| Contraception is 'greenest' technology |
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| Written by Weston Sedgwick |
| Tuesday, 22 December 2009 08:30 |
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Are condoms and birth control pills more cost effective than windmills and solar panels as tools to curb global warming? Yes, and by a wide margin, contends a recent study from the London School of Economics asserting that family planning is nearly five times more cost effective in mitigating global warming emissions than green energy technologies like wind and solar power.
“It’s always been obvious that total emissions depend on the number of emitters as well as their individual emissions –- the carbon tonnage can’t shoot down, as we want, while the population keeps shooting up,” Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust, the British environmental group that sponsored the study, said in a statement. “The taboo on mentioning this fact has made the whole climate change debate so far somewhat unreal.” Yet at the recent Copenhagen climate summit –- which failed to produce any binding resolution on curbing global warming emissions — population control was again an option that was not even mentioned. It is easy to see why. Population control measures like China’s one-child policy, and forced sterilization campaigns by various countries during the 20th century, have led many to associate such efforts with racism and totalitarianism. Powerful institutions like the Roman Catholic Church continue to oppose contraception on religious grounds. The report, Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, commissioned by the Optimum Population Trust from the London School of Economics, concludes that “considered purely as a method of reducing future CO2 emissions”, family planning is more cost-effective than leading low-carbon technologies. It says family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emissions reduction. Meeting basic family planning needs along the lines suggested would save 34 gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of CO2 between now and 2050 – equivalent to nearly six times the annual emissions of the US and almost 60 times the UK’s annual total. “The environmental problems we face would be easier to solve with fewer people, and ultimately impossible to solve with ever more. Meanwhile each additional person, especially each rich person in the OECD countries, reduces everyone’s share of the planet’s dwindling resources even faster. Non-coercive population policies are urgently needed in all countries. The taboo on discussing this is no longer defensible,” Martin said. Yet while population control remains sidelined in official climate talks, the number of prominent voices calling for its recognition as an issue of concern is mounting. The United Nations Population Fund’s most recent annual report explicitly linked slower population growth with reduced greenhouse-gas emissions. Despite the obvious challenges, little research has focused on the intersection of demographics and climate change, states a recent World Health Organization study. “The relevance of demographic trends to adaptation to climate change has meanwhile remained almost entirely unexplored by the scientific literature,” wrote Leo Bryant, the lead researcher on the study.
Comments (59)
  written by RevolutionDynamo, December 23, 2009
So does your spelling, but that's another story.
Really? It's the blacks and the mexicans and the africans and the musliums' [sic] fault? I would first like to direct you towards the Catholic Church, which has told its many members that they shouldn't use birth control. Many people in our own country have done their best to block family planning measures in other countries (and I'm referring specifically to African nations here) due to their religious beliefs. Also, how are people who are destitute supposed to have any idea what kind of impact they're having on the globe unless we make real efforts to bring them into the fold and help them attain a better standard of living. If I'm a farmer, and the only way I can get help to ply my trade is to have children and bring them into the family business, then I'm going to do just that. If I don't have access to birth control, I'm not going to be able to use it (not that my church would let me use it anyway). Finally, you sound like the kind of person who denies global warming and wants to close our borders, so what do you care? Also, see the Duggars and their ilk.
 written by Sam, December 23, 2009
Wow Fran, it's attitudes like yours that make it so difficult to discuss such an important issue as this with the general public. Poorer peoples around the globe have limited to no access to reproductive health services and education, contraception, and maternal and child health care (see http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/...lth06.html) - many privileges which you, I suspect, may enjoy. This is primarily an issue of economics and opportunity. It's a fact that when men and women CAN choose the size and spacing of their families, they tend to have smaller, healthier families. If we all do our best to increase support and funding for VOLUNTARY family planning programs domestically and abroad, we all benefit.
 written by Green Oregon, December 23, 2009
So, just because you now have an excuse (climategate) there is no global warming. Now, you have something to point to. All of those years of research by thousands of scientist across the globe, including NASA, EPA, DOE, EU, METI and many other government organizations, was ALL just a CONSPIRACY so that you can't drive your 10 mile per gallon pick up truck????? They are all conspiring against you? Get real. Learn the facts. AND STOP listening to "entertainers" like Beck and Rush.
 written by Ericka Staples, December 23, 2009
After reading the first comment from Fran Tracy, I just had to respond.
