Right here at the start I’m going to state that, hey, I don’t really know what the hell I’m talking about. I’m not an expert on Africa—but I have been a regular reader of multiple newspapers over the last 25-or-so years. And over that quarter of a century I’ve been reading pretty much the same stories about Africa again and again—you know: regional war, grinding poverty, famine, habitat loss, endangered species in decline, AIDS, “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” Bono, etc.
Anyway… Thomas Friedman wrote a column about Africa in Wednesday’s New York Times. (Can’t link—it’s behind the TimesSelect firewall.) He focused on Kenya and the impact that climate change is going to have on that long-suffering country. Kenya wasn’t in great shape to begin with and climate change is already fucking with the weather there—in ways that are potentially devastating for humans and wildlife. The rainy seasons are changing as “worldwide precipitation” shifts “away from the equator and toward the poles.”
Kenya also has to worry about deforestation and poaching, although poaching is now under better control. Kenya’s forests have been reduced from 10 percent of the country’s land-mass at the time of its independence in 1963 to 2 percent today, while in the same period its elephant population went from 170,000 to 30,000 and its rhino population went from 20,000 to around 500…Climate change could worsen this…. Africa accounts for less than 3 percent of global CO2 emissions since 1900, the report noted, yet its 840 million people could suffer enormously from global-warming-induced droughts and floods and have the fewest resources to deal with them.
Sounds pretty grim. It makes a guy think that maybe buying RED t-shirts at the Gap and RED Nokia phones isn’t enough to save Africa after all.
Friedman’s column focused on the plight of wildlife and humans in Africa, and that struck me. When we talk about “saving Africa” we have two goals—goals that, when you pause to consider them for a moment, are in almost direct conflict. We want to save the wildlide—the elephants, the rhinos, the gorillas in the mist, and all the other endangered species on that continent. And what’s wiping them all out? Habitat loss and poaching. Basically, humans—Africans—are wiping them out.
The population of Africa in 1900 was roughly 108 million. Today it’s 840 million. If we’re concerned about saving the elephants and the rhinos and apes then we need to recognize that one of Africa’s chief problems is… well, all those Africans. It’s the overpopulation, stupid.
But we want to save the Africans too—from AIDS, from genocide in Darfur, from batshitcrazy Robert Mugabe. And we should not only want to save Africans, we should do something about saving Africans. But saving Africans isn’t in the best interests of all that African wildlife, our concurrent concern. They’re almost mutually exclusive. So what do we do?
It seems to me that we can save Africans and Africa by… getting Africans the hell out of Africa.
Back to Thomas Friedman:
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just concluded that two-thirds of the atmospheric buildup of heat-trapping carbon dioxide has come—in roughly equal parts—from the U.S. and Western Europe. These countries have the resources to deal with climate change and may even benefit from some warming.
Gregg Easterbrook wrote an article in April’s Atlantic Monthly titled “Global Warming: Who Loses—and Who Wins?” (You have to be a subscriber to read the article on their website, but you can read letters about it here.) Guess what? We win—the northern hemisphere. Canada wins, parts of the United States wins (Alaska wins), northern Europe wins. Freakin’ Siberia wins—that frozen wasteland may become the breadbasket of the world.
In a March column in The Nation on how the west is reacting to falling birth rates, Katha Pollit wrote…
If fears of population implosion result in paid parental leave, improved childcare and more support for mothers’ careers, it won’t be the first time a government has done the right thing for the wrong reason. But isn’t it weird to promote population growth while we wring our hands over global warming, environmental damage, species loss and suburban sprawl? The United Nations projects that in 2050 the world’s population will reach 9.2 billion…Getting a better deal for mothers has been at the forefront of the feminist agenda for decades, although you’d never know it from the way the women’s movement is always being accused of attacking women with kids. So it’s ironic that what is finally driving at least some governments to act is the desire to boost fertility rates. The aim is to breed the next generation of workers—ethnically correct workers, too, not the troublesome immigrant kind…. [Why] not learn to live with [population decline]? Economically, the problem is a coming dearth of young workers to fund social security and care for an aging population. Yet while demographers fret about those unconceived second and third babies, every country on earth throws away plenty of children who are already here. Poor children, for example—why can’t they grow up to be those missing skilled, educated people and productive workers? What about the children of France’s Arab immigrants… The Gypsies of Eastern Europe… Vladimir Putin bemoans Russia’s free-falling population, but babies are still being stashed in his country’s appalling orphanages…. Instead of cajoling or bribing women into gestating the home-health attendants of the future, states should start treasuring the people—all the people—they have right now.
