When Paul Ehrlich published his The Population Bomb in 1968 it made a huge difference in our awareness of the harm over population could do. We’ve since forgotten how crucial this issue is, and now climate change is a powerful reminder along with an annual report from the UN Population Division. More people means the need for food production, one of the very thing affected by climate change. And the areas where population growth is slated to be the highest, will be those areas more affected. Niger, Pakistan and Nigeria are on the list. Besides more food more population means more schools, more health care, something difficult for poor countries. So people migrate. And we’ve seen what that creates, not only on the US border but on other continents as well. Family planning used to be on the agenda of many, but political agendas as well as religious groups have attacked it. It is now 1% (one) of overseas development aid although according to the founders of OASIS (Organizing to Advance Solutions in the Sahel) as well as several UN agencies family planning is the most cost effective form of foreign aid. They say family planning is an investment and they suggest increasing it to 2%. The difference it would make in terms of population growth would be enormous and enough they believe to keep us from a catastrophe. In 1968, the population was 3.8 billion and grew at about 2% this meant that every year there was 60 million more birth than death. Today our population is 7.7 billion although population growth is only 1% there are 80 million more births than death every year—that is the equivalent of adding a country such as Germany every year. We shall be 9.7 billion by 2050 and 15.6 billion by 2099.
Population control is even more of a time bomb now than it was in Ehrlich’s time. Voluntary family planning can and will make a huge difference, and we need to remind our decision makers that it needs to be on the foreign aid agenda.
Comments
4 responses to “Population Growth and Family Planning”
Hi d,
You should try to have this article published in the LA Times. It’s good!
thanks you Susan, wouldn’t mind it if it were possible.
What an excellent article. I will be forwarding this to anyone who asks me, why I chose not to have a child!!!!!!!!
Thanks Aanand. And perhaps your forwarding efforts will make others who chose not to have children to feel validated in their decision.