The population crisis

Over this weekend, I had the pleasure of reading this great article on The Guardian. It addressed something that has been on my mind for a while, and I was glad to see it gaining some traction.

I've noticed when discussing environmental issues, especially with middle-aged Americans, they love to bring up the rising human population, which of course is happening most rapidly in the developing world. It's the only environmental problem that Americans aren't contributing to much at this point. So, it's not surprising that it's a popular topic.

It's also the environmental problem that we can do almost nothing about (ethically, at least). So, talk all you want, feign concern-- but there's no solution to be found here. And people who are genuinely concerned about the earth need to focus on real solutions.

And the real solution is related to a population crisis-- it's just not the human population.

It's true that there are a lot of people, but there are way more animals farmed to feed us-- and their population is growing twice as fast as ours. Everything that goes into raising and feeding these animals uses more land and water and produces more greenhouse gases than anything else humans are doing.

Instead of trying to somehow reduce or slow the human population, wouldn't it make sense to phase out the majority of these animals that are necessary and even harmful to human health?

Too much meat is not healthy for anyone, and the inefficient way it's produced actually means way less food for people to eat.

If we had a much smaller human population, we could have meat in our diet and it would be sustainable. But the fact is, these two population problems are related-- so many people means that we can't eat the way that Americans eat for much longer. We can't solve the first part of that problem, but we do have control over the second part.

The population of agricultural animals depends entirely on the consumer demand for meat. If less meat is demanded, fewer animals will be bred. If enough individuals make this choice, land could eventually be diverted away from feed crops and grazing to grow food for people (some land could even be returned to wildlife).

This is a choice that any person can make, any time. And it does a lot more good than complaining about population booms in Asia and Africa.