A Twist to My Population Thinking?

Hmm, this article was written by a Sierra Club staffer for World Population Day in July 2016, and I just came across it. I served on the Sierra Club's Population Committee for many years, both as a member and as a volunteer. I was surprised to recently learn that they changed the name to the Gender Equity & Environment program. My first impression is that once again, political correctness is running amok. It wasn't that long ago when my other favorite nonprofit, Zero Population Growth, changed their name to Population Connection. And, I guess I shouldn't complain because the National Audubon Society and National Wildlife Federation used to have good population programs, which seem to have faded away.

A couple of things in this article trouble me:

• Apparently the Worldwatch Institute did a study that finds that there is no proof that "wider use of family planning promotes environmental sustainability." My immediate thought is that government and nongovernment agencies can only meet a small percentage of the global need, which is why researchers are not seeing an impact. But as the article points out, the issue is complicated, and there may be other factors in play.
• Item 2 in the article below is disturbing because it makes it sound like the human population crises will solve itself at the end of the century, so why worry? So, to me, the vibe of this article is that we shouldn't worry about population, but we should focus on gender equity instead. Certainly, gender equity is a key component, but being too afraid to mention "population" is ridiculous.

Anyway, I won't dwell too much on this now. I've lost contact with my fellow population committee members, but I hope to reach one at some point and learn what's going on. For the most part, I believe excessive political correctness is just another nail in our planet's coffin, but that's a blog post for a different day.

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3 Things You Didn’t Know About Global Population and Climate Change

The question “What is the impact of family planning on the environment?” does not have a simple answer. In fact, it depends.  

Experts often promote increased rights-based access to family planning as a key to environmental sustainability.  However, just last week, the Worldwatch Institute released a study of more than 900 peer-reviewed articles and found support but no confirmation for their hypothesis that “wider use of family planning promotes environmental sustainability.” These findings show that we need more research on the topic to increase our understanding of the nuanced relationships between family planning and the environment. The story of our global population and our environment is one that requires a more comprehensive look at all aspects of sustainable development. 

Yesterday was World Population Day, to commemorate that, we took a look at global demographic trends and how they affect people and their environments.

1. Consumption plays a large role in contributing to climate disruption.Often, when people talk about the impact of population on climate change, it is about the number of people. More people, more degradation. While this may carry truth for natural resources on a local level, the vast majority of climate emissions are a result of a handful of largely high-income countries. The United States for instance, while only five percent of the global population, produces 25 percent of the emissions. The average person in the United States produces 42 times the emissions of the average person in Bangladesh. On a national scale, that means the U.S. is producing 92 times more emissions than Bangladesh. The wealthiest 20 percent of people in the world consume 86 percent of its goods, with the poorest 20 percent consuming only 1.3 percent.
2. Population growth has dramatically slowed.  While population continues to grow, the rate of that growth has dramatically slowed. Today, our population is growing by 1.13 percent per year, nearly half the rate during peak growth in the late 1960s. While experts predict we’ll have 9.7 billion people by 2050, that represents a slowing of the population growth rate to an estimated half a percent growth.Most of the continued growth we’ll witness through 2100 is based on population momentum. This is due to a lack of balance in births and deaths, largely attributed to a younger population. On  global scale, more than half the world’s population is under the age of 30 and as youth  enter reproductive years - even with a replacement rate of two children per woman - our population will grow. With these estimations, population will stop growing before the end of this century.
3. Climate disruption has increased impacts for women and girls.Climate disruption is not gender neutral. It’s impact on women and girls is disproportionate. Women are an estimated 14 times more likely to die from a natural disaster, which fueled by climate disruption are growing in frequency and intensity.  Women constitute up to 80 percent of global refugee and displaced populations, and typically in emergencies 70 to 80 percent of those needing assistance are women and children. As women, they are often the target of systematic rape, violence, and terror.
   
   Widespread gender inequity impacts women and girls not just when disaster strikes, but also on a daily basis. Climate disruption induced changing weather patterns can wipe out crops and decimate a family's livelihood. In places like Bangladesh, in order to feed their families, fathers are marrying off their daughters early taking girls out of school, continuing the poverty cycle, and increasing gender-based discrimination. In 2015 alone, more than 700 million women in the world were married before the age of 18, including around 15 million girls who were forced into marriage.

What does this all mean?

Simplifying people’s role in climate disruption to one of numbers is a false comparison, because some of us play a much larger role in nature’s destruction than others. A growing population puts less stress on our climate than high consumption by the few. And this heavy consumption is putting women and girls at risk. That’s why we are fighting coal and trying to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

With a better understanding of the problem comes a better understanding of the solution. Providing access to family planning and increasing gender equity is about climate adaptation and resilience -- not about climate mitigation. By increasing access to reproductive rights and healthcare, education, energy, and economic opportunity, women are better able to adapt to the immediate effects of climate disruption. That’s why the Sierra Club advocates for policies and organizations that are standing up for women and girls. Join us in advocating for investment in women and girls.

About the author: A. Tianna Scozzaro is the Director of the Sierra Club's Gender Equity and Environment Program.