That includes immigrants.
Yes. We’ve got a birth-dearth in the west. The west has made a mess of the planet and the people of Africa in particular are going to suffer for it. And there are too many people in Africa, eating up habitat and poaching wild animals to survive. So why not… open the doors? Without a doubt tens if not hundreds of millions of Africans would welcome the opportunity to immigrate—legally, with dignity—to, say, Canada, Russia, the United States, Northern Europe. We shouldn’t force anyone to leave Africa—um, of course not, never again—but it seems pretty clear that, given the opportunity, many millions of Africans would willingly leave Africa.
And that would be good for Africans, good for Africa, and good—good penance, good environmental policy—for us.
Not good environmental policy for the west. Economic wealth is not the same as environmental health. We'll have problems feeding ourselves as it is.
Not good environmental policy for the west. Economic wealth is not the same as environmental health. We'll have problems feeding ourselves as it is.
It seems to me that we can save Africans and Africa by… getting Africans the hell out of Africa.
This reminded me of Sam Kinison's routine: "You want to stop world hunger? Stop sending these people food. Don't send these people another bite, folks. You want to send them something, you want to help? Send them U-Hauls. Send them U-Hauls, some luggage, send them a guy out there who says, 'Hey, we been driving out here every day with your food, for, like, the last thirty or forty years, and we were driving out here today across the desert, and it occurred to us that there wouldn't BE world hunger, if you people would LIVE WHERE THE FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT'S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT'S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR SHIT, WE'LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE'LL TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA -- WE JUST DON'T LIVE IN THEM, ASSHOLES!
no mention of debt relief suggests you missed pretty much one of the biggest issues in the world in your reading about africa.
Except the reason the US & Western Europe pump more global warming gases into the atmosphere is that people who live here are used to lots of burning fossil fuels and our entire infrastructure is set up to encourage just that behavior. Any increase in the population of the developed world--whether immigrant or birth/death--will increase production of global warming gases.
Dan,
I have never disagreed more vehemently with you than I do now. I can agree with your opening disclaimer about not knowing what you're talking about and that’s about it. The very premise of your argument undoes it: the fallacy that somehow the west needs to "save" Africa. I'm sorry Dan but that sort of social Darwinism reminiscent of Kipling's "White man's burden" is exactly why Africa is where it is in the first place. The quest to "save" Africa from itself has always been used as cover for the real agenda: the plundering of Africa's resources.
Listen, here's a novel idea. How about self determination? How about just let Africans be Africans. If the world would stop all political and economic interference in Africa, then Africans would find African solutions to African problems. Africans are not the retarded little brother that will perpetually need your sympathy and care to survive.
Your talk of environmental degradation in Africa due to the darn Africans is sweet after 400 years of white people sucking the continent dry and carrying those riches of elsewhere. If anything, Africa's devastation is evidence of the extent to which it has been deprived of the benefits of it's own wealth.
Your point about willing immigration may be true but not for the reasons you suggest. Africans, like all people, will emigrate for better economic opportunities. Mexicans aren't fleeing global warming are they?
I'd be interested to hear Charles Mudede's take on your solution to African poverty!
If immigrants leave africa, you'll just have the people remaining having more kids, but with more people in the west.
