So Thorny! Earth Overshoot Day

Exploring thorny truths on human population and some rosy buds of hope for our environment and future

Consider yourself warned, this essay will probably make you uncomfortable, but just like training muscles, discomfort is how we grow. If you can hang with me till the end, we will go through a process and arrive on the other side with a deeper and—hopefully helpful—perspective on humans and our environment.

SOME BACKGROUND FACTS

Earth Overshoot day is the day when humans deplete the earth’s renewable resources for that calendar year. Everything after that is effectively borrowed time— borrowed from us of the future. This year we lasted from January 1 until July 28. This is bad, but something we can still come back from.

In decent company, we all agree that human-caused global warming is real, and that it’s a really big problem. Our continued living invariably involves consumption, which directly or indirectly releases greenhouse gasses like C02 into the air, which heats up our planet and wreaks havoc on our planet: melting the glaciers, raising the ocean levels, spreading the deserts, and shrinking the overall habitable landmass. A shrinking livable landmass would be bad on a good day, where the number of people remained constant. But as you probably know, the number of humans on this planet is increasing fast, at an exponential rate.

EXPLOITATION IS PART OF LIFE (FOR NOW)

Some consumption, like private flights, is gratuitous and condemned by any eco-minded person. But having a modest life that even complies with the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights (Education, housing, food etc. ) currently requires ENERGY. Energy currently is a human right because we need it to live, but if it isn’t nuclear, wind or solar energy, it will be coming from burned fossil fuels, which further heat up our planet. And let’s not forget that the food and other products we use were created by the extraction, processing and transportation of natural resources (all of which require energy, and very little of which is done with renewables).

Rose: If humans can figure out fusion energy, stop the misguided campaigns against nuclear energy (which emits no C02), or governments step in to integrate renewables NOW, we can ensure energy equity without further scorching our planet.

BUT WHAT ABOUT RECYCLING?

What you need to understand about recycling, veganism and paper straws, is that they are all HARM REDUCTION strategies. They don’t repay the environmental debt, they just slow down the rate of extraction—which of course is good, but not to be confused with a solution. Recycling is like chemotherapy, and should not be confounded with curing cancer. Sorry that I need to remind you that reducing harm to the earth is not the same as healing it.

Survival requires harming the planet… for now. Some people do more than others, but what you really need to understand is that each person on the planet contributes to—and if they choose to procreate, multiplies—our collective environmental footprint. So how do we reduce humanity’s collective environmental footprint?

I know you already know the answer. Reducing the number of feet. Using napkin math, human population would need to be roughly half of what it currently is, in order to live within Earth’s regenerative capacity. With game-changing advancements in technology and and our overall systems, that number could be higher, but I wold wait and see before baking game-changers into my assumptions.

SOME BUDS OF HOPE, SORTED BY RIPENESS

1. male birth control that isn’t stupid (see RISUG reversible vasectomies)

2. mass adoption of renewable energy

3. overhaul in global cooperation

4. nuclear fusion

REDUCE HUMAN POPULATION?

Reducing the number of feet is the most obvious way to reduce humanity’s ecological footprint to something more earth sized. Can we agree on this as a globally good thing and then blaze ahead into the danger zone?

Before we go on, I’m embarrassed that I even have to say this, but war, plague and genocide are bad. Sometimes smart people bring these things up as potential solutions in the same conversation where they look at me like I’m the bad guy for wanting to PEACEFULLY reduce human population levels to something sustainable? I’ll assume it’s a bad joke. Moving on, let’s clear up some misconceptions.

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

“You think war, plague and famine are good.” / “You think genocide is good” / “You want 1 child policies”

No! These are violent, ugly and inhumane ways of reducing human population. I’m just advocating for peaceful ways to live within the earth’s limits. All of which have awesome side effects as well. (More on that in a minute).

“Environmental destruction should be blamed of the rich countries that consume too much / or the poor countries that procreate too much”

Blame gets us nowhere. And if you hopefully share my vision of a world population NOT in abject poverty, part of those lifestyle upgrades associated with moving up out of poverty will involve consuming more. It’s just part of life. So, if you have space in your heart for a future without prevalent abject poverty, then it is as important to nurture peaceful depopulation in rich countries as well as in poor countries. With great power comes great responsibility. The west should bear extra responsibility in leading the way for an EQUITABLE sustainable future (think trains, not Teslas).

“Human extinction is good.” — No, the opposite! I believe that less is more. And voluntarily reducing the number of people is exactly HOW we avert extinction, or some of the ugly population reducing scenarios mentioned above.

“You think nobody should have children” — Obviously not. Then we’d be in a new kind of extinction scenario. Let’s just stop unwanted pregnancies and go from there. Being childfree is awesome, so let’s make it go viral like veganism! Unfortunately, the online childfree and anti-natalist communities have a toxic, dogmatic vibe that I’d rather steer clear of, so as not to contaminate my message.

“You hate people and people who procreate” — Not true. This is a touchy topic for most people because we all ultimately descend from procreators. I am a supreme advocate of the childfree lifestyle for everybody who doesn’t have a burning desire to have a child. And even for then I’d challenge prospective-parents to consider adopting, just to make sure they REALLY want the commitment of parenthood, as opposed to the thrill of making a mini-me. And once a child is born, they are one of us. We’re all in this together now.

AVERTING SHORT TERM THINKING

I don’t think anybody is evil for following their biological urges to breed. I just am painfully aware of where it gets us in the big picture: that each new person amplifies the competition for finite resources on a planet with shrinking livable landmass, depleting resources, and a growing population. How our world shares resources is already ugly, and I don’t see how ramping up the tension would make it things better.

