Population and Consumption: Environmental Problems as Problems of Scale
Author(s)
Norton, Bryan G.
Abstract
Almost every time I teach environmental topics to undergraduate students, at least one student confidently states the opinion that environmental problems are most basically caused by human population growth, and that if we could control population growth, that would be the end of the problems. Although I try never to show how appalled I am by ignorance among students-especially when they are volunteering opinions in a process of thinking through problems-I admit that in these cases I must consciously restrain myself from rebuking the student aloud. What is more appalling is that I fear that this belief is shared by many adults in the United States and perhaps throughout the developed world. This woefully oversimplified formula for understanding environmental problems is not just oversimplified, it is also morally dangerous. When used in conjunction with the apparent fact that industrially developed nations are bringing their population growth under control, the reduction of environmental problems to population problems brings about a not-so-subtle shift of responsibility for existing and emerging environmental problems to the less-developed world. In class, I try to shake the students’ complacency about their own role, pointing out to them that, if the blame for environmental damage can be located in the act of parenting, they should realize that each American child born (given current consumption patterns) has 40 to 50 times the environmental impact of a child born in poorer nations. Huge proportions of that consumption are made possible by material flows from less-developed nations of the South into the industrialized North. Even when these material flows bring rapid economic growth, as in Indonesia, for example, the environmental and cultural costs are enormous, and it is often the case that only elites benefit from this growth.
