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Demography and the failure of sustainable development: denial, indifference and skewed power

“The Refugee” (c) Anne Vaughan, oil on canvasanne-vaughan.jpg

Prof Colin D ButlerFlinders University School

of the Environment Colloquium

May 25, 2016

http://www.artversed.com/meletios-meletiou-art-is-duty-lesbos-and-the-refugee-crisis/

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A “child-friendly” space in the Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania. Photograph: Griff Tapper/IRC http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/burundi-ethnic-violence-refugees

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1. Setting the sceneBurundi (2016); Sahel (now, future)

Syria (now)Climate change

2. Behind the scenes“Neoliberalism”

The colonisation of demographythe “fortress world”

Four vectors driving migration

3. SolutionsBeyond the SDGs?

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Our duty, in science and the academy, is to analyse and report

“truth” as we see it - even if

we can’t change politicians and public opinion

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Setting the scene

Burundi (2016); Sahel (now, future)Syria (now)

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Royal Society. People and Planet (2012)

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Men carry away a dead body in the Nyakabiga neighbourhood of Bujumbura, Burundi in December 2015. Photograph: STR/AP http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/burundi-ethnic-violence-refugees

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Women at the IRC women’s centre at Nyarugusu. Photograph: Griff Tapper/IRChttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/burundi-ethnic-violence-refugees

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Burundian refugees return from an hours-long trip outside the Nyarugusu refugee camp to collect firewood. Photograph: Griff Tapper http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/burundi-ethnic-violence-refugees

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One of the mass shelters in Nyarugusu refugee camp, Tanzania. Built to host 200; in many cases they house many more. Photograph: Luca Sola

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/14/life-escaping-conflict-nyarugusu-tanzania-i-dont-feel-like-burundian-i-am-a-refugee

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Burundi refugees wash their clothes near a river on the edge of the Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania. Photograph: Phil Moore/Oxfam

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/15/nowhere-to-run-burundi-violence-follows-escapees-across-borders

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Burundian refugees listen to Tanzanian PM Kassim Majaliwa speak at Nduta camp in Kigoma, Tanzania. Photograph: STR/AP http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/burundi-ethnic-violence-refugees

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The Sahel, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/opinion/out-of-africa.html

Thomas Friedman: “interviewed 20 men from .. 10 African countries.. all had gone to Libya, tried and failed to get to Europe, and returned penniless, unable to go to their home villages. I asked: “How many of you and your friends would leave Africa and go to Europe if you could get in legally?”“Tout le monde,” they practically shouted, while they all raised their hands.I don’t know much French, but I think that means “everybody.”

CRICOS #00212KRefugees en route from Africa to Italy, 2014

Up to 200,000 predicted for 2016

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“Agadez, with its warrens of ornate mud-walled buildings, is a remarkable Unesco World Heritage site, but the city has been abandoned by tourists after attacks nearby by Boko Haram and other jihadists. So, as one smuggler explains to me, the cars and buses of the tourist industry have now been repurposed into a migration industry.”

Total Fertility Rate: (2015): 6.8

CRICOS #00212Khttp://countrymeters.info/en/Niger

24 M 52 M 209M2020 2050 2100

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http://oasisinitiative.berkeley.edu/mission/

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http://oasisinitiative.berkeley.edu/mission/

We are focused on three “pillars” critical for the region: 1) educate and empower adolescent girls, 2) expand access to voluntary family planning, and 3) adapt agricultural practices to climate change.

VisionA Sahel where all girls are educated and free from early marriage, where all women are free to choose the timing and number of their children, and where everyone has enough to eat

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CRICOS #00212Khttp://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/21/brutality-syria-war-raises-doubts-on-chances-for-peace-talks.html

CRICOS #00212Khttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/04/syria-people-help-g20

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Damascus, 2014. Line for food aid from UN Relief and Works Agency in a great city - large parts of which have been destroyed by civil war, along with basic food supply infrastructure

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Towards a 4 degree world

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CRICOS #00212Khttp://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/sotc/global/2016/apr/ytd-horserace-201604.png

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Credits: Dave/Flickr Creative Commons/CC BY 2.0http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/new-nasa-web-portal-shines-beacon-on-rising-seas/#

Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Florida

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Behind the scenes“Neoliberalism”

“the fortress world”Four vectors driving migration

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The great takeover: “there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families” (Margaret Thatcher, 1987) http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-quotes

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Keynesianism – dominant, Primary Health Care – health systems approach

“Health for all by 2000”

