Memo to humans: stop breeding like bunnies

Sian Watkins
June 8, 2007

WHEN kangaroo numbers rise beyond the land's ability to sustain them, we cull them. When rabbits breed like, well, rabbits, we poison them. Given the terrible damage that billions of humans are inflicting on Earth, why are we not controlling our numbers, albeit in more humane ways?

Now that we Australians are up a dry creek with nothing to paddle in, we're finally starting to think about the big, hot pickle we're in. We're flailing about for solutions to global warming, but no one seems to want to raise a critical, bleedin' obvious source of the problem — there are too many of us.

Instead, we're going to ban inefficient light bulbs and we've mandated half-flush toilets (although we can still build and fill private swimming pools). We might trade carbon emissions (a technical term for buck-passing), or find a way to stuff our poisons underground.

But cut our population here and overseas and blind Freddy could see that we'd consume far fewer natural resources, reduce waste and pollution, and improve everybody's quality of life — from emaciated, exhausted African mothers to Aussies stuck in traffic jams that belch tonnes of carbon dioxide.

In Melbourne, everyone is justifiably whingeing about the cost of urban housing and crowded public transport, and wringing their hands as polar caps melt, eastern Australia gets hotter and dam levels keep falling. Why, therefore, would Treasurer Peter Costello want to crow, as he did recently, about Australia's booming population, which will only worsen the problems?

A report published recently by Britain's Optimum Population Trust said: "The most effective personal climate change strategy is limiting the number of children one has. The most effective national and global climate change strategy is limiting the size of the population."

It warned in its report that each Briton produced nearly 750 tonnes of carbon dioxide in a lifetime, equivalent to 620 return flights between London and New York. Britain is expected to add another 10 million people by 2074. Multiply that figure by 750 tonnes and you get, well, Buckley's chance of meeting well-intentioned emission targets. Just as Australia will have Buckley's chance of meeting targets — and that's assuming that those who masquerade as leaders set any — if its population keeps growing.

Try to raise the issue of population, or overpopulation, and you get shot down as a misanthrope, a racist, a xenophobe seeking to deny others access to the fruits of Australia, or life to the billions of eggs sitting in women's ovaries.

And watch politicians and the business lobby jump up and down shrieking that population growth is essential to maintain economic growth and living standards.

But this doesn't add up. There are not enough natural resources, depleted as they are, to sustain a constantly expanding population, let alone to give everyone cars, two television sets, 20 pairs of shoes and overseas holidays every two years.

And if there is a strong correlation between growth in per capita GDP and population growth, how come most people in the Third World aren't driving around in Mercs and holidaying in Ibiza?

Politicians also insist that population growth, and the revenue it raises, is required to pay for the welfare and health costs of ageing baby boomers. But baby boomers and those who follow them are working longer, and putting more money away for their retirement. Treasury acknowledged this recently when it reduced its projected cost of looking after old baby boomers.

In Australia and other First-World economies, living standards are largely defined by people's capacity to consume by way of higher wages and cheaper goods. The more we consume, and the more of us who consume, the better. But the returns from so-called increasing (material) living standards are fast diminishing. Most of us in Australia now have everything we need and much more that we don't.

In many ways, population growth and a strong, consumption-based economy are diminishing living standards. Sure, we've got dishwashers and we're no longer vulnerable to the black plague or death in childbirth but our lives have not been improved by owning excessive amounts of stuff, or by the social and environmental problems generated by an expanding, ever-consuming population.

Traffic congestion is awful and affordable housing is on the ugly, barren, car-dependent city fringes. We cannot swim or fish in many of our creeks and rivers. Geelong just about meets Torquay. The Gold Coast, a paradise in the 1950s, is now one, long, depressing suburb choked with cars and drug addicts.

Yes, a bigger population generates more revenue, but also a great deal more social problems and related costs in terms of civic infrastructure, health, education, law enforcement and welfare, let alone more greenhouse emissions and environmental damage, which politicians and industry keep refusing to count as a cost in their stocktaking.

I'm no economist, scientist or engineer, but I would still bet $1 million that the sky would not fall if we had a lot fewer people in the world. I would bet another $1 million that we'd all live a lot better if this was the case. But we won't, and not much else will, if we keep breeding the way we are.

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I actually told my parents long ago that I do not want to have kids because the world is simply over-crowded and that the world's no longer a friendly place to live in. Isn't it crazy that people are proponents of extreme childbirth just so that the country can prosper and so that their own race can be saved. Don't people just realize that more people would equate to less equality and a wider income gap. Not everyone gets to enjoy the benefits equally because the more there are, the smaller the share. Get it? Geez. Quality is better than quantity. Look at HK and Singapore. More equals to less. Less space per person. Blame it on the capitalist market and greedy businessmen. Elsewhere is equally bad, especially in metropolitan cities.

So what if your family name doesn't continues? I am a girl. Patriarchal families dominate anyway.
So what if you have no one to look after you at old age? I never really wanted to live that long anyway
Why is it so difficult for us to make living less painful, less wasteful?
Why do we all need more than one bag, 5 pairs of shoes, one television, one computer, one wardrobe full of clothes, countless makeup, plastic toys for our own whims and fancy, imported exotic food that increases the carbon footprint of individuals?

People are just downright plain selfish. They claim that if they do not enjoy now or restrain themselves from enjoying, the rest would go on living and polluting anyway. So why not when one person's wastes is minuscule compared to 6billion other people? Shallow indeed.

*I'm glad to know that most people I know are doing what they love now or have jobs that they like. The more fortunate ones get to travel overseas (so far, one in China, another in USA) to work. What's in store for me? I should be happy for myself and not bother what everyone one else is doing. I should be happy that the friends I love most are still very much in touch with me and the friendship keeps getting stronger, not weaker. That, to me, is a sign of friends to keep ( I think it's also because I lack the stamina to actually bother staying in touch with every single person I know). It's always most difficult to be happy for others, what more myself, but that's my resolution, that happiness, is simply the best thing I can have for myself. Don't we all want to be happy? Life can actually be that simple sometimes.

** I'm so mad with the real estate people here in Singapore, and even angrier at opportunists who try to make a few hundred bucks or so from the rental market. How can a person even live when he/she has to spend 1/4 of her pay for rental? This, is a disadvantage of being a foreigner but it can't be helped in that we don't want to stay with mummy and daddy for the rest of our lives. In the UK, fresh graduates eagerly move out of their homes so that they can be independent. It does say a lot about the difference in maturity between the people there and here but I suppose it can't be helped here due to the shortage of housing and also for the fact that there's not much space for you to move around in 661.9km2. Furthermore, we're not the ones who asked to be retained for 3 precious years of our lives here. Given a choice, I think many would have left long ago.