The situation in Africa will remain the same, it'll just be more crowded in the west. That system is called a malthusian trap and africa has been in one for about 300 years now.
Yes, what we need in the West is more extremely homophobic people moving here to join forces with the Christian wing-nuts already here. I'm sure Pastor Hutch would just love this plan, Dan. His church would be overflosing. Maybe Mugabe could be his assistant pastor?
I have to agree with Deeply Depressed on this post Dan – and say that this is the worst posting I have ever read by you.
“And there are too many people in Africa, eating up habitat and poaching wild animals to survive.”
In 1900 the population of the US was 76 million, compared to 281 million in 2000. The landmass of Africa is 3 times that of the United States. The comparative rate of growth over 100 years is actually higher in the US, not to mention who was taking a census in 1900 in Africa?
One problem that Africa faces is the brain drain, people that become educated are leaving in droves.
Land in Africa is sufficient for growing sustainable foods, raising animals and such. It is a continent made up of 53 countries(including islands), not all of it is desert Dan.
Keep reading those newspapers Dan, and maybe take a trip to Africa and see for yourself.
China isn't interested in Africa for its sunny beaches(this statement may or may not be true, the beaches are very nice), it is however very interested in its natural resources.
The problems in Africa have mainly been imposed by the west. Western medicine in Africa lowered infant mortality which partially contributed to the 8 fold increase in population, western companies came in and exploited most of their natural resources, western banks loaned crooked dictators insourmountable debt leaving a miniscule percentage of the GDP for domestic infrastructure investment or education, western countries drew borders across the continent with no regard for tribal territories or ethnic distribution resulting in perrenial conflict.
The problem of global warming is he greatest challenge we'll face as a species. The current economic model requires consumption and net growth. This means we need population growth or increased consumption by those who can afford it to compensate for lower population growth rates to keep the world economy humming along at the current rate. Consumption equals global warming, our economy is currently fueled by fossel fuels, desiel tankers bring goods from importers, Semis truck goods from across the globe to the farthest reaches of rural America. Coal power plants feed our ravenous appetite for electricity. In order for our country to remain prosperous, our economy requires CO2 emissions under the current economic model. Since we currently contribute 75% of the global co2 production, our economy is the largest hurdle we face in reducing our emissions.
The obvious way around this is to provide incentives and regulations to move toward sustainable cities since the vast majority of co2 emissions are emitted from urban areas. If we can stimulate growth in the renewable/sustainable sectors, then we can afford to bring additional individuals into our country, but until we solve our own emissions problems, it is in the best interest of people worldwide if we keep western populations low.
Dan,
That's one of the more thought-provoking posts I've read here in a while. Some related thoughts:
- It's easier for the United States to accept immigrants than other Western countries, since our identity is more tied to "universal" ideas and less to specific ethnicity, religion, or language.
- Blaming the West (including, incredibly, for reducing infant mortality in Africa) for the current state of the continent, while partially true, is not constructive for determining the path forward.
- Deeply Depressed's attitude -- "get the West out and everything will be OK" -- is wishful thinking. First, the moment we leave, the Chinese will come in. Secondly, I'm not sure how *not* purchasing resources from Africa somehow improves the lot of Africans, although it might improve the environmental situation. I suspect most African leaders (many of whom are a result of "self-determination") would disagree that less trade with the outside world is the answer.
The population of Africa in 1900 was roughly 108 million. Today it’s 840 million. If we’re concerned about saving the elephants and the rhinos and apes then we need to recognize that one of Africa’s chief problems is… well, all those Africans. It’s the overpopulation, stupid.
Culture has a lot to do with it as well. Yes, they have the culture they do for a lot of reasons, not the least Imperialism but ... it's still a valid issue no matter how they got there.
But we want to save the Africans too—from AIDS, from genocide in Darfur, from batshitcrazy Robert Mugabe. And we should not only want to save Africans, we should do something about saving Africans. But saving Africans isn’t in the best interests of all that African wildlife, our concurrent concern. They’re almost mutually exclusive. So what do we do?
