| The Overpopulation Taboo: The John Feeney Interview, Part 2 |
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John Feeney: Write letters to the editor. One site PublishaLetter.com makes it simple to send letters to the editor of multiple papers at once. Write articles and blog posts. Comment on the larger environmental, science and social-policy blogs and news sites. Read up on the topic. I list some recommended books on my site. Speak to friends about it. Make a video or give a public talk. Stage a march or protest. Write to an environmental group and complain about their avoiding it. Write to politicians and complain about their avoiding it. You might even do as filmmaker Dave Gardner has done in Colorado Springs: run for office on a platform that includes the need to address growth and overpopulation. Dave is also making an important documentary on the problem of growth. I think we all have to become activists. We owe it to today's children to make the world they will inherit as livable as possible. EH: What are the best avenues of publicity to get the message about population control conveyed accurately, efficiently and in the most widespread way? JF: You're looking at one of them! If all the environmental and science writers out there, along with all the scientists who understand the issue, would start speaking out about it through articles, interviews and other avenues it would help tremendously. Once the largest environmental groups come back to the population topic, and once we start seeing it on major TV shows and newscasts, we'll know it's arrived. It will help for writers and others speaking out to be familiar with the logical rebuttals to the usual objections to addressing population. I included some of those on the GPSO site. I should mention that today, population activists and advocacy groups rarely use the term "population control." Unfortunately, for many, that word "control" has given the term a connotation involving force or coercion. I generally don't use it because I see the term as nothing special; there are other ways of talking about addressing our numbers. On the other hand, another term that has become somewhat taboo is "overpopulation." That is why you now hear people use the rather empty "population." They think "overpopulation" suggests there are particular individuals who should not be here. I think that's silly, and that "overpopulation" is by far the best single way to refer to overshoot in a way most people will immediately understand. There are too many people on Earth. There are not particular individuals who should not be here. EH: Please describe the mission of Global Population Speak Out. JF: GPSO's mission is really very simple. It's an effort to make a dent in the taboo against public discussion of the problem of human overpopulation. The hope is that by having brought many new, credible voices to bear on the problem during one month, we may have helped a little to break down the barrier, paving the way for others to speak out more easily in the future. Some have read more into the project than there is. I've had people suggest that GPSO should focus more on some particular solution or on some factor such as the need to avoid abuses in addressing population. I even had one person insist it wasn't productive to focus on population in isolation, that a systems approach was better. All these criticisms miss the point of the project. It was never to contribute solutions. Nor was it merely to call attention to overpopulation. Those may of course be side benefits. But the idea was to make it easier for people to speak out on the subject. We'll never make much progress toward solutions if people feel unable to raise and discuss the issue publicly. EH: How did you get the idea to start GPSO? JF: Those of us involved with the population issue have long been frustrated with how little media attention it gets. Of course this is partly due to the reluctance of scientists and others to speak out about it. They know it's controversial and that those who do speak out are often criticized, sometimes quite hostilely. As a result, many hesitate to mention the issue. I had often thought that if we could somehow get all the scientists and other credible voices to speak out all at once, and to continue doing so, the population taboo would disappear in a matter of weeks. Overpopulation would simply become a standard subject in public discussion. Well, short of getting everyone to speak out, I figured we should be able to bring together enough voices to have an impact. And I think we have. EH: Can you describe the levels of participation in GPSO’s efforts to speak out for population control? JF: First the project was endorsed by a collection of 32 scientists, writers and activists concerned about population matters. The endorsers (also