Overpopulation
Are we heading into a global food crisis that also
effects Norway?
Is this a result of climate change?
CONTENT
Leader ......................................................................................................................................................................................................3
The world has a huge problem ..............................................................................................................................................4
The population size means ”Evething”!............................................................................................................................6
The earth’s population problem.............................................................................................................................................7
Our dependence............................ ................................................................................................................................................13
Value of biodiversity ...................................................................................................................................................................21
Consumption................................................................ ...................................................................................................... ..............25
The UK Envies Norway...............................................................................................................................................................28
Population.......................................................................................................................................................................................29
The Green Warriors of Norway............................................................................................................................................34
Published by:
Norges Miljøvernforbund/Green Warriors of Norway
Ludeboden,
Skuteviksboder 24,
5035 Sandviken
Editor:
Kurt Willy Oddekalv
Text:
Ørjan Holm
Jon Bakke
Harald Kryvi
Erling Flaa
Eileen H. Ystheim
Ailin Terese Salbu
Photo / Illustrations:
Miscellaneous/Ane Rong
Graphic design:
Ane Rong
Print:
Rolf Ottesen
Main source:
Population Matters
2
The world has a huge problem
-that no one wants to talk about.
Page 6.
Population
-World Population Ageing
Page 31.
Green Warriors Of Norway 20 years
Leader
I have worked with all types of environmental issues in my 30 years as an active
environmentalist. Young people often
ask what the world’s biggest environmental problem is. My answer is that
there are too many people. The topic of
overpopulation is difficult and controversial to bring up, - but we, The Green
Warriors of Norway, believe that this is
actually is the world ‘s biggest environmental and climate problem, and must be
included in the global climate talks!
The climate of the earth is changing and
in this climate conference, problems and
solutions in relation to global climate
change is discussed. What can we do to
limit climate change, what solutions does
exist?
The Green Warriors of Norway think
that one of the main solutions to reduce
climate change is to stabilize and reduce
the world population. Our goal is to get
the overpopulation problem in to the
global climate negotiations and we will
use creative means to get the spotlight
on the overpopulation problem, which
will be to inflate a 15 meter high condom
during climate conference in Warsaw!
How is climate change connected with
the growing world population? A quick
look back in time shows that in the beginning of the last century, in 1900, we
were 1.6 billion people on Earth. Just over
100 years later we are almost incomprehensibly 7.2 billion, and we are growing
by 80 million individuals every year!
But what is the problem with a rapidly
growing population? An increased world
population means increased global
greenhouse gas emissions. All people are
consumers, and all products and commodities “emit “ certain amount of greenhouse gases in its life cycle. The amounts
could be calculated with a calculation
tool for greenhouse gas emissions.
More consumers will lead to increased
consumption. Increased consumption
leads to increased greenhouse gas
emissions. The increase in consumers is
already severely affecting the limited
resources we have on the planet.
Earth is already heavily overloaded by
human overconsumption. Environmental
problems are standing in line because of
over-exploitation and overuse of natural
resources. Therefore, overpopulation is
our greatest environmental and climate
problem. It is logical that population
growth cannot continue forever on a
finite planet.
It is necessary that the world population
is stabilized and gradually reduced. We
must not look at the falling birth rates
in the developed countries as a problem,
but as a solution to ensure the welfare
and survival of future generations and
the natural species on this planet.
If it wasn’t for China, we would be 400
million people more on this planet, and
for this, we are grateful. The strict
one-child policy was controversial as the
methodology for population reduction
will always be debatable and very difficult, no matter what you choose.
The Green Warriors of Norway want to
put a strong focus on the overpopulation problem in the world. We have no
answers about how to solve the problem,
but we want all the world’s nations to
take action to stabilize and limit the
population growth of their own country.
Every nation must set its optimum sustainable numbers of people and find fair
and effective methods to stabilize and
reduce the population size. There must
be a policy to reduce population growth!
By inflating a giant condom on the climate conference in Warszawa, we want
to create a focus about overpopulation
as the world’s biggest environmental and
climate problem! Some specific measures
to stabilize and reduce world population
is to increase the knowledge and access
to contraception. We need an open
debate about this issue!
The giant condom is a symbol of limiting
world population, and we hope that this
symbol will create worldwide awareness
about the biggest environmental and climate problem we have: Overpopulation!
Regards
Kurt Oddekalv
Read more on www.nmf.no
3
The world has a huge problem
-that no one wants to talk about.
By
Harald Kryvi
professor in zoology.
University of Bergen
Our biggest problem today is overpopulation. It threatens both our
civilization and very much of the
nature around us, but surprisingly
enough , almost no one discusses
it. Presumably it is too gloomy for
most people, and politicians (especially the UN) are reluctant to
criticize people’s culture and habits
- and virtually no one dares to say
anything negative about religious
beliefs.
This is a pity, because the population is
the direct or indirect cause of a number
of regional conflicts, poverty , hunger ,
malnutrition , totally unworthy of life and
above all our environmental problems the so-called climate change included.
that we are 76 million more per year ,
and we have in 85 years increased from
2 billion to 7 billion people . As many as
37% of people now live in China and
India. China has taken steps to deal with
the problem, while India has increased
from 360 million to 1.2 billion in the past
50 years. Africa has at the same time
increased from 220 million to over 1 billion . Every woman get an average of 5.7
children in sub-Saharan Africa .
One can justly ask whether there is a plan
for this. Is it the intention that everyone
should have their own house , job , transportation, enough food and clean water
every day? The question must be asked
both to the individual householder and
the management of individual nations:
what’s the plan? Or is it that people just
resigned to care? In fact one should care
a lot, the effects of population pressure is very big and important. They can
be viewed in two parts: it is the nature
(environment), and for humanity itself.
inevitably leads to drought problems sooner or later. Especially in the Middle
East and India - Pakistan , this is talked
about, but also key parts of the U.S.; rural
living is now on borrowed time . In all the
world - and many freshwater areas there is an extensive overfishing , taking
out more than the natural growth each
year . It’s like a repeat of one of the darkest chapters in Norwegian administrative
history, namely whaling. Then it was all
about continuing the catching until the
last whale was taken - and with the full
blessing of the authorities.
The moral justification for this ruthless
exploitation is to say that anything
that benefits the humans is acceptable,
because the Earth is a free gift to us,
and we have a right to food and water,
etc. - every day - whatever the cost ,
for nature. So we see that we destroy
nature, but we also says it is necessary
for the interests of humans, and this
must take precedence over anything else
on earth .
An important effect of overcrowding is
that the overall temperature increases
slightly. This is measured and documented now very carefully. What many people
( including scientists ) forget is that such
variation has happened countless times
before - for obvious reasons , and that
affects neither animal or plant life in
particular. It is not very long since all the
glaciers in Norway was melted, and the
Hardangervidda was forested, and this
was that no age of catastrophes.
Overcrowding is also the reason for the
large-scale and serious destruction of
nature - particularly the extinction of
species - which takes place on Earth
today .
The numbers are important to note: The
way we are doing it now makes the
population to increase by approx. 220
000 people per day - net. This means
4
For nature, population growth in the last
hundred years have been a pure disaster.
We pollute and destroy a large scale.
Rainforest are burnt and cultivated in an
ever-increasing pace, especially in South
-east Asia and South-America. Wetlands
drained for cultivation, and the need for
fresh water causes the river water to be
redistributed, and groundwater pumped
up from ever greater depths . The latter
What about the conditions for humanity?
As everyone knows, now it’s very bad
for many . More than 1 billion people go
directly hungry every day . It is reflected
in the way that about 1.1 billion people
now live in one dollar a day, and 2.7 billion
live on $ 2 per day . Of all city dwellers
today live about 40 % in slums . Anyone
know anything about this knows that
it’s unworthy life, high crime due to dissolution of family ties , with poor water
supply, poor sanitation, lack of food and
no system for education. Only in India is
now estimated that 40 % of all children
are directly malnourished, it has recently
been discussed by the government as
a disgrace to the nation. An interesting
example is Ethiopia: There were about
32 million inhabitants in 1960, and in the
80s it was reached 50 million , and then
they received a substantial famine : they
did not have enough food for everyone.
humans require everyone to get as much
offspring they want, and that nature
(the environment) must adapt to all the
requirements this leads to - because, as
It was then that Band Aid was organized,
which provided temporary assistance. At
present , Ethiopia has about 93 million
inhabitants , and , as one might expect ,
again great hunger problems. The big losers under these conditions are of course
women who are often without rights
and victims of the brutal culture of male
egoism that prevails in many countries,
and are often well supported by religious
prejudice. The underlying cause of all
this misery is the combination of biology
and brutal selfishness. Biology is all the
species inherent desire to propagate:
it always produced far more offspring
than there is capacity to grow up. We all
probably know for sure how strong this
wish is. This rough egoism is that we
one say, we have the right to claim and
because we are people. Thus we act as
very ill-mannered egoists. The coming
generations will rightly enough to ask
what the heck we were thinking, with
the population policy that prevails now.
One of the worst things about the current situation is that almost no one is
willing to discuss it. The other day one
could for example read in the newspaper
an article about climate adverse effects
in Bangladesh , but it was not mentioned
a word about the population increased
from 44 million to 170 million in 60 years
! Maybe they are a little guilty of their
problem? But BT is in good company:
in the last two communiqué, the UN
climate conferences in Copenhagen
and Cancun, Mexico , the overcrowding
is not mentioned with a single word as
the cause of climate change! It’s pretty
amazing. Our local climate scientists - and
they are quite numerous - is not much
better. But maybe it’s not such a good
idea to announce that you actually know
the underlying cause of the temperature
rise. Climate research is then not so
interesting anymore. What’s needed is
realistic description of the problems and
realistic discussion about what should be
done. How we are doing now, we destroy
nature at a pace the world has never
seen before, it is utterly reprehensible in
itself and also erodes the basis for the
existence of future generations. In my
view fades every other world problems
in relation to this. As has been said, there
are no environmental problems that are
not associated with the population, and
therefore it is not easy to solve if one
doesn’t take hold of the population problem. What’s needed is prevention, and
prevention again. An obvious step would
be to limit the childsupport benefits for
only one child per family. Here many of
our political parties have some to answer
for , it gets pretty hollow when they
refer to themselves as ‘ environmental
parties ‘ (there are several of them) and
gives allowance to how many children
you want. This shows that they do not
quite understand what it is all about. We
must put overpopulation on the agenda,
we must dare to “call a spade a spade”,
we must dare to criticize religion, we
must dare to criticize the weakness and
we must dare to criticize manly selfishness . Dare we do not, it will sure to go
very bad for many people. And nature
becomes pure disaster , it is the worst.
5
The population size means
”Everything”!
“The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in
the same old uncontrolled way. If we do not take charge of
our population size, then nature will do it for us and it is the
poor people of the world who will suffer most.”
Key facts
David Attenborough
•
•
6
World population was 6.8
billion in 2009, now approx .
7.1 billion . It is expected to
grow with yet 2.4 billion to
9.2 billion people in 2050. It
is almost the same as the two
countries with China ‘s population , and it is eight times the
U.S. population .
Our consumption of renewable resources already
exceeds the Earth’s capacity
to reproduce. The resources
are becoming scarcer and the
number of hungry people will
increase year by year.
•
•
To reverse the population
growth is one of the measures
necessary to ensure environmental survival. This can be
done by voluntary and peaceful methods, given that there
is a political and individual will
to act immediately.
Governments can provide with
increasing the fundings, and
give immediate and appropri-
ate attention on access to
contraception and education
to the estimated 200 million
women and many millions of
men around the world who
need and want it.
•
On the Individual basis,
couples can decide to have
smaller families, for example
by stopping at two children or
fewer to make a difference to
population growthgen.
The earth’s population problem
The population explosion
-Not only because we breed like rabbits - but we no longer die like flies.
Environmental stress, biodiversity loss,
climate change and pressure on natural
resources signal strongly that the world
is already overpopulated. But human
numbers are still exploding. Our numbers reached 6.8 billion in 2009, and are
expected to climb to 9.2 billion in 2050
– by more than a third in barely 40 years.
According to United Nations projections
published in 2009 – World Population
Prospects: the 2008 Revision - most of
this growth will take place in the developing world.
We need to encourage managers worldwide to be “brave” and dare to start the
discussion about population reduction –
NOW! First, by initiating urgent measures
to reverse population growth, and then,
in the long term, reduce the human population to levels which can be maintained
at a sustainable long term base.
The Population Reference Bureau (PRB)
estimated the world’s annual growth at
83 million in 2009, this natural increase
resulting from 139 million births minus56
million deaths. Every week some 1.6
million extra people are being added
to the planet - a sizeable city - with
nearly 10,000 arriving each hour. Already
the human species is causing serious
environmental damage to its only habitat
- Earth.
The long-denied consequences of
exploding population on ecosystems,
food supplies and energy resources
are clear to all, but peaceful population
policies continue to be low on the list
of solutions. The alternatives - Nature’s
methods of population control - are famine, disease and war. Is this the solutions
we desired for our descendants?
It is now urgent to speed up the work to
stabilize and reduce global population,
if the effort to save our common planet
should succeed. With smaller populations,
living in greater harmony with nature,
our horizons may stretch far into the
future. If the world’s parents had smaller
families, would their children not have a
better future?
The numbers are vast. On a planet
inhabited by 2.5 billion people in 1950
-within the lifetimes of many alive today
- there are now more than double this
number. Population was still growing by
1.2 per cent a year in 2009, with fertility
at an average 2.6 children per women,
well above the 2.1 replacement level,
according to the PRB’s World Population
Datasheet 2009.
Birth rates are falling but the number of
men and women likely to have children
keeps on growing. The United Nations
Population Division (UNPD) 2008 Revision medium projection of 9.15 billion
population in 2050 was 100 million
lower than in its 2006 Revision, but 200
million higher than the 2002 Revision.
