Transition Exeter

At various Transition Exeter meetings the subject of population has been raised. We felt there was enough interest to devote a discussion meeting to how population has to be a factor in emissions reduction.

At this meeting on Tuesday 16th February, Dr Pip Hayes from the Optimum Population Trust, proposed that there should be an estimation of what is the best size of human population for Britain, which should inform government policy. Discussing the global situation, she argued that

• The world cannot support the people we now have, let alone 9 billion in 2050
• Britain will be unable to support the current population as resource depletion threatens food and energy supplies from abroad
• Development charities should have population control policies and press governments to adopt them.

Sue Kay, of the Global Centre and Oxfam local committee, noted that development charities target poverty, womens’ education and access to family planning, all of which tend to reduce population growth and are valued in themselves. However, both population and lifestyle cause pressure on resources. An average three-generation family in Uganda of 20 people causes a tiny fraction of the emissions of an average American or European three-generation family of 6. It’s the same with other resources.

Everyone opposed coercive measures, and all agreed that it’s unhelpful to mix up debates about population with those about immigration or developing countries without attending to domestic population. Decisions about life and death are notoriously delicate and personal. Yet our decisions do affect others. Some have argued that our biggest impact on emissions is in how many children we have (though in their fascinating book on lifestyle emissions, Tom and Brenda Vale identify number of pets as important too).  It was suggested that a move away from materialist values towards more life-affirming ethics would enable existing populations to live more sustainably.

Perhaps we do need to think about how many people our land can support long term, and to adopt more far-sighted perspectives. After all, we are all in a glasshouse, so to speak.

Gill Westcott