APPLY THE BRAKES

End The Malady of Unconscious Growth

Over 100,000 years ago, at the dawn of the evolution of the human species, the context of human reproduction was simply Darwinian: the makeup of the reproductively fit survived better than the makeup of those who reproduced less successfully or not at all.

Starting some 30,000 years ago saw the diversification of human cultures that have since come, gone, and proliferated in countless forms. To the Darwinian logic of an inherited drive to reproduce were added a myriad cultural contexts of values, rites of passage, emotional desires, material needs, and conventions of bearing and raising children.

In the present historical moment, biological and cultural contexts of human reproduction have been superseded by a global reality that dwarfs them both.

As I write these words world population is 6.8 billion and growing. Far from coincidentally, the Earth is experiencing a mass extinction of species and subspecies comparable to what an asteroid impact would cause. Populations of wild animals are eclipsing as their homelands are converted and fragmented to serve the narrow interests of Homo sapiens. The big creatures of the oceans have suffered enormous declines, and the cradles of marine biodiversity are collapsing. Old-growth forests worldwide are gone or going, while no forest, river, wetland, or prairie meadow is safe from plunder for the rich natural sources that feed the poor and guild the lilies of the wealthy.

Our mode of operation on this planet is undergirded by the unconscious belief that we are entitled to exhaust its riches and use it as we will. Our unconscious belief structure props a way of life that is tantamount to a gigantic assault on planet Earth. This assault is dismantling its biological diversity, complexity, and abundance - the very dimensions that constitute the Earth's uniqueness in the known universe. 

This planet is not human property. It is a commonwealth shared by millions of life forms. It is a commonwealth which is sustained and enriched, in an evolutionary flow, through the myriad chemical, biological, and behavioral interactions of these life forms. 

The price of making the Earth a human satellite is the obliteration of its creative capacity to provide well-being by generating an overflow of biological wealth. The Earth is being turned into a domesticated orb that will be a food factory, mall outlet, and entertainment center for human beings. Whether or not people achieve global social equity will not change this fact - that the Earth will be a food factory, mall outlet, and entertainment center for human beings. Is this the destination we choose for Earth and for Homo sapiens - a species it took the planet 3.8 billion years to evolve?

If the answer to this question is "No," then one crucial place to begin is facing the population question. The population question today resembles the proverbial elephant in the room screened out of view by collective denial. There is no issue here of instituting some kind of "population control" - the boogeyman of misguided humanism. The issue here is simply rational and clear-headed attention to human population growth in order to massively slow it down and stabilize it in the near future. Such a goal will take a lot of energetic work and initiative but it is achievable.   

The United States of America can lead in the public dialogue, as well as in the financial, technical, and institutional supports needed to stabilize the world population. All people should have easy and free access to technologies of contraception and family planning. The United States should be at the forefront of a worldwide effort to make this a reality everywhere. It is well-known, moreover, that when women have the freedom and independence to make the choice, they mostly choose to have few, one, or no children. Again the United States can lead in advocating women's empowerment, especially through supporting educational opportunities. Finally, this is a good time to spearhead a critical shift in the social body: for all women and men to begin having the real option not to have children. This option should be embraced by the norms and language of the global society the world is becoming. Unfortunately, the prevailing tacit or open assumption, most especially targeted at girls, continues to be that they will have children. But in a more compassionate world for all, parenthood will be a serious and conscious decision, not the default outcome driven by genetic compulsion and cultural expectation.      

All the unconscious momentum of biological and cultural contexts of human reproduction - contexts rendered dysfunctional by the state of the Earth today - must be disrupted by news of what is at stake.

What is at stake is that a beautiful and bountiful commonwealth is being turned into a barren, single-species colony that will endure longer than our imagination can fathom.

Eileen Crist received her Bachelor's degree from Haverford College in sociology in 1982 and her doctoral degree from Boston University in 1994, also in sociology, with a specialization in life sciences and society. Her early research focused on animal behavior science and the ways scientists conceptualize, or avoid conceptualizing, the question of animal consciousness. Her interest in this topic was driven by the conviction that western discourses, heavily influenced by anthropocentric doctrines, have underestimated the real depths of animal mind and awareness. She continues to hold an active interest in this topic, but has increasingly devoted her energies to the most profound crisis of our time: the destruction of the Earth's wild creatures and places. This irreversible, far-reaching crisis receives meager attention in academic and public arenas, as so many human beings stay myopically focused on the economy, energy issues, depletion of resources, technological fixes, sociopolitical strife, and other strictly-human concerns. 

She has been teaching at Virginia Tech in the Department of Science and Technology in Society since 1997, where she is advisor for the undergraduate program Humanities, Science, and Environment. She is author of Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind and coeditor of the forthcoming collection Gaia in Turmoil: Climate Change, Biodepletion, and Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis. She is also author of numerous academic papers and contributor to the late journal Wild Earth. She lives in Blacksburg, Virginia with her husband Rob Patzig.