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Japan’s birth rate hits historic low - International Monitor
(intlmonitor.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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While lower birth rates may lead to economic issues on a medium term (too many old people VS. too few young people), it's probably one of the most efficient measures to combat climate change. Less people comsuming ressources means less pollution and hopefully also less competition and conflicts for said ressources.
Even though I'll be probably one of the many old people one day that the society may not be able to support adequately, I think that it's positive news for humanity.
From my perspective, the best way to deal with a shrinking population would be a shift away from capitalism in its current form. Infinite growth, bigger, faster etc. is not a realistic and definitely not a sustainable target.
We should focus on the basic needs to make food, housing, care etc. affordable for everyone with as few working hours as possible, so that less people are able to do the job.
Eco-fascism ain’t it chief.
The most effective measures, is actually holding the big polluters (a handful of international companies) accountable.
Furthermore capitalism needs to be ditched in any form.
What exactly is facism about naturally (non-enforced) lowering birth rates?
Because linking population to environmentalism is like the most basic premise of ecofascism.
Sure you're presenting the 'lite' argument of 'hey if it's just happens on its own, that's good I'm not saying to actually do it' but you're still promoting the underlying belief that population is one of the root causes and planting seeds that lowering population is the "most efficient measures to combat climate change"
I read through the article and still can't see how my post is related to facism. If we assume a number of X humans with an average environmental footprint of Y that leads to an overall footprint for humanity of X * Y.
If we want to bring that number down, this can by achieved by lowering either of the factors. If you want to cut pollution by let's say 50% with a constant polulation, it goes along with harsher cut backs for the individuals' lifestyle. Looking at the current discourse, such cut backs are highly controverse and measures in that direction are rarely accepted ('they want to take out meat', 'they want to take our cars' etc.).
If the number of humans decreased by 25% due to a naturally lowered birth rate, it means that the individual pollution must be lowered only by 33% instead of 50% to achieve the same result. I would argue that less individual impact will lead to a higher acceptance for a environment-friendly humanity.
If I wrote 'kill the poor' or something like that I'd get your point but I just said that fewer people will have a positive impact on nature. Which is not facism but a simple fact.
By the way. Your liked Wikipedia article also warns about the term 'ecofacism' being misused by the far right to discredit any form of pro-environment statements. So, please think twice before if you really want to use that term and call random people fascists.
I do not agree that you are being fascist, but I do think you are pointing the finger at individual humans when you should be pointing it at the 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions.
I do agree that these companies are at fault. But wouldn't even the emissions of the most evil companies in the world go down with a smaller humanity? If you look at the top 5 in the ranking, it's all fossil fuel companies. Do you think if we had 25% less humans, the remaining 75% would still burn 100% of fossils?
And I am not not fingerpointing at anyone. I neither condemn parents nor children. Just saying that less people have less impact than more people.
Why should we use fossil fuels at all? That's not a population issue.
I think the majority of people would prefer to use green energy but - as said in my previous - I do not think that the same majority is willing to accept significant cut backs on their lifestyle. As long as they can continue to live as they're used to they're all in on the green deal. But when they are asked to use less individual transportation in favor of public transport, lower their heating by a few degrees and wear a sweater instead or buy regional food over stuff that is imported from overseas, then unfortunately a lot of people react in a rejective or even aggressive way. Green politicians in Germany for instance are confronted with a lot of hate for all attempts to initiate some change.
So to me it seems like phasing out fossils in a democratic manner is only possible over a longer period of time, unfortunately probably several decades.
What if it wasn't up to them because fossil fuels were no longer allowed to be used and those companies were no longer allowed to exploit resources that are destroying the planet?
Also, what if we didn't wait decades for the population to drop so much that it would make a real difference, long after it wouldn't matter?
If we simply just stopped using fossil fuels today without a smooth transition to green energies, all supply chains will shatter immediately, people will freeze to death, you'll have a world-wide famine and neighbors fighting for the last remaining ressources.
Furthermore, the only way to force such an immediate exit from fossils would be to establish a violent dictatorship as there's no democratic majority for it.
As much as I'd like the transition to happen as soon as possible, it's pretty obvious that the solution can't be as simple as 'just forbid using fossils'.
You'd like the transition to happen as soon as possible, but your 'as soon as possible' is apparently generations away since you think the population needs to drop but fossil fuels should still be used even after that.
I never said that I want to just wait. We should leverage all possibilities in parallel to reduce the carbon footprint:
All these measures are important steps to take to reduce the average footprint. But still on top of all these things the total number of humans is a signicifant multipler for the total footprint.
A human can only use less ressources only no human will take no ressources.
Once again: I do not promote state-forced birth control, I do not condemn parents, children etc. I'm simply saying that if people voluntarily decide to reproduce at a lower scale, that that has a positive impact on the planet and in the end helps the future generations.
Wrongly, though. The average westerner even does not pollute enough to make a difference, but the rich and the corpos do make all of the difference. Taylor swift pollutes more per year than I ever could even if I tried in my lifetime.
On the other hand the population lowering, anti-civ, anti-industry, an-prim and eco-fash arguments are just eugenics because a lot of disabled, neurodivergent and queer people rely on those things
I have no clue why you're now bringing up eugenics. Like WTF! Where the hell did I write anything even remotely related to that? Or anything against queer folks?
And just because the richest people are by far the worst polluters doesn't invalidate my argument at all. If the overall number of humans changes over time, that also impacts the number of the super rich. If we have 10 billion humans instead of 8, there will be more rich people, more middle class and more people suffering from poverty.
On top of that more people mean more natural ressources have to be consumed for heating, agriculture, transportation etc.
We definitely should change society in a way that the super polluters are held accountable for their damage but that doesn't mean that this is the only relevant figure and the only thing that helps.
A slowly shrinking humanity has definitely a better ecological impact than a growing one. And as long as that happens without external force, that's a positive thing for me.