Share of income top 1%

UNCTAD, 2012

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Ascendancy of neoliberalism

Share of income received by top 1% (UNCTAD, 2012)

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Some ways the powerful “rig” the system, harming public goods*

1. Own, control, influence media*2. Excessive influence on policy*3. Ignore big tax evaders4. Encourage social norms blaming poor5. Cut foreign aid *6. Promote loyal academics *7. Ignore, imprison, or murder dissidents** (not just neoliberalism)

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The Pedagogy of the Oppressed1968, 1970

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Orthodoxy: 1950s-early 1980s

High population growth impedes economic takeoff

Eg Coale, Liebenstein, NelsonNelson RR. A theory of the low-level equilibrium trap in underdeveloped economies. The American

Economic Review. 1956;46(5):894-908.

Coale AJ, Hoover EM. Population Growth and Economic Development in Low Income Countries. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press; 1958.

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Lyndon Johnson

“… less than five dollars invested in population control (sic) is worth a hundred dollars invested in economic growth”

1968: shipped 1/5 US wheat harvest to India, on condition that India step up family planning programme

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Richard Nixon

“… countries such as Mozambique, Ethiopia, .. need to maintain real economic growth rates of 3% just to keep their per capita incomes from dropping. Unchecked population growth will put them on an ever-accelerating treadmill that will outpace any potential economic performance"

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“Revisionism”: early 1980s-1990s – now?

High population growth irrelevant – leave it to “market forces”

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“The Cornucopian Enchantment”

Simon: “the notion of something being infinite is very much a matter of how we look

at it..” (The Ultimate Resource)

“From a high point some 10-15 years ago, intellectual concern about population has steadily waned to a position where it falls

now somewhere between ocean mining and acid rain” (McNicoll and Nag, 1982)

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Ronald Reagan

When questioned about population growth the New York Times reported that he considered the problem to have been

“vastly exaggerated”

(Finkle and Crane, 1985)

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US policy at the Mexico City population conference, 1984

American Population Association:

‘authors of draft report “either unaware of 50 years

of demographic research, or deliberately ignored

it”’

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US Nat’l Acad. Sciences 2nd enquiry into pop/envt: 1986

• Mostly economists

• Strong “Cornucopian” influence (especially Simon)

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“There is only one earth - yes, but the potential for transforming it is not necessarily finite" (African Academy of Sciences, 1994)

Denial of human carrying capacity

“There are no...limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future.”

Larry Summers (early 1990s)

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Demography, inequality, magical thinking (The Human Titanic)

1. Reliance on market will provide public goods (including public health)

2. Ridicule “Limits to Growth”

3. Fallacious doctrine (conceit) of capital substitutabilityin one boat

danger of sinkinghypocrisy, loss of connection with poor

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Consequences for Family Planning• Budget falls

US, Australia, globally

• 1994 Cairo conference: ignores economic argument

• 2004 pop’n conference: abandoned

• Environmental groups: largely ignore pop’n (including IPCC, Millennium Assessment, Greenpeace,

Up in Smoke)

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“Revisionism”: revisited 2000s – now?

Kelley

UK Parliament

Royal Society

Gates Foundation

WHO?

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The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) pointed out that almost 1.5 billion young men and women will enter the 20-to-24-years age cohort between 2000 and 2015, and if they don't find jobs "they will fuel political instability."

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Four vectors driving migration

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push - pull

• poverty - riches (eg Gold rush)

• hunger – plenty (eg Irish migration)

• persecution – freedom (eg Jewish diaspora)

• dreary weather – endless sun (UK to Queensland)

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“Glue” -attachment

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“fend” factors – refugees in Australia

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Australian refugee camp riots spreading Mark Chipperfield in

Sydney 01 Jan 2003

(before we got really cruel)

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http://www.nojailforourduty.org/#!Laureate-Professor-Nick-Talley-President-of-the-Royal-Australasian-College-of-Physicians/cmbz/56ee6c7c0cf2ca5152e8a79a

Refugees and asylum seekers have complex needs as patients. Their experiences .. often result in complex disease, malnutrition,

developmental issues severe mental health concerns.

Our immigration detention policy takes these needs and exacerbates them.

.. detention, particularly > six months, leads to serious trauma. .. statistics on mental health conditions in detention are shocking in

both adults and children.

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Australia: too much on “fend” not enough on “glue”

Photograph: Ben Doherty for the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/20/resettling-refugees-in-papua-new-guinea-a-tragic-theatre-of-the-absurd?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=173320&subid=7792814&CMP=ema_632

“one refugee who remains working .. paid a daily wage of about $12, yet is accommodated in a hotel costing about $140

“Detention on Manus Island and Nauru alone cost the government $1.2 billion in the year to June 2015.”

