Mother Pelican
A Journal of Solidarity and Sustainability

Vol. 21, No. 1, January 2025 Luis T. Gutiérrez, Editor

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Too Many Elephants in the Room: The Overpopulation Taboo George Tsakraklides This article was originally published by George Tsakraklides, 8 December 2024 REPUBLISHED WITH PERMISSION Image provided by the author. Click the image to enlarge. Almost 1 in 5 (18%) in my readers' poll believe overpopulation is a hoax, a number way too high for my reader and Twitter audience, which comprised the sample of this quick poll (unless the poll was infiltrated by Elon’s trolls, something very frequent on my posts). Obviously, this figure would have been much, much higher in the general population outside of my audience of reach, which indicates the level of denial of the overpopulation problem that persists in wider society. But the result here, within my own audience of followers, demonstrates the level of misinformation on overpopulation which exists even among environmentalists.  They have been fed the propaganda that we can continue to grow this population if we stop eating meat, buy electric vehicles, work from home and take up gardening and meditation classes.  This propaganda has originated from PG-approved environmental celebrities such as George Monbiot and many others who have been hand-picked and rubber stamped as the spokespeople of the movement, exactly because they won’t rock the boat. But all roads eventually lead to money, and to the renewable energy industrial complex.  In fact, all of our society and economic system, from religion to world leaders to corporations, pushes forward the agenda of growth – an essential element of which of course is, population growth. Overpopulation is the biggest taboo subject because for the average person the subject matter itself is so existentially shattering and surreal that it simply “does not compute”.  They therefore choose the safety of denial, while at the same time viciously attacking those who raise the issue as eco-fascists, anti-humans and anti-civilisationists. The level of rage, and sometimes violence, is so intense that, if anything, it reveals the inner struggle the overpopulation denialists are having with themselves:  deep down they know they are wrong, so they deflect by discrediting the messenger, not the message: accusing others of being anti-human, because they don’t have any actual rational, mathematical arguments. Image provided by the author. Click the image to enlarge. But even among those in the poll who believe overpopulation IS a problem (82%), there is a sizeable “silent contingent”: almost a quarter have never publicly raised the issue of overpopulation, which means they would probably never do it.  And this is one of the biggest hurdles: because if we don’t talk about overpopulation, there will be no awareness.  I am guilty as charged myself: raising the topic amongst friends and family who have children is usually immediately perceived as a personal attack on them.  The reactions are vitriolic and often violent, even from people who never express such reactions.  So I have stopped having these conversations within the physical company of people, but I have made it a personal commitment to do it more in my writing in the future. Overpopulation is really the next frontier in the environmental movement.  People are beginning to understand that growth is unsustainable.  When will they start having conversations about the root cause of growth – population growth? ABOUT THE AUTHOR George Tsakraklides is an author, researcher, chemist, molecular biologist, and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter, @99blackbaloons, and enjoy his books, A New Earth: The Apocalypse Locus, The Unhappiness Machine and Other Stories about Systemic Collapse, Beyond The Petri Dish: Human Consciousness in the Time of Collapse, Apathy, and Algorithms, and others. |Back to Title| LINK TO THE CURRENT ISSUE          LINK TO THE HOME PAGE

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