Contraception cheapest way to combat climate change

[GliderGuider]

Contraception cheapest way to combat climate change



Every £4 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of £19 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, the research says.

The report, Fewer Emitter, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, concludes that family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emissions reduction. The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended.

If these basic family planning needs were met, 34 gigatons (billion tonnes) of CO2 would be saved – equivalent to nearly 6 times the annual emissions of the US and almost 60 times the UK’s annual total.

Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust at the LSE, said: “It’s always been obviously 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.”

UN data suggests that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 million.

The research is published on the day that the Government’s climate change advisers, the Climate Change Committee, warned households and industry that a planned 80 per cent reduction in emissions are likely to prove insufficient.

Emphasis mine.

I personally think it's unlikely that the world population will be 9+ billion in 2050 given all the challenges the global food supply will face between now and then, but condoms sure beat malnutrition as a population control measure.

[AndyA]

1. The people I know who have kids do NOTHING to preserve or protect the environment.

They don't recycle.

They make multiple trips when they run errands.

They run their central air conditioners on nice (temperate) days.

And because they aren't taking any steps to preserve the environment for their kids, their kids are not learning how important it is to make as small of an impact as possible.

[GliderGuider]

2. Try not to make the brush too broad.

It may be my age and my circle of friends, but most of the people I know who are aware and active also have kids. Typically they woke up after they procreated, and their new understanding of the sort of world we are bequeathing to our offspring makes them pretty adamant about being the change. They are also teaching their children well.

Personally I saw the writing on the wall when I read "Limits to Growth" in 1972, and never had nor wanted children.

[joshcryer]

8. I'm never having kids either.

But I personally don't think my not having kids matters much. I know that most people who do procreate and have a fertility rate beyond 2.0 (replacement birth rates), they tend to live in pretty despicable conditions and have lifespans half my own.

[mimitabby]

16. um, that's not true of all people who have kids!!

[AndyA]

24. I said, "The people I know," not "All people with kids..."

:eyes:

[NickB79]

18. I'm sorry the parents you know are so inconsiderate to the environment

My wife is pregnant with our one and only child. We both recycle, try to combine trips as much as possible, and rarely run our A/C in the summer. For the past 3 winters, we've weather-sealed our apartment so well that we barely had to touch the heat either (though some of that is due to our neighbors cranking up their heat). We work in community gardens to grow our own vegetables in summer. We're buying a small house on 1.25 acres of land that's only 10 minutes from work for both of us, and we plan to grow a huge garden, numerous fruit and nut trees, raise our own chickens (the house actually comes with a coop and 8 adult chickens), compost everything we can, and heat it as much as possible with the potbelly stove in the living room, fueled with locally grown firewood from my dad's farm. And on my dad's farm, I have planted roughly 2,000 trees since the age of 14, most of them grown from seed collected from our own woods or the local area,town, or MN Arboretum.

I can understand what you are saying; we have friends with kids who are just as you describe, but not all of us are like that.

[AndyA]

25. Congrats on the forthcoming offspring.

I did say "The people I know," not "All people with kids..." so I think I restricted my statement enough. ;)

[tinrobot]

19. That's pretty offensive, actually.

Just because you choose to hang out with idiots, doesn't mean the rest of us parents are.

[joshcryer]

20. I do find it interesting that many environmentally conscious individuals have children. See post 12

You could be the most recycling most environmentally conscious person *ever* and your child is still going to have a significant impact. You'd have to do some kind of drop out culture stuff for it to work.

Had a conversation a few years ago with a Mother Earther type who had three children, I had to ask her about it (in a nice way, I don't hate people who have kids). Apparently her "natural conceptive" didn't work on three separate occasions. Due to the age discrepancy between them I had to wonder if it worked at all.

[GliderGuider]

21. I suspect that for many enviros

The full impact of the population issue simply hasn't registered. The taboo against considering population reduction is still quite widespread, and it often causes people to mentally reframe the problem set and/or the solution set so as to exclude considerations of overpopulation.

[joshcryer]

22. I'm all for population reduction, deurbanization, depaving roads, many many things.

Less is more in my mind, definitely. It's just the practical way to succeed is not always easy. I believe feeding and clothing people is probably more likely to work than giving out free condoms.

[AndyA]

23. Be offended by the people who aren't protecting the environment for future generations.

Not by me, I'm doing my part.

I don't have any children, either, and don't plan on having any.

[IrateCitizen]

30. I have a young child -- I do all that and then some.

Not only do I recycle, but I try to consciously use less of everything. My family generates about 1 to 1.5 bags of kitchen trash each week.

I compost religiously, and I also grow a large organic garden.

I've started trying to bicycle more for local trips, and we almost always condense a bunch of errands into one trip.

