various reports on the huge damage this population growth has caused, such as the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and the UN's IPBES press report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’, is that they assume that population growth is unstoppable. Compared with all the factors considered in these reports population growth itself is probably the easiest variable to control. Population growth is never tackled and it appears that the agenda behind the politician's approach to global warming and ecosystem damage is to find a way to preserve population growth. The various reports on global ecosystem damage should be entitled: "What can be done to save the world without limiting human population growth?".
From the viewpoint of a person who rejoices in diversity and the beauty of nature those people who prevented any meaningful population control over the past 50 years are dripping evil. Their apparatchiks who produce reports on how the world can be tormented by squeezing in millions more people without it resulting in total collapse of the global ecosystem or by geoengineering are beneath contempt.
Who are these crammers of people into ever smaller spaces, these crushers of nature? From the viewpoint of the natural world the solution to our global environmental problems is to gather these vermin together and put them in cages along with those who believe there should be no limits to population. They can be fed their reprocessed excrement and provided with AI interfaces to entertain them. The rest of us can then have small families and roam this beautiful world at leisure. Fortunately for the "vermin" the natural world is unable to single them out.
Why am I so angry about this? If we look at the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (2011) it asks: "How can we secure and improve the continued delivery of ecosystem services?". To be charitable this question could be some childish attempt by ecologists to ingratiate themselves with commercial and political overlords but if that is really the case the ecologists should stop and think. Anyone who regards the natural world solely in terms of the profits of their commercial enterprise will destroy that natural world without conscience if it fails to deliver "ecosystem services". The best they will give the rest of us is a temporary reprieve. It is well worth calculating the cost of destroying ecosystems but these ecosystems are not "services" laid on purely for the benefit of growing human populations and commercial psychopaths. These ecosystems are the world.
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