Population Debate
Class #1
Aim: In what ways does the human population negatively impact our planet? Is human population
a significant issue in creating sustainability? If so, what should be done about it?
Lecture (while lecture is going, have the world population counter on the screen:
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/)
Population:
8,000 bce-5 million
1 ce- 200 million
1000- 275 million
1500-450 million
1750- 700 million
1804 – 1 billion
1927- 2 billion
1960 – 3 billion
1975 – 4 billion
1987- 5 billion
1999- 6 billion
2011-7 billion
2100- 10 billion (UN estimate)
By 2050, it is estimated that we could triple our resource consumption to a whopping 140 billion
tonnes of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year. (BBC)
Thomas Malthus- In 1798 published “Essay on the Principle of Population” about relationship
between population and the economy.
1968- Paul Erlich published The Population Bomb.
20th century programs that make it it difficult to talk about population control:
Eugenics- first half of the 20th century, led to sterilization of mentally retarded, mentally ill,
blind, deaf, physically disabled, alcoholics, criminals- in Germany, Japan, US. Russia had such
policies in 2008-2009.
Targeted sterilizations – 1973- Czechs sterilized the Roma people; US sterilized Puerto Ricans
and Native Americans; Peru in 1980’s sterilized the Quechua.
Sterilization of the poor – In 1970’s poor in India could get land, housing or money in exchange
for sterilization.
Societal sterilization- China starts to one-child policy in 1970’s
Show film (7 minutes):
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/overpopulation/world_population_video.html
Read: The whole world needs to adopt China's one-child policy
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2314438
Begin to frame the debate.
Discuss Hardin’s “Lifeboat Ethics.”
HW:
Please read the three articles.
1.Take notes on the controversy around “family planning” or “population control” policies. Take
note also of the concept of “carrying capacity” and how that impacts the discussion around
population.
Can we talk about overpopulation? By David Craig
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Magazine/Summer2009/feature4.html
Global Population Reduction: Confronting the Inevitable
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/563
Breaking a Long Silence on Population Control
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/science/earth/bringing-up-the-issue-of-populationgrowth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Class #2 and 3
Aim: In what ways does the human population negatively impact our planet? Is human population
a significant issue in creating sustainability? If so, what should be done about it?
Discuss homework readings:
Main points: Can we talk about Overpop? By David Craig: Jeffrey Sachs has said that we
should give free contraceptives to Africans so that they can escape from poverty; Connelly thinks
that any program designed to lower pop will lead to problems.
Discuss:
United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, 1994
The Cairo Program of Action
Acknowledges the complex personal and social contexts within which decisions about
childbearing are made. It separates the problem of unwanted fertility, which can be addressed by
access to family planning services, from other causes of population growth, including the desire
for large families. Calls for other social investments -- such as the education of girls and the
reduction of infant mortality -- to help make small families the norm.
Endorses a reproductive health approach to family planning.
Recognizes the central role of gender relations, with a link between high fertility and the low
status of women, and offers strategies to empower women through access to education, resources
and opportunity.
Addresses the harmful effects of northern consumption patterns, drawing the connection between
consumption, population growth and environmental degradation.
Strikes a historic compromise on abortion. While declaring that "in no case should abortion be
promoted as a method of family planning," the document asks governments to address unsafe
abortion as a major public health concern. It also asks governments to ensure that abortion
services are safe when they are not against the law, to provide reliable and compassionate
counseling for all women who have unwanted pregnancies and to provide humane care for all
women who suffer the consequences of unsafe abortion.
Stands on solid ethical ground. Coercion of all is rejected. The means it proposes to slow
population growth are all desirable ends in themselves. It offers strategies to narrow the gaps
between rich and poor, and between men and women.
Class discussion on China’s one-child policy. Have students read the two articles below and
answer question.
QUESTION: Are strict state policies (like China’s one-child policy) on population necessary for
limiting human population and achieving environmental sustainability?
OVERVIEW: In an effort to become a world power, Mao Zedong promoted China’s population
growth as a means of increasing the work force and thus economic rewards. As a result, China’s
population grew at a rapid rate. China currently has the world’s largest population. In an effort to
curb population growth, Deng Xiaoping instituted the One Child Policy in 1979. This policy
encouraged the people of China to have only one child. Those who followed this policy received
housing, medical, and work benefits those who ignored this policy were penalized.
Has China's one-child policy worked?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7000931.stm
China Says One-Child Policy Helps Protect Climate
http://www.truthout.org/article/china-says-one-child-policy-helps-protect-climate
Go to computer lab for last 20 minutes of class.
Computer Module (over two days)
Over the next two days, I would like you to read the links below.
As you read I would like you to consider the questions: Is human population a significant issue in
threatening sustainability? If so, what should be done about it?
The debate positions tend to follow one of these three paths: 1. The already- too- large global
human population is leading to poverty, resource scarcity and global warming. Policies like
China’s with financial incentives for small families are necessary for all of us to survive, and will
especially help the world’s poor; 2. The rapidly-increasing global human population is both a
cause and an effect of poverty, and threatens the world’s sustainability. Strategies to limit human
population should balance family planning with rules like Cairo 1994 that stress voluntary
consent and respect human rights; 3. Sustainability and global warming are enormous problems,
but they are caused primarily by corporations and first world consumption. The focus on
overpopulation “blames the victim” for poverty and tends to have racist agendas.
Your job will be to figure out which argument makes the most sense. Please take careful notes as
you read and pay attention to source.
INTRODUCTION
UN: Family Planning and the Environment
http://www.unfpa.org/rh/planning/mediakit/docs/new_docs/sheet3-english.pdf
Reproductive Health-UN Family Planning
http://www.unfpa.org/rh/planning.htm
World Population Balance
http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/3_times_sustainable
PRO-CONTROL
Are We Breeding Ourselves to Extinction by Chris Hedges (2009)
http://www.alternet.org/story/130843/are_we_breeding_ourselves_to_extinction?paging=off
“Over-population: the global crisis that dare not speak its name” by Jonathon Porritt (2012)
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/jonathon-porritt-overpopulation-the-globalcrisis-that-dare-not-speak-its-name-2376464.html
Center for Biological Diversity
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/overpopulation/index.html
ANTI-CONTROL
“7 Billion: What to Expect When You Are Expecting” by Jade Sasser (2011)
http://grist.org/population/2011-10-11-will-more-attention-to-climate-bring-back-populationcontrol/
“Ten reasons why population control can't stop climate change” by Simone Butler (2009)
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/41758
“The Return of Population Control: Incentives, Targets and the Backlash against Cairo” by Betsy
Hartmann (2011)
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/70140252?access_key=key-6dywyf4ixmi4mseseio
On day #3, give students 20 minutes to write their position statements.
Follow with a debate. Have students sit in the part of the room that best fits their position: 1, 2 or
3. Allow for 1.5 and 2.5 positions. Have a couple of students from each side speak. Allow for
follow up and rebuttal.