Condoms for Climate Change?

If left unchecked, global climate change has the potential to drastically affect our access to fresh water, adequate food, and ample landspace for housing and agriculture.

Many experts point to the rapid growth of the world’s population in the last hundreds years as one of the factors that have intensified the effects of climate change that we are already beginning to see.

In a report released earlier this week, the U.N. Population Fund stated that the battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available.

Although the mere mention of limiting family size as a way to reduce global warming is likely to raise the hackles of both environmentalists and climate change skeptics alike, the fact remains that slowing or halting the current rate of population growth could be effective in reducing the level of harmful carbon emissions that human activities send up in the atmosphere.

“As the growth of population, economies and consumption outpaces the Earth’s capacity to adjust, climate change could become much more extreme and conceivably catastrophic,” the report said.

Rather than suggest that people should be limited in the number of children that they are allowed to have, the report instead offered that “women with access to reproductive health services … have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse gas emissions.”

The world’s population will likely rise from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050, with most of the growth in less developed regions, according to a 2006 report by the United Nations (AP).

The agency did acknowledge the fact that there is currently a lack of evidence for a direct, causal link between population growth and climate change. However, slowing the rate at which humans are born is one of the only ways that all countries would be able to participate in an emissions reduction plan that without being denied access to energy resources needed to continue development.

Although some have referred to the U.N. Population Fund’s statements as “alarmist” and “unhelpful,” it is worth pointing out that advocating increased access to various methods of birth control and reproductive education isn’t a radical new concept. Many nonprofit organizations, both in the United States and abroad, are designed specifically to make condoms and sex education available to areas of the world that are suffering from widespread sexually transmitted disease and extreme poverty.

Of course, it is ludicrous to suggest that by handing out more free condoms, we can effectively mitigate the consequences of centuries of industrial development. In fact the production and distribution of that many condoms would be quite harmful itself. But would it be such a bad thing if one of the side effects of more well planned families was a reduction in greenhouse gases and the effects of climate change?

Although there is no easy answer to the best way to reduce human effects on the health of the planet, we might be running out of time to enjoy the debate. In three weeks, leaders of the world will meet in Copenhagen in hopes of reaching a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial countries to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.

Image Credit: www.inquisitr.com

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Sue C.

4:35AM PST on Dec 16, 2009

Only problem with handing out free condoms would be upsetting the companies that make a lot of money out of selling them in chemists and the machines in pub toilets. Free ones might put them out of business.

send a green star

No B.

3:36PM PST on Dec 13, 2009

we should aim for a sustainable population of three billion

L B.

6:09PM PST on Dec 10, 2009

Fewer people to screw up the planet can be voluntary now; or, if we want to wait a lot longer to do anything, disease and starvation can reduce the population for us, involuntarily. That's how they cleared out the cities and towns in the good ole 1350s. Fewer people fighting over the same resources, better sanitation and better conservation, better allocation of resources--or more war, dust, disease and destruction. Take your pick.

Leia P.

7:12PM PST on Nov 28, 2009

it is more than that. we need to have NEGATIVE population growth, meaning our population needs to stop growing AND people need to stop having so many babies so our numbers start to shrink

Diana G.

2:47PM PST on Nov 28, 2009

Absolutely, human race is overpopulated we are destroying the earth and its innocents creatures: the animals

Jessica S.

12:04PM PST on Nov 28, 2009

stop making babies!

Michel T.

3:49PM PST on Nov 27, 2009

It has never been about not having enough ressources to provide for everyone, but about the way we manage them. Reducing the increase of population might not decrease the emission of CO2 as much as you think. Most of the countries, in which citizens do not have access to condoms are the poorest countries. and in these countries, the people barely emit any CO2, compared to people in developped countries who do have access to condoms already.