One reason is population momentum the effects of high birth rates decades
ago mean that there are now twice as
many fertile women worldwide today
than there were in 1970. A halving of
birth rates can be cancelled out by an
increase in the number of potential
mothers.
According to the UNPD’s 2008 Revision, the population of most developed
countries is expected to remain almost
unchanged, at 1.28 billion, but that of
less developed regions to rise from 5.6
billion in 2009 to 7.9 billion in 2050,
with a tripling of numbers in some of
the poorest nations. Net migration from
developing to developed countries is
projected to average 2.4 million people a
year. Populations are continuing to age,
with the numbers of people aged 60 or
over expected to triple worldwide to 2
billion by 2050, and fertility is expected
to drop, with a fall from 2.56 children per
woman in 2005-2010 to 2.02 in 20452050 (below the replacement rate of 2.1
children). This decrease in fertility is not
happening fast enough. The urgency of
realising the reductions in fertility projected, and more, is made clear by the UN:
“A fertility path half a child below the medium [variant projection] would lead to
a population of 8 billion by mid-century.
Consequently, population growth until
2050 is inevitable even if the decline of
7
fertility accelerates.”
But if the world’s mothers reduce the
number of children they have, there could
be 1.2 billion fewer climate changers in
2050 than projected.
In recognition of the impacts of population growth on the environment, the
UNPD published longer-term world
population scenarios in 2003. In World
Population in 2300 its Constant-fertility
Scenario extrapolation of population
growth to 2300 at 1995-2000 fertility
levels showed world population reaching
a staggering 134 trillion by 2300. The
UNPD pointed out this “untenable outcome” which “clearly reveals that current
high levels of fertility cannot continue indefinitely.” This puts fears about Ageing
populations into perspective - compared
with the consequences of continuous
population growth.
Why has world population grown so fast?
World population grew very slowly
throughout human history, until the
Industrial Revolution and the dawn of
an age of fossil fuels. By 1900 it had
reached 1.7 billion. It then multiplied
nearly fourfold to 6 billion within a century, as the advent of an age of cheap
energy, medical advances and fastimproving technology enabled parents
to have large families and their children
to survive. During the 20th century rapid
improvements in health and welfare also
increased life expectancy - a trend which
has continued in the 21st century after
average family size began to fall.
Expected future population growth will
be affected by life expectancy, family
size, the number of young people already
8
born and approaching the age range of
fertility –and the Mother earth’s capacity
to support them.
World population statistics, including
rates of population increase, fertility and
death rates for each country, are listed
in the PRB’s World Population Datasheet
2009, and analysis of population growth
in relation to poverty, the environment,
youth and gender issues, appeared in
State of World Population 2008, a report
from the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA).
Does anyone think population growth is
still sustainable
Yes, surprisingly - alongside those
who believe that perpetual growth in
consumption is possible. Some 80 million
unplanned pregnancies a year might be
prevented or postponed by allowing full
access to family planning worldwide.
But access to family planning on its
own would not be enough to stabilise
and reduce world population in the
short term. With so many of the world’s
current population aged under 25 – a
Youthquake - population growth has an
inbuilt momentum which will be hard to
stop. Policies to improve education and
women’s rights are also vital, along with
changes in attitudes to family size and
its impact on the environment, so that
couples can choose voluntarily to have
fewer children.
The mid-20th century view that technology would enable unfettered population
growth (for example, the development of
unlimited risk-free energy or mass space
travel and the colonisation of other
planets) proved a chimera for more than
50 years. Yet some international agencies and many national governments still
share a comprehensive vision of global
sustainable development and poverty
alleviation that centres on unlimited
consumption-based economicexpansion.
There are still people who believe that
Earth can support another 2.4 billion
people, with all enjoying a ‘sustainable’
standard of living. Others believe an irreversible mass extinction is already under
way. The uncomfortable truth is that the
impact on Earth’s biosphere of more than
9 billion people living at a desired higher
standard of living in 2050 could be fatal
for the planet in terms of greenhouse
gas emissions alone.
NMFS optimistic wish is that it immediate focus is placed on the road to an
environmentally sustainable population
every country in the world. This can only
be achieved if it is taken from governments, politicians and individuals immediately and worldwide.an environmentally
sustainable population can be achieved,
if action is taken by governments, other
policymakers, and individuals immediately
and worldwide.
CHINA’S 400 MILLION FEWER
China’s population policies are viewed as
draconian by the rest of the world and
coercion is not tolerated by most people
and nations. When they were put into
force the Chinese government believed
them to be vital to reduce severe pressure on food supplies and ensure the
country’s long-term survival. China’s
population reached 1.33 billion people in
2009 - one-fifth of total world population, but is expected to be not much
larger, at 1.44 billion, in 2050. Zhang
Weiqing, director of China’s National
Population and Family Planning Commission, has pointed out that thanks to
its family planning policies over three
decades, China had curbed fast population growth and prevented 400 million
births by 2005. “The 400 million births, if
not prevented, would postpone China’s
drive to build a well-off society,” said
Zhang. “Such an achievement should be
recognised as many developed countries
spent over a century before reaching low
birth rates.” [Xinhua News, 3 May 2006].
The benefits to other nations, during a
period of rising per capita consumption
and emissions, are clear.
At a 1990 per capita emission rate of
about four tonnes of carbon dioxide per
person per year, the world’s theoretically
environmentally optimum population
5
level would not be much higher than two
billion, living at an average 1990 lifestyle, in order to stabilise carbon dioxide
concentration in the atmosphere. To deal
with peak oil and gas production as well
as dangerous levels of greenhouse gas
emissions, Earth will need to move faster
into a post-fossil fuel age. During this
period a much larger human population
will need much larger renewable energy
supplies, which could require vast tracts
of land or sea. If, on the other hand, population is allowed to decrease steadily
while new forms of sustainable energy
are developed, land will be released from
urbanisation, the number of consumers
would fall, and energy targets should
become easier to achieve. The need to
curb man-made climate change is alone a
compelling reason for population stabilisation and reduction – to reduce climate
impacts it helps to reduce the number of
climate changers. The rise in greenhouse
gas concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere follows the sudden and sharp rise
in population numbers from the start of
mass industrialization less than three
centuries ago. Ecological footprinting
shows that we are also overshooting
by a third Earth’s biological capacity to
provide renewable natural resources. If
the developing world is to be lifted out
of poverty, therefore, world population
needs to be allowed to stabilise and
gradually decrease alongside reductions
in consumption by the developed world.
The need to curb man-made climate
change is alone a compelling reason for
population stabilisation and reduction
– to reduce climate impacts it helps to
reduce the number of climate changers.
The rise in greenhouse gas concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere follows
the sudden and sharp rise in population
numbers from the start of mass industrialization less than three centuries ago.
Ecological footprinting shows that we
are also overshooting by a third Earth’s
biological capacity to provide renewable
natural resources. If the developing world
is to be lifted out of poverty, therefore,
world population needs to be allowed to
stabilise and gradually decrease alongside reductions in consumption by the
developed world.
So what is an ecological footprint ?
Humanity needs what nature provides.
But how do we know how much we use
and how much we can spend? “Ecological
Footprint” has emerged as the world’s
premier measure of humanity demand
on nature. This measurement is using
demand-side (footprint), how much
land and water area a population using
direct from nature. This includes areas to
produce the resources they use, space
needed for buildings and roads and
ecosystems needed to absorb our waste
discharge such carbon dioxide. These
estimates are with reference to the prevailing technology at any time, including
productivity and technological efficiency
change from year to year. The unit also
shows the supply from nature: it documents how much biologically productive
area that is available to produce what
we need (biocapacity). Thus, it is possible
to compare human needs with supply of
natural biological capacity.
NMF believes that governments must
both separately and collectively, should
act now on reducing the world population over the long term, with the help of
peaceful and non-threatening means.
This may for instance made by Kyototype protocol, could commit countries to
initiate reductions population down to
1990 levels. There is no such international protocol designed to stabilize and
reduce world population. So think NMF
that it is crucial that the message is going from the bottom to the top, from the
residents that determines that a population policy is necessary, which affects
their politicians and that even makes a
difference by limit their family size.
What can be done?
What can be done?
All nation states can formulate environmentally sustainable population policies.
Individual countries can set policies
for their own territories, and individual
couples can take action themselves. Even
a small rate of natural increase, if al-
lowed to continue, will cause substantial
population growth in the long term. For
example, a population growing at 1 per
cent a year will double in 70 years, and
one growing at 2 per cent a year doubles
in 35 years.
Countries with population policies.
Although worldwide fertility is falling,
many governments are going backwards
in their attempts to reverse population
growth by encouraging sustainable fertility levels. World Population Policies 2007,
published by the United Nations in 2008,
showed that in 1996 82 countries had
an official policy to lower fertility, but
in 2007 the number had shrunk to 75.
While Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Lao PDR,
Lebanon, Mauritania, Namibia, Oman,
Togo and Vanuatu were new to the list
in 2007, more countries had dropped
out. Governments in Botswana, China,
Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada,
Malaysia, St Kitts, St Lucia, St Vincent,
Seychelles, South Africa, Sri Lanka,
Thailand, Trinidad, Turkey and Venezuela
no longer wish to reduce their national
fertility levels.
How can people be helped to have
smaller families?
Firstly, by giving everyone access to
family planning and reproductive health
services - in the case of young people, in
a moral framework of sex education. In
developed countries research has led to
an increasingly wide choice of contraceptive methods. But worldwide, just over
200 million women in sexual relationships do not have access to this full
range. Some still want large families, yet
large-scale surveys have shown at least
half wish to prevent another pregnancy.
Every minute in the world 380 women
become pregnant, and of those 190
did not plan to do so, according to the
UNFPA [2002].
Since every minute a woman dies
through unsafe induced abortion or childbirth (600,000 a year), the same figures
suggest that half are being killed by
pregnancies they would have avoided if
they only had the contraceptive choices
women in developed countries take for
granted. The devastation caused by HIV/
AIDS is another central argument for prevention through good, comprehensive reproductive and sexual health care: which,
regardless of the issues of numbers and
sustainability, should be fully funded, as
a human right and a key intervention for
improving the health of women, their
partners and their children. Condoms and
pills are as much an emblem of sustain-
9
ability as bicycles and windmills. See
Population, fertility and birth planning.
Secondly, by making everyone aware
of the links between environmental
survival and population containment.
Many couples, in many countries, already
limit their families to one or two children
because they simply cannot afford to
support more. Those who care about the
environment to be inherited by future
generations can also, if they wish, use
family planning to limit the number of
children they have. The suggestion is to
‘Stop at Two’.
a large-scale restructuring of the diet is
necessary, and that all food is produced
in Norway is used domestically. The
figure is not adjusted by imports of feed
to farmed fish.
If the import of feed for farmed fish are
deducted, then the coverage will be significantly lower. How much, we does not
currently know. But at the moment it is
used approximately 3.5 kg feed per each
kg of fish that are farmed. Much of the
feed is made of imported fish and plants
The population situation in Norway
At the end of 2012/2013, Norway had a
population of 5 051 275. In our countries
there has been a marked increase in
number of people since 1950. Then we
were 3.25 million residents. Most of us
enjoy a comfortable life in this country
and politicians planning are for growth in
both economy and inhabitants. In relation
to the Earth’s global problems, this seems
to be an irresponsible attitude. Norway
is a giant “consumer “ of both renewable
and non-renewable natural resources
and this is making us rich . Each inhabitant in Norway leaves a large ecological
footprint.
Simultaneously, only about 47 percent of
the national food consumption in 2012
was covered by goods from Norwegian
agriculture. It is at the same level as the
year before, but there is a decrease of
five percentage points between 2004
and 2008. Adjusted by the feed import,
only 40 percent of food consumption
covered Norwegian agricultural raw materials, a decline of six percentage points
from 2008.
If the fish export is included, so it is assumed that the Norwegian farmers and
fishing industry together can cover 89
percent of food consumption in terms
of energy. Even though this means that
10
as soybeans. In general, there are many
uncertainties surrounding the calculation
of numbers of fish and feed.
“ The reduction of arable land in the current pace will cause us to have problems
maintaining a self –sufficiency of 50%
in 2050. Then we have 1 million more in
Norway with only 3 % arable land .” (From
western-Norwegian Agriculture 12-08 )
It is also worth noting that we in Norway
are reducing agricultural land. It is
encouraged to make larger and more mechanically driven farms, while the small
farms is no longer considered to be viable
and are left. As mentioned above, our
self –sufficiency are getting reduced.
Many reputable scientists and environmentalists, including our own Kurt
Oddekalv, argues heavily that the world
is moving fast towards a global food
crisis and during 10 years it will be a
global food crisis. Pesticides, genetically
modified crops and increasingly use of
fertilizers is also a direct threat to the
soil, ground water and biological diversity
in the long term.
Also in Norway, we are displacing animals
and plants from their living and growth
areas. A current example is how the
large mammals of Norway is constantly
in “Conflict” with human interests. Our
infrastructure is constantly dividing
habitats to smaller areas so in the end
they are too small and no longer is suitable for the species. Moose and deer
make up eventually a major traffic hazard
for people’s vehicles, simply because our
road’s crosses the normal animal migration routes and because areas without
roads is becoming fewer and fewer. Wetlands decreases dangerously in size as a
result of the constant human “Need”. The
destruction of wetlands creates huge
problems for migrating birds and for us,
as protection against damaging floods.
The big predators also suffer this pressure from increasing numbers of people
who both need, and taking more space.
The animals are increasingly encountering people, simply because those once
pristine areas become smaller as the
humans influence is getting closer and
closer to these areas. Many consider
these predators as troublesome and
think that these “dangerous” animals
must die so that we can use their land.
But in our daily work, we also see how
the smaller
and less known species are under pressure. Everything is affected; insects ,
birds , reptiles and small mammals. They
are all extremely important parts of its
ecosystem, which again is an important
part the larger ecosystem that we all
depend for survival.
Since 1970, humanity has been overspending the ecological resources annually by an annually demand that exceeds
what the earth can regenerate each year.
