Apart from the good answers in this thread already, the solution to overpopulation is never a change of the system or whatever but always boils down to some form of genocide.
Ask Westerners which group is the biggest problem, and 9/10 you’ll get the answers that it’s some non-white group somewhere. Which is completely ignoring the fact that a US child has like 9 times the amount of pollution that a random African kid has. So 9 African kids can compensate 1 US child. But it’s never the US children that need to go somehow.
People also like to spew the ‘BUT LOOK AT CHINA!!’ argument regarding pollution, which is ignoring why China has to produce these massive amounts of stuff. It’s not because they like to do it. It’s because they are the number one Global supplier of many things. Of course you’ll have a lot of pollution if the majority of the world relies on your factories and labor.
We have the resources to supply even more people than the current population, it’s just how we use the available resources that’s wrong. And that requires a change of the system. The overpopulation argument is just a very simple way of looking at things, while reality requires a very broad understanding of why things are the way they are. Poor people don’t magically breed more, their material conditions force them to. Conditions forced upon them by capitalist society. Their polluting ways of production are forced upon them by capitalist society. It’s not because they are black or poor or Asian or non-white whatever that they are somehow less eco-friendly by nature. Overpopulation and general eco-talk carries a lot of racism with it.
Another thing that frustrates me about the “look at china” people regarding pollution, is that CO2 emissions per capita for the PRC are 7.38 tons.
Lots of countries have higher emissions per capita, eg: Germany (9.44), USA (15.52), Canada (18.58), UAE (23.37). source
Also, people fail to consider the cumulative emissions of decades of polluting already industrialized countries have been doing. Countries like China are rapidly industrializing, and “the west” can’t expect countries to increase their living standards without some years of increased emissions.
A just approach would be that industrialized countries would fund a more environmentally friendly development in these countries, no strings attached. But of course they won’t even sufficiently fund environmentally friendly development in their own countries.
Also since China and the global south build a lot of the west’s goods they are basically just spreading the per capita pollution of the west around the world.
Apart from the good answers in this thread already, the solution to overpopulation is never a change of the system or whatever but always boils down to some form of genocide.
Ask Westerners which group is the biggest problem, and 9/10 you’ll get the answers that it’s some non-white group somewhere. Which is completely ignoring the fact that a US child has like 9 times the amount of pollution that a random African kid has. So 9 African kids can compensate 1 US child. But it’s never the US children that need to go somehow.
People also like to spew the ‘BUT LOOK AT CHINA!!’ argument regarding pollution, which is ignoring why China has to produce these massive amounts of stuff. It’s not because they like to do it. It’s because they are the number one Global supplier of many things. Of course you’ll have a lot of pollution if the majority of the world relies on your factories and labor.
We have the resources to supply even more people than the current population, it’s just how we use the available resources that’s wrong. And that requires a change of the system. The overpopulation argument is just a very simple way of looking at things, while reality requires a very broad understanding of why things are the way they are. Poor people don’t magically breed more, their material conditions force them to. Conditions forced upon them by capitalist society. Their polluting ways of production are forced upon them by capitalist society. It’s not because they are black or poor or Asian or non-white whatever that they are somehow less eco-friendly by nature. Overpopulation and general eco-talk carries a lot of racism with it.
Another thing that frustrates me about the “look at china” people regarding pollution, is that CO2 emissions per capita for the PRC are 7.38 tons. Lots of countries have higher emissions per capita, eg: Germany (9.44), USA (15.52), Canada (18.58), UAE (23.37). source
Also, people fail to consider the cumulative emissions of decades of polluting already industrialized countries have been doing. Countries like China are rapidly industrializing, and “the west” can’t expect countries to increase their living standards without some years of increased emissions.
A just approach would be that industrialized countries would fund a more environmentally friendly development in these countries, no strings attached. But of course they won’t even sufficiently fund environmentally friendly development in their own countries.
Also since China and the global south build a lot of the west’s goods they are basically just spreading the per capita pollution of the west around the world.
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