Advice About Procreation

Hey Mr. Green,
Is the Sierra Club willing to acknowledge that population growth overwhelms all efforts to be greener? We can drive less, ride bicycles, and improve insulation until the cows come home, but it ain't gonna be enough. I've yet to find a single person who is willing to forgo having children to bring sanity to our planet. Are you? --Jeff in Denver, Colorado

I've already done my demographic damage. Mea culpa. But I pledge to refrain from future propagation. Even if Britney Spears offers her undying love, meds, and millions for my green genes, I'll "just say no" in the grand tradition of Nancy Reagan.

The Sierra Club has long recognized the problems associated with high fertility rates and been a strong advocate for family planning. Through our Global Population and the Environment Program (sierraclub.org/population), we promote a variety of ways to produce fewer people, such as providing women with better, more affordable access to healthcare (and therefore birth control), improving education, and reducing poverty. The countries that have made the greatest progress in these realms, such as Japan and most of Europe, now have the lowest fertility rates, with fewer than two children per female. Desperately poor nations like Niger, with 5.3 kids per female, continue to produce the most offspring.

While limiting fertility rates is indeed important, if we don't curb runaway consumption, we'll still be in deep trouble. For example, the United States consumes three times as much wood as does the rest of the world (seven times as much as people-packed China), and though we have only 4.5 percent of the world's population, we burn 20 percent of its fossil fuels. Obviously, if we maintain such rates, and if the rest of the world is stupid enough to imitate our profligate ways, humanity will end up burning exponentially more fuel than it already does. So I'll keep harping about lightbulbs and insulation and family planning, education, and ending poverty.

Comments

[Stephanie]

My answer to Jeff's question is "yes."

[Rob]

As a Sierra Club member, I am deeply disappointed that Mr. Green chose not to renounce Jeff's extremist take on demographics. The ironic thing is that Jeff gets to say this from the comfort of having been born and, no doubt, living a very comfortable life compared to those in poor nations where populations are growing; I sometimes want to ask population extremists if they feel so strongly about the matter, why not end your own life if people are the problem? Do you resent your parents for having brought YOU into this world, Jeff? People are not the problem. Every human being on earth can fit neatly within the boundaries of the state of Texas. The problem, as Mr. Green went on to state, is overuse of resources. And it is overuse of respurces by wealthy nations whose populations are levling out (as in the US) and declining (as in Europe), not by poor nations. Population growth is happening in poor nations, not in America, where even Jeff uses hundreds of times the resources as the average poor person in a growing nation.

[Kaitee in Austin, TX]

I agree with Rob: our rabid consumerism and gluttony are the problem, not the simple number of us. Let's be reasonable!

[Ellen Bell]

I think in a conversation like this, we have to be reasonable and rational... that is, let's not take this to extremes. I don't think anyone is advocating that we all STOP having children all together. But let's face it, the days when families needed to have 8+ children (so they could help on the farm or whatever) are over. It is economically and ecologically irresponsible to have that many kids. If you like children so much, become a foster parent or adopt and share your love with deserving and underpriviledged children who desperately need it.

[azala]

The Malthusian vs. Marxian contention in demographics will continue to wage as long as the main issues of resources, population and power have not been resolved. Likely, they never will.