As we approach 7 billion people, Climate Progress is featuring a variety of opinions on population (see links below).
by Carl Pope and Carmen Barroso
Any day now, if it hasn’t happened already, the 7 billionth baby will be born on our small planet.
While many may assume that the environmental and reproductive health movements have divergent agendas—the health of the planet vs. the health of the people—we agree on one very simple principle: everyone, whether born into the bustling streets of New York or a remote village in Nicaragua, is entitled to a set of fundamental human rights. These include the right to live in a healthy and safe environment, and the right to decide if and when to have children.
Today, more than ever, those rights are deeply intertwined. The 7 billionth baby will inherit a planet facing enormous threats and challenges. And while environmental and reproductive health organizations have different missions, we know, based on decades of experience, that the health of our planet and our people are inseparable. We can be mindful of our environment and improve the lives of women, men, and youth worldwide.
Environmental justice and reproductive rights are mutually reinforcing; when people have the knowledge, right and tools to decide how many children are right for them, they typically chose to have smaller, healthier families. This has positive ramifications on the surrounding environment and the health of families and communities.
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One timely example: Over 200 million women want, but currently lack, access to modern contraceptives like condoms, pills and IUDs. As a result, 76 million unintended pregnancies occur every year. If all the world’s women had access to the basic contraceptives they want and need we’d see a huge increase in human well being, including a 1/3 reduction in maternal mortality, a 1/5 reduction in infant mortality, and a substantial reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions that endanger us all. An added bonus: experts tell us that if we gave women this choice, the world’s population would not reach 8 billion until 2050.
Giving women the power to plan their pregnancies is one of the most obvious, and most overlooked, solutions to many of the most pressing problems we’re facing – what many have called the flock of “Black Swans.” Prioritizing women’s rights, especially reproductive rights, is central to meeting the unprecedented challenges of the combined environmental, social and economic crises we face.
When we fully empower individuals and families to make decisions related to reproduction and sexuality, we create more sustainable and just communities. So we see it as a global responsibility to secure access to basic sexuality education and contraception – the tools many of us take for granted – as a means of advancing both reproductive choice and sustainable development. We also know that these interventions are not only the right thing to do, they’re the smart thing to do: We could meet the needs of all 200 million women for $3.7B, and the world would save $5.1B in healthcare costs along the way.
To be sure, funding contraception is just one part of the puzzle. The way we consume and use natural resources and the underlying social inequities of resource distribution and consumption are the other side of that coin, and must be addressed.
But as the largest generation of young people ever comes of age, we see an unprecedented, and fleeting, opportunity to invest in sexuality education and reproductive healthcare for people and the planet. As we have seen in recent events, the bottom line for this new generation is justice and rights for all. It’s time for us to rise to that challenge.
— Carl Pope is Chairman of the Sierra Club. Carmen Barroso leads the International Planned Parenthood Federation for the Western Hemisphere region.
Related Posts:
- We’re Beyond Earth’s Carrying Capacity Now. Will Accelerating Climate Change Turn the Population Boom into a Bust?
- I Helped Put World Population Over 3 Billion. How About You? Plus Powerful Video of Women, Families and Climate Change
- Nature Publishes My Piece on Dust-Bowlification and the Grave Threat It Poses to Food Security: “Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced.”
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
I think it is a mistake to assert an unlimited and fundamental right to have children based on a simple desire to do so. True, education, middle class lifestyle, reproductive rights, and access to contraceptives tend to reduce the number of children a woman has.
But what if it’s not enough, worldwide? A steadily growing population is ultimately unsustainable, and it is one of the uncomfortable facts that nice people have trouble accepting. But sometimes acting on such feelings can be as disastrous as acting on greed. We must embrace the idea that, in principle, society as a whole had the right to control population growth. Dismissing it as a problem (“Oh, that won’t be an issue”) does not give us the freedom to escape the responsibility of dealing with this issue.
This is a tragedy of the commons predicament.
Climate change, and fighting it, both involve the tradgedy of the commons.
We’ll either solve this problem, or die crying.
Hey, Obama, lead the nation;
give us climate education.
Yes, you could stop this bloody mess;
just give a “State of the Climate” address!
Support this idea by calling 202-456-1111, or liking http://www.facebook.com/climateaddress.
1800 = 1 billion
1930 = 2 billion
1960 = 3 billion
1975 = 4 billion
1987 = 5 billion
1999 = 6 billion
2011 = 7 billion
We are getting older and more urban. In 2008, for the first time, less than 50% of the world’s population was rural, with all that means in terms of energy use and costs. In 1950, there were only two mega-cities with population over 10 million: New York City and Tokyo. By 1975, Mexico City had joined that list. By 2007, there were 19 such mega-cities and Tokyo’s population was now over 35 million.
The study of demographics needs to be part of any plan to shape our future. BAU for climate guarantees a world I would not want to live in, but I don’t need to worry for myself, since I am 70. I do wonder for our children.
Over-population is not the greatest problem. Over-consumption is. The excessive consumption of the wealthy countries, led by the conspicuous over-consumption of the 1%, does far more damage to the planet than the subsistence consumption of the poor. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, many on the Right, often denialists trying to divert attention, emphasise the population growth of the poor world, while ignoring, or even defending, the over-consumption of the rich. Still that’s no surprise, as a malicious misanthropy allied to racism and xenophobia is a real trademark of the Right.
Not to be a stickler but… the 7 billion is the current living population. Last I checked, the population of the dead is estimated at around 99 billion. The 7 billionth baby “born on our small planet” probably happened a very long time ago.
MrC
Reducing population growth asap and then slowly reducing population slowly is an important part of avoiding climate catastrophe. But if we instituted the most effective possible birth control program imaginable and no children were born anywhere in the world for the next 20 years, (a horrific demographic, economic and cultural disaster) the population at that time would be………………… 6.9 billion. Obviously, we’re not going to be that effective even if we put everything we should into the problem. Solving the population problem, while important, will have negligible direct effects on global warming in the time we have to stop it. (Indirect effects such as making it easier for poor countries to invest in renewable energy could have more of an effect, which is why we should pursue it seriously.)
The developed world is at or near replacement rate, while the poorest 50% of the world’s population produces only 12% of the greenhouse gases. That means the most effective possible reduction in birth rates would still leave us with 88% of the climate problem (and most other problems) to solve in other ways. The consumption of the rich is the problem we have to address to avoid destruction.
I see here that my figures are out of date and the situation is even more pronounced than I say:
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2140
The poorest 50% are responsible for only 7% of the GHGs. (And as with China’s production, I wonder how much of what we call their GHGs are actually what they produce in order to provide even more for the richest.)