Some effort should be made to slow down the world population growth rate.
Over the decades, some estimates for future world population have been a lot more pessimistic than others, and it’s turned out these estimates haven’t come true. But, one thing can’t be ignored: all else being equal, more population equal more resource use, and the environment is already pretty stressed as is.
Population increase will matter a lot for water use and agriculture if water scarcity and climate change can’t be reversed. Therefore population growth should be addressed and not ignored- we can’t just hope that population growth won’t lead to very bad problems that could have a global effect and not merely a local impact within states.
So, there should be a UN treaty to get all member nations on the same page about population growth. This should encourage contraception and euthanasia. Local and national laws should provide an economic incentive for sterilization. Or, there should be a law allowing no more than one child per person, which would allow a couple with no prior children to have two children together.
It may sound so far like this is just essentially about global, human survival and comfort. But there is also a very left-wing, partisan, political reason to be concerned. Resource scarcity gives the hawks an incentive to war, and giving the hawks more to do, more prominence and more power tends to lead to repressive, retrogressive, right-wing trends in government.
Population growth is a pressure that efforts to fix environmental problems shouldn’t have to compete so hard against. Without enough political will to solve environmental problems, the population growth could make half-hearted efforts to repair the environment like trying to walk while standing on quicksand.
Thanks for reading the Save The Environment diary.