Thursday, November 19, 2009
Betsy Hartmann’s “The ‘New’ Population Control Craze: Retro, Racist, Wrong Way to Go” is way off base. Common sense tells us that more people means more demands on natural resources, and fewer resources left for other species.
If common sense isn’t sufficient, the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change calls population growth one of the two main drivers of global warming. In their 2007 4th Assessment Report, they write:
“GDP/per capita and population growth were the main drivers of the increase in global emissions during the last three decades of the 20th century.”
Crucially, the IPCC’s projections for the next three decades see a continuation of this trend, under “business as usual.”
Are the members of the IPCC “racists”? Or perhaps, do more people generate more environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions?
Posted by: Philip Cafaro, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Colorado State University