You need to open up your eyes. There is soo much waste going on. During the recession, Canada has bought 200 000 pigs from farmers and had them all slaughtered to keep the price high, in the States, the numbers are probably even larger, and that happens every time there is a recession. A pig can provide food to a person for about a year, imagine how many ppl could've been saved this way. This is such a waste of potential. The meat industry is such a polluting industry, and yet, how can our countries afford just to throw away so much after so much CO2 was released to produce them.

Nevertheless, we also have a lot of waste of human potential. For instance, the tobbaco industry, one of the wealthiest in the world, employ so many workers to produce in the end nothing productive for society. All the CO2 involved in the production, marketing, transport could have been avoided, have the employees been employed in something useful for society.

Nonetheless, statistics are staggering!!! the U.S. releases so much more CO2 PER HABITANT tha

Gale J.

3:51PM PST on Nov 26, 2009

The effect of large scale population growth is hard to scientifically predict but the effects of ever larger, more densely populated urban centers is fairly well understood. Traffic becomes heavier and urban and suburban areas spread out, first to ex-urban areas and then into rural areas. I live in the Chicagoland area and when I was a child, I am 55 now, my Great-Grandmother maintained a farm in the same suburban township in which my family lived. Sunday outings almost always encountered farm stands where locally grown food was available. Now there are no farms left in any of the near suburban area and fewer and fewer in the near county area. This is just one effect of our population growth. Water is another problem, aquifers are being depleted because concentrations of people use large amounts of water and then, once used, it all has to be treated. Then there is the solid waste issue, we produce way too much garbage. Local dumps in our area are disappearing quickly, becoming filled to capacity and then closed, so now the solid waste must be hauled ever and ever further away.

We are no longer an agricultural society and large numbers of children are not lost to accident and disease so there is simply no need for families to have so many children. I believe we should have no more than one, possibly two biological children. People who desire larger families may build them through adoption or fostering. Limiting population will decrease pressure on Earth and her resources.

Nicole C.

8:50PM PST on Nov 25, 2009

According to a study by the Center for Biological Diversity, with the exponential increase in the human population, there is also an exponential increase in the number of species going extinct. This is the case not only because of global warming, but also people moving into the spaces these lifeforms once inhabited and destroying their habitat. Sure, there may not be some *direct* proof, but it seems kind of convenient, doesn't it? It's all fine and good to want kids, but there comes a point when contributing to this world's overpopulation just becomes irresponsible. I understand making condoms also impacts the environment, but I have to ask what "family planning" methods the author suggests using if one of the cheapest and most accessible (and least invasive) forms of birth control available supposedly isn't a good idea to use? Like it or not, more people means more destruction.

I want to add that I'm not discouraging corporate accountability or anything like that. They are a huge part of the problem. Unfortunately, the problem of population growth still remains. if you have a bunch of people living in one house, that house will become dilapidated much more quickly, and living in what would be a small space for multiple people becomes unbearable. The same goes for the planet.

Bernard C.

6:38AM PST on Nov 24, 2009

In reference to Sharada Ganesh - a word of caution – a journalist’s job description requires him or her to write a story; they sell stories to earn a living. Scientist's reputations live and die on presenting evidence based on science. Scientists can be fallible but I'd rather put my money on a scientist than a hack.
The article in question appears to be another opportunity by its author to place his boot metaphorically on the neck of his favourite “bête noir” the “post-reproductive wealthy white men”.
Yes the per capita usage of resources is significantly greater in the 1st than the 3rd world – no argument on that issue. Yes the European or North American is at the moment the largest user of fossil fuels and therefore the greatest contributor to Co2 emission – err why no mention of China and India? No mention of course of the more pressing issues than Co2 such as species and habitat loss, critical shortages of arable land water and phosphates looming and the ever growing menace of nasty pollution such as heavy metal all directly due to too many people and too few resources. Ground breaking ecologists like Ehlrich and Lovelake and their research is dismissed in a sentence. Why not point out that as the population explodes in the 3rd world and competition for resources reaches breaking point millions of 3rd world people (unsurprisingly) see migration to the West as the ultimate prize. I have yet to see an immigrant from the 3