Curmudgeonathome - the largest cause of deforestation in the Amazon is cattle ranches (60-70%), followed by small-scale, subsistence agriculture (30-40%). Large-scale commercial agriculture, logging (both legal and illegal), fires, mining, urbanization, road construction and dams make up the rest. If the cattle ranches are providing beef for the western hamburger market and the subsistence agriculture is providing sustenance for a burgeoning population, then the deforestation of the Amazon can be attributed to both over consumption and over population.

If we desire to bang on about the environment and population growth, then we should be setting an example and I for one, find the consumption levels in our developed countries, an obscenity.

I continue to drive a 1995 model car which has clocked up some 55,000 kilometres (walking's good - driving's bad!), however, my loving family saw the “error” of my ways and gifted me with a Volvo which I refused to accept.

However, greenwashing population growth is fatuous too since the increase in human population saw an elevation of fossil fuel production and at the same time (and "coincidentally") an elevation of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Add to that the contamination of our ecosystems and biodiversity, from pollution over the same period caused by population expansion and ruthless, corporate greed (not least in Australia) and I would predict that we are in for a rocky ride.

'Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Land Use Change and Forestry in Top Ten Countries, 2000'

Country Emissions (Million Tons Carbon):

Indonesia________________________699.0

Brazil____________________________374.2

Malaysia_________________________190.6

Myanmar_________________________116.0

Democratic Republic of the Congo______86.5

Zambia___________________________64.2

Nigeria___________________________ 53.1

Peru_____________________________ 51.1

Papua New Guinea_________________ 39.8

Venezuela________________________ 39.3

Source: R.A. Houghton, "Emissions (and Sinks) of Carbon from Land-Use Change," Report to the World Resources Institute from the Woods Hole Research Center (Washington, DC: WRI, 2003).

Fred Pearce is has blinded himself with the use of averages.

His argument goes “ the world’s richest half-billion people’ are responsible for most of the waste and consumption. The WRHBP gets pretty well defined as the western middle class in the next few paragraphs.

He misses –completely – the point that the middle class lifestyle is NOT exclusive to the west

India has a bigger middle class than the USA, or Australia, or the UK .
It doesn’t show up in all their Mickey Mouse measures because India has hundreds of millions of dirt poor .The consumption & waste of India’s 300 million middle class is camouflaged when averaged against its poor. But its consumption and waste is no less damaging to the planet –it is merely, hidden.

If Australia or the USA had 500 million dirt poor they would come out looking super, super squeaky clean– environmentally speaking.

The author is again blinded by averages when he talks of population:
“the number of children born to an average woman around the world has been in decline for half a century now. After peaking at between 5 and 6 per woman, it is now down to 2.6.”
This is practically meaningless twaddle since much of Europe & Japan is in negative population growth and much of the rest of the world exhibits high growth.It not equilibrium ---it’s much, much worse.
The poor will gravitate to the rich, like moths to the light, there they will either merge with them and become super consumers or conflict with them leading to civil strife, war, societal breakdown.

RPG hit on a very important point:
“I don't see countries with small ecological footprints contributing as much or even a fraction of what the US does.”
It would be interesting to know:
---how many third world children get fed as a result of WRHBP support ( think direct food + agricultural aid)
---how many get an education as a result of WRHBP support ( scholarships)
---how much third world infrastructure : hospitals, schools, libraries, roads, dams etc are there as a result of WRHBP support

If you issue demerit points for pollution and consumption, its only fair to issue merit points for contributions to medicine , technology, science.

An interesting argument was recently presented by China re culpability for pollution.
It goes like this: the recipients of Chinese goods should share some of the culpability for the pollution produced in China making those goods ( &, some green group actually bought it –said it was fair & reasonable!)
Perhaps the WRHBP should argue our disproportionate pollution and consumption footprint needs to be offset against our disproportionate contribution to whole worlds well being ( I’ll bet the greens don’t buy that one!)

Finally Fred Pearce cites Hardin’s metaphor: the WRHBP as a series of life boats
with the rest of the world in the water trying to get onboard.

A better metaphor would be to see the WRHBP as a tug boat. Attached by long lines to a flotilla of engineless canoes , all the canoes are overloaded & getting more overladed by minute . The tug boat is the only thing with a hope in hell of dragging them to the yonder shore

*The article acknowledges that too many people is bad he simply gives PERSPECTIVE and OBJECTIVITY and FACTS to the debate on global damage, poverty and one of the reasons why there are so many refugees.*

There are so many refugees Examinator, because there are ever growing
numbers of people. Genocide happened in Rwanda, for good reasons.
They bred like rabbits for far too long and eventually the proverbial
hits the fan. Ignore that at your peril.

Of course you are on a Western guilt trip and there is much to
quibble about the claimed figures. Australia for instance, burns
one hell of a lot of diesel, to feed those in the third world and
to provide resources to those people.

We could of course deny the third world supplies of wheat, barley,
meat, coal, iron ore, aluminium etc. Our CO2 figures would look
dramatically better, whilst they starved.

The notion that people in the third world, if their GDP is only
2$ a day, are not creating environmental damage, is of course flawed.

You might well dream that you can change human behaviour, but I doubt
your chances. A word of advice. If you are not sure, back human
self interest as the driving factor and you will most likely be on
a winner.

I have long considered it a peculiar paradox that the best non-coercive means of reducing population growth is increasing wealth (and all that goes along with that) but at the same time increasing wealth results in increased consumption...
We want to reduce population growth - easy, raise living standards. Oh, whoops - we raised living standards and now everyone wants to consume like a Westerner.
It is, however, even more complicated by other factors. There are some cultures with a strong emphasis on large families. Presently AFAICT these are mostly poor countries (see other thread on Faith and GDP) but I wonder which would win out - the low-population replenishing tendencies of wealth or the high-population replenishing mores of faith/culture?