Help Women Curb Reproduction

Recently, in response to my article on population in the Vancouver Sun, I heard from Jane Roberts, a Nobel Peace prize nominee. Jane is co-founder of 34 Million Friends, a grassroots effort in the United States to support the United Nations Population Fund. She is a resident of Redlands, CA.

Below Jane shares with us her letter to the editor of the Washington Times (a conservative Washington paper), which appeared on 29 July 2008.

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On June 26, the Bush administration, for the seventh year in a row, refused to release congressionally approved funds for the United Nations Population Fund.

The fund, supported by 181 countries last year, not only offers reproductive health care and family planning in 151 countries but also studies population and poverty trends. It's a good time to talk about population. The fate of women is central to any population debate.

The planet is home to 6.7 billion people, and about 75 million more births occur each year than deaths. Ninety-eight percent of this growth happens in the poorest countries.

In these countries, there is high maternal mortality (more than 500,000 maternal deaths in childbirth each year) and nearly 10 million deaths of children under age 5. Four million of these deaths happen in the first month of life due in large part to the ill health of the mother.

In 1968, world leaders proclaimed that individuals have a basic human right to determine the number and timing of their children. Forty years later, modern contraception remains out of reach for hundreds of millions of people.

According to the Population Reference Bureau, 210 million pregnancies occur in the world every year, and 42 million of them end in abortion, half of which are risky and illegal. About 70,000 women per year die from unsafe abortions.

This is unacceptable. Universal access to family-planning help and the highest standard of reproductive health must become the order of the day. Yet there has been a sharp reduction in international funding for reproductive health in general, and in particular in the area of family planning.

The family-planning component of the worldwide reproductive health budget has fallen from 55 percent to 7 percent, says Thoraya Obaid, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund.

Women, if educated and given choices, have fewer children, and they educate them better and keep them healthy. The women often earn incomes, and that improves family and community life. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon recently said: "In women, the world has the most significant but untapped potential for development and peace." The fate of women is closely linked with population issues. Population is important. Women are important. We ignore both at our peril.

FAMILY DOCTORS URGED TO JOIN FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

According to The Optimum Population Trust (a UK think tank on population policy that is absolutely opposed to any form of coercion in family planning), each new birth in the United Kingdom "is responsible for on average about 160 times as much climate-related environmental damage as a new birth in Ethiopia or 35 times as much as a new birth in Bangladesh." It'll be much worse in Canada and the US, I'm sure.

The reference for these stats was in an article in the July 25, 2008 Telegraph (a UK newspaper), by Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor: "Limit Families to Two Children 'to Combat Climate Change'." The subtitle was "GPs should tell parents not to have more than two children to help in the battle against climate change, according to doctors."

According to the article, John Guillebaud, emeritus professor of family planning and reproductive health, at University College London and GP Dr. Pip Hayes, from Exeter, suggested in the British Medical Journal that "GPs should talk to their patients about the consequences of having a large family, and provide advice on contraception, population and the environment."

The authors said, "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, analogous to avoiding patio heaters and high carbon cars."

What an enormous stride ... suggesting population policy because of climate change! But while we're making suggestions, why not suggest one-child families? If we all keep replacing ourselves (with two-children families), how are we to bring the global population down?

Is having fewer children an effective way to tackle climate change? Is there an ideal number of children? Should doctors talk to their patients about family planning from the perspective of climate change? Have you ever broached this topic with friends or family of child-bearing age? If so, what kind of response did you get? I'd like to hear from you.

Bipolar Humans

The bipolar nature of human beings amazes me. On the one hand, we are geniuses who have created art and music of incredible beauty and passion. We have peered into the atom and unravelled its structure. Humans have walked on the moon, and space probes transmit photos of planets millions of miles distant. We can replace a human heart, understand the intricacies of the DNA molecule and are close to decoding the very makeup of life itself.

We are so smart, yet we have another side. Namely, we are driven by two basic traits that threaten our very survival: violence and the urge to procreate. When stress rises and the going gets tough, we humans resort to violence. Just look at Darfur, Iraq or even big city slums in the United States, which are infested with gangs and lawlessness.

And we continue to increase our numbers so that resources like oil and food grains can no longer keep pace with our collective consumption. The globe is warming, water shortages are looming and the stress on the planet and human civilization is rising rapidly. The pot is bubbling ominously and soon the lid will pop.

What a dichotomy! We have the intelligence to create the most wondrous art and amazing technology, but we lack the intelligence to control the destructive side of our instincts and our psyches. In my dreams I picture politicians working together worldwide to implement programs for curbing population growth.

I also dream of funding being diverted from technological research into research to study human character with the goal of transforming violence into love and caring. Sadly, these are only dreams and the harsh light of reality tells me that one side of our bipolar personalities will destroy the other, and likely civilization with it.

Yes, this is dark. But do you agree? What can we do?

Immigration, the Hidden Side of Population Growth

The United States, the world's third most populous country, is increasing its population at just under one percent per year, almost 3 million new Americans each year. In Canada, with a similar population growth of just less than one percent, immigration plays an even bigger role, contributing 66% of total population growth.

This is robust growth, especially when compared to the birth dearth in western Europe and Japan, and not a good thing since (northern) North Americans are the most profligate consumers on the planet and we are already well past the Earth's carrying capacity.