called "signers" as they signed the invitation that went out to potential participants) included Stanford's Paul and Anne Ehrlich, and Gretchen Daily, Limits to Growth co-author Dennis Meadows, author of the ecological classic Overshoot William Catton, and other luminaries. Their endorsement helped launch the project. Then, in response to the invitation as well as word of mouth, GPSO pulled in 216 pledges to speak out publicly on population during February. This was well over the 50 pledges for which I originally aimed. Many came from scientists at universities and research institutions around the world. Others came from environmental and science writers, representatives of environmental groups, population activists and a range of concerned citizens. As of mid-March about half the pledgers have reported in on their efforts to speak out. Of course we would have liked 100 percent follow-through on the pledges, but that never happens. And I suppose 100 or so people speaking out is pretty good for a taboo topic and a project organized with no funding at all. EH: Can you tell us more about the people who spoke out and how they did so? JF: They included ecologists, biologists, anthropologists and an array of other scientists from relevant disciplines. Some examples are Edouard Jurkevitch, a professor of plant pathology and microbiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Jorge Gutierrez, president of the Grupo de Investigación y Educación en Temas Ambientales in Argentina and a visiting scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York; Luca Pardi, research scientist at the Institute for Chemical-Physical Processes in Pisa, Italy. Also speaking out were people like Kirsten Stade, a science reporter and conservation biologist, and Kelpie Wilson, author and environmental writer and former environmental editor at Truthout. There were people representing population organizations such as Rebecca Harrington, the National Field Coordinator for the Population Connection. There were environmental organizations such as the Center for Biological Diversity. And there were people such as Adrian Fisher, a college English instructor, environmental activist and active member of Quaker Earthcare Witness. They spoke out publicly in almost every way imaginable. There was some emphasis, though, on making use of the media. So there were lots of letters to the editor, articles, blog posts, a YouTube video, some radio interviews and many comments on high-traffic environmental blogs and news sites. There were talks and classroom lectures and exercises as well. One of the actions I was really glad to see was a press release issued by the Center for Biological Diversity. It stated their support for GPSO and made a strong statement about the connection between the growth of the human population and the loss of biodiversity. EH: How has this participation furthered your organization’s mission? JF: Well, let me first clarify that GPSO has been basically a one-person project. It does have the endorsements I mentioned, and some of those folks helped out in various ways. (Anthropologist Jeffrey McKee and marine scientist Emmett Duffy were particularly helpful in doing radio interviews concerning the project.) But we really have no organization per se. In other words, I'm it! That said, one of my goals has been to bring the population issue some of the attention it deserves. I think it's safe to say the project's endorsers share that goal. By bringing together voices from around the world to speak out on the subject, I hope GPSO has done something to weaken the population taboo and make it easier for others to speak out. I'm sure it's had some impact, though it may never be clear just how much. EH: Now that more people have been speaking out for population control, what are your organization’s future goals? JF: Realistically, though it's no doubt had some impact, it's doubtful this initial run-through of GPSO will trigger a huge global surge in coverage and discussion of overpopulation. So it could make sense to repeat the February 2009 event on a larger scale. But it's far too much administrative work for me to take on again. So I'll be looking into the option of turning it over to a group with enough resources to push it beyond the small project it was this time. If someone were to put a couple of staffers on it for six months, I think they could draw a thousand pledgers and considerably more publicity. Beyond generating more discussion of population issues, there are some fundamental ecological issues underlying the population problem that I may begin trying to present to a general readership. EH: Are there any other organizations or individuals that you think have been effective in advocating population control? What environmental organizations are championing this issue?
