The myth of human overpopulation
Many believe that the human population has grown excessively. The more humans proliferate, the more devastating impacts imposed on the global environment. This includes the massive loss of natural habitat, such as the 3.5–5.9% habitat lost per year in Sumatra (Linkie et al., 2008), home of several critically endangered species belonging to one of the most biodiverse locations in the world, Indonesia.
Some of the major themes discussed in environmental ethics include anthropocentrism vs. other more altruistic ideologies, moral considerability of non-human animals, and intrinsic vs. instrumental value of the environment and natural objects.
Dr. Jacqueline Kasun was convinced of the idea that human overpopulation was a “myth,” a narrative the Global North pushed to exercise greater dominance and control over the Global South. On the contrary, Kasun (1989) asserts that the global human population is, in fact, approaching zero population growth.
In Asia, the annual rate of growth dropped from 2.3% in 1970 to 1.8% in 1988; in Latin America, from 2.7% in 1970 to 2.2% in 1988; and in Mexico, birth rates fell from 45 births per 1000 people to 29 per thousand between 1960 and 1986 (Kasun, 1989).
Kasun suggests that these data points contradict claims like the idea that global starvation is due to “uncontrolled human fertility.” Claims such as these by Paul Ehrlich, Lester Brown, The National Science Foundation, and Werner Fornos, have been the foundation of the incitement of worldwide panic about the seemingly inevitable population crash humans are racing toward due to an uncontrollable growth rate.
Debunking the fallacy of human overpopulation
Kasun illustrates how powerful nations have used this claim of overpopulation by firstly stating that the world is still largely untouched by human civilization (still “empty” she says). According to Kasun, reports like that of Lester Brown, who states, “[I]n 76 tropical countries… 11 million hectares of forests are being cleared each year,” rarely give the baseline of these studies. Particularly, these reviews typically exclude the number of hectares originally comprised the forest — 3 billion hectares in this case, which amounts to approximately 0.4% forest lost, Kasun says.
Whether one chooses to believe humans are populating the world in excess, or we are rapidly approaching zero growth rate, it is impossible to deny the impact our presence has had — and is having — on our environment. In the words of Garrett Hardin (1978):
Every human being born constitutes a draft on all aspects of the environment… If we satisfy the need for food in a growing population, we necessarily decrease the supply of other goods, and thereby increase the difficulty of equitability of allocating scarce goods.
Humans’ most prominent dangers that proliferate worldwide emerge from particular ideologies driving many nations’ urban sprawl.
Human civilizations which rely heavily on industry, technology, and mass production-focused business impose a massive environmental cost. These societies are typically rooted in an ideology that is dangerously anthropocentric. This way of thinking allows humans to be held accountable not for the effect their actions have on non-human animals or the environment, but only on other humans.
Baxter (1974) is an example of someone who subscribes to such ethics. He believes that human beings are entitled to “spheres of freedom,” in which they are expected to avoid interfering with other humans, but not non-human animals, as he believes the welfare of the environment and natural objects are not morally considerable. This follows Kantian ethics (Altman, 2011), which says that the welfare of non-human animals is considerable only in the way that it affects human well-being and character. However, Baxter (1974) defends his standpoint by claiming that “humans are surrogates for plant and animal life,” because what is good for humans is good for all other non-human life.
“I reject the proposition that we ought to respect the ‘balance of nature’ or to ‘preserve the environment’ unless the reason for doing so, express or implied, is the benefit of man…. I reject the idea that there is a ‘right’ or ‘morally correct’ state of nature to which we should return.”
Many would disagree, as what has been “good” for humans — mass agriculture, urban sprawl, industrialization — has been extremely damaging to the environment and non-human life.
This particular type of anthropocentrism allows for humans to behave in a way that does not require them to consider the health and well-being of any living thing outside of the human species. This narrows everything on Earth outside of humans to having only instrumental value.
Capping human proliferation — the right thing to do?
According to Devall (1980), a central focus of the deep ecology movement is to determine an optimal carrying capacity of the human population. Identifying and adhering to such a limit would give all other life forms on Earth the opportunity to full their full evolutionary potential.
As Hardin (1978) notes, each and every human life has a cost associated with it. Food resources, space, externalities, and more are mercilessly consumed with the emergence and persistence of a single human life. Within communities, these factors compound and become more costly than they normally would be individually. Yet, one person or a small group of people would not need a large housing complex or shopping mall, and arguably neither do groups that are several orders of magnitude larger than an individual or a modest assembly. But where numbers grow, so does innovation, recreation and, so, expansion. The environmental cost is ever-increasing.
Still, limiting the human population is contradictory to this goal of deep ecology, according to Watson (1983). Watson believes that capping human growth is, in itself, anthropocentric. It implies a superiority, an “otherness” of humans, that the species is too capable and powerful so it must be contained.