It now takes the Earth one year and six
months to regenerate what we use of
one year.
We maintain therefore the consumption
by depleting the earth’s resources. Overconsumption a substantially underestimated threat to human health and
survival on the planet, and a threat that
is not taken sufficiently into account.
By measuring the footprint of a population, an individual, a city , a nation, or the
whole humanity, we consider our own
pressure on the planet. This helps us to
manage our ecological resources more
reasonable and make personal and collective action in support of a world where
humanity must live within the limits of
the earth .
Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees at
University of British Columbia , conceived
In 1990 the idea of ecological footprint
: a term which is now in widespread
use among researchers , businesses,
governments , agencies, individuals and
institutions working to monitor ecological resource use and promote sustainable
development.
sition in relation to biocapacity. Biological
capacity or Bio-capacity is the capacity
of ecosystems has to produce the necessary biological materials and to absorb
waste products generated by humans,
with current management arrangements
and technologies of extractions. “Useful
biological materials” are defined as those
which required by the human economy.
That is why it that what is considered
“Useful” can change from year to year
(for such as the use of corn to cellulose
ethanol production, maisstover, and
would result that maisstover was a
useful material, thus increasing biocapacity for the area as corn is grown).
Biocapacity is usually expressed in global
hectares.
In Norway the vast amounts of water,
fisheries resources and all the other
natural resources is saving us. Norway
is in the fortunate situation that we is
one of nine industrialized countries that
have not yet has completely crossed the
border for organic overuse . According
to the Global Footprint Network (which
won the prestigious Blue Planet Award
last year), Norway has still 13% of our
biological capacity left.
This means, as opposed to for example
Britain and America, that we live ‘Sustainable’, just within our organic revenues
in the form of renewable ecological
services (such as water, soil, forest
carbon sequestration, waste absorption
etc.) The country of Norway can deliver
what is required for our present population on our current level of consumption.
We need to appreciate this enviable
advantage, but also be careful with further growth, whether in the population or
resource consumption per capita. Growth
in one of its parts, and not least growth
in both, will soon drive us into overuse, a
state which most countries already are
in. Sadly, our population seem to increase
unusual rapidly for a developed country
to be, by 0.9 % per year (figures from
2009).
At the same time, we Norwegians make
a larger ecological footprint than average
in Europe. Norway’s ecological footprint
is estimated at 4.77 global per hectare per each head. European average
ecological footprint is also estimated
at 4.5 global hectares per head. If you
look at the bio capacity, the relationship
changed significantly. Norway has one
biokapasitet of 5.4 global hectares per
head while Europe has only 2.7 . Anyway,
If everyone in the world consumed as
we do in Norway with regard to our
ecological footprint, we would need 2.69
planets.
A more detailed explanation of some of
terms follows:
“ Overuse index » considering the extent
to which a country is able to provide
for their own needs with renewable
resources.
Norway is left in a “ lucky / favorable po-
11
This is done by measuring consumption
per capita against bio capacity per capita.
Ecological Footprint measures the area
of biologically productive land and sea /
water necessary to produce renewable
resources and absorb waste, a given
population at a given average level of
use of resources.
Bio capacity is the biologically capacity of an area, which is cultivated fields,
pastures, woods, lakes, the sea, etc. This
does not include non-renewable resources as fossil fuels and other minerals.
Ecological footprint and Bio capacity is
measured in global hectares (acres with
the world average for biological productivity) per each person. Thus increased
productivity reduce dependence, while
increased population and consumption
per head would increase it.
All source data is from The Ecological
Footprint 2010 Atlas, based on figures
from 2007, produced by the Global
Footprint Network (GFN). Countries
with populations of less than one million
are omitted. GFN data is large measure
based on the sources of United Nations.
Their methodology is still somewhat
imprecise, but is subject to continuous
improvement.
In 1974 the population policy in Norway
was put in the spotlight by the two biolo-
gists Ann and Magnar Norderhaug, who
published the book “Norge og overbefolkningen” (Norway and the overpopulation). They had not only the aspect
of food production and the number of
people in mind, but they also looked
at broader eco-political issues. They
pointed out our own high consumption,
and mentioned as an example that four
million people using the same amount of
specific commodities as 120 million Indians .Their thoughts about that Norway
should stop their population growth were
then supported by several, including the
Norwegian Family Councils. The Historian and demographer Stale Dyrvik was
also concerned about the importance
of stabilizing the population in Norway.
However, he meant that the number of
children should not fall too quickly: “We
may then be able to stabilize Norwegian
population figures on 4.6 million. “ And a
few years later said the economist Odd
Aukrust (1915 - 2008) that Norway had
passed the optimum population limit. For
the more people we become, the less it
will be left to share, of space and ownproduced food. But these issues were
soon forgotten, left behind and overshadowed by the prosperity and growth
and the whole “turbo Run”, the exotic
overseas travels and shopping mania,
simultaneously as the media cultivated
the day- to-day sensations. And this is
sort of where Norway is now.
“Overconsumption and
overpopulation underlie
every environmental
problem we
face today.”
-Jacques Cousteau-
All sources is based on numbers from the Ecological Footprint 2010 Atlas, based on numbers from 2007, produced of Global Footprint
Network. Countries with populations under 1 billion is not includes. GFN data is mainly based on sources from UN, their methodology is
still somewhat inprecise, but is constantly improved.
12
Our dependence
We only have one planet!
In the past, human groups and tribes have often exhausted resources available to them locally and this led to localised collapse and enforced migration. Until now, resource depletion has generally occurred only on such a localised
scale. However, since the industrial revolution, per capita consumption has risen and trading has become truly
global; the exponential increase in population numbers is causing an impact, which is being felt around the whole
planet. There are no more “empty continents” left to which we can migrate.
goods we enjoy and depend on in our
daily lives. These raw materials may be
geological, such as minerals, or may come
from plants, animals or other microorganisms.
I
In common with all other living creatures, humans require certain essential
resources in order to survive and prosper.
The most basic requirements include
fresh water and food. Fresh water is a
product of the natural climate and the
water cycle. Food depends on other living
things; plants, animals and microorganisms which in turn have their own
resource requirements.
Dette nettet av sammenkoblede levende
This web of interconnected living things
and other natural resources powered by
the sun’s energy makes up the ecosystem on which we all depend. To sustain
more than a very basic quality of life, we
rely on many other resources to provide
the raw materials, which go into making
the clothes, buildings, vehicles and other
Throughout history, the consequences of
resource depletion are well documented.
When resources run low populations
are put under extreme pressure. Some
migrate; others are driven to conflict with
their neighbours.
If we want a good quality of life, it is
essential that we all find a way to live
within the limits of the resources available to us.
It is also important to understand the
effect that human consumption of
resources has on other living species: the
healthy ecosystems we rely on to survive
in turn depend on countless other species.
Overconsumption
Ever more people consume ever more
resources. The more people there are
and the greater their levels of consumption, the more resources they collectively
require. When too many people consume
too much, something has to give.
Historically, when demand for resources
has exceeded what was available, local
environments have become depleted and
unable to sustain the population. Many of
those great ruins of vanished civilisations
have resulted from a growing population
and limited local resources. In some cases
societies have come to rely on imports, in
others the people have had to accept a
much reduced quality of life.
Other outcomes have included fighting
for a share of limited local resources,
invading neighbouring countries and
being forced to migrate in the hope of
finding a better life. In some cases entire
communities have perished.
Some natural systems are able to
regenerate, as happened with the vast
stretches of rainforest cleared by the
Classical Mayan civilisation. Others are
more fragile and may never recover.
Even when regeneration does take place,
often it is not soon enough to help those
who depended on the resources involved.
As population continues to rise, this issue
is set to worsen. Some scientists predict
a global food crisis in the next 10 years.
Thus overconsumption is always partly a
consequence of the number of people.
Food
Ever more people need ever more food.
We currently produce enough food to
feed the seven billion people on the
planet. Hitherto the main reasons that
millions have remained malnourished
have been where food is grown, how it is
distributed and that many people are too
poor to pay for it. This has led to a false
sense of complacency. It is dangerous
to assume that the world will continue
indefinitely to be able to feed even its
existing population. To believe that we
can feed the existing population, let
alone the mid range 30 per cent increase
in numbers projected by the United Na-
13
tions between 2010 and the middle of
the century, is unwise, putting it mildly.
To call it irresponsible is probably more
accurate
In 1960, there was enough land to sustain the world population on a modest
European diet, around 0.5 ha of arable
cropland per capita. This allowance has
fallen by over half to 0.2 ha per capita
because the population has doubled and
soil degradation and erosion have increased. Humanity is already using most
of the productive land, so the expected
1 - 4 billion additional people will have
to be fed from more fragile and marginal
soils. The more people there are, the
harder it will be to feed them.
Our agriculture depends on high-yield
crop variants supported by large inputs
of energy, water and fertiliser, the latter
in particular requiring high levels of fossil
fuel input.
Basically, we live by turning oil and water
into food. However, the high input levels
required by our intensive monocultural
approach are vulnerable in a world where
fossil fuel resources are finite and water
supplies are threatened by climate
change, overextraction and increasing
demand.
Food supplies are also vulnerable to
plant disease, pests, falling soil fertility,
desertification, urbanisation, changing
weather patterns, rising sea levels and
rising levels of salination as soils are
over-irrigated.
Fish stocks, another major contributor
to global nutrition, are currently being
over-exploited world-wide by intensive
industrial fishing practices.
As developing countries industrialise,
they adopt diets with greater propor-
14
tions of input-intensive meat and dairy
products, putting further pressure on
resources.
Our consumption is driving continued encroachment into the natural environment
as more and more land is engulfed by
agriculture to feed our growing numbers.
All of earth’s creatures have to suffer for
our way of life..
Water
Ever more people need ever more water.
Growing populations, changing consumption patterns and increasing industrialisation mean people are using ever more
water.
However our supplies of fresh water,
like other resources, are finite and under
threat. Ground water is being depleted,
and pollution is affecting many remaining
fresh water supplies.
Climate change is already changing
rainwater patterns with catastrophic
consequences, and shrinking the glaciers
which many millions of people rely on to
provide water throughout the year.
Many communities, especially in the
poorest regions, are already suffering
severely from shortage of water. In some
regions of Africa and Asia people have to
walk more than six kilometres to collect
safe drinking water.
Large scale water extraction and
distribution generally depend on energy
resources which are themselves limited.
Even the power generated by hydroelectric schemes is endangered by reduction
and variability in rainfall.
Availability of fresh water
is already a key resource issue for people
in many parts of the world and one which
any increase in human population can
only magnify. According to the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, two-thirds of the world population
could be under “water stress conditions”
by 2025 and 1.8 billion will be living in
countries or regions with “absolute water
scarcity”.
Typically “water stress” is defined where
there is less than 1,700 m3 of water per
person per year1 and a region is termed
as facing “water scarcity” when supplies
drop below 1,000 m3 per person per
year. However, there are other rather
different ways in which the relationship
between water supply and demand are
some- times defined, such as the volume
of water withdrawn in proportion to
the volume potentially available. A Peak
Water situation may be arising, similar to
that of Peak Oil, when the rate of water
demand is higher than the rate at which
the supply is replenished, meaning that
the amount of fresh water production
must eventually decline as reserves are
used up.
Industry and agriculture both use very
large quantities of water. Data from
the Pacific Institute show typical water
consumption in litres per kg of product as
260 for steel2, 1,000–1,800 for maize2
and 11,000 for cotton textiles2. It is
estimated that 70% of worldwide water
use is for irrigation3.
The majority of human uses require fresh
water but 97% of water on the earth
is salt water. Of the remaining 3%, two
thirds is frozen in glaciers and polar ice
caps. The remaining unfrozen fresh water is mainly found as groundwater, with
a small fraction present in lakes, rivers
and in the air.
Although, in principle, fresh water is a
renewable resource, being renewable
does not mean that an infinite amount
is available; the world’s supply of clean
fresh water is decreasing. The demand
for fresh water already exceeds supply
in many countries and, as the world’s
population increases, so too does the
demand for water. The importance of
water resources as an essential contribution to so many ecosystems has only
recently become apparent, but in the
course of the 20th century more than
half the world’s wetlands have been lost
along with their valuable environmental
services.
Climate change is resulting in receding
glaciers, reduced stream and river flows,
and shrinking lakes. Many aquifers have
been over-pumped and are recharging at
a lower rate than that at which water is
being with- drawn from them. Although
the total fresh water supply has not yet
been used up, studies show that much
of it has become unavailable for drinking,
industry or agriculture as a result of salt
build-up and other forms of pollution. 1535% of present irrigation withdrawals
are thought to be unsustainable.
It is possible to augment fresh water
supplies by desalination of salt water,
but desalination plants represent an
unrealistic investment for many communities and they require a large amount
of energy to run, resulting in a trade-off
of one scarce resource (fresh water)
against another (energy).
production for land, as do biofuels. Yet
others are limited in scale, such as energy
from water or waste derived biomass;
or their availability is variable or unpredictable, as with wind and wave power.
Some may also depend on other limited
resources, as do gas and nuclear energy,
which requires the use of uranium.
Even if some of these drawbacks can
eventually be overcome, the investment
required to replace present fossil fuel
consumption with sustainable alternatives will be enormous.
Agriculture particularly depends on oil
and natural gas for such things as irrigation, the production of fertilisers, the
use of farm machinery to plant, fertilise,
apply pesticide and harvest crops, as well
as the transportation and preservation
of crops. Food processing also relies on
Availability of fresh water is one of the
key factors taken into account in the
Global Footprinting/BioCapacity approach
to sustainability.
Energy
Ever more people means an ever increasing demand for energy. Almost all of
the things we need and use depend on
a single underlying resource — energy.
Solar energy in the form of sunlight is
essential for growing food. High levels of
energy consumption in the form of heat
and power are an essential feature of all
industrial economies.
