we need to build stronger links and collaboration with movements for climate justice in the global south not draw up plans to reduce their numbers without doubt, climate change is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. The scientific evidence of the scale of the threat is overwhelming, compelling and frightening. Climate tipping points points which if crossed will lead to runaway global warming are being crossed now. So its crucial that the climate justice movement made up of those determined to take a stand now to win a safe climate future campaigns for the changes that can actually make a difference. In australia, a discussion has surfaced about whether population control measures should be a key plank in the climate action movements campaign arsenal.

Below are 10 reasons why such a decision would hinder, rather than help, the necessary task of building a movement that can win. Population does not cause climate change advocates of population control say that one of the most effective measures we can take to combat climate change is to sharply reduce the number of humans on the planet. This wrongly focuses on treating one symptom of an irrational, polluting system rather than dealing with the root causes.

Blaming too many people for driving climate change is like blaming too many trees for causing bushfires. The real cause of climate change is an economy locked into burning fossil fuels for energy and unsustainable agriculture. Unless we transform the economy and our society along sustainable lines as rapidly as possible, we have no hope of securing an inhabitable planet, regardless of population levels. Population based arguments fail to admit that population levels will impact on the environment in a very different way in a zero emissions economy. Making the shift to renewable energy not reduction in human population is really the most urgent task we face. The world is not full up the world is not experiencing runaway population growth. This is mostly due to rising urbanization and marginal improvements in womens access to birth control technology.

The rate of population growth peaked at 2% annually in the 1960s, and has fallen consistently since then. 1 according to the un the average number of children born per woman fell from 4.9 in the late 1960s to 2.7 in 19. 2 a december 2008 assessment from the us census bureau predicts a steady decline to 0.5% annual population growth by 2050. Experts predict a rise of 50% between 20 and 2050 and just 11% in the 50 years following that. Polluting technology, rampant consumerism and corporate greed are driving this increase not population.

Can we feed this many people? studies by the uns food and agriculture organisation insist it is possible to feed well over 10 billion people sustainably but only if we move to a very different food system. A diversified and organic farming system which produces a balanced mix of plant foods, along with small amounts of meat, could, according to british biologist colin tudge, sustain 10 billion people without farming any new areas. 4 a shift to sustainable farming is also desperately needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Social justice and womens equality is the best contraception larger population growth rates in the third world are a consequence of dire poverty and restrictions on womens ability to control their own fertility. The latest un population report released on march 12 predicts population will exceed 9 billion people by mid century. In the richest countries, however, population will decline from 1.23 billion to 1.15 billion if projected net migration is left aside. 5 raising living standards globally, eradicating hunger and poverty, improving health care, providing access to education and achieving greater equality for women are all necessary if we are to win a safe climate with global justice.

The climate emergency demands immediate, transformative action now even if they could work in the long term a dubious proposition population control schemes are plainly inadequate as a response to the climate emergency. The well known australian environmental writer tim flannery is also one of the patrons of sustainable population australia a group that argues population reduction should be the number one priority to avert climate change. Yet in a recent survey of the latest climate science in quarterly essay even flannery had to conclude: the truth is that if we wish to act morally, we can influence population numbers only slowly. So, while its important to focus on population decrease as a long term solution, we cannot look to it for answers to the immediate crisis.

Com 150 Final Project Expository Essay

Population arguments wrongly downplay the potential to win left unchecked, climate change threatens life on the planet. Recognition of this fact is the major impetus for the movement demanding governments take serious action on climate change without delay. Climate change will lead to a world so harsh, uncertain and polluted, the argument goes, that its more humane to prevent future generations from being born at all. 7 this humane population reduction argument is couched in terms of containing, or mitigating, the apparently inevitable effects of environmental destruction. Instead, the struggle for an alternative model of development, based on meeting the needs of people and planet, should be our main concern. Population control is an old argument tacked onto a new issue climate change is just the latest in a long list of issues that has been seized on by advocates of population control. For centuries, simplistic population theories have been advanced to explain the existence of poverty, hunger, famine, disease, war, racism and unemployment.

In each case, the real social and economic causes of these social ills have been glossed over. Time is running out to avert global warming we need to take serious action that tackles the problem at the root. Arguing for tighter migration restrictions in australia is a dangerous policy reducing immigration intake into australia is the current policy on the anti environmental rudd government.

8 as the climate crisis deepens, we can expect the government and the big polluters will want to divert attention from their own inaction. Migrants could be a convenient scapegoat migrants are already being falsely blamed for adding to unemployment. We cant allow them to be blamed for corporate australias addiction to fossil fuels. Supporting cuts in migration to australia avoids the real burning issue australia is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita in the world. Migrants who come here should be welcomed and invited into our movement for a safe climate. They are not responsible for the policies of past governments or the greed of the big polluters. Population control has a disturbing history in practice, there has never been a population control scheme that has met with acceptable environmental or humanitarian outcomes.