Cav's Place

As usual, it takes World Population Day for the problem of overpopulation and its connection to all other major environmental and social problems to get at least some lip service from world leaders and major NGOs. This time around they even launched a campaign, signed by 150 organizations, but even that’s just about access to voluntary family planning and I’m just seeing the same old fucking bullshit about it all being voluntary, without coercion, just let people have as many kids as they want and only offer measures to avoid unwanted ones, of course make very sure that other species are never placed above humans, and either way at best aim to slow population growth instead of a sharp reduction. You know, the sort of thing that might have made sense to be the focus in the 1950s, but at the moment, while ensuring this access remains necessary, compared to what actually needs to be done to solve the problem it’s the equivalent of, I don’t know, making LED lights available to people to stop climate change.
The population already is at least a few times, and possibly several times, above any possible maximum carrying capacity and we are trashing this world to this extent despite the fact that the vast majority of people live in poverty and should have every right to enjoy the same high standard of living as those who are better off in developed countries, without having their choices restricted if they’re not harmful in themselves, regardless of numbers. Or, more exactly, everyone who doesn’t add to the problem, doesn’t and won’t breed until and unless those of us already here will solve the environmental and social problems we and this world are facing, should have that right, while those who do, or try to, should be treated as the worst kind of criminals, guilty of the worst single crime anyone may commit under the current circumstances.
But, of course, you can’t say that, so there’s not even a whisper about taking any and all necessary measures, from carrot to stick to fucking cat o’ nine tails, to completely stop births for as long as necessary to know we’ll solve this problem this way, fully aware that it’s the last remaining chance to do so without needing to resort to killing people or, since this is already happening, continue to allow them to die unnecessarily due to lacking access to needed resources or services. Instead, we rationalize our basic instincts, continue to look away, lash out at the few who might say what needs to be said, not to mention anyone who might actually try to do something about it, and keep rushing straight towards disaster. We keep looking for other things to patch, for restrictions to impose in other areas, for all sorts of mitigating measures, discoveries, inventions, technological “miracles”, wasting so many of the already vastly insufficient resources of any and all kinds that are put towards solving major environmental and social problems on delaying the inevitable at an ever increasing cost, a cost that the other species we share, or should be sharing, this planet with are and have always been the first to bear.
Of course, when it comes to ignoring the actual, known solutions and instead looking for ways to delay the inevitable while preserving as much as possible of the status quo, it’s the same as our reaction to the day’s “popular” problem, climate change. The difference is that climate change is just a symptom, and it’s also a complex matter, while overpopulation is clear and simple, it’s absolutely impossible to argue that it’s not completely caused by humans, and intentionally at that, and the solution for it is equally clear and simple.