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Description

Too Many People? provides a clear, well-documented, and popularly written refutation of the idea that "overpopulation" is a major cause of environmental destruction, arguing that a focus on human numbers not only misunderstands the causes of the crisis, it dangerously weakens the movement for real solutions.

No other book challenges modern overpopulation theory so clearly and comprehensively, providing invaluable insights for the layperson and environmental scholars alike.

Ian Angus is editor of the ecosocialist journal Climate and Capitalism, and Simon Butler is co-editor of Green Left Weekly.

Author Bios

Ian Angus is editor of Climate and Capitalism, an online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the ecosocialist alternative. His previous books include Canadian Bolsheviks and The Global Fight for Climate Justice.

Simon Butler, a climate justice activist based in Sydney, Australia, is coeditor of Green Left Weekly, the country’s leading source of anticapitalist news, analysis, discussion, and debate.

Betsy Hartmann writes nonfiction and fiction about important national and global challenges. Her forthcoming book The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War and Our Call to Greatness reveals how end-times thinking profoundly influences American foreign policy, environmental politics and the persistence of injustice. Now in its third edition, Betsy’s feminist classic Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control tackles the powerful myth of overpopulation and its negative consequences for women’s reproductive health and rights. She is also the co-author of A Quiet Violence: View from a Bangladesh Village and co-editor of the anthology Making Threats: Biofears and Environmental Anxieties. Her political thrillers The Truth About Fire and Deadly Election explore the threat the Far Right poses to American democracy. From 1988 until recently Betsy taught at Hampshire College where she directed the Population and Development Program. She is a well-known educator, commentator, and advocate on women’s rights, population, environment and security concerns. For more on Betsy, see www.BetsyHartmann.com.

More Info

Publication date: October 18, 2011

Table of Contents
Introduction

The Population Bomb is Back
1Are People the Problem?
2Varieties of Populationism Today

The Failures of Populationism
3Dissecting those Overpopulation Numbers
4The Carrying Capacity Myth
5The Bomb That Didn't Explode
6Too Many Mouths to Feed?

Control and Coercion
7The Dark History of 20th Century Population Control
8Non-Coercive Population Control?

Greens versus Immigrants?
9Lifeboat Ethics
10Allies, Not Enemies

Production, Consumption, and Revolution
11Too Many Consumers?
12The Myth of Consumer Sovereignty
13The Military-Corporate Polluter Complex
14A System of Growth and Waste
15Population Programs or Ecological Revolution?

Appendices
1The Malthus Myth
2Eugene V. Debs on Immigration
3Donella Meadows on IPAT
4People’s Agreement on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

Bibliography
Index

Reviews