The Population Myth
People who claim that population growth is the big environmental issue are shifting the blame from the rich to the poor
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 29th Septeember 2009
Its no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: its about the only environmental issue for which they cant be blamed. The brilliant earth systems scientist James Lovelock for example claimed last month that those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.(1) But its Lovelock who is being ignorant and irrational.
A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005 for example Sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the worlds population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out 4% of the extra people but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three per cent of the worlds population growth happened in places with very low emissions(2).