Posts Tagged ‘defence mechanisms’

Population is the Problem?

January 21, 2024

There are many people apparently trying to blame climate change entirely on population growth in China and India and elsewhere, or on migrants from those countries to ‘developed’ countries.

Let us be clear population will certainly be a problem if we expect everyone to pollute and destroy like people in the ‘Western, developed world’ and it will be a problem if it gets big enough no matter what, but it is not the only problem, or the “everything issue” as its promoters often claim. As such focus on population tends to be a distraction from other issues.

In complex systems, Everything is the everything issue.

Focusing on one thing that does not cause ‘us‘ to change, or to think about change, in our daily lives and political systems is a diversion – we live in an ecological system of problems not just one problem. Promoting ‘population as the (only) problem’ causes us to ignore the ways we Australians, or other ‘developed peoples,’ have been acting to bring about ecological and climate disaster for ourselves and others for a long time (at least over 200 years), despite our relatively low populations.

Strangely, people campaigning against population and those migrants who increase local populations rarely campaign against migrants from the UK or America who are moving their pollution footprint here and making our country much less habitable. They campaign against migrants from China, or India, who have comparatively low footprints, and whom we might learn from.

Population is not just a distraction but a defense mechanism, to say that our country is ok, we are good and don’t really have to do anything other than attack other people.

Why not campaign for Australians to stop breeding as well, if our population is the problem?

Likewise, population campaigners rarely mention exports of Australian, or American, or UK, fossil fuels, which will take temperatures up directly throughout the world. Perhaps its just a matter of not blaming us for anything?

Why not campaign against the political structures which make it much harder to launch renewable sites than to launch more highly polluting and poisoning coal or gas mines? Even if our population crashed, those mines would still contribute to the world’s problems. Focusing on population is another way of not blaming us, or not taking responsibility for what our countries contribute, and have contributed, to the growing challenges.

Why not campaign for lower fossil fuel usage in our own country? Unless its about not taking responsibility, and not doing anything ourselves. Its not our fault, we don’t have to do anything.

Why not promote responsibility in Australia for our own pollution? If twenty poorer Indians make less pollution than one Australian, or whatever the current figure is, then we are the problem. But “Don’t blame us”.

Why not point to the forests we are clearing, the land we are poisoning, the top soil we are stripping, the rivers we are making unusuable, the underground water we are fouling? We have been destroying the country and subsidising companies to do this destruction, since Westerners arrived here. This is not the fault of modern immigrants, or of massive population. It has always been the case. It is our system that is the problem.

Why not campaign against the economic system that demands increasing migration, instead of the expense of teaching locals skills and capacities? The economic system also seems to be prepared to chuck older people on the scrap heap, if there is no growing population (rather than corporate profits) to tax, or cheap labour? Why ignore the economic system that depends on fossil fuel sales, and fossil fuel use? Perhaps its not just about not blaming ‘us’, but not challenging the economic powers of the country and giving them an excuse.

The way population is used in supposed climate campaigns, seems to be just a comforting way of blaming other people, rather than getting on with what we should be doing and cutting back on the way we already over-stress our environment. It is not just a defense mechanism, or a distraction, but a deadly distraction that allows destruction to continue.

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Some one responded that there is no way 11 billion people is not a problem, and that academics are deceptive…

However, no one is saying that endless population increase is not a problem or we should ignore it. It is a problem, but it seems to be being used by some people as a complete distraction from doing anything else.

And what is it that we can do about population increase anyway?

Should we be murdering people en mass? Encouraging pandemics to wipe them out? Have a nuclear war? We know having educated female populations is good for population control. And according to Wiki pedia:

Population growth has declined mainly due to the abrupt decline in the global total fertility rate, from 5.3 in 1963 to 2.3 in 2021. The decline in the total fertility rate has occurred in every region of the world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline

Scientific American states:

China’s population has fallen after decades of sky-high growth… the United Nations predicts dozens of countries will have shrinking populations by 2050… But if you listen to economists (and Elon Musk), you might believe falling birthrates mean the sky is falling as fewer babies means fewer workers and consumers driving economic growth.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-decline-will-change-the-world-for-the-better/

If we are interested in climate change as a symptom of population alone, then we should try and wipe out the most heavily polluting populations, like those in the USA and Australia? If not why not?

[The answer seems relatively clear…. we don’t complain about, or wipe out, Australia and the USA, because that affects us…]

Being responsible adults, shouldn’t we be changing the way we and our societies, behave, rather than demand that other people change?

Why not try and stop new fossil fuel fields coming online in Australia, to destabilise the world? Why not try and lower our own social footprints? Why not help other countries install renewables as well as get on with it here? Why not try fixing the economy so the bosses do not demand population increase?

There are many things we can do about climate. Focusing on population does not help us do them.

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The World of Illusion

April 25, 2023

People can choose to live in a ‘world of illusion’ because they don’t always like to face up to challenges, particularly if they have failed to deal with challenges in the past, or they don’t want to recognise that past choices (and support) have led to them to where they are now. Sometimes realities seem too painful to face up to, and sometimes those you identify with and would like to resemble, are those causing the problems you face.

There are also mystical traditions which say that facing up to the reality of eternal bliss now, conflicts with our current ways of life and our views of our self as limited and deserving of punishment.

The point is that recognizing reality can be painful, and disorienting and threatening to our established identity

If there is a major internal, or external struggle/paradox happening then it can be less painful to decide that reality is not threatening to your identity and way of life and, that you and yours, are not creating problems for yourself and everyone.

