Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin says: “Population growth is a driving force behind some of today’s most serious problems, including climate change and rising food prices.”
I certainly don’t disagree with Flavin. In fact, I think that in North America we have shunted aside the reality that there is a planetary population explosion. I am witnessing a preoccupation with assisting middle aged matrons to become pregnant. This is, of course, after they have established their careers and, have made sure they will have the financial resources to retire at age 55 or even younger. I’m also wondering why more educated North American “career” women are not making the choice to remain childfree.
One quick tour through the popular and upcoming pages of the womens’ social network at skr*t demonstrates how many posts there are focused on selling products to North America’s shop-o- holics. It also points to the fact that children born in the USA and Canada will be well on their way to taking their place in the consumer driven societies before their first day of school and, that does not bode well for the future of the planet.
In More, Robert Engelman identifies an approach to population-meeting the need for safe and effective contraception-that can speed the transition to sustainable societies that offer lasting opportunity for everyone.
More for Women Means More for Sustainability
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It’s more a matter of cutting down over-consumption and waste in the G8 / developed nations and making sure India, China, Indonesia, Brazil et al don’t make the same mistakes we’ve made in their rush to have the same standard of living as we do. That means designing cities with public transport and efficiency in mind, not flattening farmland to build suburban tinkertoy boxes accessible only by carbon-spewing devices. The world can indeed hold a lot more people than it does now, but not if we all live like North Americans.
I couldn’t agree more with these points. The design of our cities, transportation , over-consumption, waste and the belief that everyone must have children are problematic.
I agree with Ian’s general point, but not that the world can “hold a lot more people than it does now.” If the goal is to preserve biodiversity at its present levels, we’ve already exceeded carrying capacity just through the amount of land that must be cleared for agriculture, regardless of the standard of living. That said, it does seem as if folks in the global South are way greener than we are:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080507-greendex-results.html
@Dave
I’m with you on this. Thanks for posting that link. :)