Poverty + (Lack of Birth Control * Religion) + Obsession with Growth = Environmental Clusterf*#&
Check out this strong, thoughtful post ‘The Elephant in the Room‘ on the connection between a lack of birth control for the world’s poorest people and the bursting-at-the-seams count of 6.6 Billion humans we’re sharing this world with.
There are 6.6 billion people on the planet. We all know it’s too many. If there were only 500 million all of our environmental problems would vanish. The earth could sustain us by regrowing forests faster then we cut them down, and absorbing carbon faster then we release it. We could farm only the most fertile lands and people would have lots of land to live on. There would be tons of space for wilderness. Parents with smaller families would have more money to invest in the education and feeding of each child.
Yet nearly fifty years after the invention of the pill, the UN reports that 201 million women have no access to any form of birth control. In Mali 58% of women of child bearing age can’t name even a single method of birth control. In Sub-Saharan Africa only 14% of married women use a modern method of birth control. (details here) The planet is dying from overpopulation and nobody is talking about population control. How could this be?
The biggest reason for this deplorable state of affairs is religion. I make no bones about being no fan of religion in general, but in few places has religion done more harm than in bronze age attitudes towards family planning. The Catholic church is against birth control completely. In many developing countries it wields enough influence to keep sex education out of public education, and birth control out of public health. The Catholic church also puts strong pressure on followers to have as many children as possible. Each child is a gift from God after all. Part of His grand plan. Too bad that God isn’t much interested in feeding, or clothing, or educating all these little gifts. How many young mothers have died in childbirth because the Pope doesn’t want them to stop have children? How many children starve because their families can’t feed an extra mouth?
Head over to Shatter the Fog to read the whole thing, it’s a good one.