And if I know anything about anything, desperate people make compromised, short-term decisions… you know, the same kind of thinking that got us into this mess to begin with.

Adding a child into the equation (quite understandably) shrinks a parent’s circle of concern, which is great for the child, but not necessarily for the kind of thinking and action needed to push earth overshoot day in the right direction.

And if we zoom out to the bigger picture, to a highly populated poor country, how can they be expected to prioritize sustainability when there are more pressing concerns, like moving your large population out of poverty (even if doing so involves burning coal)?

Also, I’ve seen countless people justify doing lousy things (usually for money) because they’ve got kids to take care of, a point I completely understand. I just am saying that reducing the number of new children reduces pressure in the big picture, and in the family life. And with less intense pressure, people are more free to make more enlightened and empowered decisions that consider the global picture.

THE WORTHY JOURNEY

Good news! Exploring PEACEFUL ways to reduce human population is actually a rewarding path to go down if you can get past the your reflexive resistance.

Why is it an underrated perspective? Well there’s the obvious uneasiness because we are all contributing to the environmental problem by virtue of existing. We were all born by people who decided to procreate, and all of our biological drives push us to do the same. Luckily (if we use contraception) we can still fulfill our animal desires without making new people, but that’s a big “if”, depending on where you’re from. For example, half of the USA is now a forced birth zone.

Big picture policies that reduce human population growth are actually awesome in and of themselves. Shall I list them?

• Empowering women.

• Ensuring safe, reliable and legal access to contraception and abortion

• Education (not just sex ed)

• Outlawing child labor

• General Healthcare (think how improving infant mortality reduced the urge to have extra kids in case the first doesn’t make it.

[This is going from memory, from an eye-opener of an environmental science course back in college. Sources coming soon].

REFRAMING THOUGHTS ON PROCREATION

My own idea I’d like to contribute is simply celebrating the virtues of childfree life. You can dance, travel, go to concerts, make art, have hobbies, have loads of sex... What isn’t to love about that?

At the same time, it’s important to resist societal peer pressure that having a child is “just what you do.” Sure, it is for people who want a lifetime commitment of creating a new sentient being and all of the sacrifice that it involved. But that’s not everybody. Don’t let anybody tell you it is selfish NOT to have a child. This myth needs to die out now. I’d argue the opposite even. Dog lovers are quick to shout “adopt don’t shop” but it is currently still a bit harsh to call out people who pass over the opportunity to adopt existing children, in favor of creating new ones from scratch. Adopting is the opposite of selfish…

There are times to be tough. I remember a vegan referring to meat as “carcass” and it stuck with me. Sure she harshed the vibe for a minute, but she stood up for her belief and most definitely wasn’t going with the flow. I respect that, and as a bonus I like how veganism is even a bit more eco-friendly than vegetarianism.

What I’m saying is that if anybody ever asks you why you don’t have children, that is the time to flip the frame on them. Ask them why they do want to have children and watch them struggle compute what just happened. In short, childfree folk need to step up their framing game.

I’m not satisfied with the toxic tone in the current childfree and anti-natalist spaces online. So if you are childfree and you love it, get be vocal and don’t feel bad about having more fun and leisure than young parents from your graduating class. Let people see the alternative lifestyle BEFORE it is too late to go back. Get loud and proud like a vegan! So in a crazy kind of way, childfree folk, we can save the the world by having fun, and what isn’t to love about that?

INSPIRED BY LOVE AND LEGACY

Nowhere in they essay did I advocate for killing anybody. In fact, I’m only undertaking this tough topic that loses me friends out of love and compassion for the people alive on earth now, and also for the people who will be living in what we leave behind 200 years from now. I hope they don’t look back at us the way we look at the enslavers of the American South, or other historical villains, possessed by inhumane greed, who left us landmines that we’re living with today.

I was 17 years old, at a Rise Against concert, when the singer shouted into the microphone “This song is for everybody who feels a responsibility to leave this planet better than we found it.” That song was for me. It was called “The good left undone” and that’s exactly how I feel about bringing new people onto this hot planet. Choosing to be childfree is choosing a life of fun, leisure, and sustainability all rolled into one. Throw out your paper straws and let’s make sustainability sexy again!

FINAL WORDS: The best solution for reducing environmental harm through peaceful, voluntary population reduction is a male contraceptive method called RISUG. It is a reversible vasectomy procedure that can give men full control over their fertility. For perplexing reasons that we will unpack in a future post, it has been withheld from the public in India and USA. Subscribe now for to be informed when the blog unraveling the mystery behind RISUG is published.

RECAP:

• Consuming is part of living a dignified life, and that isn’t bad, unless there are more people doing it than the earth can support.

• Living over earth’s carrying capacity degrades quality of life now, and sets us up uglier and uglier situations down the road.

• Harm reduction =/= healing. Paper straws, veganism and recycling all REDUCE the impact of a person but surely don’t eliminate it. Only reducing the overall number of people allows the earth to heal.

• Not procreating is the most peaceful way to let earth heal. Say no to: genocide, war, famine, 1 child policies, west-vs-rest blame game, and HUMAN EXTINCTION

• Righteous journey to reduced population: women’s rights, healthcare, education, child labor laws, free access to contraception and abortion. Now that’s a society I want to live in!

• More people intensifies pressure and short term thinking, in the family and big picture. Compare that with, options, fun freedom, and of course safe sex.

• RECAP OF BUDS REASONS FOR HOPE (SOME REQUIRING YOUR HELP)

  • Male birth control (close, but far)

  • fusion energy

  • societal system upgrades

• Less is more, inspired by love.