Why None of These People Will Ever Talk to You About Overpopulation

The Civilisational Lie Series

For a species that can calculate the speed of electrons, predict ballistic trajectories within accuracy of a centimetre, and estimate the distance to nearby stars, it is astounding that it stubbornly refuses to solve the simplest of math problems: overpopulation.

You won’t hear the George Monbiots, Greenpeaces and Extinction Rebellions ever talk about overpopulation simply because they have decided to make life easy for themselves: when you’re a career activist already chained to the system of public donations, blog subscriptions, book publishing deals and lucrative media engagements, it takes a serious set of balls to come into conflict with the biggest economic, political and religious dogma that has ever reigned over human civilisation: growth. More specifically, population growth.

Environmental activists have whispered to me in private that overpopulation is “too hot” a potato to handle and therefore a conversation “non-starter”. But last time I checked, the role of activism was to touch hot potatoes and start impossible conversations. Yes indeed, overpopulation is a hot potato, I gathered this much from members of my extended family labelling me a dangerous extremist to the thousands of death threats and “OK, then you go first George” messages I still receive. But the vitriolic attacks overpopulation educators like me are subjected to only demonstrate the desperation on the opposite side: most of the time I hear insults, yet barely ever any structured arguments. In the rare case when arguments are put forward they merely constitute magnificent examples of cognitive bias. At the top of the pyramid of biases plaguing humanity sits confirmation bias: the desperate need to succumb to the most dishevelled, half-assed arguments that can lend support to a convenient lie instead of the inconvenient truth. Such cognitive biases are incredibly effective at bypassing not only truth, but math altogether.

The population discussion is as much about math as it is about bias and dogma. So, in this article, I will be looking into both the math, as well as the biases which bypass it. You don’t need paper, pen or calculator. What you do need is an open, rational mind, and to let go of everything you’ve heard in the news i.e. that the population is crashing, or that we can have 80 billion on this rock living happily ever after. It is all paid-for propaganda which is thousands of years old. But as much as overpopulation is a tough conversation, the math behind it is stupendously simple. So simple that, even if 8 billion people were to tell me I was wrong, I would still laugh at their faces because I know for sure that one plus one makes two, however you try to spin it and whichever dogma you are smoking. Math may be incredibly dull to most, but it is free from hallucinations, religions, and politics. Math eats ideology for breakfast because it is grounded in simple fact. It gives the middle finger to whichever fictional universe you’ve decided to inhabit.

There are two basic mathematical concepts which get purposely confused by those who want to ignore overpopulation: total negative impact of humans on the planet, versus per capita impact i.e. the impact per person as an average over age groups, countries, rich and poor. The important distinction between these two metrics is that, while total impact is a function of both number of humans on the planet and average per capita impact, average per capita impact is only a function of itself. Therefore, when we talk about global issues such as overshoot, carbon emissions and ecological destruction, what matters is total impact. And this means that global population size cannot be taken out of this conversation.

Despite this, one of the popular myths propagated by mainstream environmental movements is that the world’s climate and ecological overshoot, i.e. the total impact of humanity on the planet, is not a function of population but of extreme inequality between rich and poor which leads to rich people skewing the average per capita consumption of resources. Everything is basically the fault of the rich. If they stop flying so many miles and using so much energy, the average impact of humanity can be brought down to levels which are survivable.

Not so fast. Because the contribution of poor people to the climate crisis and ecological collapse is immense, despite their lower per capita impact compared to the rich. Those claiming that the climate crisis is a problem of the 1% are conveniently forgetting that without the 99% working in the businesses the 1% own and consuming products and electricity, the rich would not only lose both employees and customers. They wouldn’t even be rich in the first place. In other words, it takes two to make the planet collapse, rich AND poor. We emitted all this carbon together: whether you are a CEO making laptops or a lower-class consumer buying and using a laptop, you both contribute to the economic machine. The climate crisis is not a problem of the 1%, but of the 100%.

But there are many other ways to deny overpopulation. In order to avoid the overpopulation elephant in the room, many would rather sit on top on the elephant and pretend it does not exist. They fail to see human over-procreation but are so intellectually astute that they can smell inequality, capitalism and patriarchy from miles away. The popular argument that the state of our planet is solely down to how economy and society are structured, i.e. the misbehaviour of a handful of rich and greedy humans, is mathematically flawed because it chooses to focus on how carbon emissions are distributed (per capita impact), rather than their total amount (total impact). Singling out the wealthy, or any social group for that matter, is a tactic taken from the playbook of xenophobes and fascists: “let’s find someone else to blame for our collective problems”. As a biologist I can vouch for the surprising fact that rich and poor humans are genetically and psychologically identical: they have the same natural propensity for overconsumption, destruction and wasteful lifestyle if given the chance. If you therefore tried to tax or eliminate the rich, more would spring up like mushrooms overnight, crawling through the loopholes of the system. Civilisational collapse is a problem of neither the rich nor the poor. It involves both, which is why solutions must be collective and cut across social grades, colours and lifestyles.

