ST.
PAUL, Minn., Aug. 5, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- In a new
peer-reviewed article in The Journal
of Population and Sustainability, demographic
experts are urging the United Nations to reject the current
"'growth' paradigm which treats Earth and its nonhuman inhabitants
as mere resources" and to take the lead in "contracting the
large-scale variables of the human enterprise" in order to "forge a
path out of multiple environmental and social crises," and "reverse
our advanced state of ecological overshoot."
Earth Overshoot Day, the date when humanity's demand on
nature's resources surpasses Earth's capacity to regenerate them
for the given year, fell on August 1 in the United
States. Earth Overshoot Day is calculated annually
by Global Footprint Network as a measure of
unsustainability. Falling on August 1
this year indicates we would need 1.75 Earths to meet human
consumption demands and absorb other human impacts year-round.
August 1 is also the
date The Journal of Population and
Sustainability article appeared. "Overshoot is
the underlying driver of climate breakdown, biodiversity
collapse, global toxification and aggravation of social
conflicts and war," its authors state. Citing an extensive
body of existing research, they argue that lowering population and
consumption growth and upholding reproductive rights and autonomy
for women and girls are on the critical path to redressing these
crises, reversing overshoot, and advancing social and
ecological justice.
The authors pinpoint the 1994 Cairo conference on Population and
Development as "a sharp turn away from the earlier emphasis on
population concerns and their link to environmental protection,"
and they cite the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) 2023 State
of World Population (SWOP) report, glibly titled "8 Billion Lives,
Infinite Possibilities," as evidence of continued UN reluctance to
reckon with population growth as a driver of today's environmental
and social crises.
"The [SWOP] report dismisses numerous studies by reputable
scientists that draw conclusive links between growth in human
numbers and climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, species
extinctions, resource scarcity, conflict, poverty, food insecurity
and more," the authors write. They call for a return to centering
population and environmental concerns and enjoin the UN to lead the
way "to move beyond the failed approaches of our current
politics…to abandon the incessant pursuit of growth, and to embrace
a sense of our shared humanity embedded within the larger web of
life."
Source: Population Balance
https://www.populationbalance.org/
Contact: Stephen
Kent, skent@kentcom.com, +1 914 589 5988
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SOURCE Population Balance