We don't run air conditioners -- we leave the windows open in the summer and use ceiling fans.

To be honest, one of the main reasons I do all of this is to set a positive example for my 2-year old daughter and encourage her to do the same as she grows up.

As many others on this thread have noted, be careful when you paint with such a broad brush. You might tar those who are doing much more than those who don't have kids.

[JonQ]

3. Abortions are also

a good way to reduce crime and poverty.

[GliderGuider]

4. Family planning in general works well

In conjunction with good educational practices and realistic social policies.

God help us...

[JonQ]

10. I would actually favor

making any form of birth control (condoms, the pill, abortions, tubal ligation, vasectomies etc) completely paid for by the government and no questions asked. I think in the long run that policy would pay for itself by the reduction in crime, people on welfare, teen pregnancies (and drop outs) leading to reduced wages, and so on and so on.

[mimitabby]

17. me too

[unpossibles]

5. not eating meat (or cutting drastically back) is cheaper, honestly

but both that and family planning are the elephants in the room that no one wants to discuss.

But reducing our meat-centric diet would also do a lot toward feeding more people and being more environmentally friendly. It would also probably help out a little in the health care costs too.

I know; go ahead and flame me. whatever.

[GliderGuider]

6. No flames from me.

Population and consumption work hand in and to increase the impact we have on the planet. I=PAT. The best outcome would be to reduce both at the same time. It may happen, but the change of world-view required to make that a voluntary, un-coerced decision on the part of enough people has yet to fully manifest itself.

[joshcryer]

7. No doubt. Most rain forest destruction is due to European desired grass fed beef.

The beef that comes out of factory farms is not up to European standards. :(

If we could popularize and reduce the cost of vegetarian meat alternatives I think that many would jump on board. But when a piece of synthetic meat (that is difficult to tell apart from real meat; and I say this being a lifetime meat eater) costs twice to three or four times as much as the real variant, people chose the real stuff.

Hell, don't even tell people it's not meat just call it Eco-Turkey or Eco-Beef, people will try it out, find that it's great, and if the cost is comparable or less to real meat you might have something.

[unpossibles]

9. True, but also I think we just need to think of ways besides fake meat also

Like, just getting used to the idea of a meal without meat or fake meat, and that it's ok to eat.

I know this is not something which people will embrace, and definitely it can't be forced, although I do think that improvements have happened by and large.

[joshcryer]

11. Well, beef is a low cost high nutrition product, which is one reason it's so popular.

Many poor people chose it simply because the same amount of protein and amino acids and vitamins you would get with a vegetable diet is much more costly.* The cost of meat is artificially low and the cost of vegetarian alternatives is artificially high. We know this because the energy to produce one over the other is at least a magnitude more.

I know this statement might get me in big trouble here, but I bet we could reduce meat consumption in a big way if a big corporation like Wal-Mart supported one of the smaller meat companies, advanced them some considerable capital, and just said "do it." Have a whole isle with vegetarian alternatives (with similar tastes, and most importantly, similar protein content), at the same cost. I know that Wal-Mart does have this to an extent, but the cost it usually 3-4 times higher.


*note, I realize you can have a rice and bean diet with vitamin supplements, and basically live your whole life that way, and it would be much much cheaper than any alternatives, but I'm talking about a diet with a variety of choices, basic consumer behavior, not rational behavior. When I was down and out for 4 years that's all I ate (that, and Ramen Soup which I'm not sure is vegetarian; the diet I had kept me alive but was hardly fulfilling).

second edit: oh, we need to seriously allow hempseed to be utilized in foods. It's much more nutritious than soy and doesn't require nearly as much processing: http://www.ratical.org/renewables/hempseed1.html

[unpossibles]

31. the cost of beef is artificially low due to water subsidies

another form of "socialism" the right doesn't seem to mind, but I digress.

As someone who initially became a vegetarian because I could not afford meat very often, then was eventually grossed out by it, I take umbrage at the idea that a vegetarian diet is more expensive, either out of my pocket or to society at large. My grocery bills are pretty cheap, and I still buy some gourmet items because I don't but meat and I seldom buy pre-made junkfood. I like to cook, and raw ingredients (even including some canned or frozen basic things) is not expensive in the least.

I feel like a broken record sometimes, but I hate when people make the claim that vegetarianism is expensive when my real world 20 years of experience says otherwise.

Our meat-centric diet also costs a lot to society and the environment through higher use of carbon-based fuels, to inefficient use of crop lands, to water waste, and in many other ways. It's ridiculous.

[joshcryer]

32. Do you make less than $30k a year?

Just wondering, because I've found vegetarianism to be extremely expensive. I am not going full vegan until I can grow my own food (buying some land sometime soon). Until then I will just eat whatever is cheapest.

