Birth control could help combat climate change
September 18, 2009(AP) -- Giving contraceptives to people in developing countries could help fight climate change by slowing population growth, experts said Friday.
More than 200 million women worldwide want contraceptives, but don't have access to them, according to an editorial published in the British medical journal, Lancet. That results in 76 million unintended pregnancies every year.
If those women had access to free condoms or other birth control methods, that could slow rates of population growth, possibly easing the pressure on the environment, the editors say.
"There is now an emerging debate and interest about the links between population dynamics, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and climate change," the commentary says.
In countries with access to condoms and other contraceptives, average family sizes tend to fall significantly within a generation. Until recently, many U.S.-funded health programs did not pay for or encourage condom use in poor countries, even to fight diseases such as AIDS.
The world's population is projected to jump to 9 billion by 2050, with more than 90 percent of that growth coming from developing countries.
It's not the first time lifestyle issues have been tied to the battle against global warming. Climate change experts have previously recommended that people cut their meat intake to slow global warming by reducing the numbers of animals using the world's resources.
The Lancet editorial cited a British report which says family planning is five times cheaper than usual technologies used to fight climate change. According to the report, each $7 spent on basic family planning would slash global carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1 ton.
Experts believe that while normal population growth is unlikely to significantly increase global warming that overpopulation in developing countries could lead to increased demand for food and shelter, which could jeopardize the environment as it struggles with global warming.
On the Net: http://www.lancet.com
©2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Jul 25, 2008 |
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This kind of madness is uniquely European. Is there a strong undercurrent of anti-humanism lurking in old cities of Europe? Are they tired of life already, and hate other humans? Let them start by eliminating themselves for mother earth, perhaps in the style of Jim Jones.
Watching the climate-change monster rise up from the muck of human nightmares reminds me that we truly create our own demons and insanity seems to be fashionable trend.
I think it's a good idea, and even during when Clinton was in office, and he legalized abortion, crime rate was expected to raise but dropped dramatically, because the women getting abortions were the ones who would have had children who would turn out to be criminals.
That is religion in the sense it controls us mentally, this is a physical control, much different, and it would not be forced upon people like religion is.
However I do think this is a drastic attempt at climate change, however the future is going to change dramatically when the average age of an American (or even human) exceeds 100, 150, or longer due to technological advances.
While I agree religion is also an attempt at societal control, people have far more of a choice with that than alot of stuff that is being proposed by AGW zealots. Such as the regulations that amount to carbon taxes, which will not be a choice at all, it will simply be money you have to pay to have a modern lifestyle.
And your physical control thing is purely a semantic delineation, and not even accurate. Physical (martial) control (law) would be if they had men who grabbed you and threw you in a cell.
And every dollar invested in birth control will return twice...
Reductio Ad Absurdum will not be tolerated on forums where the readers are smart enough to know your using a logical fallacy to reduce the argument to absurd proportions.
Nobody is avocating killing people here, just prudence in contraceptives.
Would be better to have 4.5 billion well fed, well educated people. Can't believe there are so many nuts out there that think god hates birth control.
We're at 6 billion and the repopulation rates of developed countries are far below that of the rest of the world.
The best way to reduce the population is through education and the generation of wealth.
Sadly, my comments are merely a rephrasing of the euphemisms currently in fashion within the green meta-mind. No one seems to really think through all the fantastic things greenism promises to do in order to save polar bears from a Prius-melting heatwave. The reduction of their rhetoric doesn't yield a fallacy, it yields the true nature of their agenda.
Population reduction is a synonym for genocide and can only be accomplished by force.
My question then becomes, what gives you the right to tell another human being how he or she may reproduce? How do you plan on it? Do you plan on shooting those of us who oppose the kind of government you want to save the world from the danger of free humans?
Please explain to me how stopping the creation of a child is anything like genocide? You're being completely ridiculous and exaggerating your false beliefs.
It's not a means of force it's a means of opportunity; as ShotmanMaslo said;
Yeah let's shoot people who want to have children, like what!? I mean who thinks of this stuff? We're merely helping birth control become more available and acceptable, thus helping control birth rate, and once again that is not by force.
He's not pointing his argument directly at you. A few of us who are on in the years have heard the population arguments before. It starts quietly, like the above article, and within an unreasonably short amount of time you start seeing Malthusian ridiculousness at the forefront of modern sociology, ecological science, etc. This typically sets us back at least a decade when it comes to advancement in the sciences, both social and physical, as well as reduce us to discontented warring neighbors who are afraid that third world country x will have too many kids that we're going to have to take care of.
Certainly.
" ...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
– Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[3]"
Strange how self-righteous the greens sound when you realize what their ideology really includes.
Green ideology is Marxist ideology, loaded with the same hatred of human independence but especially enraged against the concepts of limited, distributed powers and self-determination.
So according to your definition, birth control is NOT a genocide, because it is not forced on anyone.
The article and everyone here is talking about easy acces to birth control, not forcing it on someone.