So everybody should just stay poor, George?

George Monbiot has reviewed the Jeff Gibbs and Michael Moore movie "The Planet of the Humans" in the Guardian, and seems to come up with some disturbing conclusions. The first part of the review, highlights some of the errors and exaggerations made in the movie regarding "green energy." I generally agree with the tenor of George's comments, but that part "is by no means the worst of it," according to George. The "worst of it" is that "we really have got to start dealing with the issue of population." He follows with:

Yes, population growth does contribute to the pressures on the natural world. But while the global population is rising by 1% a year, consumption, until the pandemic, was rising at a steady 3%. High consumption is concentrated in countries where population growth is low. Where population growth is highest, consumption tends to be extremely low. Almost all the growth in numbers is in poor countries largely inhabited by black and brown people. When wealthy people, such as Moore and Gibbs, point to this issue without the necessary caveats, they are saying, in effect, "it's not Us consuming, it's Them breeding." It's not hard to see why the far right loves this film.

Taking these comments / criticisms one by one:

1) Yes, population growth does contribute to the pressures on the natural world.

Well gee George, for some of us that means it would be sensible to try to do something about it. I guess we will have to move on to see why you don't think it is a good idea to try to do something about it.

2) But while the global population is rising by 1% a year, consumption, until the pandemic, was rising at a steady 3%.

George's link to the steady 3% consumption reference is to an International Monetary Fund webpage showing that global economic activity was forecast to be 3%. Global economic activity is not exactly the same as consumption. We can have economic activity that doesn't hurt the environment. It makes more sense to look at actual environmental indicators rather than dollars to assess damage to the environment.

Between 1980 and 2014 (the last year of complete data on the World Bank website) Greenhouse gas generation increased by 1.82% and population increased by 1.43%, so population accounted for 79% of the increase. A lot more than the 33% George implies.

3) High consumption is concentrated in countries where population growth is low. Where population growth is highest, consumption tends to be extremely low. Almost all the growth in numbers is in poor countries largely inhabited by black and brown people.

So George has identified the criminals in the global warming crime, the rich (that's us), and the innocent, the poor (largely black and brown people). Just to make sure the guilty know how really evil we are, he makes sure that he identifies us as racist, too.

The trick George uses to make his "rich people are evil" analysis work, is to make us think he is only talking about the high income countries (top 12 by population USA, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy, South Korea, Spain, Poland, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Australia), but the hidden reference shows that he adds in the greenhouse gases (GHG) produced by the upper middle income countries. The top 12 upper middle income countries by population are China, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Thailand, South Africa, Colombia, Argentina, Algeria and Iraq (Seems like a lot of brown and black people there). The upper middle income countries actually produced about 24% more greenhouse gases in 2014 than the high income countries. That means that George is blaming a lot of brown and black people, most who have dug themselves out of poverty over the past 30-40 years, for causing global warming.

Which raises the question: Does George want these black, brown and every other coloured people to continue to get richer, or does he want them to stay poor. I doubt the people in the upper middle income countries earning on average one fifth of what the high income average is, consider themselves rich. I also doubt they want to stop trying to get richer.

It then follows: Does George want the lower middle Income countries (top 12 by population India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Philippines, Egypt, Vietnam, Republic of Congo, Kenya, Myanmar, Ukraine) to get richer. The average GDP/capita in these countries is one twentieth of the high income countries, so I am damn sure they want to get richer.

Assuming that George doesn't want these upper and lower middle income countries to stay poor and he doesn't think they should consider "dealing with the issue of population," we can then estimate the amount of greenhouse gases likely to be generated into the future.

Table 1 shows the population, greenhouse gas generation per capita, total greenhouse gases generated and the associated growth rates for 1980 and 2014. Table 1 also includes estimated values for population (from the United Nations Population Division Median Variant), the estimated greenhouse gas generation per capita based on per capita growth rates estimated from recent history (tinged with optimism) and the calculated total greenhouse gas generation for 2050.

A year by year graph based on the data from 1980 to 2014 and the assumptions leading to 2050 in Table 1, would look as follows.

These estimates show:

• It is not only the High Income countries that are generating GHG, as George implies.
• High income countries are reducing GHG. Others not so much.Under this scenario the total worldwide GHG generated will increase by 40% by 2050
• Under this scenario by 2050 high income countries will produce about 23% of the world's total GHG while upper and lower middle income countries produce three times as much

These are only estimates based on the previous 35 years, but what is clear is: it ain't just about rich countries.

4) When wealthy people, such as Moore and Gibbs, point to this issue without the necessary caveats, they are saying, in effect, "it's not Us consuming, it's Them breeding." It's not hard to see why the far right loves this film.

First, nobody in the film said that or anything close to that. Second, we have just seen that unless you want people to be poor, consuming is going to happen when people get richer. When consuming happens there will be environmental impacts, regardless of the race, creed or colour of the consumer.

Population groups around the world generally focus on their own countries. Maybe George knows of the other kind that says: "it's Them breeding." If so, he didn't leave a reference.

Although it may seem peculiar in today's often polarised, you're either with me or against me world, I don't think either George Monbiot or "Planet of the Humans" are all right or all wrong.

"Planet of the Humans" is hugely flawed, and well done George, for pointing out some of those flaws. Gibbs and Moore were purposely misleading on solar panels and wind turbines. George has written a climate change book saying all the airlines have to be shut down and we all have to grow our own food, so he knows substantial changes have to be made. I guess he thinks those kinds of changes are easier to make than no government benefits for more than 2 kids and net zero immigration. I don't.

"Planet of the Humans" didn't get everything wrong, though. Addressing growth in population is important to solving climate change, pollution, habitat loss and all the other environmental problems.

The fact is, though, that we probably need population stabilisation, George's ideas and a bunch of new and better ideas to give our children and grandchildren a world environment that we can be proud to have passed on.