Are they? We manage - in North America - to have an amazing variety of wildlife. Yes, extinction but .. buffalo were nearly wiped out in 1900. Gone forever. But they're not - you can buy buffalo meat and see thousands of the beasts out wandering around. We don't have the same variety of wildlife but it seems to me that it's possible for 'people' to live with critters.
840 million Africans is a lot but ..
298,444,215 - United States
42,000,000 - Canada
107,449,525 - Mexico
Round it up (Canada would not hold still) and call it 450,000,000 people, on a land mass that is smaller than Africa.
It seems to me that we can save Africans and Africa by… getting Africans the hell out of Africa.
I'm all for that - immigrants are what this country is about. But immigration is not enough. What 'Africa' really needs (being simplistic but this is The Stranger so it's the norm) is wealth. Great gobs of middle-class proles and rule-of-law and property rights.
Sorry, Dan, you've got your head so far up your ass on this one you're practically a human Klein bottle.
1. When people talk about "overpopulation" they almost always talk about numbers of people. But numbers of people is not the real problem. The real problem is total resource usage. By that measure, 300mil USAmericans is way more than 840mil Africans. If you want to talk about overpopulation purely in demographic terms, call it what it is: a political issue, a question, in some people's minds, of Too Many Them, not an environmental issue.
2. There's a venerable tradition of rushing to blame Africans for fucking up the environment in Africa. This is what British settlers in the Kenyan highlands told the colonial government was the cause of soil erosion in the 30s ... which was why, they argued, even more of the land should be taken away from the African herders and given to white people ... who would better manage the soil by cultivating coffee in intensive plantations.
This is what agronomists in the 50s and 60s said was causing deforestation and desertification in the Sahel. When geographers finally reviewed aerial footage, OOPS, turns out the most common trend is for forest growth to become thicker around a village as the village grows (see Fairhead and Leach, Misreading the African Landscape, 1996).
This is what development experts have been saying about subsistence agriculture in southern Africa since Audrey Richards's work on the "hungry season" in northern Rhodesia in the 1930s. Turns out? Yes, there's been progressive deforestation, but not because the Bemba are overcrowded or don't know how to manage the land. Late-colonial taxation policies were designed to force Africans to grow market crops and to force men to go to work in the diamond fields and goldmines. Sustainable agricultural practices based on millet cultivation were jettisoned between the 30s and 70s--maize, less nutritious but less technically demanding and capable of growing on the most used-up, ill-treated land, became the staple. Efforts to modernize and commercialize African agriculture actually brought about the practices that look so unsustainable today. Read Moore and Vaughan's Cutting Down Trees (1994).
3. Thomas Friedman? You're getting your news about Africa from Thomas Friedman? If you really want to understand something about politics and migration in southern Africa, check out Carolyn Nordstrom's Shadows of War.
@14,
There is one primary reason why the great mass of people on this planet don't significantly contribute to environmental destruction -- poverty. If all but a couple of billion people are willing to live in crushing poverty, then overpopulation isn't a problem. However, those of us who would like to see every person have access to food, clean drinking water, health care, and education are very concerned about it. Until we manage to invent a technology that can create resources out of thin air, we will never be able to provide a decent quality of life to all 6.5 (soon to be 9) billion people.
Also, it's commercial agriculture that has enabled us to produce enough food for such a large population (even if many of those people don't have access to it). With the land that's already cultivated, i.e. without wiping out more wilderness, traditional methods of sustainable agriculture aren't going to feed that many people.
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Mexico still counts as the global south, and the US is basically doing exactly what you're advocating. Native born Americans have a birth rate below the replacement rate of 2.1 per woman, but we continue to grow because of immigrants, and their high birthrates in the first generation. Of course, we do a much better job of integrating our immigrants than Europe. If they did as well as us, France's cafes would be full of Africans and Arabs smoking Galuoises and reading Foucault.