Comments on: Population offsets – a marriage of misconceptions

By: Population offsets « Jagadees's English Weblog

Population offsets « Jagadees's English Weblog — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:38:17 +0000

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By: Dave Gardner

Dave Gardner — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:40:53 +0000

Well put, cfreddie. Thanks. I would rate this a thumbs up, but there is a technical glitch preventing that.

By: gpso

gpso — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:51:44 +0000

The Global Population Speak Out of 2010 will take place place in February. Of course, anything one can do to make contraception available for our fellow women of the world is a good thing in and of itself. Unfortunately, many of them still remain under the brutal thumb of culture and spouse. I am continually shocked at the tendency to otherwise thoughtful people to fall into polarized thinking when it comes to sustainability — addressing both population and consumption are crucial to achieving long lasting bona fide sustainable living scenarios for the planet. Pledge to speak out by visiting:

http://gpso.wordpress.com/

By: cfreddie

cfreddie — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:06:45 +0000

The way I see it: resources round the world are limited (doesn’t matter when you think they will run out, they are limited) and combined with an increasing population, there will come a point when there will be a total collapse. Therefore population needs to be on the agenda.
Whose population? We need to address the huge carbon footprint of the rich as well as the aspirations of poorer nations. This will involve both family planning as well as footprint reduction for all.
There are 2 million married women wanting access to family planning. Who are we in the west to say that they should not get such access?
Given that everything costs something, who is going to supply this family planning (training, advice, contraceptives, lobbying, culture change and so forth)?
If someone comes up with a method whereby people are willing to pay for this family planning provision where there are people who WANT it, then what is wrong?
The issue about whether westerners should be “allowed” to assuage their guilt by buying carbon offsets is another matter entirely. Firstly, we need to recognise that the gas guzzler user that doesn’t give a damn, is not going to buy offsets or change their ways until they are forced to (which could be peer pressure – such as everyone else is buying the offsets). The aware person tries to buy carbon offsets to compensate for their footprint. Most aware people are already trying to reduce their footprint in the first place. Why not give them the satisfaction that the money is being put to good use?
Why Popoffsets? I haven’t found another carbon offset scheme that also has as a benefit, the reduction (over time, granted) of demand for scarce resources, reduction of impact on ecosystems, reduction of pollution etc all as corrollories of the provision of a service that people WANT and are desparate for.

By: Dave Gardner

Dave Gardner — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:49:25 +0000

I’m not saying this offset idea is the perfect solution, but allow me to suggest that some are jumping to conclusions about the motives of anyone who promotes addressing the overpopulation issue. The conclusions are factually inaccurate, for one. Plus, every good idea attracts a few backers with selfish or evil motives. That does not really speak to the merits of the idea.

Can we try to look at this more objectively, rather than give in to the emotional urge to assume ideas like these are always rich vs. poor or north vs. south? Personally, I am an equal opportunity sustainable population advocate. I don’t care if you’re rich or poor, overconsuming now or hoping to overconsume in the future; I want you to make responsible, informed decisions about family size.

I’ve seen no one write about how repugnant baby bonuses in Russia and Japan are. Why not? I suggest it’s because it is emotions talking here, not sound reason. An objective person ought to have as much problem with financial incentives to larger families as they have with the idea of financial disincentives.

I venture to guess the reason for the disparity is our emotional/instinctual baggage around reproduction.

Dave Gardner
Producer/Director
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:52:30 +0000

Of course population is a problem, and we should be working to alleviate poverty, educate women, provide healthcare and make contraceptives available. Those are things that we should be doing anyway, overpopulation or not.

It’s the idea that this can be sold as an offset that is wrong. Stop and consider it for a moment: PopOffsets has turned lack of access to contraceptives into a tradeable commodity.

How would you feel if someone infinitely richer than you was subsidising your condoms so that they could keep on emitting CO2?

By: Simon

Simon — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:53:01 +0000

Dave who’s avoding the issue? pls re-read what I’ve posted so far

By: Dave Gardner

Dave Gardner — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:34:36 +0000

Yes, Simon, let’s avoid the topic of overpopulation altogether. Of course this means with certainty that, no matter how much consumption reduction is achieved by the high-consuming people (who will continue to reproduce I guess, there will not be enough resources for everyone on the planet. We just doom the poorer people on Earth to remain that way.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:25:26 +0000

So any thoughts on what sort of population limits countries should set?

BTW I can see a point in the future when the world gets down to true resource sharing that while developing nations we say the developed nations had and still have more than their fair share of resouces esp CO2 allowing their consumption of fossil fuels to get high, the developed nations will point the finger and say ok yes but countries like India, China have allowed their populations to get high compared to everyone else, so why should you now have an equal share per capita but greater total share due to ‘excessive’ populations?

If you also throw in historical shares it becomes even more complex.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:13:20 +0000

To Jeremy & Simon B:
I agree with you on this, while contraceptives based offsets could be thought the natural way for a population org to go, it does have a unethical stink about it.

One of the reasons poor families have so many children is because many of their children die from preventable causes. A more considered offset would be funding group that provide contraception AND basic health care.