In response to Ronnie:
>>It's much too
>>simplistic to just dismiss this huge increase in the number of us as
>>"simply a symptom" of something else.
I wasn't dismissing the problem of population at all. Just
as pollution is a symptom of many things and, of course, can
not be ignored, over-population is also an issue of great concern.
I was only pointing out the need to look at the larger picture.
An ecofeminist analysis of population will always (hopefully) take into
account the larger issues of social injustice, consumption, etc.
when addressing over-population. A deep ecologist or other
environmentalist may not. They have often blamed women for over-
populating the world.
There are a few articles addressing population, written by ecofeminists,
that I know of:
A chapter in Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies _Ecofeminism_.
Greta Gaard and Lori Gruen's article in Society and Nature, Vol. 5.
An article by Chris Cuomo in Warren's book _Ecological Feminism_.
>>Moreover, where I live, in Florida, I don't encounter population growth
>>as particularly a result of social injustice, though it may be in some
>>parts of the world. What I see is lots of middle and upper middle class
>>people moving into the state--for a while it was over 1000 people a
>>day--and taking over more and more land, killing more and more of its
>>nonhuman inhabitants. (It will, of course, sooner or later cause real
>>problems for humans as well, water problems, waste disposal problems,
>>etc, but for now we seem to think we can put off thinking about these
>>problems.)
This is obviously a problem of capitalist consumption. Each region of
the world will experience the pressures of population differently. In
the U.S. we may experience it like your above discription. In Mexico, poverty,
lack of available contraception, Catholicism, etc. all contribute to the
overall problem.
I think, Ronnie, that we both agree population pressure is an incredible
problem. I was really only responding to your first comment (below) where
you say you haven't seen ecofeminists address over-population.
>>I have yet to see
>>a clear acknowledgment in the ecofeminist literature of the importance of
>>limiting human population
>>growth in all parts of the globe as a critical part of curtailing the
>>continued encroachment on nonhuman habitat, a major part, in my opinion,
>>of what constitutes the "domination of nature."
This is a good discussion.
Shawn