Fossil fuels, i.e. oil, coal and gas, are the
stored solar energy from hundreds of
millions of years of plant and animal life.
No other energy source is as versatile as
oil or has so many uses. Oil is an essential
component of almost all plastics and we
are a long way away from electrically
or nuclear powered jet aircraft. Some
experts think we have already reached
peak oil production, yet there is no easy
substitute.
Alternative energy sources are polluting,
as with coal, or they compete with food
fossil fuels, as do delivery of additives,
production and transportation of packaging and delivery of the finished products
to retailers.
Despite a continual search for new solutions, an ever-increasing energy demand
from an ever-rising population poses an
ever growing and ultimately insurmountable challenge.
More about energy
Availability of clean renewable energy is
a crit- ical issue affecting the future of
humanity. It is one of the most significant constraints to both the lifestyles
and the number of people that will be
sustainable in generations to come.
Energy is an essential resource for all life
forms, almost all of which are sustained
by a food chain which begins originally
with energy from sunlight. Most human
communi- ties, especially those in industrially developed economies, also depend
on huge amounts of energy for many
other activities and services.
Large-scale agriculture relies not only
on the sun but also on energy used to
manufacture artificial fertilizers and fuel
for agricultural machinery, transport and
food processing. In developed countries,
almost all economic activity is underpinned by large-scale con- sumption of
cheap energy, for manufacturing goods,
for transport, for building houses and
other infrastructure, and for heating.
It is important to appreciate the scale of
industrial energy consumption. In 2008
the UK economy used a total of 234.3
million tons of oil equivalent (see pie
diagram). For the then population of 61.4
million, this is equivalent to an average
continuous energy consumption of 5.1
kW by every UK citizen. By comparison,
an energetic person weighing 75 kg
who takes two hours to walk up a 1,000
metre high mountain has an output of
only 0.1 kW (though you need more food
input than this because the human body
is not very efficient as a machine). The
traditional ‘one horsepower’ draught
horse at work produced the equivalent of
about 0.75 kW and therefore five to ten
times what a single person could achieve.
At the beginning of the industrial
revolution water power resulted in a
step change in the amount of energy
used in industry, but the majority of
water wheels still only delivered a few
kW. The big increase in power avail- able
came with steam and other combustion
engines, most of which burned fossil
fuels, originally coal and more recently oil
or natural gas. A typical modern family
car is capable of approximately 75 kW,
and a large industrial power turbine more
than 100 MW – equivalent to more than
100,000 horses! On a global scale, world
primary energy supply rose from 6,115
million tons of oil equivalent in 1973 to
12,029 million in 2007.
Reliance on so much energy, nationally
and globally, is a high risk strategy, especially when the vast majority of energy
used in the UK and most other developed
countries is so heavily dependent on
fossil fuels. There is only a finite amount
of fossil fuels on the planet, representing
energy resources built up by prehistoric
animals and plants over millions of years.
At our current rates of consumption we
15
will have exhausted these irreplaceable
energy stores in just a few centuries. As
the more readily attainable fossil fuels
are used up, it is becoming increasingly
expensive to extract what remains.
Petroleum geologists believe we are
close to the time of Peak Oil when the
global rate of oil extraction will inevitably
decline. A rapid decline in the availability
of fuels and the consequent increase in
the price of energy are likely to cause
major economic dislocation.
Another major problem with fossil fuels
is that their combustion releases large
quantities of greenhouse gases into
the atmosphere, notably carbon dioxide
(CO2). Continued large-scale emissions
greatly increase the probability of a
significant increase in global temperatures, leading to potentially catastrophic
climate change.
population to enjoy an ever-increasing
standard of living.
Many environmental experts believe
that, in order to reach a sustainable
level of energy consumption (i.e. a level
of energy consumption that does not
consume “one off reserves” of fuel) , it
will be necessary to reduce drastically
the amount of energy used per capita in
the developed countries. This is the principle of “contraction and convergence”.
Clearly the greater the numbers of world
population, the larger will be the scale of
reduction required.
Raw materials
Ever more people need ever more materials. There are many examples of how
mists treat revenues from the depletion
of natural capital as income — “growth”.
For instance, “increasing oil production”
means “consuming even faster our
dwindling stock of the most versatile and
precious of our irreplaceable fossil fuels”.
Many other resources are ‘renewable’
because they are naturally regenerated.
But even these are not unlimited; we can
only go on using them in the long term if
we do not exceed the rate at which they
are naturally regenerated. Unfortunately,
it isn’t always obvious when we are overusing a particular type of resource, either
locally or globally.
Human ingenuity has found all sorts
of ways to overcome shortfalls in one
resource by using more of another.
For instance, developed countries use
A number of countries have recently
made a commitment to increase the
proportion of energy they use from renewable and other carbon-free sources.
Nuclear energy is carbon-free at the
point of use, but nuclear power stations
are very expensive to build.
Moreover, there is not yet a full consensus regarding either their operational
safety or the satisfactory disposal of
radioactive waste.
Other low carbon energy sources include
such renewables as hydro-electricity,
biomass, wind, wave, tidal, solar thermal,
solar photo- voltaic power, geothermal,
etc. These are all likely to have a part to
play in providing sustainable and environmentally friendly power, but they should
not be seen as a panacea for the energy
problems facing human societies in the
foreseeable future.
Problems with renewable energy sources
also include the cost of development and
implementation, and the intermittent
availability of many renewable sources:
wind for example is both variable and
unpredictable. This last factor makes it
very difficult and expensive to integrate
a high percentage of renew- able-based
energy into the general energy supply,
as discussed in-depth in the Journal.
Moreover, simply because an energy
source is renewable does not mean that
it is unlimited. The greater the total
energy demand, the more difficult it will
be to satisfy it in an entirely sustainable
manner. Simply substituting fossil fuels
with renewable sources will not make
it possible for an ever-growing world
16
growing demand is putting pressure
on the supply of materials. As mineral
deposits are depleted we are increasingly turning to harder-to-access, more
expensive sources. Western society
depends overwhelmingly on oil-based
plastics, derived from this finite resource.
Plant-based materials compete with food
production. Building materials require
quarrying which destroys the natural
environment. And both increased logging
and larger plantations degrade virgin
forests.
Some resources, such as rare minerals,
are nonrenewable. Once they have been
used up they are gone forever. Unfortunately, especially with mineral resources,
conventional economics can be misleading about their abundance; more account
is often taken of the human effort to
extract them than of their value as nonrenewable geological resources. Econo-
nonrenewable energy resources (oil and
natural gas) to manufacture fertilisers in order to grow a larger amount of
food than would otherwise be possible
using genuinely sustainable methods of
agriculture. When talking about sustainability, it is always necessary to see the
bigger picture.
More about raw materials
To achieve even a basic standard of
living, people need access to a certain
amount of various raw materials – as a
minimum, sufficient to make tools and
clothing, provide shelter and grow food.
In industrialised economies, the range
and quantity of materials exploited
are extensive, and in most cases large
amounts of energy are also used in
the extraction and production process.
Anyone concerned with the future of life
on this planet ought to be aware of the
range and quantity of raw materials from
which the vast number of products created by industrial economies are made.
Renewable and non-renewable
materials
Some of these materials, minerals in
particular, are non-renewable. Once used,
resources are only renewed over a geological time- frame of millions of years.
For the purposes of our species, they
simply cease to exist. Others, especially
those derived from biomass (plants, animals and other living things) are usually
renewable in principle. This means that
to some extent they can continue to be
exploited on an ongoing basis. But being
renewable does not imply unlimited
availability. Renewable resources cannot
continue to be used beyond the rate
at which they are regenerated. This is
of course what “sustainability” means.
Stocks of biological capital that may have
taken thousands, if not millions, of years
to accumulate are all too often used far
more rapidly than they could ever be
renewed. This can lead to sudden unavailability of raw materials upon which
people have come to rely. In the worst
cases, over-exploitation also destroys
the ecosystems from which materials
arise, in which case the over-exploitation
becomes irreversible and the materials
cease to be renewable. The consequences of unsustainable exploitation
of renewable materials are particularly
harmful when those exploiting them are
unaware of the threat their actions pose
to vulnerable ecosystems, or if they are
either unable or unwilling to reduce their
exploitation and consumption
Timber and deforestation
Tømmer og skog er et godt eksempel
pTimber and forests are a prime example
of over-exploited renewable resources.
Since prehistoric times people have used
wood for fuel, to make tools and shelter
and, until the 19th century, timber was
the principal material for ship building.
Since as long ago as Roman times, demand for timber has resulted in local and
regional deforestation, with consequent
reduction in the amount subsequently
available. Likewise, demand for agricultural land has long been a cause of
deforestation. With the rapid increase
of human population through the 20th
century, the problem has escalated,
with serious knock-on effects in terms
of habitat loss and reduction in biodiversity. Forests are also important to
the climate because they absorb carbon
dioxide and therefore help mitigate the
global warming effect of burning fossil
fuels. Destruction of forests makes the
problem of climate change worse.
Fossil fuels
Oil and other fossil fuels are another important case, though in this instance the
resource is non-renewable. Not only are
fossil fuels – oil in particular – sources of
much of the energy we use for specific
purposes, e.g. air travel, they are also the
raw material for petrochemical products.
These include most of the plastics which
go into the manufacture of a vast range
of domestic and industrial products.
Artificial fertilisers
Artificial fertilisers can dramatically
increase crop yields. Though alternative
methods of achieving similar or nearly
similar yields have been advocated, for
example by the Soil Association, artificial
fertilisers are quick and easy to apply,
and in many countries agriculture is
heavily reliant on them. The principal
chemical elements used in large quantities are potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus. Though these are all abundant,
converting them into an agriculturallyuseful form requires large amounts
of energy, usually derived directly or
indirectly from fossil fuels. Nitrate and
urea- based nitrogen fertilisers are prime
examples.
Construction materials
Buildings, transport infrastructure and
machinery require large quantities of raw
materials. Stone is a non-renewable raw
material of mineral origin, though in most
cases the environmental and energy
impact of extracting, transporting and
working it is of more immediate signifi-
cance than its availability.
Brick, concrete, glass, and steel and other
metals are also manufactured from mineral- derived raw materials. Apart from
some of the rarer metals, most of the
minerals involved are relatively abundant,
but the amount of energy required to
make the final material will progressively
increase as the more easily- extracted
deposits become worked out.
Timber is renewable, but only if the rate
of logging does not outstrip the speed
of replacement. Plastics, which are being used increasingly for construction
purposes are extremely energy intensive
to produce and often environmentally
polluting.
Electrical and electronic goods
By weight, most electronic and electrical
goods are composed mainly of plastic,
glass, steel, aluminium and other fairly
common constructional materials. But
many of them also contain substantial
amounts of less common metals such as
copper, and significant amounts of much
rarer elements such as cadmium or gold.
Many of these are also toxic if discarded
into the environment
Competing demand for land
A large number of renewable materials are derived from biomass. Inevitably
there are competing demands on the
finite amount of land available to grow
crops for food, clothing (such as cotton)
or energy (such as biofuels), and the
same land may also be in demand for
timber. As the number of humans and
the size of their economies increase,
17
the pressure on productive land and the
water supplies needed to grow anything
on this land will inevitably also increase,
giving rise to conflict.
Recycling
Recycling is advocated by many, both to
reduce the amount of pollution caused
by waste materials and to conserve
resources of raw materials. However, it
should not be seen as a panacea for the
environmental and resource availability
problems of our industrial economies.
Though recycling can greatly reduce the
amount of (new) raw materials required,
100% recycling is impossible in practice.
Additionally, a great deal of energy is
needed to recycle many materials back
into products which are fit for purpose,
as with scrap metal and paper. Recycling
is very seldom a better environ- mental
option than using less of the material in
the first place. Nor is it a better alternative to designing products with components which can be reused with minimal
reprocessing once the original product
reaches the end of its useful life.
Moreover, things that by their nature
are trans- formed by use, such as food
or fuel (whether renewable or not) are
impossible to recycle. The best we can
hope for may be to reuse their elemental constituents and some important
molecular components.
Scarcity of materials
The majority of manufactured materials
are made predominantly from chemical
elements which are abundant in or on the
earth’s crust, oceans and atmosphere. So
long as we are dealing with things made
from these common elements, the ultimate limiting factor in their manufacture
is more likely to be the energy required
to convert the elements into useful
forms than the absolute scarcity of the
elements themselves.
On the other hand, the more dispersed
the key elements become in the environment and the leaner the remaining
mineral deposits, the more difficult and
energy-expensive it will become to
gather and convert them into useful
materials. Aluminium, for example, is a
major component of many rocks, but
there are very few ores from which it can
be extracted on an economic basis. In the
case of rarer metals, the environmental
cost of extracting even relatively small
quantities is often already enormous in
terms of energy and pollution.
18
Some scarcer elements are essential to
many forms of life in very small quantities, i.e. as trace elements, iodine and
selenium for example. Natural processes
have evolved allowing living things to
concentrate these elements sufficiently
to survive, but industry has more of
a problem. Several very scarce elements, such as gold and cadmium, are
used in substantial quantities because
they have specific physical or chemical
properties (for example in electronics
or as catalysts). Future developments
in chemistry may lead to the development of substances made from common
elements that can provide equivalent
properties, but it would seem wise not to
rely on this. We may have to accept that
scarcity of crucial raw materials and the
cost of finding alternatives might cause
the micro-electronics revolution to peter
out.
ing from “water-stress”.
As the more easily won deposits become
depleted, the financial and energy costs,
as well as the direct environmental
impact of extracting the remaining
minerals, increase. Many economically
important but relatively rare minerals are
found in only a few places. This can be a
great opportunity for local people, but in
developing countries the opportunities
are not always shared equitably. Poverty
can remain and too often conflict results.
Much of modern technology depends
Minerals
Mineraler er naturlig forekommende Minerals are naturally occurring substances
formed by geological processes. A large
proportion of construction materials
and the raw materials for a substantial
number of industrial goods are of mineral
origin. Minerals in the soil are also essential for the production of food.