About 35% of the US population growth is by immigration, with more than a million immigrants receiving permanent resident status annually (not to mention illegal immigrants).

Sadly, population (and immigration) are virtually never discussed in rational ways and certainly never by our policy makers. E-The Environmental Magazine broke this awkward silence with its May/June 2008 issue that tackles the issue head on and in depth. It states that immigration is an environmental concern because "America's rapid growth makes it nearly impossible to achieve sustainability."

Clearly, what is desperately needed is a national policy that assesses the big picture and integrates immigration, family planning, foreign-aid policies as well as including economic factors.

We need to start talking openly about immigration and how it fits into an overall population policy. What do you think? What kind of policies and practices would you like to see?

Babies - A Cool Way to Start People? A Guest Blog by GreenHearted

As someone who has no children of her own (although a beloved niece and two wonderful stepsons fill the void), I find myself feeling torn when friends and colleagues tell me they're expecting new additions to their family.

My first instinct, I admit, is complete joy for them. A sense of excitement about their new life adventure. I want to help find baby names for them. I look forward to touching mommy's tummy when she's seven or eight months along. I know I'm going to want to spend time with the new little one's hand grasped around my finger -- basking in that newness and innocence. After all, as (Bill Cosby's) Fat Albert said, "Babies are a cool way to start people."

But as that initial blush of joy and excitement wears off, I start thinking other thoughts. Why would anyone want to bring a baby into this world, knowing the child's life is going to be carbon-constrained and climate-chaos-wracked? When that child is our age, there will be food and water shortages, and wars and conflicts everywhere because of those shortages.

Oh, let them feel their joy, I tell myself. Why wreck it for them now? Well, because that new (EuroAmerican) mouth to feed is going to take more than its share of resources and create more than its share of destruction. Why is my friend's baby, before it's even born, more privileged than babies in developing countries?

If I say something now, will it at least remind them not to go overboard with baby "things"? (As in, new baby = new consumer.) If I say something now, will the parents help their new little one develop its innate love for the rest of nature (biophilia)? Will they say no to the TV shows, movies and computer games that disconnect North American children from their Mother Earth? Will they consider the health of the planet as they worry over their baby's health? Will they consider feeding their child an organic, locally grown low-on-the-food-chain diet so that what it eats doesn't eat away at its future? Will they think about the two billion people in the world without access to clean water as they're bathing their little one? Should I keep giving mini canoe paddles and Earth balls as baby gifts?

When my husband and I realized that we weren't going to have children together, he lovingly told me, "Now you can be the mother of all the children on Earth." I take my responsibility seriously. As a non-mother, I have far more time than mothers do to work on saving the future for the children — of all species.

So what should I say to my newly pregnant friends and co-workers — besides "Fiona's a nice name for a girl"?

Julie Johnston, GreenHeart Education

Peaceful Eagles

Towering Douglas firs, gnarled Garry oaks and arbutus trees with textured reddish trunks rose from a rocky slope that bumped down to the sea. I was on a vigil, and one hundred yards away a mother eagle, perching high, shared my watch. The focus of our attention was a month-old eagle chick, the tenant of a nest atop a 60-foot Douglas fir at the edge of the water. I was spending a day at the nest, watching, photographing and learning. With no company, cell phone, iPod or other modern distractions, I had time aplenty to contemplate.

The patience of both mother and chick was impressive. She would perch sometimes for an hour or more at one spot before flying to another nearby high treetop where she would sit regally watching the sea, the passing boats and her chick; she had no compulsion to keep constantly busy. She didn't fuss nervously, make endless calls on a cell phone, visit malls or take Valium. She was comfortable with her vigil and being part of the natural world around her.

Nor was this eagle family consumed with the acquisition of material goods; the nest was not oversized and sprawling with dens, bars, pools, three-car garages. Nor was it full of the eagle equivalent of large-screen TVs, electric corkscrews and other ridiculous gadgets. Nor did I witness any battles to expand their territory or to overeat. Nor was the area teeming with an enormous population of eagles. In spite of being the mightiest birds in the air, they seem at peace with their existence and live in equilibrium within it.

I couldn't help but think how pathetic we humans are in comparison. Our society is not in equilibrium with the natural world. Instead we are looting it, while driven by greed, self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement. We are obsessed with overeating and the acquisition of consumer goods, and our population has far exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet. Whereas we once lived by the laws of nature, now we defy them, violate them - and to what purpose?

As dusk fell, I wished that everyone could come and spend a day at this eagle nest. Perhaps it would help the human race to learn that we need to live in equilibrium with the natural world.

How can we reconnect with nature? How can we learn from the eagles? Let me know what you think. (Or what you feel.)

The King Has No Clothing

Last year, Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," was shown at our community hall and was followed by a spirited discussion moderated by an intelligent environmental lawyer who is gaining a national reputation. The audience appeared deeply moved by the film and enthusiastically offered a variety of actions we could take as individuals and on a community basis to avoid the disaster that global warming threatens.

At one point, a 12-year-old boy stood up and said that human population seemed to be part of the problem and shouldn't we be doing something about that. The moderator quickly dismissed the boy, stating that new technologies and conservation were the solution, and moved on to another speaker.

The young boy was the only one in the audience to recognize that human population is the real problem behind global warming. But no one listened. I despair.