In his 2015 book The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom, Michael Shermer makes a well-supported argument that the secular domain has done more good for the world than the domain of religion. He writes: “The scientific revolution led to the Age of Reason and to the Enlightenment and that changed everything.” Further, he states, “these changes reversed our species’ historical trend downward and that we can do more to elevate humanity, extend the arc and bend it forever upward.”

“Not so fast,” I say to the founder of the Skeptic Society, “I am skeptical.” Here’s the problem: The moral arc of humanity cannot continue to go upward when the trend of the human population arc is also going upward.

As a science writer, Shermer knows that the earth is a limited place and that humans are at a trophic level that is meant to be inhabited by a very limited number of individuals.¹ As our numbers continue to climb in a hockey stick–like upward curve, our resources decline and our density increases; that brings with it an increase in scarcity. This is hardly a scenario in which our collective morality will be well incubated.

Morality—encompassing such values as equal treatment under just laws, equal job opportunity, equal access to healthy food, and the like—is profoundly threatened by the far-reaching implications of overpopulation. Simply put, whenever demand exceeds supply there will be immoral scrambles to get one’s “fair share” (more realistically, whatever one can get).

Why are water wars a concern in the not-too-distant future? Because humanity has done such a superb job using up the freshwater supply faster than it can renew itself—all due to our ever-growing numbers. As our population grows, so does our need to consume water for us and our livestock and for manufacturing and transportation.

I am a fan of Shermer and his work in the field of skepticism and secularism. He ably presents many examples in which science has contributed to an improvement in our morality. But science is not wholly benign; it has contributed to both sides of the overpopulation predicament. It has contributed both to increasing our numbers and to the increasingly scary ways in which we die. Science has increased our longevity with medical procedures and drugs even as it has given rise to birth control. Science has made nuclear war possible and created carcinogenic chemicals even as a whole scientific field developed to help solve infertility. At the end of the day, the “birth” side of science has won, putting unrelenting pressure on the biosphere as we continue to add over one million of us to the planet in less than a week.

I am not naive enough to think that the world would be instantly more moral if our numbers fell into line with our finite supplies of minerals, energy, water, and soil. Furthermore, I know that in immoral hands, a doctrine with overpopulation as its main storyline would be disastrous.

What I am saying is that overpopulation, in and of itself, is a roadblock to any kind of moral progress. Extending humanity’s moral arc, no matter how secular and scientific we become, is impossible in this world of nearly eight billion humans growing by 80+ million a year.

Each country has a moral obligation to its citizens and resources to assess its own limits. Science and reason must be used to determine what the ecosystem can sustainably afford to offer each person. As it happens, the scientists at the Global Footprint Network (www.globalfootprintnetwork.org) have already done this homework, and the result doesn’t look promising for the moral arc.

I contend that the moral arc will continue to go down, and even crash, if the population of our country and the world keeps going up.

If you accept my premise that scarcity brought on by too much demand on a limited planet is a Petri dish for fostering disorder and immorality, then opposing growth is our collective moral duty. My colleagues and I come from a place of wanting to prevent chaos and aid the biosphere. We have taken on the ever-more-perilous mantle of screaming about overpopulation because we see the big picture. I have asked many of my fellow activists why they work on this issue, and they all say basically the same thing: they want to save the biosphere that supports us and the wildlife and open spaces they love.

8 Billion Angels filmmaker and overpopulation activist Terry Spahr says:

Global warming, food and water shortages, catastrophic storms, extinction of species, plant and animal habitat loss … . The list of environmental, social and economic catastrophes affecting our planet with greater frequency and severity goes on and on. If there was a simple root cause and a fundamental solution, wouldn’t you want to know?²

The answer, of course, is unsustainable human population.

I would add that if you are dedicated to stopping those catastrophes, you are exhibiting some pretty hefty moral chops.

Indeed we overpopulation activists are the ones holding on to the reins of morality and justice. The world that Shermer discusses can certainly benefit from more rational thought, but that must include thought and work on overpopulation. Unless we start working on this critically important issue as a moral imperative, morality itself will be rendered irrelevant, flattened by the thundering feet of billions of desperate people.

Notes

1. A trophic level is the area of a food chain a given species occupies. Because humans are at the top level supported by plants, insects, and larger mammals, their numbers should be the least, much like the way an owl is in lower numbers than skunks, which are in lower numbers than grasshoppers, and down to plants, which must be the most numerous. But as top apex predators occupying the highest level of the food chain, our forests are converted unsustainably to cropland at the expense of the forests. Without forests, temperature cannot be regulated and carbon cannot be absorbed. Essentially, we have turned the food chain on its head, and the results are deadly.
2. https://8billionangels.org