Some minerals are relatively abundant
but many are only found in small quantities or in a few places. Although a few
minerals continue to be formed by ongoing geological processes, the majority
are effectively non-renewable resources
because the geological processes forming them take place very infrequently or
very slowly. Any mineral which takes millions of years to form is effectively non
renewable on a human time scale.
Large-scale extraction and conversion
of minerals involves large amounts of
energy to remove the material from
the ground, to separate out the useful components and to transport them
to the point of use or the conversion
plant. In many cases, including manufacture of the majority of metals, it is
also necessary to convert the mineral
into a chemically useful form, another
energy- intensive process. Especially
when mineral deposits are very thinly
spread out, extraction and conversion
create large amounts of waste, leading to further environmental problems,
particularly when these wastes contain
toxic materials. Mineral extraction and
separation often use large amounts of
water and result in severe pollution of
water resources in areas already suffer-
on using increasing amounts of scarce
resources, in particular of rare metals.
Once the accessible deposits have been
exhausted, manufactured goods which
depend on these substances become
increasingly expensive to produce and,
in extreme cases, it may no longer be
possible to meet the demand for them.
As with energy, the situation is inherently unsustainable so long as people’s
expectations continue to rise and our
numbers continue to increase.
.
Space & amenities
Space
Ever more people need ever more space.
For many people, the amount of personal
space they have affects their perceived
quality of life. Their sense of wellbeing depends to some extent on: having
enough space; having access to green
areas; being able to move from one place
to another with ease; and having times
of tranquillity..
Fasiliteter
Ever more people need ever more amenity. Around the world, as populations
rise, more and more unspoilt countryside
is being lost to urban and industrial
development. Only protected lands, such
as national parks and nature reserves
are safe from development. In some
countries even protected areas are under
threat as demand for additional housing,
driven partly by population growth, is
creating pressure to allow development
on “green belt” or “green space” areas
set aside to limit the further spread of
urbanisation. In towns and cities playing
fields and gardens are increasingly being
lost to urban in-fill.
Green spaces
Ever more people need ever more transport. Levels of traffic congestion around
the world are rising as populations grow
and become more urbanised. The consequences include lengthening journey
times, more stress and deteriorating
health, as well as increased pollution
levels and fuel consumption, all of which
adversely affect productivity and quality
of life.
There are more people in the world than
ever before and we are living closer together, with over half the world’s population now in towns and cities1. Much of
the population growth is in areas which
already suffer the greatest pres- sure of
numbers. This overcrowding and loss of
amenity is causing economic loss. Studies
have suggested that overcrowding and
a lack of access to green spaces can
contribute to stress and mental health
issues.
Space
The amount of space per person is diminishing relentlessly. This is happening both
in developing countries with high birth
rates and in developed countries where
populations are growing more slowly
but an increasing proportion live in large
conurbations. This means that people live
further from their places of employment
and further from the countryside. At the
same time, countryside and urban green
spaces are shrinking and so are more
difficult to access. In towns and cities,
in recent years many playing fields have
been lost to residential or commercial
development, while larger gardens are
used for infill housing. In London, for example, 32 sq km of gardens are reported
to have been lost to housing development over a five-year period. Public parks
are becoming more crowded and are
being encroached upon. Noise and light
pollution mean that the peace and quiet
which used to be common over much of
the country is increasingly rare, affecting
both wildlife and people.
In the UK, there is increasing pressure to
provide additional housing by building in
designated Green Belt areas, which risks
turning large parts of the country into
unbroken stretches of urban regions.
Many people already object to new housing or business developments close to
where they live, often referred to as Not
in My Back Yard or NIMBYism. Although
many people value undeveloped land and
green space as individuals, such space is
rarely given sufficient official recognition. All too often they are inadequately
protected except in designated national
parks.
Transport
Increases in population size and density
often take place without sufficient
investment in transport infrastructure.
When this happens people are subjected
to unnecessary stress as a result of
more time spent travelling, delays and
overcrowded public transport systems.
Overloaded transport systems result in a
number of negative effects:
•
Longer journey times, either as the
direct result of delays or the need
to allow extra time to cater for unpredictability. Often the extra time
is wasted because it cannot be used
productively.
Personal space?
19
•
•
•
•
•
•
20
20
Increasingly uncomfortable and unsafe travelling conditions for those
using public transport systems..
Arriving late for work, meetings, etc,
thereby wasting time both for the
traveller and others.
Consequent loss of economic
productivity.
Wasted fuel because vehicles are
unable to operate at optimum
speeds and are required to make
higher numbers of acceleration/deceleration cycles.
Consequent additional wear and
tear on vehicles and higher levels of
air pollution.
Stressed and frustrated travellers,
which may lead to road rage and
•
•
reduced mental and physical health.
Traffic congestion delays to emergency vehicles.
“Rat runs” through residential and
recreational areas due to spill-over
of traffic from congested routes,
with consequent loss of amenity,
local noise, air pollution and greater
risk of accidents.
In many developing countries there are
insufficient resources to invest in adequate transport systems for a growing
population. But wealthier countries such
as the United Kingdom also experience unacceptable levels of investing
in inappropriate forms of transport
infrastructure. This may in part be the
result of investing in inappropriate forms
of transport infrastructure. However, it is
also the result of a ‘predict and provide’
approach intended to satisfy such everincreasing demand for travel as may
arise, rather than any attempt to manage the demand itself. The underlying
transport problem in densely populated
countries is often that there are “simply
too many people”.
Value of biodiversity.
Ecosystems, interdependent webs of living organisms and natural resources, are essential to sustain all life on
earth. Throughout earth’s history, healthy ecosystems have usually been resilient enough to adapt to gradual environmental change. Existing species may evolve or new species move in, in response to small changes in the habitat
without collapse of the entire system.
Biodiversity, the range and variation of
species in an ecosystem is a major factor in its resilience. If the environment
changes and some organisms can no
longer thrive, others will take their place.
Many of the species vital to healthy
ecosystems may appear insignificant.
Insects for example play an essential role
in pollinating food crops.
will impact on the others with which it
overlaps and into which it grades.
Species diversity refers to the number of
different species in a certain area. It is,
of course, very difficult to count all the
species present – some are too small,
live in inaccessible places, only use the
area at certain times of day or year, or
The sheer variety of species and habitats
on the planet is vast. This is of vital
importance because it underpins the
functioning of the ecosystems on which
we depend for water and food, health
and recreation.
The importance of biodiversity is often
undervalued even though it helps humanity by:
•
•
•
•
A healthy ecosystem can be buffered
to some extent, mitigating change.
Over time, the composition of species
may change but the ecosystem will still
function to sustain life. The change may
be caused by new species moving into
the environment, by existing species
increasing or decreasing, or by evolution over time. Resources are normally
recycled within an ecosystem, and small,
progressive changes can generally be
accommodated without col- lapse of the
system. The greater the biodiversity, the
more likely it is that the system is able to
adjust to changes. But natural communities are very complex and it is impossible
to predict accurately what effect changing even one parameter will have on the
whole.
regulating the chemistry of the
atmosphere and water supply;
providing crucial ecological services
such as the mass pollination of food
crops throughout the world;;
o recycling nutrients crucial to
the maintenance of the earth’s soil
fertility;
and supplying genetic variants for
crop development and the creation
of new medicines.
Where elements of biodiversity are lost,
ecosystems become less resilient to
sudden pressures such as disease and
climatic extremes
More about ecosystems and biodiversity
An ecosystem is defined as a community of living organisms, together
with the physical environment they
occupy at any given time. The diversity
of ecosystems is difficult to estimate as
ecosystems grade into one another and
large ecosystems may contain diverse
smaller ones. Our planet as a whole is an
eco- system, but it contains many others:
forests, deserts and oceans for instance,
which are themselves made up of smaller
ecosystems, for example, coral reefs and
shallow seas within the oceans. These
in turn are made up of many yet smaller
ecosystems, such as mangrove swamps,
which border on and grade into terrestrial
ecosystems. Change in one ecosystem
Why biodiversity matters
Every individual is dependent on its
environment, both the physical (rainfall,
soil type, temperature, oxygen gradient,
light, etc) and living (other individuals
of its own and other species) and how
these interact. Change in any aspect of
these environments will impact on, and
may destroy, whole communities.
are very rare. Despite this, the number
of species present is probably the most
common measure of biodiversity used
by conservationists; it is measured in
different ways, but most include weighting for numbers of individuals as well as
numbers of species. A field with 99 buttercups and one daisy is not as diverse as
one with 56 buttercups and 44 daisies!
Genetic diversity refers to the variation
between individuals of a single species,
between different groups (races, populations or breeds) of the same species, and
between versions of the same gene in
different individuals in a population. The
genetic difference between individuals
of the same species is the raw material
of evolution. It allows species to adapt
over generations to some of the changes
in their environment, which would otherwise put them at risk of extinction.
.
Of course extinctions are not new and it
is estimated that the number of species
living at the present time constitute only
about 1% of all species that have ever
lived.
There have been both gradual and
sudden changes to ecosystems, both in
terms of number and composition, over
geological time.
Our early human ancestors have been
part of the earth’s ecosystem for at least
the last two million years. The biodiversity of the planet has provided for all
our needs: fuels, raw materials for food,
clothes and medicines and ways of dealing with our waste. The requirements of
our species are not going to change – to
survive successfully we will always need
clean water, good food, clean air and
biological waste-disposal services.
Biodiversity and us
Agricultural diversity refers to the
21
biodiversity of the plants and animals
that feed us. But, even where cultivated,
all our food plants and animals are
derived from wild populations. Intensive selection to maximise useful traits
reduces the variation within these basic
genetic stocks; the resultant uniformity
of species type works well until external
factors change – we then need access to
variation to find individuals that can cope
with the new environmental factors.
By contrast, for instance, the 2010
floods in Pakistan were exacerbated by
the loss of forests at the headwaters
of the Indus. “Deforestation played a
tremendous role in aggravating the
Humans have not been good at living
sustainably within their local environments, but until recently we have had a
whole world to expand into and exploit;
when one geographic area became
un-liveable, populations moved, locally
died out or brought resources in from
neighbouring areas.
The Irish potato famine in the 1840s occurred because farmers in Ireland found
a couple of varieties of potato which did
very well on their land. They grew these
at the expense of most other crops and
all other potato varieties; the human
population grew until blight (to which the
selected varieties were not resistant)
decimated the potato crop. As a result,
about a million people in Ireland starved
to death and a further million were
forced to emigrate, reducing Ireland’s
population by between 20 and 25%.
We have already lost many natural
resources over the last two hundred
years. Marine fisheries are collapsing
while freshwater fish are generally in
decline. These are simply two examples;
virtually all natural ecosystems are being
diminished at an increasing rate.
Arable soil is a critical resource for agriculture and we are losing it much faster
than it is being formed. Forests are being
felled and soils exposed. Land is cleared
and planted with monocultures that do
not hold the soil together. Water and
wind loosen the soil so that it is washed
and blown away. A healthy forest acts
like a sponge and holds rainwater, releasing it slowly.
22
Madagascar, as much as 400 tons of
mass for each hectare is disappearing annually. This erosion is primarily a
threat for agriculture, which is the most
important industry on the island. When
the soil is lost, the source for food and
income is also lost. The main deforestation of Madagascar’s central inland area
is mainly what is causing the erosion.
floods,” said Ghulam Akbar, director of
the Pakistan Wetlands Program, an environment protection group funded by the
United Nations and other inter- national
organizations. “Had there been good
forests, as we used to have 25 years
back, the impact of flooding would have
been much less.”
Another example is erosion, which is
one of the main problems for Madagascar, and is the source of the figurative
speech; “a bleeding Madagascar”. The
erosion is visible from space. From here,
astronauts noticed the red rivers that
carry the land with them, and this forms
a distinct symbolism. In some areas of
Humans have always been very good at
inventing new technologies. These have
brought many benefits (from early agriculture to air travel). On the other hand,
such advances in technology have always consumed more natural resources
and energy than a basic hunter gatherer
would have needed. These progressive
technological developments have allowed our species to generate increasing
amounts of material wealth, and since
pre- historic times these developments
have supported a gradual accompanying
increase in human numbers.
However, since the industrial revolution,
and the technological “leverage” provided by the use of fossil fuels, there has
been a steep change, both in the amount
of natural resources consumed and the
size of the human population that these
resources have gone on to support.
All over the earth our need for natural
resources to support people and their
technologies has pushed other
species towards extinction. We take
their food, destroy their habitat, pollute
and change the chemical and physical
balance of their environments. A prime
example is climate change caused, or at
least exacerbated by human activity, one
of the greatest threats to ecosystems
around the world.
In fact, so many species have now vanished forever that many scientists are
referring to the present epoch as “the
sixth mass extinction”, on a par with the
one that eradicated the dinosaurs.
We do not know how many species we
can afford to lose, nor do we know which
endangered species are key to our own
survival, but we do now know many
examples of habitats, which have been
made uninhabitable.
References
1. http://www.sms.si.edu/irlspec/
whats_biodiv.htm
2. http://www.esa.org/education_diversity/pdfDocs/biodiversity.pdf
3. http://canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca/
english/theory/threelevels.htm
4. http://hypertextbook.com/
facts/2003/FelixNisimov.shtml
5. http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-anastrobiologist/question/?id=25
6. http://www.americanscientist.
org/issues/pub/hunting-the-firsthominid/2
7. http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/
ireland/famine.htm
8. http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8385
9. http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/87-040.htm
10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/
tech/758899.stm
11. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/
oct/13/world/la-fg-pakistan-logging-20101013
12. http://www.actionbioscience.org/
newfrontiers/eldredge2.htm
Declining biodiversity
“The sixth mass extinction”
Since life appeared on earth, there have
been several mass extinctions in which
many of the earth’s species were wiped
out because of climate change, volcanic
activity, the impact of an asteroid or
reasons we have not yet discovered. The
plants and animals which currently live
on Earth have continued to evolve over
the 65 million years since the last mass
extinction. But many scientists consider
the huge reduction in biodiversity since
the emergence of humans is now on the
scale of another mass extinction. This is
known as the Holocene, or — because it
is man-made in origin — Anthropocene,
extinction.
