“We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.” — Terri Swearingen
Not often that population pressure gets attention from the mainstream press:
- July 25, in The Guardian, Doctors’ advice to Britons: have fewer children and help save the planet
- August 27, in the Chicago Tribune, Scientists: Save the planet — have fewer kids
Both articles are based on an editorial published in the British Medical Journal, Population growth and climate change: Universal access to family planning should be the priority by John Guillebaud, emeritus professor of family planning and reproductive health, and Pip Hayes, general practitioner. Guillebaud is a co-founder and Hayes a trustee of the Optimum Population Trust.
[H/T to August and Sparky at the The Environment Site.org.]
For context see Too many people: Earth’s population problem at the Optimum Population Trust.
What if through enhancing education, contraceptive availability, and women’s rights we could achieve a peak global population of 7.8 billion in the next 40 to 50 years? Although still 1.1 billion more than today’s population, that’s 1.4 billion fewer people on the planet than the 9.2 the UN projects in that time frame if we go about business as usual. Think of the impact on global demand for water, food, living space, and energy. Think of the reduced production of CO2, the biodiversity that won’t be destroyed, the human conflicts over resources that could be avoided. Think of the increased quality of life the smaller population number (1.4 billion less) makes possible.
Should we now explain to … couples who plan a family that stopping at two children, or at least having one less child than first intended, is the simplest and biggest contribution anyone can make to leaving a habitable planet for our grandchildren? We must not put pressure on people, but by providing information on the population and the environment, and appropriate contraception for everyone (and by their own example), doctors should help to bring family size into the arena of environmental ethics….
Of course this sort of thinking only applies if we care about the kind of planet we choose to leave to future generations.
See also are we bacteria or primates?.
[...] is a link to the original editorial in this post: population pressure in the news « Trinifar. Thanks for the tip [...]
Good to see you posting again Trinifar!
Unfortunately human history is a history of ignoring emerging environmental catastrophes. The problem with the “don’t have children argument” is that history also indicates that population levels trend downward with increasing economic development. So it appears that if we can raise the living standards of the majority of nations we have some hope of controlling population growth whilst at the same time increasing the risk of environmental degradation. What a dilemma!
Thanks for noticing, John. It’s nice to post something here again.
To be picky the argument is not “don’t have children” but rather “have one less” — at least that’s the way the editorial writers put it.
And while true that population growth generally decreases with increasing wealth and economic activity (along with the problems you point to), there are counterexamples like Iran which achieved a rapid decline in the growth rate through education and free contraception.
[...] editorial that prompted the previous post offers this way to think of the population growth the world is experiencing: The annual increase in [...]
I read an interesting paper on population control. Its rather controversial but it makes sense.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/02/06.html#a616