From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Walk the talk: the world needs more Gretas and fewer Leonardos   
   By Gaia Baracetti, Aug 8, 2023, The Overpopulation Project   
      
   This is an overpopulation blog, but its authors have made it clear that   
   overconsumption is a problem too, and that the two are, as it is often said,   
   “two sides of the same coin”. Revisiting the helpful geometric metaphor:   
   just as it doesn’t make    
   sense to discuss whether height or width contributes more to the area of a   
   rectangle, so it needs to be acknowledged that both  per capita consumption   
   and human numbers are important in determining total environmental impact. We   
   can debate whether it    
   would be preferrable to have a planet with more humans and a more modest   
   average lifestyle, or the reverse; I have myself made on this blog the   
   argument that countries can (and perhaps should) choose to strive for a lower   
   long-term human population in    
   order to enjoy a larger share of resources per capita. Other species need   
   their fair share too, of course.   
      
   Right now, however, the situation is so dire that we cannot afford to choose   
   just one: both overall population and overall consumption need to go down –   
   as quickly as possible – if humanity and the biosphere are to stand a chance   
   at all.   
      
   We can dream of a day when concerned humans such as ourselves will not need to   
   frown upon the occasional extra child by a couple, or little bursts of   
   material indulgence – but we are simply not there yet: we are racing fast in   
   the opposite direction    
   and need to U-turn now.   
      
   Since every article on this blog is already about human overpopulation, I will   
   not devote this one to convincing you that it is a problem. I rather want to   
   point to the fact that, if we don’t accept that overconsumption is a problem   
   too, we are not    
   going to gain any new followers. And I don’t mean lip service: I mean   
   showing that we care through practical actions.   
      
   There is one form of overconsumption that isn’t recognized as such: travel.   
   No one is coming to this space to brag about a new car or designer bag, but   
   there have been a couple of articles and private emails I’ve exchanged with   
   readers of this blog,    
   in which travel was discussed as a legitimate personal pleasure no matter how   
   distant or frequent, or even a net positive as a way to personally become   
   aware of the dire predicament our planet is in.   
      
   Except, the energy and infrastructural requirements of travel are gigantic,   
   not to mention the conversion of wild habitats into tourist spots, whether   
   it’s for the masses or the lucky few, and even the displacement of native   
   populations or competition    
   with their traditional economic activities.   
      
   Not only flight per se (we all know that already), but tourism and any kind of   
   travel as such is one of the biggest polluters, the biggest consumers of   
   resources, and the biggest drivers of habitat loss, that humanity engages in   
   at all (and yes, this    
   includes “ecotourism”). And it’s surprisingly elitist. This might seem   
   hard to believe from the perspective of a wealthy citizen of a rich country   
   for whom a holiday is a goes-without-saying regular recurrence as well as a   
   human right – but most    
   humans alive on the planet today never take a plane, and many travel very   
   little and only locally, often just by foot. According to the former CEO of   
   Boeing, 80% of the world population has never been on a plane. Unlike commonly   
   singled out “bad”    
   activities, such as the usual culprits of eating meat or burning anything,   
   travelling for pleasure is both unnecessary for survival and exclusive.   
      
   Climate denialism is a dishonest tactic used by the fossil fuel lobby and its   
   allies to protect their profits, but there’s another, more insidious   
   discourse discouraging people from supporting good climate or environmental   
   policies: pointing out the    
   hypocrisy of high-profile environmentalists.   
      
   Most climate action campaigners are hypocrites.. I remember the first time I   
   got this impression: it was with Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth – why is   
   this guy driving around in an SUV?? It feels like ages ago – and things have   
   gotten so much worse    
   since then.   
      
   From Bill Gates to the British Royal family, to minor virtue-signalling   
   celebrities, it seems that anyone who is telling us, nowadays, that we need to   
   stop climate change, stop burning fossil fuels, stop eating meat or save the   
   elephants lives in a    
   mansion, owns an island, or uses private jets to bypass traffic.   
      
   People have picked up on this quickly – we are not stupid, and most of us   
   are by default just waiting for excuses not to be good when it costs us   
   something. And what better excuse to do nothing than to realise that the   
   people who are telling you to    
   stop this and that aren’t actually doing it themselves?   
      
   When it comes to the environment I’ve heard this argument so many times and   
   in so many versions; from “I’m not going to eat insects for you to live in   
   a castle” to, less poetically: “if climate change is such an urgent   
   problem, why are    
   scientists taking so many polluting flights to tell us and each other about   
   it?” We could perhaps forgive a couple of them – for example David   
   Attenborough, who needs to shoot very impactful documentaries, but we can’t   
   all be David Attenboroughs,    
   and the planet right now seems to be wrapped inside a relentless swirling of   
   famous and unfamous animal- and environment-lovers who are personally   
   determined to pollute like there’s no tomorrow for the sole purpose of being   
   personal witnesses to the    
   damage their own pollution is doing to the planet. And then telling the   
   peasants about it.   
      
   The justification for environmental campaigning travel is similar to the   
   justification for population inaction: “what if that extra child is the one   
   who will find the solution to our problems?” But we already know what the   
   solution is: we need to    
   have less children. Similarly, what’s the point of spending huge amounts of   
   resources to campaign about climate change or the biodiversity crisis, when we   
   already know that the solution requires to be content with staying put, waste   
   less and live less    
   extravagantly?   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)