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Why do we have this evidence? .. because my colleagues, dedicated physicians and paediatricians working in these centres to provide the health care the detainees so badly need, have been brave enough to speak out about the sometimes appalling conditions inside these centres.

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Gillian Triggs (Human Rights Commission president )We’ve got senior public servants who will roll their eyes at the idea of a human right. They say, “Look, Gillian, you’re beating a dead horse.”

“Our parliamentarians are usually seriously ill-informed and uneducated. .. they’ve lost any sense of a rule of law, and .. don’t even understand what democracy is.https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2016/04/23/human-rights-

commission-president-gillian-triggs-speaks-out/14613336003160

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Gillian Triggs (Human Rights Commission president )“The government has used the word unlawful [in relation to asylum seekers] and George Orwell understood the power of language very well. In

the department you have a minister saying, “You will call these people ‘illegals’.” It’s shocking that Australia would come to that depth of abuse of

power.” https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2016/04/23/human-rights-

commission-president-gillian-triggs-speaks-out/14613336003160

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“In 2016–17, Australia will provide $2.9 billion in International Development Assistance (IDA).” http://dfat.gov.au/aid/aid-budgets-statistics/Pages/default.aspx

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Signs of hope?

Namibia: President Hage Geingob with First Lady Monica Geingos http://allafrica.com/stories/201604220898.html

Alex Ezeh

Eliya Zulu

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Human “carrying capacity”

= f [nc, hc, sc, bc, fc]

– Partial inter-convertibility of types of capital– HCC expandable via co-operation, conquest, trade and

technology (eg)

–But: need to conserve minimum reserves -

especially natural, human & social

natural human Social built financial “CAPITAL”

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What we can do

1. Form coalitions – among colleagues, with other disciplines and with other groups

2. Strive to challenge neoliberalism and magical thinking; accelerate action on climate change

3. Keep optimistic but not complacent

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http://www.koreaneye.org/filestorage/cities/1/artworks/jinee_ahn_Code_L1201_130x162cm_mixed_media_on_korean_paper_2012/650_0_resize_80.jpg

Acknowledgements

Maurice KingTony McMichaelBob DouglasJoseph ChaimieLucia Arman

Ahn Jinee

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SPARE

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He Had a dream

7272Health for all on a single planet

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The World Bank granted Tanzania $50m in 2007 in a drive to boost educational standards and school enrollment levels. $4.5tn is needed for development projects like this around the world that will help meet the SDGs Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/may/04/the-missing-development-trillions-where-will-they-come-from?CMP=ema-1702&CMP=

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The Inside Story of the Papal Birth Control Commission (1963-66)

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Human Carrying capacity

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A member of Burundi’s military on patrol as police seek weapons in Bujumbura. Photograph: Griff Tapper/IRC http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/burundi-ethnic-violence-refugees

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Historic Centre of AgadezCopyright: © CRA-terreAuthor: Arnaud Misse

http://whc.unesco.org/?cid=31&l=en&id_site=1268&gallery=1&&maxrows=18

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The lion (and gazelle) of al-Lāt (2000 years old)

Palmyra, Syria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_of_Al-l%C4%81t#/media/File:Lion_in_the_garden_of_Palmyra_Archeological_Museum,_2010-04-21.jpg

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education of illiterates, especially adults .. every human

being, no matter how “ignorant” or submerged in the “culture

of silence” is capable of looking critically at his/her world,

provided with proper tools for such encounter s(he) can

gradually perceive his/her personal and social reality and

deal critically with it. When an illiterate peasant participates

in this sort of educational experience s(he) comes to a new

awareness of self, a new sense of dignity; s(he) is stirred by

new hope.

The Pedagogy of the Oppressed

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Unfair??

Imagine if I did this in China! or Thailand!

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People at present think that five sons

are not too many and each son has five

sons also, and before the death of the

grandfather there are already 25

descendants. Therefore people are more

and wealth is less; they work hard and

receive little.

HAN FEI-TZU, ca. 500 B.C.

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Demography and the Limits to Growth, Paul Demeny, Population and Development Review 1988

What evidence is there that the pond is half full?

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Women at the IRC women’s centre at Nyarugusu (Tanzania). Photograph: Griff Tapper/IRC http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/15/nowhere-to-run-burundi-violence-follows-escapees-across-borders