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OPT - A new Form of ECO Nazism?

Social Ecology | 23.07.2009 13:14 | Analysis

Are the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) pushing an agenda via a third way, an agenda that ultimately wants to wipe billions of people off the face of the planet?

Audio OPT - Presentation Extract: Porritt - mp3 1.2M

Mao, Stalin, Porritt
Mao, Stalin, Porritt


OPT - Jonathan Porritt Transcript: "As far as my own personal view about where that will take us goes I would just leave you I imagine with the state of confusion that your probably all in already. I spend most of my life today trying to avoid what I call Lovelockian despair.

Jim Lovelock is an astonishing man and an amazing charismatic figure, one of the scientists I have the most respect for in the world today and I'm a scared of all that because I've always though of Jim being something different and very special.

But the truth of it is when you hear Jim talk about his own unique brand of apocalyptic optimism, this is optimism premised on the death of around 6 billion people which for me is a tough line in optimism I have to say, once you hear him really roll that out that there is a lot of hope for the future of humankind bit of a shame we got to go through a bit of a turbulent period first with massive incalculable awful pain inflicted on human societies I cant really share with Jim the sense that thats the right way to engage people in this debate.

So I'm kind of nervous, because i have a horrible suspicion at the back of my brain which i don't really let out that often that Jim is more likely to be right than more people I know today. But I've allowed myself this illusion that we probably still have a window of time to prove people like Jim wrong.

It isn't a very big window, no point putting years on it but it's really quite short as we all know. and if we can't do what we need to do with that short window of time then the intellectually honest position will be unavoidable which is then we are talking about managing an astonishing holocaust in terms of the way human beings manage there own future.

So that's up the anti in terms of urgency of which we need to share this agenda and I think it leaves all of us in a quite difficult position psychologically which is needing to empower other people to do what needs to be down without crushing them with the despair of a Lovelockian world view, this is tricky stuff frankly and we're all involved in that and thank god at least a group of people like this knows that population has to be part of that, not an irrelevant adjunct to it."

Social Ecology

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Nazi's or realists?

23.07.2009 15:46

Who are the Nazi's here? overpopulation IS going to contribute to many deaths from natural disasters, not man made holocausts, so i see no link, and we need honest open debate about it, too many in the green movement are in denial about population, look at the UK, "no borders" campaigns , what does it really mean? it means no control over population growth and the need for more housing and less green space/growing/grazing space and therefore no ability to feed ourselves in the event of peak oil scenarios coming into play, we need Eco realists to give us honest debate without being accused of being eco nazis!

Reality check

Seeing population in isolation is reactionary crap

23.07.2009 19:59

The problem with OPT and all the so called "brave realists" who obsess over population (which I would guess includes "reality check") is that they see population in isolation as a single issue. And worse, they then carve it up to see it in terms of the capitalist nation state. Population is related to development, to female emancipation, to equality and democracy - in so far as countries with higher levels of all these have lower rates of population increase. Population obsession fits very well with the anti-humanist and racist views that lurk just below the surface of many deep ecologists, primitivists, traditionalists, etc. They just don't like people, and especially not modern, freethinking, emancipated democrats. The idea that overpopulation is the driver of the world's problems, rather than a result of them is at the heart of the reactionary stance and mirrors the view that seeks to blame social or economic problems on immigrants rather than the ruling class and their market system and ideology. "Reality check" lets the cat out of the bag with demands for "control" on population - just who would be exercising this "control" - through what mechanisms/organisations, and in whose interests?

It is time for social ecologists, ecosocialists, socialists and the libertarian left to draw clear lines in the sand, because, yes, OPT-like views cross the line dividing the left from the far right and libertarians from authoritarians. The chief causes of most of the problems the world faces at the moment are the economic and political systems and ideologies that dominate and control the world, not the breeding habits or travel and settlement plans of ordinary people. Population obsession is the old Colonial control freakery and supremacism in a modern green dress. To defeat the systems that cause climate change and energy scarcity and poverty and conflict we need unity of those who are the victims of those systems, not a lining up behind our respective ruling classes "to defend our little plot against the barbarian hordes".

backattya

Population growth will ultimately end in tears

26.07.2009 12:18

I generally agree with "Reality check" - unrestricted population growth will eventually lead to mass famines and other disasters, since there is only so much room on the planet.

I disagree that abolishing borders will make it worse though. That is just right-wing propaganda trying to capitalise on the a genuine problem with a false solution.

Obviously anarchists oppose any coercion to stop people breeding like rabbits, so how to keep populations at a sustainable level to avoid the mass deaths and suffering that would otherwise happen is a difficult question. Especially since speading our genes is hardwired into the central part of our brains.

Fertility is going down, so maybe evolution is doing the job for us! (Seriously though, I suspect pollution is to blame though rather than evolutionary factors.)

It's a classic "tragedy of the commons" situation, but maybe people will just naturally cut down on their procreating, as they have in fact done in the "developed" world where children aren't needed to work on the farm or care for them in old age, etc.

@n@rcho