Overpopulation deniers selectively attribute the climate crisis to predatory capitalism, government corruption and wealth distribution, unable to see that all these issues are exacerbated by high population levels – and their concomitant emissions multiplied by a factor of roughly 8 billion (no biggy). They are on a constant desperate hunt for other “hot potatoes” that will help them ignore the one potato that’s too hot to handle and about to burn down the house: overpopulation. There is a signature cognitive bias at work here, called selective filtering: when you have a complex problem with many causes, but you only acknowledge the causes that you feel comfortable talking about.

But let’s assume for a minute that overpopulation skeptics were right all along, and that humanity manages to work on all of the issues they highlight except that one big elephant that only perverts like me can see. Let’s assume that, as if by magic, all of us wake up tomorrow in a world where economies have dramatically reduced waste, industry has become sustainable AF, energy is almost clean, and overconsumption and excess are punishable crimes, whoever and wherever you are. Almost everyone has become vegan, global trade has given way to local economies, and Universal Basic Income has allowed humans to work for ethical causes rather than the necrocapitalist economy that destroys the planet. Let’s take out the magnifying glass now, and look at how the world is doing:

The localisation of economies has dramatically brought down carbon emissions from global transportation and convoluted value chains, but it has pressured localities to invest and develop many additional local industries they previously didn’t have. After all, the population is the same, and they still have to cater to demand. Produce needs to be local, so wild habitat is razed for agriculture and solar farms. Industry is decentralized to make smartphones and fashion more locally, not in China, which sends local emissions through the roof. Resource destruction at the local level ramps up significantly: people may have scaled down their life, but they still need technology, entertainment, electricity, travel, and a good range of food choices. All of this, times 8 billion. But hey, what do I know, I’m just a realist here to piss you off with things that are too dystopian to hear.

And the magnifying glass goes deeper: Universal Basic Income and caps on profit and personal wealth have lessened the destructive forces of greed and exploitation by the super-rich, along with extravagant lifestyles. Or have they? Many are finding loopholes and still getting rich. Hidden incomes are rife, as people try to hoard and hide assets like never before in various cryptocurrencies and the black market. With 8 billion people on the planet there will always be some greedy ones, as the rest of the population becomes greedy just to compete with them. Back to square one.

What about carbon? Energy has successfully switched to 100% renewables, but emissions are still rising due to the manufacture of an incredible amount of wind turbines, electric cars and solar panels for 8 billion people with escalating personal energy use and AI assistants for everything. These technologies have been made more durable and recyclable, but people still trash them in favour of the next model just out on the market. Earth is becoming a landfill of toxic rare earth minerals from renewable tech, as ecological devastation ramps up significantly.

I won’t go further into this brave new world, you are beginning to get the picture by now. At the heart of overpopulation scepticism lie the most delusional, unrealistic and idealistic beliefs: first, that we can make significantly more sustainable humans and second, that this will be enough to counteract the impact of overpopulation. This level of delusion will only benefit those lined up to invest in whatever Green New Deal comes next, as the planet continues to fry regardless.

Let me tell you a brief story: since our beginnings on this planet, we have been natural extroverts and overachievers who always need to have more, and build more. This is not a nurtured trait but a genetic one which came with the factory settings of our RELD brain (Resource Exploitation Logistical Device). Humans will always be harmful to the environment no matter what they do or how they live. Today we depend on so much tech, so much plastic, so much energy that it is impossible to do it all sustainably. We need to stop fantasizing and simply accept that we will continue to be a wasteful and destructive species, however much we modify our behaviour. This is not self-hate, but simply about accepting who we are. It is not defeatism either. We can change our behaviour with a significant degree of failure, but what would have a real, tangible impact is managing our population size: Population management doesn’t just modify behaviour. It erases it. If we recognise the value in managing the population of camels in Australia, wild boar in Europe and the red-vented bulbul in Hawaii, then why can’t we do the same for the number one most invasive species on the planet?

We can stop eating meat, stop flying and take many other steps. It still won’t stop ecological devastation, pollution and many other elements of overshoot which are the results of our population volume and dependence on toxic materials. A civilisation that throws out 13 million smartphones a day cannot be described as a civilisation. It is a spreading infection on its way to becoming consumed by its own waste.

We need to have far fewer smartphones, because we will never be able to manufacture them sustainably. We need to use less energy, because the energy transition and renewables revolution have miserably failed. And for these things to happen we need to have fewer humans, because it is the only path which guarantees the reduction of our impact on the planet.

It is time the so-called “environmentalists” took their masks off. Who are they protecting? Who are they afraid of? Are they afraid society will dismiss them as eco-fascists? Are they afraid people will call them hypocrites because they themselves are having children? Are they afraid that the mainstream media who have embraced them, designated them as the official spokespeople of the environmental movement will dethrone them? There is a bit of truth on all the above I’m afraid. Personally speaking, these are not my representatives. They don’t speak for me, and for a great swathe of others who genuinely care about the planet and happen to understand basic science and math. The self-censorship of the overpopulation debate is not exactly our best example of activism, and we will pay for this dearly. It seems to me that all parties have made a pact with each other: “if you promise not to bring it up, then I won’t”. Well, I will be bringing it up. Again, and again.

Hey! Listen to my brand new interview for the brilliant Post Growth Australia, a podcast I highly recommend. The interviewers have really taken the implications of my book Beyond The Petri Dish to another level.