For too many years unjustified accusations have flown at those of us who have been beating the overpopulation drum. At best we are told we only care about trees and wildlife at the expense of human rights at worst we are labeled racists and just plain anti-human. This is an expedient way to shut down a much-needed conversation, avoid the truth and any hope of solving what is behind our booming environmental crisis.Just label the ecologically aware as unfair to the poor and marginalized and you don’t have to pay attention to what they (we) are saying. As Dana Carvey’s Church Lady character would say, “Isn’t that special!” or more appropriately, “How conveeeenient”. If our intentions as overpopulation activists are deemed nefarious, no one has to listen or accept blame for things going south so quickly. The truth is, If we truly were anti-human and racist our best approach to this issue would be to remain silent and just watch the collapse of all we hold dear progress.
Paraphrasing Isaac Asimov, the overpopulation issue operates under its own weather system and is so detrimental to humanity that the best way to keep it on track to wipe us and our fellow creatures out is to do nothing. He points out that at least with nuclear war we have to do something. We are very busy doing nothing, and even busier making up reasons why we can’t have decent, effective policies, many of which have been in the pipeline for a long time.
Without ecologically and morally justifiable laws in place to keep us in balance with the resources needed to survive, we will continue to grow to such an outrageous population size that conservation efforts will become increasingly ridiculous. We keep telling the public to be sure to wash out their peanut butter jars and shop with reusable bags, meanwhile we add over 200,000 new customers net gain to Mother Earth’s limited store each day.
In the US it is becoming ‘green’ window dressing to put in community gardens and roadside wildflowers, while we put out the red carpet for thousands of new residents to our shiny, new government subsidized apartment units. While we smile at ribbon cutting ceremonies these relocated earth customers will be in the process of draining our already stressed aquifers and adding to our traffic jams. We have alternate days for watering lawns in place while encouraging the addition of hundreds of new residents each year in arid, drought stressed states who will be needing 82 gallons of fresh water per day just to live a decent modern life. We must be locally sustainable before we can ever hope to be globally so.
The time is overdue to call out these social justice warriors. I would mention them by name but not only are they growing in numbers it is their story I am trying to poke holes their story. Anyone who is alarmed at the growth rates of our population which is mainly due to mass immigration is NOT I repeat, NOT an automatic white supremacist.
If you want to help mankind, and prevent suffering, misery, and early death of humans you can do many things. You can be against the death penalty, pedophilia, sex trafficking, the sale of assault weapons to the public and the promotion of illicit drugs. You can question the ease with which we go to war with no game plan for ending the invasions of sovereign nations. All these positions reflect my deeply held values. How is it that I can I suddenly become anti-human by promoting the idea that overpopulation is killing our future? I can’t because I am not. I am the opposite of a racist. I am not the enemy of all things human. Overpopulation causes ecocide, which is an umbrella incorporated the ills of genocide. It is the unnamed, unblamed enemy of our present and future. It stresses resources, eliminates pollinators, adds to our carbon footprint, creates traffic, obliterates our scenic views, and overcrowds our cities and parks. Trying to prevent this collective tragedy is nothing but noble.
We have all seen the photos of trains in India so overstuffed with passengers that over 33,000 people are killed each year just by falling overboard. Do we think we will somehow be protected from their fate in the developed world? If you have been around for a few, you have already witnessed the diminished quality of life brought about by overpopulation. More crowds, more pollution, more anonymity, less community, and more crime are all the result of the US population growing beyond the carrying capacity of our precious and irreplaceable resources including our now mythological wide-open spaces. The real finger pointing should be at those selling the fallacies that the US is limitless with much to offer newcomers. Decay is all that lies ahead for a country unwilling to put its ecological foot down. Yes, we indeed may owe certain groups a lifeline because of our past or even current unfair and even evil acts, but we cannot offer up our country’s future as penance. That lifeline needs to be in more sustainable forms. Once we recognize that the US cannot be the release valve for the hundreds of millions who would like to come here, there are endless possibilities for being helpful. For instance, we could send in teams of health care providers and educators to help relieve women saddled with the burden of having to provide for unsustainable numbers of children. We could try to negotiate with leaders attaching trade policies to lowered fertility rates.
An article in the Journal of Future Studies, (Sept. 2020, 25(1): 93–106) addressed the motivations of those advocating to take our foot off the growth pedal. “Environmental scientists and scholars who point out the danger of overpopulation do so for two key reasons. The first is that this is causing ecocide and the extinction of life on Earth. The second is that the first reason is likely to lead to famine and war, and the major loss of human population….Thus, talking about overpopulation is not anti-human but pro-human. Population activism seeks to avoid mega-death (both human and nonhuman). Similarly, it wishes to avoid a situation where international conflict and war are increased. The ‘anti-human’ claim thus has no evidence or logic to support it.”
In my 2015 book, Move Upstream, A Call to Solve Overpopulation, Freethought House Press, I invited people to consider the big picture. I did not tell them to leave their values behind, but to accomplish them with a wider vision. An upstream view is to see not only what we are doing but why we are doing it. If I didn’t care about the biodiversity of this planet and its capacity to support us, I would take the George Carlin approach. I would get a lawn chair and make a big bag of popcorn and just watch the circling of the drain. I would nod my head and say to whomever wanted to listen, “What did you expect when we add millions each year to a country which already can’t manage to provide for its citizens?” I do deeply care about this planet and its creatures and so do my fellow overpopulation activists. I am ready to go to the mat to challenge those who cannot see beyond their limited worldview. When their narrative of shame is examined through the lens of sustainability it becomes tarnished and is not just damaging to activists but to the future of those they think they are trying to protect.
Overpopulation activists must address growth in all of its forms, both locally and globally. Growth is cultivated by high fertility rates and lack of women’s empowerment, immigration policies and capitalism which is increasingly better referred to as oligarchic capitalism due to the way in which a handful of billionaires are running the country’s economic policies. Those who claim to have a stake in the social justice of the most vulnerable would do well to take a few ecology courses and see that they are setting up a house of cards which is destined to collapse and fall hardest on those with the least resiliency.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karen Shragg is a lifelong environmentalist, naturalist, educator, poet, author and overpopulation activist. Karen received her doctorate from the University of St. Thomas in 2002, following two other degrees in education. She has recently retired as a long-time naturalist and nature center director to start the LLC, Move Upstream Environmental Consulting (MUSEC). As a member of the advisory board of the non-profit “World Population Balance”, and “Earth Overshoot”, she has become increasingly alarmed by the lack of discourse surrounding the overpopulation crisis. In 2015, her book Move Upstream: A Call to Solve Overpopulation, was published by Freethought House Press. Her new book moves the discussion further upstream: Change Our Stories, Change our World will be out December 2020, by the same press.
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