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Population – Draft Amendment 2008 Platform II. Section I

Humans have a unique responsibility for stewardship of the Earth. We have a global responsibility to change the existing patterns of production and consumption, especially in our own nation, to insure that the Earth's carrying capacity is not depleted. Creating a sustainable relationship with nature while meeting essential needs of humans on this planet will effectively address the challenge of "overpopulation" of our own species.

Keep the existing explanatory language which now follows logically from my substitute:

Limiting the discussion to population numbers and birthrates diverts attention from over-consumption in the industrial world and historic patterns of exploitation of developing countries.

Consumption-oriented lifestyles that have evolved in the industrial world have resulted in a minority of people consuming a majority of resources. This is as significant a threat to the Earth's carrying capacity as the high birth rates in low-consumption countries.

Current global demographics demonstrate that economic well-being promotes low birthrates. Any discussion of population must also be a discussion of women throughout the world. There is documented evidence that the economic and social status of women is a primary factor in birthrates - when women have control over their lives, birthrates decrease. Also, a major barrier to the improvement of women's reproductive health is a lack of shared responsibility between men and women in family planning. A combination of male attitudes and cultural traditions have resulted in most men being under-educated and uninvolved in the planning of their families.

Globally, human population is increasing while food production has leveled off. When population increases faster than the economy grows, the disparity between rich and poor also increases. Higher human consumption rates and populations increase the pressure on the environment in every ecological problem area.

1. Those living in the industrialized world must end the habits of waste and over-consumption that place as much stress on the environment as does population growth in developing nations.
2. We must remove the political and economic barriers that prevent women around the world from having all the resources necessary to become skilled family planners.
3. Funds must be allocated for expanded scientific research into safer and more effective birth control techniques and devices. We demand better-than-adequate health care for women and children--especially prenatal care. [See section D. Foreign Policy in chapter I and section A.1. Women's Rights in this chapter]
4. There must be access to free birth control devices, information counseling, and clinics to all who desire them. We call for implementation of family planning education for both genders in all levels of the state school system. [See section D. Foreign Policy in chapter I and section A.1. Women's Rights in this chapter]
5. We must promote new traditions and images of men becoming fully involved in all aspects of the family planning process.

The following is from an article by my older son Peter and myself that addresses the "overpopulation" issue (Schwartzman, P. and Schwartzman, D., 2007, Is the world overpopulated? Green Horizon Quarterly, Winter 10-13, link at: http://www.dcmetrosftp.org/newsletters/NL20061201.html#pop

Especially relevant selections:

Carrying Capacity

First, the argument for overpopulation rests on the position that human populations (in cities, in nations, and in the world as a whole) have exceeded their "carrying capacity"—defined as the maximum population size that can be maintained into perpetuity given the resources and ecological services available. Locally (as in cities) this is definitely true; multi-million people cities cannot survive on the food and resources that are available locally. Despite this, some large cities see the bulk of their residents living relatively happily and healthily. This is only possible because resources from elsewhere serve the needs of these urban dwellers. Since so many are able to live far from where resources are found, this begs the question, "Are we living beyond the carrying capacity at the global level." Recent work by Wackernagel and Rees on human's ecological footprint suggests "yes," we are—and this evidence seems to be just what the population reductionists have been looking for as proof of "global overpopulation." However, carrying capacity is a dynamic concept, something these reductionists overlook. Specifically, if the 6+ billion humans on the planet today were to shift from using heavily polluting energy sources to clean ones, our collective impact would be less. Cleaning up polluted environments would likewise increase the carrying capacity of the planet.

...despite the conflicting evidence presented, it is commonly believed that overpopulation is some absolute phenomenon and will only get worse in the future. There are two fundamental reasons why this conclusion is highly misleading. One, the root cause for widespread misery and environmental degradation is the mode of production and consumption we have in the U.S. and the global system that maintains it. Two, the overpopulation myth leads to the promotion of policies that are terribly unjust and inhumane

Why hunger?

People aren't hungry because there isn't enough food. People are hungry and malnourished because they aren't getting the food that exists. On a world scale, there is more than enough food to feed everyone, although the dominant mode of agricultural production has huge negative impacts on humans and nature. Massive starvation, as observed in Ethiopia in 1973 and Bangladesh in 1974, didn't occur because food wasn't available. These famines, and many others, occurred because large numbers of the population didn't have sufficient funds to purchase foods, even though food was available–hence an issue of distribution not limitation. While some countries, including the U.S., store away surplus grain production as a reserve, many human beings don't get enough to eat on a regular basis. In many developing countries, large landowners harvest export crops (such as coffee and tobacco) rather than food crops for local people. A diet rich in meat requires nearly ten times the land than that of a strict vegetarian diet. Nearly 40 percent of U.S. land is used for grazing livestock. While some of this land is more fit for free-range grazing than vegetable crops, much of it would be more productive if grains and vegetables were grown.

Is "overpopulation" driving most global environmental problems?" Note that nearly 25% of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere comes from the U.S . (and the bulk of the rest of it comes from other rich countries). How can invasive species proliferation, which is decimating habitats all over the planet, be blamed on "overpopulation" when its primary cause, globalization, is being driven largely by transnational corporations in their insatiable appetite for profit at the expense of nature? Can synthetic chemicals which make our rivers, oceans and airways toxic to us and other life forms be attributed to overpopulation when nearly all of these are produced by the same transnational corporations?" Is "overpopulation" responsible for the over fishing of our planet's oceans when much of the fish caught is being consumed by affluent people far away from the point of catch? Doesn't this all suggest that something other than population size is at the root of many of the significant environmental problems we face?

Women (and their mates) have "too many" children for four concrete reasons: (1) they have no access to safe and effective contraceptives; (2) the women have too few options other than being mothers (pronatalist doctrine still has a hold in many cultures and religions); (3) no social security system exists; and (4) the infant mortality rate is so high (so giving birth acts a lottery ticket).

Thus, the reasons why some families (and communities) are having children in numbers that are unsustainable is a result of economic and cultural forces that promote such outcomes. By demanding the more equitable distribution (across and within nations and genders) of wealth, education, economic opportunities, and health care, family size will drop.

In conclusion, we should look beyond the mantra of "overpopulation" as the dominant agent of human and environmental damage. If the Earth is too crowded right now, it is because we have too many billionaires. Population stabilizes with the reduction of poverty, increased access to contraceptives and immunizations, and the education and empowerment of women. Global sustainability requires solarization, demilitarization, and agroecology not "population control". The real challenge is political/economic, not population size. Another world is possible if the global "excess" population is sufficiently organized to force it into being, constraining the rule of capital enriching the few, immiserating the many.