POPULATION VERSUS ENVIRONMENT THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM.

This idea — that continual population growth is a good thing — has been with us for about 2000 years, and, while it has arguably accounted for some of the positive aspects of modern civilization, it has also left our world in a shambles. Nonetheless, it’s official doctrine within the Catholic Church, a tiny slice of orthodox Jews and Hindus, and major parts of Islam. Because Christianity and Islam are evangelical they are constantly trying to spread their influence, the primary means by which they grow their political and economic power and influence is procreation. Close behind evangelism to accomplish that “larger army” is the doctrine that it’s the duty of families to be as large as possible, relegating “conservative ideal women” to broodmare status. Barefoot and pregnant. Kitchen and bedroom only. The origin of this ideology dates back to the earliest times of warfare, when families, tribes, local baronies, or nation-states went to war. The biggest factor that determined who won a battle was which side had the largest army. Aggressively working against birth control and advocating fecundity is a great way to increase the size of your army. Hopefully that time of continuous human population growth is nearly over, and, billionaire eccentrics aside (Musk has 11 children), populations are now declining in many parts of the world. We’d be seeing population decline in the US and Europe too, if it weren’t for immigration, both legal and otherwise. It’s become a conservative tenet of faith that this decline in population is a bad thing, drawing from Catholicism, Islam, and evangelical Christianity and crackpot economics. The biggest army and all that. There are substantial environmental benefits to declining populations. There’s less of a strain on natural resources, less deforestation, and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Smaller human populations produce smaller populations of our food animals, which represent about 60% of all mammalian flesh on earth. The world’s biodiversity can then be enhanced, wildlife and wild spaces protected, ecosystems repaired, and ecological balance restored. Catholic and evangelical ideologues continue portraying population decline as a bad thing. They are of course fighting an uphill battle; women all over the world are choosing fewer babies (where they can), sperm counts are collapsing, and infertility is rampant (both, apparently, because we’ve poisoned our environment and food supply trying to meet the needs of 8 billion people). How many times do we see poverty stricken starving children in wars zones clearly conceived in time of conflict with an absolute zero future ahead of them. Politicians are frightened to even speak about this subject and seem to think its OK to pump millions into aid and of course also weapons when it is clear it is devastating for the environment. Its beginning to seem that climate change may have a hand in this with droughts, floods, extreme temperatures but surely this is not the solution society needs, a famine or devastating natural disasters are not what the poorer nations want.