My contribution to world population growth

I was a tad taken aback by this comment I received today having suffered a miscarriage at 12 weeks just one month ago:

Do you think there is a conflict between your desire to be green,and to have more children?

e.g. see:http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2036598,00.html

David.

BUT then I read the article and was dumbfounded to learn that the debate on how to reduce or halt the predicted population explosion (lets face it is already happening in a big way as I reported 12 years ago in my degree level dissertation on the effects of uncontrolled population growth upon the environment which is needed to support human life) is simply not taking place at any level.

When I was studying environmental science at university in the early 1990s I couldn’t understand why no-one in the media was as fearful for the Humankind’s future survival on our planet &even remember people denying that there was any cause for concern at all. Really I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that the tough discussion about how we are to keep human population numbers to a managable level hasn’t even begun yet alone. Shocking though.

It’s such a strange situation that in less economically developed countries especially,very little money (for contraception) or education is available to help women and their families know that they can choose to have a smaller number of children if they wish.

Strangely it was only yesterday evening,before receiving this comment,while reading The Times Book of Space to my (way too young) four year olds I recalled my undergraduate fears and near obession about the terrible fate of humans if no-one in power started doing LOADS to stop the uncontrolled growth of our numbers. Especially in areas of the world where resources are scarce. I came across a page which told us how many people live on our planet (approx 6 billion) and that by 2050 there is likely to be twice this number. Blinking back the sudden tears I had to explain to the children that Yes,6 billion is a bigger number than one hundred and eighty.

In answer to the (slightly tactless) comment about my desire to have more children (do I? I’m not sure. I was pregnant,now I’m not. <shrug>) and whether it conflicts with my desire to be green…Hmmm. It certainly crossed my mind more than once in the past that each person I create &raise increases the population by an unknown number dependant on how many offspring they have and so on (eg. my 93 year old grandma is now responsible for 8 people existing all of whom would have saved places on this planet if she’d never had kids).

My final thought is that I’m doing my little bit and my best no matter how small an impact that actually has on the saving our life-giving environment. This means I feel a tiny bit less awful about humans’impending doom;my kids are well versed in the importance of living responsibly on the Earth (only today when we had to make an emergency plea to the bemused owner of the local laundrette if we could use his toilets today. As we came back through from his store rooms son asked me loudly ‘Mummy why does he use enormous boxes of washing powder which will hurt and kill the fishies?‘while my daughter said thank you to him). Bealers and I like the idea of having three kids,especially because we had twins first time round and feel that another person is somehow missing.

I also feel that the Earth’s environment is going to need hell of a lot of good people who care to clean up the awful mess that’s been created and I’m rasing bright,strong healthy,aware children who will be in a position to do this. If we do have one more baby it will not be my fault that one day in the future humans will struggle to survive and will probably become extinct it will be because of eejits like George W. Bush who could have made a big difference but chose not to. Or will it? Oh god the guilt of caring so much…

All comments to this blog are always very gratefully received. Thanks to David for making my student passions come alive again.

Further reading:

• I was a little obsessed by Julian Huxley while at university. He was the brother of Aldous but a great Humanist,Environmentalist and generally very interesting man.
• http://www.overpopulation.org/
  

  It took the US 200 years to go from 7 babies per family to two. “Bangladesh has [nearly] done that in 20. Iran has more than halved its fertility rate in a decade.”
  Carl Haub –Population Reference Bureau

  Before,we didn’t know how to control pregnancy,we didn’t have the education,and people in the area were having nine or ten children. We have 18 families and no one has more than three children. The health of the children and mothers has improved,and so has the spacing of babies. Everyone understands the importance of family planning now. Vincente Jarrin and Maria Juana Jarrin Malca,Husband and Wife Family Planning Promoters in Pasquazo Zambrano,Ecuador
  2005
  

• Population and the Environment:The Global Challenge
  By Don Hinrichsen and Bryant Robey
  As the century begins,natural resources are under increasing pressure,threatening public health and development. Water shortages,soil exhaustion,loss of forests,air and water pollution,and degradation of coastlines afflict many areas. As the world’s population grows,improving living standards without destroying the environment is a global challenge.

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