Habitat loss
Ever more people need ever more space.
Human activity continues to encroach on
natural environments, thereby destroying the habitats of countless species.
While some progress has been made in
slowing the rate of loss of tropical forests and mangroves, serious declines are
also being seen worldwide in freshwater
wetlands, sea ice habitats, salt marshes,
coral reefs, seagrass beds and shellfish
reefs. Many of the large predators worldwide suffer the consequences. They in
contact with humans more often, and
may then become a threat to us. They
must die for this, as we take their lives
and then take their habitat.
Over exploitation
Ever more people need ever more stuff.
Humankind’s relentless consumption
of resources such as timber, oil and
minerals is continuing to destroy natural
habitats around the globe. We are also
putting enormous pressure on populations of wild species, both by hunting in
the developing world and by large-scale
industrial fishing in our seas. The need,
or human striving, for “things”, kills our
fellow creatures. The elephants die for
our embellishment and decoration. The
rainforests are cut down to provide us
with beautiful garden furniture. Sharks
are abused and drowned because their
fins are important for consistency in an
exotic soup. Animals with fur need to
suffer until they die in small cages, so
that we humans can dress up in fur during winter.
Urbanisation
Ever more people need ever more homes.
In most industrialised countries and a
growing number of developing ones over
half the population live in cities. Properly
designed cities and agricultural systems
can sometimes support people with a
lower impact on biodiversity than can a
more evenly spread population. But as
our numbers rise, cities and industrial
areas are growing and merging into each
other, fragmenting the remaining habitat
leaving isolated “islands” of natural populations of plants and animals too small
to survive. Evidence indicates that if the
trend will continue as it does today, the
large animal migrations taking place in
Kenya and Tanzania for example, may be
history in the not too distant future.
Intensive agriculture
Ever more people need ever more food. In
order to feed the numbers of people living on the Earth today, humanity has developed agricultural systems which rely
on monocultures, artificial fertilisers and
pesticides. Monocultures are increasingly
susceptible to disease, pesticide use destroys insect populations indiscriminately, whilst fertiliser runoff pollutes water
courses. In addition, the growing pressure
on food supplies means an increasing
proportion of agricultural land is farmed
intensively, with fewer off seasons or
fallow years in which to recover.
Primitive agriculture, which occurs due
to lack of knowledge, leads to a third
of Madagascar being burned each year.
The fires are usually intended, and aim
to clear land for farming. The fires often
come out of control and spread, with
subsequent destruction of Madagascar’s
unique ecosystems. The reason is the
need for food. The result is the flooding
and erosion, washing away earth that
could have been cultivated instead.
Pollution
Ever more people produce ever more
waste and pollution. As well as affecting the lives of humans, noise, light and
chemical pollution can disrupt wildlife
behaviour. Light from human activities
makes it harder for predator species to
catch their prey. Noise pollution interrupts both hunting and mating signals
in many species, disturbing natural
behaviour.
The build-up of phosphates and nitrates
23
from agricultural fertilisers and sewage effluent is creating long-term algal
blooms in freshwater lakes and inland
water systems, causing fish stocks to
decline, with serious implications for food
security in many developing countries.
As populations increase, the disposal of
waste becomes an increasingly serious
issue. Pollution will always be a consequence, whether we use land fill, incinerators or disposal at sea and in watercourses. The disposal of toxic materials
poses significant additional hazards and
problems.
Invasive species
As a consequence of the introduction
of non-native species to some areas,
such as rabbits in Australia or goats on
St. Helena, we have put many vulnerable ecosystems at risk. In the end, this
threatens the native ecological balance
and provide a diminishing biodiversity.
Natural migration of species should not
be confused with this.
weather patterns are changing and
becoming increasingly unpredictable. This
has serious consequences as it affects
the abundance and distribution of species both in water and on land.
Take, for example, the impact of changing rainfall patterns and shrinking glaciers
on water supply. Fresh water is essential
for human life; for drinking, sanitation and irrigation. Any interruption to
predictable patterns of water supply will
have immediate and dire consequences
for the populations affected.
Approximately 500 million people have
some measure of dependence on tropical
Climate change
The climate has warmed significantly
in recent decades. Modern industrial
activity is based largely on the burning
of fossil fuels that give rise to carbon dioxide emissions. It is generally accepted
that this is a major cause of such climate
change and that the warming is set to
continue.
Every additional person increases carbon
emissions, the rich more than the poor;
and increases the number of climate
change victims, the poor more than the
rich.
As the temperature rises, climate and
24
coral reef systems for their livelihoods
and food security. However, ocean
acidification, significantly warmer waters
and other human-induced stresses are
currently putting these systems at grave
risk.
More generally, rising sea levels will affect the large number of people around
the world living in low-lying areas and
coastal regions. These highly fertile areas
will be lost and their populations forced
to migrate. Overall, environmental refugees could reach 200 million by 2050
due to climate change related drought,
flooding and salination.
We already know that we must change
how we live and consume less in order
to reduce the threat posed by climate
change. Increasing numbers of people
will only add to the problems we all face.
Consumption
Social justice
Inequalities of wealth are significant and growing, both between
countries and within both rich and
poor countries. It is believed that
this will increasingly reduce the
peace and order in society.
Inequalities of wealth are significant and
growing, both between countries and
within both rich and poor countries. It is
believed that this will increasingly reduce
the peace and order in society.
When communities are very poor they are
less able to afford reproductive health
services. In addition, people are more
likely to want several children to support
them in old age and to help generate
income, though this can be counter-productive if their well-being is really limited
by the amount of land or water available
to grow crops.
Large differences in prosperity between
countries drive people to migrate.
Large-scale migration can undermine the
stability of the destination country and
deplete the country of origin of scarce
skills.
In more prosperous countries most
people have sufficient to meet their
basic human needs. Once this has been
achieved, further consumption increases
wellbeing only at a diminishing rate.
There is evidence to show that when
people see others enjoying things they
can’t afford themselves it can make them
unhappy, even if the things involved
don’t directly add anything tangible to
their wellbeing. In a very unequal society,
especially where the super-rich are
conspicuously affluent, people will aspire
to an unsustainable “celebrity lifestyle”.
This reduces happiness and increases the
overall level of consumption when there
simply are not the resources available for
large numbers to live in such a manner.
poor people in these countries have large
families to counter high levels of child
mortality and to sustain them in their
old age. At societal level however, the
resultant overall numbers of population
together with limited resources condemn
their people to ongoing poverty.
than fewer children.
Concerted action is called for on the
part of the developed world. Humanitarian assistance and development aid to
provide education, encourage female
empowerment and ensure access to
family planning resources are necessary
to help developing countries break out of
their poverty trap.
The Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), set out in 1990, aim to tackle
the most acute problems arising from
extreme poverty, with targets including
halving the proportion of people living in
extreme poverty (less than $1 a day) and
hunger by 2015. The 2009 MDG report
shows a greatly reduced proportion
of people in extreme poverty in some
developing regions – from just under half
of the population in 1990 to slightly over
a quarter in 2005. Most of the reduction
has taken place in China and other Asian
countries. There has generally been
much less progress in the very poorest
countries.
Other countries are developing unevenly,
with huge numbers of extremely poor
people living alongside pockets of
urbanised modernity. For some people,
particularly in rural areas, large families
remain a way of boosting the family’s
ability to generate income. However,
this is becoming less true as population
growth limits available per capita land
resources.
For others, a desire for fewer children
is frustrated as a lack of health and
transport infrastructure limits access to
the reliable supplies of contraception
they need. On the other hand, children
may be a parent’s only form of security in
old-age. Where poverty results in a high
rate of infant mortality, this is a further
incentive for people to have more rather
Data from 2005 showed that around 1.4
billion people, one in four of those in the
developing world, were subsisting on less
than $1.25 per day1, defined by the UN
as an international indicator of poverty.
The relationship between population
growth and poverty is a vicious circle.
Rapid population growth is an obstacle
to economic progress in some of the
poorest countries, depriving those societies of funds for investment to develop.
At the same time, poverty fuels overpopulation by depriving women of both
the incentive and the means to have
fewer children.
There may be limited or no access to
Poverty
A billion people live in extreme poverty
in our world today. It is these people
who are most at risk from the threats of
environmental damage, climate change
and the consequent loss of resources.
Most of these people live in developing
countries. Some countries find themselves in a “self reinforcing poverty trap”;
25
contraception due to problems with
administration, awareness, distribution,
conflict, or affordability. High child mortality rates contribute to women bearing
many children, as they will be unsure of
how many will survive. Households may
rely on the labour of their children. In
many developing countries, children are
the only means parents have of assuring
their own security in their old age.
mother living on $1 per day knows her
children will be better fed if there are
four round the table rather than 10,
every education minister knows he could
build more colleges if any increase in his
budget was not immediately swallowed
up by the need to build ever more primary schools for the ever-growing new
cohorts. Thus family planning contributes
more to development than vice versa.
Conversely, high population growth contributes to poverty. High fertility rates
affect the health of mothers and families, increasing the risk of maternal, infant
and child mortality, all of which combine
to entrench poverty. At a societal level,
rapid population growth increases the
number of people in need of health care,
education and livelihoods. This in turn
requires more financial, material and
natural resources. With the exception of
a few oil-rich states, no country has risen
from poverty in recent times whilst still
maintaining high levels of fertility.
It is of course true that greater prosperity in a more stable population may
increase environmental impacts as fast
or faster than rapidly growing numbers
of very poor people. But nobody can
reasonably deny the poor the right to escape poverty. Hence our support for the
principle of contraction and convergence.
Of course developing countries should
also be supported in adopting environmentally sustainable technology.
Nevertheless, the basic fact remains that
countries with fewer people have a bet-
when more sustainable products and
services are available people are encouraged to use them. Using resources more
efficiently and developing more sustainable ways of doing things will continue
to be priorities.
Sustainable technology relies on
resources that are either renewable or
so abundant that we can treat them as
such.
For technology to be sustainable also
means that using it does not have any
long-term adverse impact on the environment.
Very little modern technology is truly
sustainable but industry and government
have been giving this objective gradually
more priority in recent years. This is of
course positive, but it is our belief that
the selfish pursuit for growth and money,
is slowing down or at worst destroying,
this development.
A further link between poverty, overpopulation and sustainability is that communities which are poor and overpopulated
are generally those which suffer most as
a result of rapid environmental change
and so called ‘natural’ disasters, as illustrated by the 2010 flooding of large
parts of Pakistan. Being poor makes it impossible to pay for measures to mitigate
the effects of climate change, and the
more people there are the more difficult
it is for them to move or to migrate to
areas less affected by the changes.
Economic development
There is a widespread but mistaken view
that “development is the best contraceptive”. It is true that as people become
richer they tend to have fewer children.
But the causal links work the other
way — very few countries so far have
managed a steady increase in prosperity
until they have reduced very high fertility
rates.
There is also a theory that women need
much better education as a precondition
for reducing their fertility. Again, it is true
that more educated girls tend to have
fewer children; but this is not a precondition, as family planning programmes
among illiterate women in Bangladesh
and other countries have shown.
The UK All-Party Parliamentary Group
2007 report Return of the Population
Growth Factor showed clearly that rapid
population growth was a major obstacle
to economic development. Just as every
26
ter chance of a decent life for everyone
than they would with ever-increasing
numbers.
Sustainable technologies
Although much progress has been
made to improve sustainability in recent
years, there are still many hurdles to be
overcome.
Efficient use of energy and other
resources is usually advantageous as
wasting less energy is typically cheaper
than producing more. Unfortunately,
environmentally friendly approaches can
be more expensive. It is important that
In energy generation, use of renewable
sources is growing, whether the source
of power is solar, wind, wave or geothermal. Biofuels and nuclear power are
more problematic and should be phased
out, but will nevertheless continue to be
important.
Efficient use of energy needs to be
encouraged. The less energy we use,
the smaller the amount of renewables
we need to develop in order to reduce
reliance on nonrenewable, polluting and
carbon dioxode-emitting fossil fuels.
Wind industry is currently not sustain-
21
able, being highly unstable and consumes
vast natural spaces and is therefore very
suitable to combat climate change.
Efforts to reduce water losses in
distribution networks are continuing
and users will have an incentive to use
water more efficiently as prices rise. In
agriculture, drip feed irrigation holds the
promise of a more effective use of water
with less wastage.
Longstanding campaigns have already
reduced the amount of material used
in manufacturing, by better design and
by recycling. This should continue to be
encouraged as should the reduction of
the amount of packaging.
Advances in information technology
mean that many previously physical
products — novels, films, music — can be
provided digitally. An increasing proportion of business travel can now be
replaced by electronic communications
and use of the internet. However, we
need to remember that manufacture of
electronic equipment still requires scarce
materials and using the equipment still
uses some energy.
In summary, improved technology will
continue to play a major role in moving
humanity towards sustainability, but
relying on improved technology alone
is not enough. We still need to reduce
individual consumption and stabilise our
population.
«Contraction and Convergence»
What is a sustainable lifestyle?
Humanity as a whole is already consuming more resources than the Earth can in
the longer term provide. Therefore consumption in the richer countries will have
to be reduced to allow those in poorer
countries to attain a decent lifestyle.
Consumption will inevitably grow in
developing countries as they industrialise
and urbanise, even if they take on board
the need for sustainable lifestyles. It will
be up to wealthier communities, principally in developed countries, to moderate
their lifestyles and adopt consciously
green practices.
We already know that what one country
considers acceptable would be considered far from acceptable to another. How
should the level be set? By whom? On
what criteria?
The concept of Contraction and Convergence (C&C) was conceived by the
Global Commons Institute in the early
1990s. The principle is that the rich
should consume progressively far less
resources per capita than before, while
the poor consume rather more than they
did, so we converge towards a common
‘fair share’ for each, which the planet can
sustain.