Watson asks: Shouldn’t the human species be allowed to live out its full evolutionary potential just as all other non-human life?
In either case, restraining human proliferation does not quite address the problem of human expansion at the expense of all other organisms, rendering all life outside of humanity capable of having instrumental value only. The environment and all non-human life within it is then seen as a means to an end, and not as an end, in and of itself.
On another note, some argue that the assignment of intrinsic vs. instrumental value is determined by the level of sentience. So, not every species’ well-being can be ignored concerning human expansion. Palmer (2012) describes these criteria for moral considerability as consequentialism: it is the “state of affairs” of a being that has value, rather than the being itself. Those who subscribe to this ideology believe that there is a sort of hierarchy to moral consideration. It does not exclude the possibility of certain non-human animals having non-instrumental or intrinsic value. Still, the extent of that value is determined by the level of sentience.
For instance, a holistic consequentialist would not be overly concerned with the loss of an ant colony during the building of a housing complex. But they would be concerned about the displacement of burrowing owls for the same purpose.
Regan (2013) and Singer (2013), for example, take a strong stance on animal rights, and Regan demands the cessation of commercial agriculture and the use of animals in research. Singer’s views take focus on the fact that animals are capable of feeling pain, and that because of this, human pain or pleasure should take no precedence over any animal’s pain or pleasure. Based on the language and context of Regan and Singer’s arguments, they do not seem to be including insects, bacteria, and other “lower” life forms in this ideology.
For instance, I worked with mosquitoes in county and university labs, but reactions to that work versus research involving mice or rats would turn out very differently. Therefore, it is typically an organism’s perceived sentience that deems it deserving of a greater amount of moral considerability than another. Perceptions are often deeply intertwined with our natural partiality toward mammals.
This only enforces the anthropocentric idea of using non-human organisms as solely a means to enhance the lives of humans.
Rather than determining a carrying capacity for human life, I argue that it would be more effective to determine, in written law, the value of natural organisms and resources in scientific, ecological terms. To discourage and disallow hedonistic behavior by defining the intrinsic value of non-human animals and the environment AND encouraging receptiveness to quantifying instrumental value, within reason. Political and academic leaders’ efforts to objectively define the value of natural objects outside apart from the human experience could potentially generate more progress in environmental consciousness than simply slapping a number on the number of children a family can have.
Genuine analysis of concepts such as overpopulation can help to not only dismantle the ideological hegemony of the Global North, undercutting their power in imposing certain ways of life on those robbed of the privilege to ignore their environmental impact, but eliminate the influence of the “overpopulation gospel” in the forcing of Western progressive diets where inclusive knowledge systems and adaptive management techniques would be better suited.
References
- Altman, M. C. (2011). Chapter 1. Kant and applied ethics. In Kant and applied ethics: The uses and limits of Kant’s practical philosophy(pp. 43–63). Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=818758
- Baxter, W. (1974). People or penguins: The case for optimal pollution. Policies and Controversies in Environmental Ethics, 274–277.
- Devall, B. (1980). The deep ecology movement. Natural Resources Journal, 20(2), 299–322. Retrieved from http://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2860&context=nrj
- Hardin, G. (1974). Commentary: Living on a lifeboat. BioScience, 24(10), 561–568. doi:10.2307/1296629
Kasun, J. (1989). Too many people? The myth of excess population. Economic Affairs, 9(5), 15–18. doi:10.1111/j.1468–0270.1989.tb01145.x - Linkie, M., Wibisono, H. T., Martyr, D. J., & Sunarto, S. (2008). Panthera tigris ssp. sumatrae. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved February 17, 2019, from http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T15966A5334836.en
- Palmer, C. (2012). An overview of environmental ethics. In L.P. Pojman & P. Pojman (Eds.) Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application (6th ed.), 10–35.
- Regan, T. (2013). The radical egalitarian case for animal rights. In M. Boylan (Ed.) Environmental ethics (2nd ed.), 291–300.
- Singer, P. (2013). All animals are equal. In M. Boylan (Ed.) Environmental ethics (2nd ed.), 277–291.
- Watson, R. A. (1983). A critique of anti-anthropocentric ethics. Environmental Ethics, 5(3), 245–256. doi:10.5840/enviroethics19835325
Jazmin “Sunny” Murphy is a freelance science writer and the owner of Black Flower Writing Services & Supplies. She writes science-based content for a broad range of industries, including pet care, cannabis, and sustainable living. Jazmin earned a B.S. Zoology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and so far has completed 21 units of the M.Sc. Environmental Policy and Management program at American Public University System. Since 2015, she’s written science communication web content for laypeople.
