Population Growth and Family Planning

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.

Climate Change Migration

It’s easy to speak of the consequences of climate change, but being faced with potential numbers of one of its consequences is a wake-up call. The World Bank recently issued a Report “Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration” saying that if current trends continue and we do nothing by 2050, 143 million people would be climate change refugees. The reasons are due to causes we’ve already heard about:  decreased crop productivity, water shortages and rising sea levels. Of course Continue reading “Climate Change Migration”

1400 Mayors and Climate Change

1400 US mayors have passed an agreement to have their cities rely totally on renewable energies by 2035. While the pledge came as part of the United States Conference of Mayors meeting recently, it was not unanimous. Some mayors who do not believe in the issue of climate change abstained. Critics also say that this resolution doesn’t solve the climate change problem. That may be but when 1400 mayors from red states as well as blue states agree on something like that, it can have positive effects for the environment and that is important. A group within the US Conference, Mayors for Continue reading “1400 Mayors and Climate Change”

What We Can Do For Climate Change

Climate change is better addressed as a matter of national and international policy. Yet without it we are not helpless. They are good examples of things we can do and come from an article in the NYT, which I hope you will read. They’re things we already know, based on our carbon footprint; still I found being reminded and having them in a list something which makes individual efforts matter more. If we all do this, or enough of us do enough of them, we can together make a difference regardless of whether or not our Continue reading “What We Can Do For Climate Change”