Kristen Gyles | Saving the planet and people on it

Admittedly, the issue of climate change has not commanded the attention of the average Jamaican. Unlike the scourge of crime, the creeping cost of living and perennial allegations of corruption, climate change is just not the primary issue of concern in local spaces.

Notwithstanding, Jamaicans seem to get a great deal of exercise just walking and fanning themselves vigorously with their hands every day, cursing the summer heat. Why the disconnect between the worldwide conversations on global warming and our year-after-year reality living in an increasingly hot climate?

From observation, the most ardent climate-change activism is concentrated in the very countries that are most culpable in contributing to global warming. According to the Centre for Global Development, between 1850 and 2011 developed nations produced 79 per cent of carbon emissions. Such findings will raise eyebrows, because whereas culpability is concentrated among a minority of powerful countries reaping the easy benefits of industrialisation, the responsibility of fixing the problem, they propose, should be shared.

But one other reason climate-change activism has not grown to a level of prominence that measures up to its potential, is the fact that somewhere in the mix of almost every discussion on climate change reversal is an uncanny insertion about population overgrowth. It’s eerie hearing people site the existence of people as a problem.

PHILOSOPHY

Some environmental scientists have adopted a philosophy on measuring the world’s aggregated climate change impact which utilises the ‘IPAT’ equation. The IPAT equation is Impact (I) = Population (P) x Affluence (A) x Technology (T). The equation describes our global environmental impact as a world community, as a function of the world population size, the average GDP per capita of the population, and the population’s use of technology or energy resources that negatively impact the environment.

In a nutshell, the ‘P’ component of the equation conveys that the larger the population gets, the greater our global environmental impact will be. The world population, now just over eight billion, has doubled since 1974, so it is certainly growing, and growing exponentially. But what do we do about that?

Any philosophy which emphasises a need to regulate the size of the population is perhaps not in my best interest as a Jamaican woman of African descent with not much money or influence to her name. When agitation surrounding population regulation and control becomes a key feature of climate change advocacy, racism, classism, xenophobia and virtually all other forms of discrimination start to rear their ugly heads.

In the best case, the population is getting too big and we simply need to slow the growth rate of the population. In such a scenario, the people occupying some of the poorest and most underdeveloped territories are targeted because, statistically, they are reproducing at much faster rates than those living in wealthier nations. In the worst case, the population is already too big and needs immediate cutting down. Either way, such a discussion betrays the fact that many ardent climate-change activists care more about the globe than the people who live on it.

But there is more to the IPAT equation. If our environmental impact is to be reduced, ‘affluence’, which is the amount of goods and services consumed by the average person, has to be reduced, all other factors remaining unchanged. Much of the luxury we enjoy today are exacerbating climate change. In today’s world there is a machine for virtually everything, and soon enough, we might even have a machine to tie our shoelaces for us. But then there are machines like cars and ships and planes, that are so useful we can’t imagine the world without them. The only problem is that they are largely fuel guzzlers.

GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS

Roughly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions are purported to be produced through transport. Carpooling and increasing our use of public transportation are suggested fixes, but again, the poorest countries have the most horrible public transportation systems. How many Jamaicans are willing to ditch their vehicles to sit squeezed between other disgruntled passengers in a not-so-roadworthy taxi or bus?

The trek to net-zero carbon emissions will also require other sacrifices. We’re encouraged to switch to a plant-based diet to reduce the demand for meats (since animals need extensive agricultural land for grazing), limit our international online purchases (which require transport) and limit international travel, among other lifestyle adjustments.

These are personal lifestyle changes we can make, but hopefully climate change activism can start focusing more on the ‘T’ in IPAT and reduce its focus on the ‘P’ and the ‘A’. If we can find ways to swap out the forms of energy that are hostile to the environment with cleaner ones, that should go a far way. This is a more sustainable focus than scaring the world into thinking there is a plan afoot to exterminate half the global population.

To put things in perspective, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development indicated last year that roughly 83 percent of the world’s population resides in developing nations, which, again, produce very little of the world’s total carbon emissions. So, is there a logical reason for the fixation on population regulation as a climate change mitigation measure?

Our best efforts at reversing global warming are for the purpose of saving the planet so it doesn’t blow up and kill us all, right? Then let’s change the narrative that makes the very existence of people out to be the problem.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and kristengyles@gmail.com.