Posted on 02/22/2007 6:24:22 PM PST by Brian Mosely
WASHINGTON -- GLOBAL WARMING is “unequivocal,” according to the just-released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The most likely culprits are people — all of us. Yet, apart from insightful comments by former Vice President Al Gore, there has never been much public discussion about the role of human population growth in global warming.
Prof. Tim Dyson, of the London School of Economics indicates that a 40 percent cut by 2050 in per-capita carbon emissions in the developed world could be completely cancelled by population growth.
It’s time to open a “second front” in the battle against global warming by stressing the need for population stabilization, sooner rather than later. Scientists warn that temperatures will continue to rise unless we stabilize greenhouse-gas levels. Global warming will be accompanied by increased sea levels, resulting in massive flooding of homes and destruction of fragile wetland habitats.
To slow down this process, experts estimate that global CO2 emissions must be slashed. Yet the United Nations projects that world population will rise 40 percent — reaching 9.1 billion — by 2050. And even if we change our ways, the environmental footprint of each human being will never reach zero.
As population increases, the challenge of slowing climate change becomes ever more difficult. After all, it is people, not birds or bears, who drive Hummers and hybrids and who heat and cool homes and offices. Although the vast majority of population growth occurs in the least-developed nations, the people there, too, are using more fossil fuels every day as they seek better lives.
What can we do? We know that family planning works everywhere. When women and couples are free to make their own informed choices and have access to family planning resources, they choose to have smaller families. Thirty years ago, for example, Mexican women had almost seven children each. Today, thanks to education and the availability of family planning, they have an average of 2.4 children.
Globally, at least 350 million couples lack family planning services. Here in the United States, one-third of all births are unplanned. And the Bush administration’s family-planning failures, from its global gag rule against abortion to ideologically driven abstinence-only programs, contribute directly to millions of unwanted and unplanned births. If we could cut in half the number of unwanted births in the U.S. alone, we’d have about 5 million fewer births over 20 years.
Family planning makes sense for people – and for our fragile planet. It’s vital to focus on thorny technical issues such as tax credits, energy alternatives and emissions trading programs. These efforts are especially important here in the United States, where less than 5 percent of the world’s population produces about 25 percent of the world’s carbon-dioxide emissions. But cutting energy consumption must be coupled with stabilizing population.
More people use more energy. If we had zero population growth, part of the global warming problem would, well, melt away. Global warming is too big a problem to be solved by energy experts alone. It’s about people. It’s about how many of us there are and how we choose to live our modern lives. It’s about the very personal decisions we make about whether, when, and how many children we choose to have. We can start by supporting the notion that every woman and every couple should have the resources and power to control their own reproductive lives.
If every child is planned, we’ll go a long way toward solving global warming and making a less-crowded and healthier world.
John Seager is the national president of Population Connection, formerly Zero Population Growth.
Perhaps Seager should have titled this: "Fight Global Warming through More Abortions"
Eliminate all the liberals. Problem solved.
If we could just kill the 300 million inhabitants of the United States we could save 25% of global energy consumption.
And why can't Mr. Seager and others do the brave thing and take their own lives to spare us global warming? We could plant trees in their memory.
It must be terrible to have every little kooky idea you ever heard of tying in with every other one in your head like that.
Wondered how long this would take...to blame the President
This is so 1970s. Every single industrial country is near or below replacement birth rates, many far below.
The only way to stop the growth of population in the next 40 years or so in these countries is to kill a bunch of people.
Gotribe, you are the man! I'll support your campaign...I'll buy the trees.
I'm sure he's doing his part. I seriously doubt this dude is getting laid.
More unassailable factoids from some Infertility Cult?
I wish liberals would take their own advice and stop reproducing. They should just neuter themselves as soon as they discover they are liberals. I mean if they were really serious about these problems.
"Mr. Seager is so seventies in combining his blame-America-first ideology with warnings of looming environmental disaster. The United States is 130th on the world fertility ranking list, already at a rate of 2.09 children-per-woman, meaning that our population has already stabilized (when every couple produces two kids, total population doesn’t grow)."
"The most fertile European country is Albania at 132 (2.03 children-per-woman). The first West European country in fertility ranking is Iceland at 141 (1.92 children-per-woman). And to find a continental West European country on the fertility list, we have to drop down to France at 154 (1.84 children-per-woman, already helping advance Mr. Seager’s goals, by beginning to depopulate itself). Given these numbers, if Mr. Seager is serious about what he says, he needs to focus his efforts on the Third World and tell them they can’t be having so many kids, because they are causing global warming. "
"(Related question: Anyone care to speculate on whether it’s a positive sign, or a sign of the apocalypse that Afghanistan is now 5th in fertility, at 6.69 children-per-woman?)"
About ten years ago or so.
The author is obviously unaware that the developed world as a whole is already at zero growth and sliding into negative numbers. If if weren't for the bleed-off of folks from the undeveloped world into the developed world, those numbers would be ringing alarm bells.
When you factor in the dramatic increases in efficiency that we are already seeing, efficiencies that will only accelerate in the near future, the developed world is not the problem. He needs to be addressing his concerns to China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc., etc.
While not politically correct and certainly not easier in terms of getting the mainstream media to hang on to every word, it would be less of a waste of his time ... and ours.
I more convinced than ever that the entire Global Warming BS was authored by a panel of socialist elders in a hermetically sealed room beneath the UN.
Actually, fertility rates below 2.11 children per woman result in shrinking population due to deaths before puberty, and yes, that's with modern health-care.
Gore could cut his carbon emission down by having
his children deemed 'wards of the state'.
Than the state could raise taxes to puchase more
carbon offsets for the wards.
Click graphic for full GW rundown
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
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