"The Climate Migrant - A Genealogy of Malthusian Fears"
In the razor-sharp essay 'Consuming like rabbits', Soumaya Majdoub (VUB) sweeps the persistent myth from the globe that overpopulation is the engine of climate disruption. Green Growth and birth control are false solutions, based on false assumptions and scaremongering. The fear aroused by the unwarranted focus on so-called global population growth is deliberately deployed on issues such as migration and poverty reduction and is now also fanning the flames of climate activism. With weak scientific evidence and with questionable argumentation.
In this essay, the author corrects the dominant narrative about overpopulation and shifts the focus to the core of the (climate) problem: overconsumption and the need for a paradigm shift.
Soumaya Majdoub is a researcher at Interface Demography (VUB). Her research project fits in the broader interdisciplinary research project ‘Cities & Newcomers’ at the VUB. The focus of this project lies on the relationship between perceived population growth and pressure, (economic) development and international migrations on the one hand and the political and public discourse about migration on the other. Her areas of expertise include population growth, political economy, political ecology, and migration policy. She is also the founder of Urbanpreneurs and Women In Urbanism.