We support this principle of C&C or global
equity, but it must take account of the
plain arithmetic fact that every additional
person reduces everyone else’s sustainable share. We have therefore insisted on
including a population base year at which
the ultimate target figures, notably for
sustainable carbon emissions per person,
should be calculated country by country.
Without it, countries with high population
growth would consume ever more, at the
expense of those who had succeeded in
restraining or reducing their numbers.
Population numbers, lifestyles, and sustainable technologies are a classic tradeoff. If we want a sustainable future, we
need to address not one or two but all
three of these issues in parallel.
22
27
28
Storbritannia misunner Norge
The UK Envies Norway
Norge er i den heldige situasjon av å være en av de eneste 9 industrilandene ikke helt ennå har et økologisk overforbruk. Ifølge
Global Footprint Network (som vant den prestisjetunge Blue
Planet Award i fjor), har dere fortsatt 13% av deres biologiske
kapasitet igjen. Dette betyr, i motsetning til oss i Storbritannia,
at dere lever bærekraftig akkurat innenfor dine naturalinntekter i form av fornybare økologiske tjenester (som vann, jord,
skog, karbonbinding, avfall absorpsjon osv.), at landet Norge
kan levere til din nåværende befolkning på ditt nåværende
forbruksnivå. Men vi vil oppfordre dere som venner å unngå våre
feil, og verdsette dette misunnelsesverdige fortrinnet, og å
være forsiktig med ytterligere vekst i enten befolkningen eller
ressursforbruk per person. Vekst i en av delene, og ikke minst
vekst i begge, vil snart drive dere inn i overbelastning - som de
fleste land allerede er i, og befolkningen deres ser ut til å være
øke uvanlig raskt for et utviklet land med på 0,9% per år (tall fra
2009).
Norway is in the happy position of being one of the only 9
developed countries not quite yet in ecological ‘Overshoot’.
According to the Global Footprint Network (which won the
prestigious Blue Planet Award last year), you still have 13% of
your ‘biocapacity’ in reserve. This means that, unlike us in the
UK, you are still just living sustainably within your natural income in terms of the renewable ecological services (like water,
soil, forests, carbon sequestration, waste absorption etc.) that
the land of Norway can supply to your present population at
your present levels of consumption. But we would urge you as
friends to avoid our mistakes, to value this enviable asset, and
to be careful of further growth in either population or resource
consumption per person. Growth in either, let alone both, will
soon propel you into overshoot - as most countries already are;
and your population appears to be growing unusually fast for a
developed country, at 0.9% per year (2009 figure).
Kontrast Storbritannia
Vi er allerede 63 millioner mennesker, med 72% overforbruk,
og er avhengig av andre land eller naturalkapital for nesten
tre fjerdedeler for våre økotjenester. Så for å oppnå biofysisk
bærekraft, er vi nødt til å redusere vår befolkning, eller vårt forbruk, eller en form for kombinasjon opp mot 72%. Vi burde for
lenge siden ha vedtatt en nasjonal målsetning om å redusere
befolkningen, og for å lette smertene av de nødvendige reduksjoner i forbruket gjennom øko-skatt etc. Men våre tall øker
fortsatt raskt, ved 0,7% per år, 450.000 personer, det vil si en
ny by på størrelse med Liverpool. Våre offisielle anslag for 2050
er et sted mellom 67 og 87 millioner, eller mellom 8 og 48 flere
“Manchesters’ (vår tredje største by, med 500.000 personer).
Så allerede nå må vi montere nok fornybar energi, hus, skoler,
sykehus, veier, vannforsyning, avfall, fasiliteter etc for en ny
Liverpool hvert år bare for å stå stille i utviklingen av standarder
av service og karbonutslipp, uten ekstra fordel for noen. Og
dette må summeres opp til 24 millioner flere mennesker!
Contrast the UK.
We are already 63 million strong, and 72% overshot, drawing
on other countries or natural capital for nearly three quarters
of our eco-services. So to achieve bio-physical sustainability,
we shall have to reduce our population, or our consumption, or
some combination by 72%. We should long ago have adopted
a national objective of a reducing population, to ease the pain
of the necessary reductions in consumption through eco-taxes
etc. Yet our numbers are still growing fast, at 0.7% per year,
450,000 people, or one new city the size of Liverpool; and our
official projections for 2050 put us by then at somewhere
between 67 and 87 million, or between eight and 48 more
‘Manchesters’ (our third city, with 500,000 people). So we already have to instal enough renewable energy, houses, schools,
hospitals, roads, water supplies, waste facilities etc for a new
Liverpool each year just to stand still in standards of service
and carbon emissions, with no additional benefit for anyone;
and you can do the sums for up to 24 million more people!
Alt dette skjer til tross for at nesten ingen ønsker det. England (ikke Storbritannia) er allerede det mest overfylte landet i
Europa. Våre undersøkelser viser at 80% av oss foretrekker en
mindre befolkning. Vi er bare 60% selvforsynt med mat, selv
om vi har noen av de mest olje-intensive jordbrukene i verden.
Karboninnholdet i vår dyrkbare jord er en av de laveste i verden.
På denne tiden i fjor, opplevde vi alvorlig tørke som truet vannforsyningen. Vi er truet av en energikrise, ettersom gamle
kullfyrte kraftverk og kjernekraftverk blir lagt ned, men ikke
erstattet. Våre skoler sliter - maksimalt tillatt klassestørrelse
har nettopp gått opp, etter mange år med 30 barn per klasse.
Hvert år forsvinner mer av vårt jordbruksland til nye boliger. Og
økonomien vår er vokser bare med 0,6%, den vokser senere enn
befolkningstallene våre, så i gjennomsnitt blir vi alle fattigere
selv uten spareprogram.
This is all happening despite the fact that almost no-one wants
it. England (not the UK) is already the most over-crowded
country in Europe. Our polls show that 80% of us would prefer
a smaller population. We are only 60% self-sufficient in food,
even with some of the most oil-intensive agriculture in the
world. The carbon content of our arable land is one of the lowest in the world. This time last year, we faced a serious drought,
threatening water supplies. We have a looming crisis of energy
security, as old coal-fired power stations and nuclear plants
close, and are not replaced. Our schools are struggling - the
maximum permitted class size has just been raised, after many
years at 30 children. Each year, more of our farmland disappears
under new housing. And our economy is only growing at 0.6%,
slower than our population, so on average we are all getting
poorer even without the austerity programme.
Heldige Norge. Vennligst lær av våre feil!
Lucky Norway. Please learn from our mistakes!
Population
World Population Ageing
The world population is ageing, partly due to greater longevity, partly
due falling birth rates. This creates
the understandable concern that
the historical pattern of younger
generations caring for the elderly
will come under threat, with more
older people and few younger ones
to either care for them or contribute
towards pension provision.
The increased longevity is unprecedented, with people across the world living
much longer in much larger numbers
than ever before, due to better nutrition
and much improved healthcare. In most
countries, the increase is continuing, with
no certainty as to the outcome. While
the consequence is many more years
of active and healthy life, it also means
more years of being dependent on some
level of care. The generally falling birth
rate also contributes, contributing over
time to a changing age profile, where the
elderly contribute an ever greater proportion of society. Both trends are characteristic of much of the world, not just the
most developed countries.
At some point, the trends will presumably
cease, though nothing is certain. Longevity will cease to increase and birth rates
will stabilise. Certainly, birth rates have
ceased to fall in some European countries. The outcome will be a return to a
more balanced age profile, though with
a large proportion of elderly than is currently the case. Until that point, however,
there are adjustments which have to be
made to a very different situation than
we have experienced in the past.
Longer, healthier lives mean we can
work longer. With more flexible working
arrangements, more jobs can be done
by older workers, enabling them to top
up their pensions by working as much or
little as they choose. For instance, given
training and support, the fit old can care
for the infirm older. Much of the additional cost of supporting any increase in the
number of older people who are infirm
should be offset by the reduced cost of
less childcare.
The view that to look after ever more
old people we need ever more young
people, who will grow old in turn and
need yet more still to support them, is an
ecologically unsustainable social pyramid
scheme, benefiting the present generation at the expense of the next.
The problems of a stable or reducing
population are insignificant compared to
those certain to be caused by indefinite
growth.
Conflict & migration
Conflict is one human response to
scarcity of resources. Though a lack of
resources is rarely stated as justification
for any war, it is often likely to be an
underlying factor. War or civil war may be
the most extreme cases but many lesser
forms of conflict arise when resources
are in short supply, from the food riots
of recent years to bitter inter-communal
conflicts in Africa. Just as competition
for resources from population growth
can engender conflict, the disruption of
conflict can weaken access to family
planning. Failed states typically have a
high birth rate.
29
cause lower emissions. They use energy
efficient methods to heat and power
their homes. They recycle what they can
and seek to minimise their food miles and
food waste.
These are all to be welcomed. But they
only reduce a person’s impact to a
limited extent and only for their lifetime.
Your choice about how many children
you have is much more important. Each
additional child will have more impact
on the environment and consume more
resources than anything else you do over
your whole lifetime. And the impact will
continue for that child’s life and the lives
of his/her descendants.
Global migration is running at record
levels and is predicted to increase still
further as population growth, increased
extraction/exploitation, and climate
change increase pressure on resources,
particularly fisheries and food production.
There will always be reasons why people
want to move from one country to
another. Ever larger numbers of unemployed in poorer countries lead growing
numbers to seek a better life abroad.
Migration can bring benefits to both the
individuals and countries involved: the
individual can access new opportunities,
while the country of origin receives monies sent back to relatives: some countries
today rely on remittances for a large
proportion of their income. Likewise, the
country of destination obtains additional
skills and labour, though sometimes the
country of origin can ill afford to lose
them.
30
number of people moving into a country
is limited to the number leaving, seems a
sensible compromise between individual
rights and those of society as a whole.
Whatever the numbers, it is important to
apply policies in a humane and non-discriminatory manner and to maintain the
right of those in fear to seek asylum.
We believe the only just and long-term
solution to migration pressures is to address its underlying causes in the countries of origin, such as poverty, lack of or
overexploitation of resources, climate
change and conflict. Developed countries have a clear moral responsibility to
help with this, in that they contribute
to migratory pressures through being
both major consumers of resources from
developing countries and the principal
source of the causes of climate change.
However, large scale and persistent net
immigration can result in an imbalance
between demand for consumption and
sustainable resources. These growing
flows of increasingly desperate people
represent a humanitarian crisis and put
pressure on the sustainability of destination countries. Migrants from poor to
rich countries soon increase their own
consumption levels to match the unsustainable levels of their adopted country.
Sustained net migration therefore exacerbates the fundamental issue of global
unsustainability.
For countries such as the UK, which have
an ecologicial footprint larger than their
carrying capacity, we currently propose
balanced migration. This would still allow
substantial movements in both directions for family, economic and other
reasons.We support the right to asylum
for refugees with a well-founded fear of
persecution, and believe that immigration controls should be applied humanely.
We accept intra-EU migration, to which
its member countries are committed by
treaty and which is intended to come
into balance in the longer term as European economies converge.
Countries throughout the world are responding to higher population levels and
rising migration pressures by limiting immigration. Balanced migration, where the
Smaller families
IMany people today seek to live in a more
sustainable and environmentally friendly
manner. They travel less, or in ways that
So, please consider how many children
you have when you think about the sort
of world you want them to live in. It is
the biggest environmental decision you
will ever make.
What are our rights and responsibilities?
We strongly support human rights in general, and sexual and reproductive rights
in particular. Women all over the world
should be educated and empowered to
take control of their own fertility as a
basic human right.
At the same time there is a moral duty,
for those able to choose, to balance the
exercise of their individual rights with
their social and environmental responsibilities as citizens.
In developing countries the first priority
is to provide universal access to family
planning, as set out in Millennium Development Goal 5b. Without this, women
are unable to exercise their reproductive
rights; more than 200 million women
have an unmet need for family planning,
and that figure is increasing. Meanwhile,
the gap between contraceptive requirements and donor support has not yet
been closed. We believe there is a moral
duty on donor organisations to meet that
need and close that gap.
In developed countries, contraception
is readily available and people have the
power to choose. Here the priority is to
choose responsibly. A couple with two
children who have a third will increase
the global population and its impact on
the planet. This decreases everyone
else’s share of finite and dwindling
resources to survive on. We ask everyone
to consider the moral implications of the
number of children they have.
Reproductive health
It is estimated by the Guttmacher Institute that 222 million women worldwide have an unmet need for modern
contraception. Women of reproductive
age (15 - 49) are considered to be in
need of contraception if they are using
contraceptives — modern or traditional —
or are using no method but are married
or are unmarried and sexually active (i.e.,
had had sex in the three months prior to
being surveyed), are fecund and do not
want a child soon (in the next two years)
or at all; identify their current pregnancy
as unintended; or are experiencing postpartum amenorrhea after an unintended
pregnancy.
global access to reproductive health
by 2015 . However, it seems unfortunately not likely that this target will be
achieved. The British government is a
major contributor to reproductive health
programs abroad, and several UK based
charities have been working in the field
, such as Marie Stopes International and
the International Planned Parenthood
Federation ( IPPF ) . We support the
course of such and similar organizations work, and the UN Population Fund
( UNFPA ). We welcome the fact that in
2010 it was allocated $ 40 billion to the
initiative of the United Nations to improve maternal and child health, including
reproductive health
An unmet need may be because the
woman cannot access contraception or
because, even where it is formally available, take-up and use are limited by the
degree of cultural acceptance, the level
of female empowerment, affordability or
problems with distribution. This means
many people have much larger families
than the global average, with some
countries averaging five or six children
per woman. In some places, high infant
mortality rates can contribute to higher
birth rates because women have more
pregnancies to compensate.
