Chris Packham’s documentary about human population pressures keeps the issue in the public eye, but when it’s so light on the solutions, it could actually set awareness back. Not that it will be watched by many who need their awareness advanced. Opening the show with bad things we do, irritating notes in the background, loses them in five minutes. “Yeah, yeah. Going to hell in a hand basket. What else is on? Something that feels good.”

Standard formula is to show how bad things are, hoping to gain interest in solutions offered later. It fails to connect, both with people who need it and those of us who don’t need it. People in denial won’t tolerate attacks on their world view, and informed people have seen enough already. I usually fast forward to the solutions, which typically disappoint—this one splendidly.

Packham touts the mythical Demographic Transition Theory (DTT) championed by Hans Rosling and most demographers. A Nigerian interviewee said that every time there’s disaster and people’s economic condition worsens, there are more births—a statement in line with the DTT. He didn’t explain that it’s because Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) are already tenuous there, and drastically fail in disasters, economic or otherwise. Most nations disprove the DTT by having fewer offspring when the economy tanks, and more when it recovers. Regions with high Total Fertility (TFR), and high poverty are often caught in a Demographic Trap: not enough money to improve their economy by lowering birth rates.

The number of nations with below Replacement Level fertility (RLF) is supposed to signify hope, ignoring the fact that it takes several decades for population to actually begin shrinking. He did saying “eventually” but ignored plentiful examples: most western nations are below RLF and few are shrinking, not just because of immigration. South Korea took 37 years, Japan 29 years, and after 29 years, China might start shrinking next year, might not.

It’s unquestioned that lower Infant Mortality Rates (IMR) leads to lower TFR, though the data don’t prove it. It’s a worthwhile goal in itself, as is a rising standard of living, but neither reduces TFR.

Education of girls and lower TFR are correlated, but there are other factors. When gender equality advances, several important benefits accrue: reproductive health services, opportunities for something besides wife and mother, and more education. The UK is cutting foreign aid that would help girls avoid pregnancy and stay in school.

More of us reaching old age is included as a factor in population growth, but if four people die 20 years early, it’s the equivalent of one new person not created. With 121 million unintentional conceptions per year, SRHR funding is an obvious way to slow our increase.

Aging societies are presented as a problem due to a slowing of population growth, but unemployment rates show that breeding new workers and taxpayers won’t help fund pensions.

Toward the end, an interviewee from India says that Earth can provide for people’s needs, but not people’s greed. We went into overshoot in 1970. Some of the cause is greed, but much is due to basic needs of 7.7 billion, such as eating.

Packham could have at least made some weak statement about having smaller families, especially in high-consumption regions, but instead he punts.
“I’m not saying to don’t have children, that’s not the answer, clearly.”*
How about fewer? Which brings up an irritating aspect of this doc and population awareness proponents as a whole: it’s always about babies and children. When we procreate, a new human with potentially 80 years of affecting, and being affected by, Earth’s biosphere is unleashed into the world. Framing it about having, or not having, children adds an emotional trigger that fogs rational thinking.

I have to wonder if outspoken human population denialists are chilling spokespeople’s message. Even David Attenborough and Jane Goodall have been harshly criticised for suggesting there are too many of us. George Monbiot wields a wide brush to slather advocates of voluntary population reduction, like Population Matters, as racists, as if ignoring the lack of reproductive health services in poor regions is not.

The fact that full reproductive freedom doesn’t exist anywhere could have been explored, instead of sympathizing with the plight of the childless couple seeking IVF. He flogged India’s forced sterilization program, but ignored the far more prevalent, and more egregious, coerced conceptions and mandatory motherhood running rampant around the globe. More than 171 million women have an unmet need for contraceptive health services.

Planet and People don’t have time for platitudes. Not co-creating more of us most certainly is a huge part of the solution. It’s at least a solution for the new human who isn’t forced into a tenuous, possibly tragic, existence. Packham acknowledges that “The problems that they’re going to have will be far greater than yours,” but somehow it’s alright to bequeath those problems to them without their consent.

*The ending: “I’m not saying to don’t have children, that’s not the answer, clearly. I’m saying to you, recognize that this [whatever this is] is the biggest problem that our species has ever had. and you’re part of that, you’re one of our species and your children and your grandchildren [Any adults in the future?] are part of that species. The problems that they’re going to have will be far greater than yours, so if you do care about them, you have to act now. [And get sterilized?] You might be watching this program and thinking we’re doomed, but that’s not right, we’re not doomed at all, but we’ve got to look after this place. There is no Planet B, and this one is beautiful.” Never mind the extensive scenes in the beginning that aren’t so beautiful.

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