Enviro, Population Movements Merge Goals for Healthier Planet

opinion by Renee Kjartan, Free Press

Some 30 years after the first Earth Day in 1970, an important confluence is taking place between environmental groups and those working to curb population growth. Portions of the two sectors now agree that protecting the environment and reducing the Earth’s rapidly expanding birth rate are interdependent goals.

Zero Population Growth (ZPG), which for over 30 years has sounded the alarm about uncurbed growth, recently sent a newsletter to its members warning about the energy crisis. And the National Audubon Society, which lobbies on behalf of birds around the world, is talking about “rapid rates of population growth.” Audubon says over 50 percent of migrant songbirds are in decline, due to “habitat destruction… caused by rapid rates of human population growth.”

There is growing realization that the rapid increase in the number of humans—roughly a billion more people every 11 years—is as important as global warming, pollution, species extinction and sprawl. In fact, population increase is among the causes of these problems.

Some groups, of course, have long seen the correlation between population and the environment. Northwest Environment Watch (www.northwestwatch.org) has long pointed out that the rapid population growth in Puget Sound is due in large part to unplanned pregnancies. This area’s population is growing “at Third World rates: leading India, neck and neck with Egypt, and gaining on Ecuador.” NEW says our population, “15.5 million and counting,” is responsible for most of the Northwest’s increase in energy and water consumption, solid waste generation, and greenhouse gas emissions, along with about half the region’s growth in traffic and suburban sprawl.

Another group that has astutely related problems of the environment and population is World Watch magazine (www.worldwatch.org). Readers can follow discussions by experts that explain why voluntarily reducing the world population to about 2 billion would be the ideal way to inhabit the planet sustainably.

But now more groups are making the connection. Zero Population Growth (www.zpg.org) recently told its members: “Bush and Cheney never address the biggest energy challenge we face: Global Population Growth.” To provide fuel to the billion people who will be added to the planet in about a dozen years, “we’d have to extract the oil from the equivalent of 32 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling areas just to meet their needs!” Or, “At current consumption rates, the oil drilling recently approved by Bush in the Gulf of Mexico would satisfy the world’s energy needs for about 56 hours….”

In addition, six groups have recently joined together to form the Planet campaign ( www.familyplanet.org) to call attention to the environmental problems caused by overpopulation. These groups include CARE, Population Action International, Planned Parenthood Federation, Save the Children, the National Audubon Society and the Communications Consortium Media Center.

How should overpopulation be tackled? Northwest Environment Watch says the Northwest should “concentrate its energies on three leverage points—reducing child poverty, preventing child sexual abuse, and expanding health insurance coverage for contraceptives.”

Representatives of the Planet campaign stated in an op-ed piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that safe, effective, cheap and voluntary family planning services are “a critical and achievable first step in preserving natural resources and protecting the environment for our children and grandchildren.” ZPG says: “voluntary family planning works everywhere it’s allowed to take place… 100 percent of the world’s family planning needs this year could be met for less than three percent of the cost of the disastrous proposed Arctic oil drilling.”

The merging of the environmental and family planning movements is an important step for the health of the Earth. But in the Bush era, this will not be easy. The first act of his administration was to reaffirm what is called the Global Gag Rule: the denying of United Nations funding to any clinics that even discuss abortion as an option. ZPG points out that US Rep. Chris Smith, a Bush ally, has labeled contraceptives as “baby pesticides.” For the first few months of his administration, Bush was under consistent attack by environmental and progressive forces for his many backward acts and positions. Now, due to the execrable acts of the terrorists on September 11, the country has united around Bush, seemingly forgetting about critical environmental, population, and other problems. The job of protecting the planet’s environment is now more difficult.