Vancouver Area Relocalisation Network

Global warming, climate change and species extinction have moved from the periphery to the centre of public policy debate. I would like to add my “two bits” to this discussion.
The interdisciplinary meetings on climate change such as the recent Montreal Summit did not consider population policy or welcome the input of demographers or population specialists. World population growth to over 9 billion by 2050 is taken as a given and is the basis for estimates of energy use. The UN Millennium Development Commission projects that all of the worlds ecosystems will need to be converted to monoculture farms if the world’s projected nine billion are to be fed by 2050.
Although reducing human emissions to the atmosphere is undoubtedly of critical importance, as are any and all measures to reduce the human environmental “footprint”, the truth is that the contribution of each individual cannot be reduced to zero. Only the absence of an individual reduces it to nothing.
The trajectory of world population from 2.5 billion in 1950 to a projected nine billion in 2050 is creating immense stress on the planet. It is time to recognize that rapid population growth is the fundamental environmental problem. The human species is constrained by finite natural resources and a limited biosphere. The degradation of our air, water and land is evidence that humans are already pushing the biosphere beyond its limits. We are exhausting finite and renewable resources and running out of the atmospheric and geo-biological capacity to recycle the massive waste created by our consumption and use of these resources.
The relationship between human populations and ecological systems cannot be understood without examining the web of interrelated factors which determine when and how human numbers will be benign or destructive to the environment. Arguably, the impact of consumption by the one billion affluent humans has far more negative environmental consequences than the three billion poorest.
In this context the projected population increase in United States and in Canada to 2050 will have significant environmental consequences. The United States will grow to 395 million from 298 million now and Canada will grow to 43 million from 32 million now.
Since we believe that the size of the human “footprint” is a serious problem then a rational view would be that along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed.
The natural increase in Canada (births- deaths) was 108,603 between July 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006. Net immigration for the same period was 225,505. The question of whether we have a stable or growing population will be determined by immigration policy, which is already a matter for Parliament. A similar demographic situation exists in the United States.
There is some optimum level of population in Canada, which would provide a rich and fulfilling life for its citizens and be environmentally sustainable. There needs to be some scientific determination of what that level might be. We have a community plan for Saturna that sets population limits; why not a national plan that does the same thing?
Migration from developing countries to Canada increases the ecological footprint of migrants. Stabilizing our population at 32 million might be the most effective contribution Canada could make to limit global warming. The environmental benefits to the world of the US stabilizing its population would be proportionally greater.
Any discussion of population policy raises profound and emotive issues of ethics, morality, equity, entitlement and practicability. However if we do not plan for a soft landing, we will probably have a hard one.