Reproductive health care in the UK
There has been some recent progress,
but there is still much room for improvement. Britain still has the highest number
of teenage pregnancy in Europe. GPs
have been urged to emphasize the
benefits of long-acting, reversible contraceptives, so-called “take and forget
about contraception “ such as implants ,
injections and intrauterine devices. There
have also been measures to facilitate
access to emergency contraception,
liberalized guidelines for advertising
of reproductive health services and to
make the subject of sex and reproductive
health compulsory in schools. This is part
of a broader government strategy to
enhance sexual health, combined with a
long-term campaign to reduce teenage.
Contraception is only one element of
a general lack of reproductive health
services. Half a million women die each
year during pregnancy and childbirth —
this is equivalent to four full jumbo jets
crashing every day.
After a number of years of reduced
international support, US funding of
reproductive health programmes in
developing countries has resumed. However, funding remains below the required
level. One reason is that the necessary
response to the AIDS crisis has resulted
in the diversion of funds previously used
for family planning and maternal health
programmes.
We call for :
• fimprovement in how sex and
relationships are taught in school
, preferably by teachers who are
comfortable with the subject
• abolish all restrictions on advertising for reproductive health products
and services
• make access to emergency contraception easier and less expensive
• making family planning an important
health priorities.
In the developed world, while most
couples have one, two or three children,
unintended pregnancy still remains
an issue, particularly in the US and UK.
Government programmes have been instigated, such as promoting more reliable
long-acting reversible contraceptives,
but, as yet, results have been limited.
Worldwide, more than 200 million women
have an ‘unmet need’ for modern contraception, in that they say they want
modern contraception but do not use it.
In 2008, there were 75 million unintended pregnancies of which just over
half ended in induced abortions. Lack of
reproductive health services results not
only in abortions and unplanned births
but in high levels of maternal and child
mortality and of pregnancy-related illness. Despite its multiple benefits, aid for
family planning declined from 8.2 percent
to 3.2 percent between 2000 and 2008
as a proportion of total aid to health, an
absolute decline. One reason for this was
that funding for HIV/AIDS was increased
13-fold between 1995 and 2003.
Moreover, during the Bush Administration, US commitment to programmes
which would help stabilise population
was hampered by conservative policies
seeking to promote “sexual abstinence”.
In particular, there was a ban on funds
for family planning and more general
‘reproductive health’ services that might
be suspected of supporting abortion
facilities.
In 2010, the UN, US and UK all pledged
sharp increases in the funding for
reproductive health programmes, with
the UN announcing a $40bn programme
for improving the health of women and
children.
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOAL
(MDG) 5b.
This aims to provide universal access to
reproductive health care by 2015.
Although more women are receiving
antenatal care, the Millennium Development Goals Report 2010 makes it clear
that there is still a long way to go before
the aims are met:
• Inequalities in care during pregnancy are striking. Only one in three
women
• living in rural areas in developing
regions receives the recommended
level of care during pregnancy.
• Progress has stalled in reducing the
number of teenage pregnancies.
• Poverty and lack of education perpetuate high adolescent birth rates.
• Progress in expanding the use
of contraceptives by women has
slowed.
• Use of contraception is lowest
among the poorest women and
those with no education.
• Inadequate funding for family planning is a major failure in fulfilling
• commitments to improving women’s
reproductive health.
Access to reproductive health services,
including contraception, is central to
slowing, halting and reversing population growth. We fully support the UN
MDG 5b , which aims to achieve full
31
Unplanned pregnancies are also an issue
in the UK and other developed countries,
albeit at a lower level. The UK has one
of the Unplanned pregnancies in the UK
Unplanned pregnancies are also an issue
in the UK and other developed countries,
albeit at a lower level. The UK has one of
the highest rates of unplanned pregnancies in the developed world and survey
data and abortion rates suggest that the
rate is significant even amongst older
women.
There could be a number of reasons for
this. One is the variable quality of Sexual
and Reproductive Health Education in
Britain’s schools, as noted by Ofsted, the
National Association of Head Teachers
and the Youth Parliament. Another is the
relatively low take-up by international
standards of long acting reversible contraceptives such as implants, injections
and intrauterine devices.
Women’s rights
Women are disadvantaged in relation
to men in many developing countries.
Limited access to education, together
with a traditionally subordinate status,
limit women’s opportunity to develop
independent economic roles or achieve
positions of authority within society.
Traditions of early marriage further
reduce opportunities for education,
autonomy and authority. Early marriage
typically leads to larger families and
can also result in greater prevalence
of maternal death and injury related to
childbirth and in additional difficulties in
bringing up children. Following marriage,
a woman’s lack of economic independence coupled with patriarchal traditions
means that her ability to determine the
number and spacing of children may be
limited.Women are also vulnerable to
violence and sexual assault, both within
and outside marriage, further reducing
their ability to play a full and independent
role. Coercive sex leading to pregnancy
is a major and under-reported abuse of
human rights. In situations of conflict,
rape can even become a deliberate and
systematic “weapon of war”.
We believe that the evidence shows that
empowered women typically choose to
have smaller families. For environmental
and sustainability reasons, as well as for
reasons of equity and natural justice, we
strongly support gender equality and the
empowerment of women.
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This includes:
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ensuring full participation of girls
and women in education;
allowing full participation of women
in personal and family decisions
— especially those relating to
childbearing;
discouraging teenage marriages,
which can prevent women establishing themselves in a profession
or career;
granting women full equality under
the law and in property rights;
ensuring businesses run by women
have access to financing and government support; and
providing accessible childcare to enable women to continue working.
Governments around the world have
accepted legal human rights obligations
to combat gender inequalities. The key
international agreement on women’s
human rights is the 2009 Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Under
CEDAW, nation states are required to
eliminate gender-based discrimination,
not only by making sure that there are no
existing laws that directly discriminate
against women, but also by ensuring that
all necessary arrangements are put in
place that will allow women to experience civil and social equality in their lives.
We support initiatives to include gender
perspectives in budgeting processes,
and to collect and use sex disaggregated
data in public policy formulation. We also
support efforts to strengthen women’s
rights to land and inheritance, increase
their access to credit and decent work,
and to empower women migrant workers
as well as home-based workers.
The UN Security Council recognizes that
women’s exclusion from peace processes contravenes their rights, and that
including women and gender perspectives in decision making can strengthen
prospects for sustainable peace. This recognition was formalized in October 2000
with the unanimous adoption of resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.
Countries have made some progress in
addressing violence against women and
girls. According to the UN Secretary-Gen-
eral’s 2006 In-Depth Study on All Forms
of Violence against Women, 89 countries
had some legislation on domestic violence, and a growing number of countries
had instituted national plans of action.
Marital rape is a prosecutable offence
in at least 104 States, and 90 countries
have laws on sexual harassment. However, in too many countries gaps remain.
In 102 countries there are no specific legal provisions against domestic violence,
and marital rape is not a prosecutable
offence in at least 53 nations.
Population & ethics
Population Matters opposes coercive
population restraint policies on ethical
grounds, in defence of individual human
rights, especially women’s rights. At the
same time, population growth raises important ethical issues around the balance
between reproductive rights and social
and environmental responsibilities..
1. Intergenerational ethics: It
is a fact that current growth
(10.000 more per hour) will
stop one day, simply because
a finite planet cannot sustain
an infinite number of people.
But it can only stop in one of two
ways: either sooner, the humane
way, by fewer births — family planning backed by policy to make it
available and encourage people to
use it — or later, the ‘natural’ way, by
more deaths — famine, disease and
predation/war. Campaigners against
the former are in practice campaigning for the latter. We owe it to our
children to prevent this.
2. International ethics: This is not
just an issue for poor countries.
The UK population is projected to
grow by 10 million in the next 22
years — that’s ‘10 more Birminghams’. England is already the most
overcrowded country in Europe,
taking far more than our share of
our planet’s natural resources. Each
of us does far more damage to
the planet than any poor African;
every extra Briton, for instance, has
the carbon footprint of 22 more
Malawians — and the poor will suffer
first and worst from climate change.
We owe it to others to stabilise our
numbers too (and our resource-consumption), and then reduce them to
a sustainable level.
3. Reproductive ethics: It is also
a fact that if two people with
two living children have a third
child, they will ratchet up the
population of the planet, and
thus: ratchet up damage to the
environment; bring nearer the
day of serious ecological failure;
and ratchet down everyone
else’s share of dwindling natural resources to cope with this.
So individual decisions to create
a whole extra lifetime of impacts
affect everyone else (including their
own children) — far more than any
other environmentally damaging
decision they make. We need to be
aware of the ethical implications of
having large families; and sex education in schools should include it.
and 40 per cent of pregnancies
are unintended. There are some
50,000 deaths from unsafe abortions each year; while the women
dying from pregnancy-related
causes is equivalent to four full
jetliners crashing every day. The
close correlation of high fertility
rates with high maternal and child
mortality is well established — every
mother on $1 per day knows that
the family will be better fed if there
are three children round the table
rather than ten. Universal access
to family planning is Millennium
Development Goal 5b; and coercive
pregnancy through lack of it is an
abuse of women’s rights too. As
UNICEF said: “Family planning could
bring more benefits to more people
at less cost than any other known
technology”. It should be a very high
priority.
5. Interspecies ethics: The very
recent population explosion
since the industrial revolution is
causing the current ‘sixth major
global extinction’, as humans
occupy, degrade, pollute and
destroy wildlife habitats. Other
creatures have as much right to
occupy the planet as we do.
6. Political Ethics: Of all the above
reasons, governments should
arrive at a national goal of
stabilizing and then reduce
their population to a sustainable level, through means that
do not involves coercion, but as
soon as as possible! They must
give top priority to family planning and women’s education
and gender equality programs
in their aid budgets.
4. Humanitarian ethics: Some
220 million women worldwide
lack access to family planning,
33
Should pandemics control human
development?
Or should we manage with
intelligent population control?
34
Each country must find its
sustainable number of people,
which the nation can feed. With
a significantly smaller amount of
food imports than today.
35
The Green Warriors of Norway
The Green Warriors (GW) have
tirelessly been fighting - always
been up front and often on their
own - for the last 30 years, for the
environment and for the wildlife.
Kurt Oddekalv built his own environmental group and has established
Green Warriors of Norway, for almost
twenty years ago. GW engages in
active political influence, public education and information, fieldwork and
direct actions.
The organisation’s driving force is
a deeply rooted love of nature, the
deep-ecological idea and a consistent respect for all life. We talk in a
way that people can understand, and
our slogan and life motto is: He who
dares, wins!
The organisation is democratic and
is built from the roots and up, with
fractions working both locally and
centrally. Our local groups fight
against a specific issue or industry,
with the assistance of our central
office, which brings the fight to a
national level. This combination has
proved itself to be very powerful.
Our aim is to show that environmental protection does not have
to be difficult. Anyone can take up
the fight and get heard, and we can
show you how to do it. And this
organisation is daring. We have sided
with nature in any fight, even taking
on priests, bishops and, indeed, the
pope himself. We have fought the
world’s greatest polluters such as
the oil and gas industry to international top politicians.
GW has confronted the Norwegian
Church and challenged the clergy to
ask nature to forgive mankind’s betrayal of it. We have put overcrowding and contraception into a climatic
context.
The Green Warriors have challenged
Norway’s “flagship” Statoil in a manner that has led to the name ‘Kurt
Oddekalv’ appearing in many a Board
36
meeting. He has also inflicted many
severe blows to Statoil, especially by
opposing against Mongstad but also
directly by applying them large fines
for direct pollution.
The Green Warriors have reported
Kjell Magne Bondevik – Norwegian
Prime Minister at the time – to the
Norwegian National Authority for
the Investigation and Prosecution of
Economic and Environmental Crime
on account of ivory smuggling. This
in turn led to a particular paragraph
in CITES concerning heads of state,
gifts and endangered species.
Also, in the event of two UN Climate
Change Conferences, GW has confronted and criticized two candidates
for the American Presidency; George
H. W. Bush at first, and then his son
George W. Bush. Both times, these
actions were press covered by CNN
and it aroused considerable international interest.
GW has fought the mighty Walt
Disney concern because it dispersed
children’s toys containing PVCs and
phthalates in their Donald Duck
comic books.
GW has on several occasions experienced people trying to “buy” us. But
instead of selling his case, we have
gone public and exposed whoever
made the offer. GW has spoken out
on every heavy and controversial
environmental issue concerning
the so-called “environmental nation
Norway”. We have repeatedly been
the one to warn about dangers.
The leader Kurt Oddekalv has been
ridiculed, called names and been
threatened by strong monetary
stakeholders, politicians and established communities.
GW is currently best known both nationally and internationally for having
implemented an “environmental war”
against Norway’s second largest
export industry – the Norwegian
aquaculture industry. GW focused
on contaminants in the farmed fish,
over-exploitation of wild fish to
produce fish food, organized animal abuse, sea lice that kill the wild
Atlantic salmon strains, and the vast
organic pollution of the beautiful
Norwegian fjords.
Besides the fight against the
aquaculture industry, GW will take
on any environmental issues worth
fighting for. We have campaigned
for biological diversity in nature and
the welfare of our predators, such
as the wolf. GW has also rescued the
eagle “Berit”, who crashed into an
oil refinery during a storm. After a
long recovery, the proud eagle was
released into the wild. We have also
campaigned against unnecessary
building development that destroys
nature and wildlife, and ensured that
polluting industries gets caught and
fined. GW has also been active during
major oil spills along the Norwegian
coast.
And now we speak of what few
others do not dare: the issue of
overpopulation. We do not claim
to have any solution, but we must
address this issue now. If the topic
of overpopulations becomes part of
the international climate debates, we
have come a long way.
Do you want to become a Green
Warrior?
We need Green Warriors in every
country, every region. If you wish to
support us, please become a member
of our group. You can choose if you
wish to be active by starting a local
group in your country, or if you wish
to support us as a paying member.
Everything helps; our planet needs
you!
Contact us:
www.nmf.no/
www.greenwarriorsofnorway.no
nmf@nmf.no