Save the Planet, Use a Condom

That’s right, you heard it. Wrap up and save the planet.

The United Nations Population Fund released a report last Wednesday arguing that the distribution of condoms and birth control could limit global warming. The report claimed that “As the growth of population, economies and consumption out paces the Earth’s capacity to adjust, climate change could become much more extreme and conceivably catastrophic.”

While our world population certainly needs to be something we take issue with for a variety of reasons, the degree to which it is connected to climate change seems very questionable. Many climate experts, such as Roger Pielke Jr., feel that associating birth control with climate change cheapens the debate of both causes, which I can certainly agree with.

The reasoning behind the U. N. report goes like this. Climate change is linked to energy and energy is inevitably linked to the people using it. The more people using energy the greater burden we put on our planet. Unfortunately, the problem of climate change isn’t quite as simple as this.

It is first world countries, such as the United States and European countries, which are producing the majority of the CO2 and other harmful pollutants going up into the atmosphere. If we are not producing it within our boundaries, we are paying other poorer countries to do it within theirs for our own use. And for the most part, these richer nations have birthrates which are relatively stable, or even below sustainability. As the fastest growing polluter, China and its population is expected to peak in the next decade or two.

Most of the explosion in population is happening in third world countries. While their rapidly expanding population will inevitably use resources, mostly for food, their footprint is small in comparison to our own. It is ultimately energy consumption which contributes to global warming and the vast majority of it comes from first world countries. Since none of these well-to-do countries want to give up their resource base or energy use, it comes naturally that they must alter the way they use energy as the means to address climate control.

In connecting population growth definitively to global warming, it starts to put blame on developing countries for climate change though it is largely not their fault. In developing solutions to the climate problem, third world countries do not need to feel cornered or blamed, because then they become hostile to the solution. These countries have the right to develop as all nations do (though development hold problems of its own).

While there is no doubt that something needs to be done about our worlds population problem, simply linking global warming and birth control seems a short cut into justifying a political cause. It points away from where the real problems lie in global warming.  We should be careful about what problems we link to global warming merely to create a sense of urgency. It is distorted fear, misplaces the blame, and ultimately makes finding a real solution to climate change more difficult.

Interested in learning more? David Ginter also has a take on this subject. Read “Earth has A Growing Problem” right here on Global Shift.