The Stork and the Plow: The Equity Answer to the Human Dilemma. - book reviews

Sierra, May-June, 1996 by Bob Schildgen

The "population bomb" is as dangerous today as when Paul Ehrlich published his shocking book of that title in 1968, he and his collaborators warn. While they concede that the "green revolution" and some successful population-control programs did give us a reprieve from that book's grimmest prophecies, no new food miracles are in sight (crop yields worldwide have leveled off) and there will be 6 billion people to feed by 1999.

Consequently, revolutionary changes are needed in all countries if the plow is to keep up with the stork. The "equity answer" is crucial, because without a fairer distribution of resources, they contend, the hyperconsuming rich nations will continue to pollute and bulldoze, while the poor ones will have to keep ravaging the land merely to survive. "The developed nations account for the overwhelming majority of global environmental disruption.... The [environmental] impact of the average U.S. citizen in 1991 was about ... 70 times that of a Bangladeshi." Their most telling and ironic example of the disparity is the spectacle of gasguzzling cars smogging the air in some nations while peasants who can't afford fuel in others keep slashing their dwindling forests merely to cook.

Sexism is the second major equity issue because women deprived of equal rights, education, and capital often lack the knowledge or authority to determine family size. Increased gender and economic equity and population stabilization can be mutually reinforcing. When women gain status the birth rate drops, whether in developed lands, or less developed places such as Barbados or the Indian state of Kerala.

The authors' reports of these successes contrast sadly with the situation in Haiti and Rwanda, whose tragic examples of overpopulation and environmental abuse demonstrate the folly of policymaking that dwells on "political" or ethnic' issues while ignoring the twin crises of poverty and environmental degradation: "More than two thirds of the people [in Haiti] are trying to scratch out a living on slopes that were largely denuded of soil by tropical rains after deforestation. The amount of arable land has declined by 40 percent since 1950.... Small wonder over a million Haitians ... have become ecological refugees."

The clear arguments and solid data in this valuable study should give pause to those who deny that a population crisis even exists. Far less certain is whether the book's plea for equity will be heeded in a systemically unjust global economy.