First of all, make sure you run spell check on your browser- I can't help but to take comments less seriously when simple words are misspelled (i.e., "haeving" should be "having.") Also, the proper nouns should be capitalized (i.e., "Mexicans," "Africa.") Now let me switch gears from grammar instructor to the heart of the matter... Could you possibly have been MORE racist in your comment? Perhaps you truly are a racist and meant to convey that. And if you are: GET OVER IT. It's 2009- Racism is as fashionable as wearing shorts in the middle of winter. Sure, you are entitled to your opinion, but I would think twice about playing your race card at every chance you get (Ahem: If you don't remember, the majority of people elected a non-white President in this country.) Also, if you are going to run around making blanket claims about minorities and how scared you are that Caucasians are in danger of losing their status as the majority, perhaps you should qualify your bitching with statistics and verified references. Where did you hear that Mexicans, Blacks, and Muslims are baby-making at much higher rates than the average citizen? Did you rely on your predetermined racial stereotypes for that assumption as well? Are you claiming that's true in America alone, or did you figure that your stereotype applied to anyone of those races in every country, simply by the virtue that they happen to be a member of those racial backgrounds? And worst of all, where the hell do you find the nerve to throw Africa under the bus? Are you even aware of its history, and how much it has been screwed over by almost every major country on this planet? Did you ever stop to think that perhaps the reason the poorest people in the world in Africa, India, China and other countries continue to reproduce is a significant lack of contraception education, and not because they purposely run around having endless sex when they aren't worrying about where they're going to get their next meal? Wake the hell up: Look at the science, and look at what is happening around the world and to our oceans due to human-induced warming. The bottom line of this article couldn't have been simpler: Less people = Less Environmental Impact. If you think it takes more than rocket science to figure that out, perhaps you should have extended your stay in elementary school.
 written by Phil E. Drifter, December 23, 2009
Where did all the smog that floats around 'bowl' cities come from, mother nature?
PS: Check out the incredible shrinking icecaps at our poles. And the climate deniers who ignorantly spout 'OMGZZ CHEK OUT THE 23" OF SNOW THE EAST COAST GOT" well duh, with the ice disappearing from the polar caps every year, that means MORE MOISTURE in the atmosphere which means BIGGER STORMS. The earth has been here for millions upon millions of years, yet we just started burning fossil fuels over the last ~100. I think the federal government's goal is so suck the middle east dry then they'd have nothing to offer the world and they can safely be 'eliminated' because 'our god has a bigger dick than their god,' to quote George Carlin.
 written by LCforevah, December 23, 2009
You both betray a stunning lack of basic math and statistical knowledge. CR, climate change is influenced by six billion humans and the numbers bear it out. Your very language betrays ignorance of how research and research numbers work. FT, young,urban Mexican couples are practicing birth control and their reduced number of progeny will lead to improvements in the Mexican standard of living. Google *young Mexican couples contraception*
 written by GoAndGreenYourself, December 23, 2009 For the love of god, please spend one day and research this on your own people. Don't believe Al Gorelioni or the IPCC. You will quickly learn that CO2 is not responsible for global warming, the sun is. The current temperature of the Earth is lower than it was during the 1500's, so who do we blame that on? Either way, man contributes less than 1% of the total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The science is NOT settled and more than 50% of climate researchers do not believe in man made global warming. Try typing in "ClimateGate" into google and find out how many of the studies are based on fraudulent science. In the 1970's and even into the early 1980's these exact same geeks told us all we were heading for a new ice age, remember that? The real intent of the IPCC is to find a new way to tax all citizens even more, and thus gain more power. Wake up and pull that green thumb out of your azz's.
written by GoAndGreenYourself, December 23, 2009 Don't confuse the theory of CO2 related global warming and pollution/smog in cities. These are two clearly different subjects. Everyone agrees that pollution is bad. If you mix those two ideas together, you'll confuse people that are even slower than yourself. Cheers!
 written by maxpower, December 23, 2009
Kids Suck and so do all those Quiverfull bible toting assholes
 written by Macoe, December 23, 2009
I like how this is the most simple of suggestions for curbing multiple global problems; climate control just one of the many among poverty, overpopulation, hunger, etc., and its STILL subject to attack on political grounds. Who are the real extremists when anti-climate change propaganda wipes out all common sense concerning what it means to be a responsible human?
 written by Rev Grace, December 23, 2009
The truth is always somewhere in the middle folks. We ARE causing environmental damages to our planet. Anyone from a child to saint can testify to that. It is fact. We are damaging the planet and its ecosystem. We might not be doing it at the rate some scientists suggest, but it is happening. Forty years ago Los Angeles and other major world cities didn't have smog fog hovering over their cities. Water was cleaner, we had more species of life.
Are you skeptics telling me that your wasteful practices and those of all of your neighbors hasn't effected the planet? Sadly humans are a cancer on this planet and unless we start making changes now, we will eventually kill off all life, including humans themselves. It is a fact. Do your research. And please, stop arguing about who is right or wrong. You all are. Now go change your life to not be a part of the problem. And use birth control! The only reason the church disallows it is to increase their size. No other reason.
written by Macoe, December 24, 2009
The middle? That's what they call complacency. Good luck being everyone's best friend, Reverend.
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Each $7 spent on basic family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton. To achieve the same result with low-carbon technologies would cost a minimum of $32. The UN estimates that 40 percent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended.
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