[HamdenRice]

12. And each successful contraception in rich countries 60 times more impactful than in a poor country

because the environmental footprint of a person in North America or Europe is about 60 times the environmental impact of a poor rural person in the Third World.

Again, it's the environmental impact per person, not the number of people, that counts.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. I don't think this approach is realistic

If we start with the assumption that there are already too many people on Earth, contraception won't do much to affect that. (A massive sterilization program wouldn't either.)

Consider China’s “one child policy,” which has actually been relatively successful, but China’s population keeps growing. This is due to demographics, and a longer life span.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#Effects_on_population_growth_and_fertility_rate

…

Effects on population growth and fertility rate

Since the introduction of the one-child policy, the fertility rate in China has fallen from over three births per woman in 1980 (already a sharp reduction from more than five births per woman in the early 1970s) to approximately 1.8 births in 2008. (The colloquial term "births per woman" is usually formalized as the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), a technical term in demographic analysis meaning the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates through her lifetime.)

In total, the Chinese government estimates that it has three to four hundred million fewer people in 2008, with the one-child policy, than it would have had otherwise. Chinese authorities thus consider the policy as a great success in helping to implement China's current economic growth. The reduction in the fertility rate and thus population growth has reduced the severity of problems that come with overpopulation, like epidemics, slums, overwhelmed social services (such as health, education, law enforcement), and strain on the ecosystem from abuse of fertile land and production of high volumes of waste. Even with the one-child policy in place, however, "China still has one million more births than deaths every five weeks."

…

This leaves us with a couple of choices

1. Culling (I am not recommending this)
   or
2. Figuring out how to support such a large population, while doing our best to first slow and then reverse population growth.
   You cannot turn a battleship on a dime, and if you try, you won't like the results.

One explanation of what caused the Hindenburg to crash was maneuvers intended to change its heading too quickly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=11111612

…

It may seem strange that the fire did not occur the moment the landing ropes had touched the ground, because that is when the ship would have been earthed. I believe there is an explanation for this. When the ropes were first dropped they were very dry, and poor conductors. Slowly however they got dampened by the rain that was falling and the charge was slowly equalized. Thus the potential difference between the ship and the overlying air masses would have been sufficient enough to generate static electricity. The Hindenburg would have acted as a giant kite, close to the storm clouds, collecting a static spark.

I am convinced, that a leak must have occurred in the upper rear section of the ship. My assumption is confirmed by the remarkable observations by one of the witnesses. He described seeing a peculiar flutter as if gas was rising and escaping. If I were to be asked to explain what had caused this abnormal build-up of gas, I could only make to myself one explanation.

The ship proceeded in a sharp turn during its landing maneuver. This would have generated extremely high tension in the sections close to the stabilizing fins, which are braced by shear wires. I suspect that under such tension one of these wires may have broken and caused a rip in one of the gas cells. The gas then filled up the space between the cell and the outer cover, which is why the ship sank at the rear. This accumulated amount of gas was then ignited by a static spark. This was not lightning but a small static spark, enough to ignite free gas in the rear.

…

Is my metaphor too obscure?

[joshcryer]

14. I like your metaphor. :)

:hi:

[GliderGuider]

15. Neither do I

But you use what you've got. Anything that heads us in the right direction, even a little bit, will give the probability cloud of the human/planetary future more of a chance to resolve gracefully. So, reducing family sizes, reducing consumption, recycling materials, driving less, developing alternative energy sources, doing more gardening, even using CF light bulbs -- they all play a valid role.

We have no idea what the future will hold if we start making changes. We're getting a pretty good idea what it might hold if we don't. Giving Mother Nature a bit of maeuvering room seems like a good idea.

[HamdenRice]

26. Jesus, Mary & Joseph, read a book, will ya???

Every respected peer reviewed demographic projection comes to the same conclusion: the diverse contraception efforts around the world have worked and zero population growth is a few decades away. China's was the most draconian, and it had unintended consequences (eg too many males), while India's voluntary programs worked in a more gender neutral way, but we're bringing this baby in for a soft landing.

Whether the resources will be there for all when we hit zpg is a different story, but there really is no academic question of whether we're going to hit zpg.

For Chrissake, urban Ethiopia is on course for zpg.

[OKIsItJustMe]

27. “zero population growth is a few decades away”

Yes, I’ve pointed this out multiple times in the past.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=204096&mesg_id=204097

On the other hand, GG counters that it is expected to level off at 9 or 10 Trillion (compared to its current 6.8 Trillion.)

If (as many do) we assume that the Earth is unable to sustainably support its current population, how will it support half or even a third again as many?

[HamdenRice]

28. 9 or 10 trillion humans???

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I guess we're not reading the same books!!

[OKIsItJustMe]

29. LOL: Sorry… typo obviously

You take my point. TrBillions