It is much easier to sell people the idea that they don’t have to do anything, and all will be ok, than to sell them the idea that they (and others) have made bad choices in the past, and that they are likely to suffer as a result, especially if the suffering has only gradually increased.

People also often find it easier to line up to fight irrelevancies, than to struggle against the real problems.

For example:

  • It is easier to fight powerless drag queens, who have very little connection to child rape, than it is to fight people in the religions you believe in, who actually do rape children and have the power to expel you or make you an outcast.
  • It is easier to side with fossil fuel companies and denounce the ‘liberal elite’ and the ‘scientific conspiracy’ than it is to admit that your use of fossil fuels, and products using fossil fuels, is causing a problem which may lead to you losing your home, and that you need to change your whole way of life to tackle climate change. Especially given the change comes without a guide, and great uncertainty as to how you would live.
  • It is easier to say renewables will solve everything than it is to deal with the problems of renewables, or the problems of the system they are embedded in.

All of us do this all the time, unless we start to realize it. Its difficult to face up to the likelihood we have been choosing to live in a world of illusion.

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More on Climate Denial and Defence

April 24, 2022

This is to some extent a simplification, or recasting of this piece, reducing the main number of defenses to four.

1) Climate change is real but we only need to do one or two things to solve it

This is a standard position amongst the supposedly concerned.

  • We just need to put renewable energy in place.
  • We just need to curb population
  • We just need to follow the sustainable development goals

These points generally forget the massive, widespread and systemic, nature of the ecological decline we are facing, and the almost certain arrival of tipping points, such as methane release from those frozen ‘wastelands’ which are heating up and melting. The position minimises the problems and we may need to bother about all of these factors at once, and more. We cannot keep destroying ecologies through over-extraction, we cannot keep polluting and poisoning. We need to change the economic system which only flourishes through destruction and siphoning wealth up to a relatively small group of people – who probably think they can buy survival. Population will eventually become a problem if it does not plateau and decrease, but at the moment, the main problem is over-use of resources and destruction by the hyper-wealthy and powerful.

The crisis calls for almost a change of everything. Sure, this is difficult, and let us go one step at a time, as long as we take those steps. But just changing to renewables will not solve the problem. Culling population will not solve the problem (and how do we do this?). How do we attain the sustainable development goals, in the current system, without increasing use of energy and pollution?

2) Climate change is real but not that bad, we have no urgency to do anything. Everything is ok. We are already doing enough

This is the classic set of moves by those who don’t want to risk social change or disruption to the power and wealth arrangements. But ecological destruction and upheaval of the magnitude expected, will cause social change and social upheaval. The only way to preserve a destructive regime when the destruction bites back hard is through violence and enforced stability. This can only hold change back for a while until it becomes unavoidable for most people.

In this ‘relaxed’ set up, corporations who benefit from pollution simply lie about what they are doing to reassure people all is well. Carbon Capture and Storage is nowhere near being able to reduce emissions either significantly, or to zero, anywhere in the world. If they claim they are moving into renewables while actually increasing gas and coal production, they are not helping. If people are engaged in large amounts of destructive mining, deforestation or pollution, they are not helping, they are making the situation worse.

3) We can do nothing about Climate Change as it is natural. “The climate is always changing.”

The argument is that humans have done nothing to cause climate change and can do nothing to stop it. This is silly, humans have done lots to survive events they did not cause. They have not always given up immediately a ‘natural problem’ arises. Even if we did not know what human actions make climate change worse (pollution, greenhouse gases, ecological destruction) we could still start preparing for adaptation to the problem and surviving it, if this acknowledgment of Climate change was sincere. We could still ask: How are we going to deal with increased intense flooding, increased intense fires, increased intense storms, increased intense droughts, changes in weather generally, decrease of Ocean life, decrease in water supplies and dying rivers? etc… If we don’t act then many people will die and wars will be fought. The problem here is that the position surrenders to a fatalism which seems unnatural and overly defensive. The position is again from people who don’t want to do anything or recognise the problem.

4) Climate change is a complete falsehood

This is still relatively popular, with those embedded in the old system, who seem system change as fatal or massively uncertain. They are right. System change is fatal to the old system, and the results of conscious change are incredibly uncertain. However we are as certain as can be that ignoring the problem will not make it go away. It will just get worse and harder and more expensive and disruptive to deal with. We need to start acting now, even if we don’t completely know the effects of what we are doing.

Conclusion

The main obstacles to action are defensive political formations, not technology.

The system of destruction has grown up in a world of relative plenty, and we don’t know, for sure, how to get prosperity without it and this arouses fear.

The fact that society can grow around technology and particular forms of extraction and pollution, means the technology, extraction and pollution become ingrained into regulation and custom. Everything in the system tends to be geared to reinforce each other. Regulations assume centralised fossil fuel energy and need to be changed to support localised community energy, because they stop social change. This is not always visible until lots of people try to change and run into social, political and regulatory problems – which can discourage them if they don’t know what is happening.

Survival means:

  • Renewable energy
  • Electrification of most energy uses
  • Stopping new fossil fuel mines.
  • Reducing all pollution – even from renewable construction.
  • Reducing the damage of extraction in general.
  • New ways of large scale and small scale agriculture.
  • Conservation of fish stocks, and other natural bio-worlds.
  • Reducing the ecological footprint of populations.
  • Not exceeding the capacity of the planet to supply our lives.
  • Political change and experimental and exploratory policies.
  • Social and economic change, so destruction and pollution no longer look sensible.
  • Collapse of distant concern, so that pollution and destruction events which happen elsewhere, cannot be ignored.
  • Recognising, discovering and tending to planetary boundaries.

Non of this is impossible, and the main obstructions are political.

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