Mother Pelican
A Journal of Solidarity and Sustainability

Vol. 19, No. 7, July 2023 Luis T. Gutiérrez, Editor

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The War on Nature Laudato si', by Pope Francis (2015), is a comprehensive analysis of global techno-industrial overshoot and social/ecological injustice. Fratelli tutti, also by Pope Fracis (2020), is a proposal to pursue a civilized transition from material growth to integral human development. Both documents are written from a Christian perspective, but addressed to all men and women of good will. ARTICLES Population Denialism is Reminiscent of Climate Denialism Kirsten Stade Disconnection from Nature: Expanding Our Understanding of Human–Nature Relations Thomas Beery et al Limits to Wealth = Limits to Growth Daniel Wortel-London Reflecting on Policy Proposals for Degrowth: Feasibility and Transformations Amerissa Giannouli Faster and Faster: The Pace of Climate Change Keeps Surprising Us Kurt Cobb The Global Polycrisis Reflects a Civilizational Crisis that Calls for Systemic Alternatives Zack Walsh Models Hide the Shortcomings of Wind and Solar Gail Tverberg The Lie of a Cleaner Oilsands Andrew Nikiforuk Leaving Las Vegas ~ Interlude I ~ Improvising Counterhegemonies: A Lived Manifesto Cara Judea Alhadeff Artificial Intelligence & The Polycrisis James R. Martin Can There Be An Energy Transition? Christ Smaje Nuclear Fusion: Eternal Energy = Eternal Damnation Don Fitz & Stan Cox Capturing Carbon With Machines Is a Failure ~ So Why Are We Subsidizing It? Richard Heinberg Understanding the Solidarity Economy and Just Transition April M. Short The Ancient Patterns of Migration Deborah Barsky Green Supremacy: When Far-Right Politics Co-opt Environmentalism Diego Francesco Marin Planet of the Narcissists: Orbiting Towards Unconsciousness George Tsakraklides We Need a Political Ecology of Repair that Rejects 'Business As Usual' Daniel Castillo Earning a Living in Troubled Times Mary Wildfire Tons, Hectares, or Dollars? Measuring the Pressure Exerted by the Economy on the Biosphere Gregory M. Mikkelson The Green Energy Transition Is Not Necessarily Just Bryan P. Galligan To Smash the Patriarchy, We Need to Get Specific About What It Means Kristen R. Ghodsee The Politics of Scripture ~ The Nonbinary Creation Christy Randazzo Gender Spectrum: A Scientist Explains Why Gender Isn't Binary Cade Hildreth Population Denialism is Reminiscent of Climate Denialism Kirsten Stade This article was originally published by Inter Press Service (IPS), 25 May 2023 REPUBLISHED WITH PERMISSION UN population estimates and projection 1950–2100. Click on the image to enlarge. A new study estimates that global heating will push billions of people outside the comfortable range of temperature and weather in which we have evolved. While coverage of the study notes that rapid emissions cuts could greatly reduce the number of people forced to live amid unprecedented extremes, it fails to mention the obvious: that reducing our population would have the same effect. Not long ago, the idea that human population growth drives both human suffering and environmental decline was considered common sense. That changed in the 1990s in the wake of several egregious population control programs, ranging from China’s one-child policy to forced sterilizations in China, India, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere. Today, the mere mention of population growth in connection with environmental protection or human well-being gets demonized as “neo-Malthusian” or “eugenicist” – notwithstanding the fact that the vast majority of efforts to lower fertility, whether to alleviate poverty or to reduce pressure on resources, have been rights-based and voluntary. What is most troubling about this mischaracterization is that it deflects attention from the enormous violations of reproductive rights that occur in the name of increasing reproduction. Pronatalism — the social pressures, religious doctrine, and government policies designed to induce people to have more children – has long been the most prevalent form of reproductive coercion. Impressed upon people by family members, religious leaders, and politicians pursuing racist, nationalist, military, and/or economic agendas, pronatalism shows up through abortion bans and alarmist messaging that promotes childbirth for certain ethnic groups. The common thread is treating people as reproductive vessels for external agendas. Over 218 million women worldwide who want to avoid pregnancy have an unmet need for contraception. This troubling reality is the result of both simple unavailability of contraceptives, and of deep-seated pronatalist attitudes–often held by husbands and other family members- that make it impossible for women to use them. When women are expected to produce large families regardless of their own wants, pronatalism not only denies their reproductive autonomy; it also worsens poverty and damages the environment. A new study by the Swedish Research Council debunks the stubborn misconception that population growth has a negligible effect on climate change since it’s concentrated in low-consumption countries. In fact, the study finds, population growth is the biggest driver of carbon emissions and is canceling out emissions reductions made through renewables and efficiency. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), population growth is one of the “strongest drivers of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the last decade.” Population growth and resultant agricultural expansion drive water scarcity, soil depletion, deforestation, land degradation, and damage to ecosystems that humans depend on. The connection between population growth and environmental impacts is clear, yet frequently denied, and this denial has real consequences. Since addressing population growth fell out of favor in the 1990s, international funding for family planning declined 35 percent and falls far short of meeting global need. Population denialism is reminiscent of climate denialism in its disregard for science and its failure to acknowledge the suffering of millions. Population deniers invoke Malthus and Margaret Sanger to invalidate population concerns by associating them with infamous sources, while ignoring unimpeachable ones like the IPCC. While Malthus’ doomism and Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb failed to foresee new agricultural technologies that averted the famine and population crash they predicted, population denialists make the opposite mistake. They adhere to a cornucopian faith that technology will magically solve our problems, and assume that new low-carbon energy sources and unproven interventions like carbon capture will fix everything. They won’t. In fact green tech raises serious environmental and social problems of its own. Solar and wind energy and the infrastructure for transmitting the power they generate requires 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 mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by low-wage workers subjected to toxic dumping and en masse displacement. Population deniers are rightly concerned with equitable development of the world’s impoverished regions, but development will mean more emissions, more water use, more habitat destruction. If current trends continue, the global middle class is projected to reach 5 billion by 2030. To enable all people to attain a reasonable standard of living without further straining natural systems, we must make access to family planning for all people a matter of urgent international concern. The good news is that doing so reaps rewards not only for the planet but for human well-being. In every culture where fertility rates have declined, even staggering government investment in pronatalist incentives is insufficient to compel women to go back to the high birth rates they have left behind – an indication that women have a latent wish for low fertility. This suggests that the path forward lies in acknowledging both the human and environmental toll of high birth rates and resultant population growth, and giving women the universal, free access to contraceptives and abortion care that will enable them to realize their reproductive wishes. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kirsten Stade is a conservation biologist and communications manager of the NGO Population Balance. Kirsten has worked for over two decades for nonprofit organizations focusing on conserving wildlife, challenging extractive industries on public lands, and defending the integrity of regulatory science. She has published research on the impacts of livestock grazing on fire ecology and ecosystem health in the American west, and has a Master's degree in Conservation Biology from Columbia University and a Bachelor's in Earth Systems from Stanford University. |Back to Outline| LINK TO THE CURRENT ISSUE          LINK TO THE HOME PAGE

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