Gaia’s Revenge

Gaia’s Revenge

 

There is a global baby bust in progress. Birth rates are falling across the world. The reproduction rate is less than replacement all over the developed world. It is still above replacement in Africa but will fall below it soon. Therefore the population of the world will peak before the end of this century, somewhere above 8 billion, and then fall.

Why is this happening?

I speculate that the baby bust is caused by ecological distress transmitted to humans via price signals. A rising population urbanizes; in the city, children are expensive, but not useful, so demand for them falls. The biosphere is shutting down human reproduction, and is doing so via market mechanisms. That is “Gaia’s Revenge”.

The Gaia-triggered, market-mediated disinclination to breed manifests in many ways, depending on the culture.

In East Asia, young adults take a Daoist path, and allow themselves to lose at reproduction. In Japan such young men are called “Grass-eaters”. They stay at home, work little or not at all, and forsake cars, houses, love, marriage, and family. In China, young people “lie flat”, or “let it rot”.

In America, young adults seek individualist fulfillment. They fail at reproduction by succeeding at some other game. Therefore the rise of non-breeding gender minorities. Gays and lesbians are almost conventional; now we see deconstruction of gender identity. This includes, tellingly, asexuality.

That’s on the cultural left; the cultural right also hates kids, because America hates kids. America aborts kids pre-birth, and shoots them post-birth. There are no “pro-lifers” in America; everyone agrees on the need to get rid of unwanted humans. The debate is about details of timing and method; either pre-birth, by abortion, or post-birth, by guns. I call it the ‘guns-vs-abortion-debate’. The aim in either case is population reduction.

Forced-birthers resist Gaia’s Revenge, but they want a free lunch: an expanding population without a social safety net or a sustainable ecology.

To end Gaia’s Revenge, make peace with the planet. An honest pro-natalism would subsidize families with low environmental impact. The New Deal was pro-natalist, until we reached our ecological limits. To expand those limits, pro-natalism needs family-friendly investment in clean sustainable industry; a Green New Deal.