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Some progressives, including Adam Ramsay, (The charity which campaigned to ban Syrian refugees from Britain, 23 September), don’t get population. This seems surprising. Progressives seek poverty alleviation, environmental conservation and a better future, all goals of population concern. Like population concern, progressives are concerned about the disempowered: women, the poor, other species and future generations. When population concern was more popular, many progressives supported it, including Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Pete Seeger and Jane Fonda. Many on the right did, too, but then environmentalism is a broad church. Our patrons include conservationists David Attenborough, Jane Goodall and Chris Packham, scientists Partha Dasgupta and James Lovelock, family planning providers John Guillebaud and Malcolm Potts and former Green Party luminaries Sara Parkin and Jonathon Porritt. The Green Party has a population policy. We all live on the same planet.
However, not everyone quite realizes that. Let’s make that the first of seven reasons why some progressives don’t get population. Many, especially young male ones, seek a target to attack. Since well before ancient Athens, the rich and powerful have tried to hold onto their wealth and power and the poor and disempowered have tried to get hold of it. So progressives aren’t always happy with something that doesn’t fit their simple dichotomy of rulers vs. ruled. Population concern, which says that we all have a responsibility and can make a difference, disrupts an ‘us vs. them’ world view which holds that it’s the bosses/ government/ establishment/ system to blame. Some progressives go further and deny that disempowered people are responsible for anything, though they can draw the line at crime. Similarly, some feminists argue that women have rights but no responsibilities. This seems to run counter to progressives’ faith in society. If society is a public good, hasn’t its members a responsibility to it? The number of one’s children has a greater impact on the environment than anything else one does.
