Five Dire Green Myths Causing the Greatest Global Harm

photo: Michael

Green Myth #3: Developing Nations Need to Stop Having Babies

When you look at the population growth rates of certain parts of Africa and Asia, and compare them to the growth rates in Europe and North America, you can’t help but think that the developed world is being overtaken by the developing world: Which in terms of absolute numbers is true. In terms of immediate and local resource consumption this is a genuine problem. But for those of us living in conditions of comparative material luxury, it's all too easy to point the finger elsewhere and mutter something like 'why can’t they just stop having babies.' However, when you consider per capita natural resource consumption and environmental impact the problem is more complicated.

Just consider this one statistic: Over the course of a lifetime, a baby born in the UK will produce 160 times the carbon emissions of an Ethiopian baby. Then this one: According to data gathered by Global Footprint Network the 972 million people living in high income countries have double the total ecological footprint of the 5.4 billion people living in middle and low income countries.

In terms of natural resource consumption, overpopulation is a genuine issue nearly everywhere. Even in low income countries, moderate or low levels of consumption are multiplied by growing populations to create ecological deficits. But this is even more so the case in high income nations, where much smaller population numbers consume resources well beyond the local, regional or national biological capacity. The notion that the current level of natural resource consumption of high income nations can be extended to the majority of people in middle and low income nations is clearly false.

A greater problem than too many people being born in low income countries is too many people trying to consume natural resources at the level of high income nations. The only equitable solution seems to be to meet somewhere in the middle: Increasing material consumption at the bottom end of the scale (and probably decreasing population growth as educational opportunities expand and health improves) while decreasing significantly per capita resource consumption in high income countries.

Yes, that's the mark left by a bird hitting a window, a greater source of bird deaths than wind turbines. photo: Hendrik Dacquin

Green Myth #4: Wind Turbines Are a Serious Threat to Birds

Thankfully, this one is heard with decreasing regularity these days, but occasionally it still pops up so it's worth recapping: Older wind turbine designs, which used smaller blades rotating at faster speeds, could do a job on birds when erected in certain high risk locations. Today we have newer turbine designs, which use longer, slower moving blades, and don’t seem to cause significant amounts of bird deaths.

In fact, more birds are killed annually by colliding with moving vehicles, flying into windows or by cats kept as house pets than by modern wind turbines. There are genuine environmental, visual, and social issues regarding where wind farms get built but it is patently false that wind turbines are a serious threat to flying birds.

Wind turbines causing bat deaths is another issue...

photo: Al

Green Myth #5: Small Green Steps Won’t Make a Big Difference

It seems to come in waves, comments to the effect that all these small changes TreeHugger and other green websites tell people to make--installing energy efficient CFLs, air drying your clothes, eating local food and/or a vegetarian diet--won’t really create the type of changes that will be required to move humanity into an ecologically sustainable, post-carbon world.

Sometimes I admit that I fall into that way of thinking, particularly when faced on a day-to-day basis with a litany of reports detailing how climate change is happening faster than expected, China is building even more coal power plants per week than is commonly known, more animal species face extinction now (mostly because of human activity) than in the last thousands if not millions of years, deforestation is expanding, et cetera.

But this is why I think it is ultimately an eco-myth that small changes don’t have the possibility to make a difference: It's about increasing eco-mindfulness, environmental awareness and mental green acuity. Forgive the following slightly cheesy (if apt) pop culture reference.

In the "Karate Kid," the Ralph Macchio character wants to learn karate and enlists Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) to teach him. Macchio's character wants to get in there and start throwing down roundhouse kicks on the first day, but Mr. Miyagi has other plans: He has Macchio paint the fence, wax his car, and generally do a whole bunch of seemingly pointless activities around the house. But in reality all of them are preparing Macchio for karate at a deeper level than simply going out and practicing kata.

More than (the genuine) positive environmental changes they can bring, advocating small changes is about this: Getting people to start thinking more acutely about the ecological impact of their actions, their consumer purchases and what they put into their bodies. Once this increased awareness has been ingrained then people will more easily and naturally move on to greater changes in the way they live their lives--and have an even greater impact on creating an ecologically sustainable society.

Genetically Modified Crops
Genetically Modified Foods “Biggest Environmental Disaster of All Time”: Prince Charles
Tanzanian NGO Boos GMOs on World Food Day

Coal
There is No Such Thing as Clean Coal
Oops... There’s Fly-sh in the Clean Coal Ointment

Wind Turbines
Common Eco-Myth: Wind Turbines Kill Birds
Cats More Lethal to Birds Than Wind Turbines

Population Growth
Brits Break Silence on Population Growth-Climate Change Link
Population Growth, Resource Over-Consumption at Center of ‘Looming Catastrophe’, Stanford Biologists Claim

Small Green Changes
CFLs Could Curb Global Lighting Demand by 40% - and At What Cost
Study Finds Meat and Dairy Create More Emissions Than Miles