Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starssomething just doesn't feel right
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2013
The Coming Population Crash and Our Planet’s Surprising Future is an informative and engaging read. Pearce demonstrates a commanding awareness of the multifaceted issues involved in the population debate. He skillfully attempts to defuse potential critics, especially of the environmental ilk, by fully acknowledging many of their concerns: deforestation, decreasing levels of fresh water, etc., followed by examples or explanations of why these concerns are ill-founded or can be successfully overcome with the proper technological advancements. Pearce does project an optimistic tone throughout the book—citing a decreasing birth rate, scientific advances such as the Green Revolution, and land restoration—even as he admits that skillful decisions still need to be made if we are to avoid dire consequences as we proceed into an ever more challenging future. He writes, “humans don’t always get things right.”
Of the two generally agreed upon root issues underlying negative environmental impact, increasing population and increasing consumption, Pearce concludes that “consumption is the greater peril.” This view exposes Pearce’s bias that population is not really a problem, in part because the world birthrate has been decreasing and, in part, because of our ability to solve problems via the technological solution. (And, there is a third part that I will get to momentarily.) There is reason to doubt his assessment, though. Philip Cafaro relates in his essay, “Human Population Growth as If the Rest of Life Mattered,” “Given the difficulties of getting 300 million Americans to curb their consumption, there is no reason to think we will be able to achieve sustainability with two, three, or four times as many Americans”.
Pearce illustrates his point by an example of how a family in Ethiopia that has ten children may do less damage globally than an average sized American family as Americans are by far the largest consumers. While it may be true that rich developed countries have a greater global impact, poorer, more densely populated countries can have a significant local impact. Look at the destruction of the forest of the Amazon and Madagascar. Also, consider that a more people from poorer nations immigrate to more develop countries (particularly the U.S.) their inevitable increased consumption will now contribute to an even greater negative environmental impact.
Quoting Chris Reij, a Dutch geographer who has worked in West Africa, Pearce relates how 200 million trees had been planted in Niger in the last decade amid increasing population—“The idea that population pressure inevitably leads to increased land degradation is a much-repeated myth. Innovation is common in regions where there is high population pressure.” In addition to Niger, he provides an example of reforestation in Costa Rica also in the setting of a growing population to demonstrate that population growth and the environmental protection are not incompatible. This amounts to what has become popular among certain politicians to talk about “sustainable growth”—a clear oxymoron. What is not clear is what has been lost with the loss of habit. There is only so much abuse that an ecosystem can absorb before it begins to break. And, even with land that has been protected, the future is uncertain. In an essay in Life on the Brink, there is mention of how a track of wilderness was saved only to be lost to development several decades later when the pressures of increased population became too much. Recently, “the U.S. Senate debated a bill to waive—in the name of Homeland Security—the Wilderness Act and other environmental laws on all wildlands (including 32 million acres of designated wilderness) within 100 miles of our Northern and Southern borders” (Wilderness Watch). What the government giveth it can taketh away.
Additionally, Pearce argues for the economic necessity of a growing young population to provide the labor for a vibrant economy, necessary as well in helping to support the former generation as it ages. But what happens when this “younger” generation ages? Will we need an even greater base to support them in retirement? Pearce does not move beyond the infinite growth in a finite world paradigm, which is a major factor in the consumerism that he beliefs to be such a concern. In fact, the mantra with our current economic paradigm, which we hold sacrosanct, is ever increasing growth through consumption and disposal and requires an ever growing population (or innovative ways to get the existing populous to buy more). Changing to a steady state economic paradigm that recognizes the finiteness of the world, would also require population that is stable. Many environmentalists recognize this; Pearce does not appear to.
In the end, I failed to share Pearce’s optimism. Something just didn’t feel right. After contemplating what it was about his position that made me uncomfortable I came to the conclusion that it was his highly anthropocentric point of view. With his liberal egalitarianism he sees much of the world as a resource to be used for the benefit of mankind. “We can reduce our ecological footprints while keeping, if not every aspect of our life-styles, then at any rate those parts of our lifestyles that make our lives truly worth living.” The first Green Revolution was able to feed an unprecedented number of people; Pearce trusts that a second one will lead us into the future. Decreasing water supply will be remedied by desalination plants. Politically, he essentially argues for open borders, regardless of the effect on the environment, which many environmentalist have documented as being potentially being profound given the numbers of migrants coming across the borders.
For me, the antidote to Pearce’s anthropocentrism can be found in Life on the Brink: Environmentalist Confront Overpopulaton, edited by Cafaro and Crist. In this book is a range of essays written by numerous environmentalists whom I view as having a more realistic assessment of humankind’s impact on the planet and the potential future in store as opposed to Pearce’s somewhat idealized egalitarian vision of where the world is headed.
We may be able to support several billion more people but at what cost? William Ryerson writes:
“Now that we have entered the ecological age, the goal of humanity should be to sustain a reasonable number of people on the Earth, in comfort and security. Instead, we are recklessly pursuing and experiment to find out how many people can be supported in the short term, without regard to the impact on future generations of people or the consequences for other species….
“It is clear our life-support systems are being overused. Otherwise, we would not have rising CO2 levels, rising global temperatures, falling water tables, falling grain production per capita, degrading soils, disappearing forests, collapsing fisheries, growing energy shortages in many countries, and massive species extinctions.”
At best, some of the richness of the natural world is lost; at worst, the ability of our ecosystems to remain competent may be lost. Only time will tell what “surprise” the future will have in store for the planet and us.
