Population growth is a taboo subject excluded from ecological discourse

Evidence

These additional billions of consumers will take a heavy toll on the earth’s finite resources and ecological systems. The development of clean, green technologies and renewable sources of energy and the adoption of sustainable consumer lifestyles are essential. Even so, billions more consumers will offset a good share of the benefits of any green remedies. Lifestyle changes must, therefore, be coupled with stabilization of the human population at a level the earth can sustain in the long term. On the consumption side, for the most part, we are making token gestures rather than the needed fundamental lifestyle changes. On the population side, population growth has been excluded from the equation for ecological degradation. For reasons to be presented shortly, it is a taboo subject that no one dares touch. Stabilizing the soaring global population is critical for an environmentally sustainable future. To reduce continued destruction of the planet both problems of overpopulation and unsustainable consumption must be addressed. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2554

These additional billions of consumers will take a heavy toll on the earth’s finite resources and ecological systems. The development of clean, green technologies and renewable sources of energy and the adoption of sustainable consumer lifestyles are essential. Even so, billions more consumers will offset a good share of the benefits of any green remedies. Lifestyle changes must, therefore, be coupled with stabilization of the human population at a level the earth can sustain in the long term. On the consumption side, for the most part, we are making token gestures rather than the needed fundamental lifestyle changes. On the population side, population growth has been excluded from the equation for ecological degradation. For reasons to be presented shortly, it is a taboo subject that no one dares touch. Stabilizing the soaring global population is critical for an environmentally sustainable future. To reduce continued destruction of the planet both problems of overpopulation and unsustainable consumption must be addressed. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2554

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim that population growth is taboo in environmental discourse is provocative and worth checking against current debates — is that still true, or has it resurfaced?
• XREF: Connects to moral disengagement mechanisms — how taboo moral subjects get excluded from collective problem-solving.
• SHARE: For a reader who works on population or environmental policy - the parallel claim that green-tech gains are being offset by sheer demographic growth.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2554