A number of the population organizations are effective in advocacy and raising awareness. For fear of leaving a worthy group out, I think I'll just point readers to the list on my site. Environmental groups, on the other hand, are notorious for consciously avoiding the subject of overpopulation. Evidently, they're afraid of offending financial supporters who misunderstand the topic. The Sierra Club devotes an obscure section to it on their website. You don't see it where it should be, on the front page, and never see it in their campaigns. A few other groups mention it here and there, though generally very little. Others say it's simply not one of their topics. Greenpeace, for instance, won't talk about it. They used to be truth tellers. No more. However, Paul Watson, who left Greenpeace to found the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society does tell the truth about overpopulation. Likewise, Earth First! founder Dave Foreman, who now heads up The Rewilding Institute, is direct, upfront and informative about it. I was delighted to see the Center for Biological Diversity come out with a strong stance on overpopulation. They've set an example I hope other thoughtful groups will follow. EH: Do you support EcoHearth op-ed editor and commentator Steven Kotler's call for a voluntary five-year ban on babies and do you think it could catch on? JF: I suspect I'd support whatever might be the most powerful, humane approach people would be willing to vote into place through the democratic process after an open, global discussion of the issue. I hope that happens soon. We need it because it would act as a kind of review process concerning the full range of proposed solutions. For now, I'm endorsing the solutions I mentioned above. But I will say there's a convincing case to be made for strong yet humane proposals such as Steven's. I've yet to hear a substantive objection to the observation that such an approach would be infinitely more humane and protective of human rights than letting our numbers grow to the point of global ecological collapse and a crash of the human population. I'd really like to hear the arguments against that! Steven's proposal is a great way to encourage that discussion. Though it may sound extreme, we need to understand that an idea like Steven's would be far better for the biosphere than any approach that would stabilize and reduce population size much more slowly. Similarly, in his book The World Without Us, Alan Weisman provides the numbers for a hypothetical global one-child policy. He shows it would bring us down to 1.6 billion people by the end of this century. Such a reduction in human numbers would be of more benefit to other species, to the web of life, and so to ourselves, than anything else we could do. This is about saving lives. Obviously, in the short term, in an ideal world, such decisive solutions are not what any of us would want. Taking a less myopic view though, anything which doesn't get the numbers down fairly swiftly is both horrifically inhumane and an injustice to millions of our fellow Earth inhabitants. Wouldn't allowing our numbers to remain in overshoot until global ecological collapse triggers a population crash of billions be, by a huge measure, the largest violation of human rights in history? Let's assess the potentials of all humane approaches. I want to hear from anyone with a rational argument against that! EH: The Population Bomb, a best-selling book by Paul R. Ehrlich published in 1968, predicted a human "population explosion" that would cause mass starvation of "hundreds of millions" of people in the 1970s and 80s. Although the world, except for China, didn't take much action to reduce population, Ehrlich's prophesy didn't come to pass. Why not? JF: Paul has discussed this himself. I would just summarize by saying he was somewhat wrong in certain of his predictions, in part because the awareness generated by his work led to some helpful efforts to reduce impacts. Anyone making predictions about the future is going to be wrong some of the time, and certainly he wanted his predictions to be wrong. But in many of his warnings he was spot on. He wrote, for instance, about the coming explosion of our numbers, the growing problem of species extinction, the global spread of chemical toxins, climate change and soil degradation, all problems that have indeed played out more or less as he anticipated. There was a lot of environmental wisdom in that little book. Its most general message, that our numbers were damaging global environmental health, and therefore our own well-being, is more true than ever. EH: Since Ehrlich's dire predictions didn't come true, don't some people accuse you of crying wolf now? JF: Sure. It's hard for people to think about what we're doing to the Earth, to consider the likely consequences. It can be depressing. For many, it's easiest to deny it and dismiss anyone talking about dire scenarios as alarmist. Some population deniers love to point to Ehrlich's predictions in support of their arguments. I suspect few have even looked at The Population Bomb. Check out some of Paul and Anne Ehrlich's recent books or listen to an interview and you'll see that few people better understand our ecological challenges. How can I, Paul Ehrlich or anyone else be crying wolf when our civilization has already caused massive damage, including collapsed fish populations, dying coral reefs, drained aquifers, ocean dead zones, soil salinization and nutrient depletion, desertification, deforestation, climate change and untold numbers of lost species? EH: How can people find out more about your group, its platform and its activities? JF: Nearly everything there is to know about it is on our website. Go to Part 1 of this interview Help the Earth, Spread the Word: Share this article with family and friends by clicking on the "Email This" or "Share This" links below right. Then see TODAY'S TOP STORIES. Additional resources: [If you know someone who is deserving of an Eco Hero profile on EcoHearth.com, please contact us. – Ed.]
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EcoHearth: What is the best way for someone interested in population control to help spread the word or get involved?
JF: My website contains a list of worthwhile population organizations. One doing unique work is the 
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