Climate change: is population the problem?

We face a climate crisis and something needs to change. The world’s resources are finite, as is the amount of destruction humans can do to this planet if we are to survive. As such, there is a debate in the environment movement about whether or not curbing population is an essential part of the solution.

We have a decade, maybe a decade and a half, to transform our current relationship with the planet. Of course, the starting point for environmentalists cannot be solutions. We first need to identify the cause of the crisis before we can know how to fight it.
We live in a time of abundance, with enough produced. However, distribution of food is run on a profit basis, and people starve needlessly. For example, by 2006 the number of obese people surpassed the number of starving people. This was not because world hunger decreased. In fact, the number of those hungry is at an all time high. It is because the big multinational food companies are out to make a profit, not to feed the hungry. So production for profit, not a lack of resources, is the main cause of starvation.

Under capitalism, waste is immense. In February, the United Nations Environment Program released a report that put food waste and losses in the US at around 40-50%. It said close to one third of all food bought in Britain is thrown away and that, in Australia, food waste makes up close to half of all landfill.

The problem is not that there isn’t enough food to feed the world’s population, but that it’s more profitable to waste food than get it to the people who need it most.

Green Left