Population and Climate Change
Lydia DePillis has a depressing item about the role access to contraceptives is playing (or, rather, not playing) in efforts to forestall catastrophic climate change:
Earlier this week, Thomas Wire of the London School of Economics published a study concluding that improved family planning is one of the most effective methods of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions we’ve got. This is something that sustainable-growth advocates have realized for a long time, but the actual numbers are startling: Reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies out there—calculated on the basis of “unmet need,” or women who want contraception but currently don’t have access —is roughly five times as cost-effective as deploying low-carbon technologies like wind, solar, and carbon sequestration. (Treehugger has a good summary.)
So, today, David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post asked around Washington to see what nonprofit and government types thought about this bit of research. As it turns out, the environmental establishment wanted nothing to do with it.
Of course this should be pretty obvious. Efficiency—just not using energy—is the cleanest source of energy at all. And nobody uses less energy than a person who doesn’t even exist. That’s not to say we should be engaging in coercive limits on people’s ability to have children, that would be a cure that’s far worse than the disease. But the evidence is pretty clear that in societies where women are empowered and have access to contraception, that on average they want modest-sized families. And what this study is talking about is specifically what could be accomplished by closing the gap between the level of contraception that people want to have and the level of contraception they’re actually able to maintain. There are dozens of good reasons to think closing that gap would be beneficial, the impact on the environment is one of them, and there’s no reason people should refuse to say that.
78 Responses to “Population and Climate Change”
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September 20th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
When will you idiots realize that “global warming” has always been a club of rome eugenics agenda. This latest fascist forary into carbon credits is about another thing as well… creating another market for the banker criminals (goldman sucks and JP morgan) to game. When are you idiots going to realized government by the rich for the rich is about only two things (ALWAYS): consolidating power and milking wealth from the middle class.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Didn’t you hear? The liberty to make rational decisions about how one uses his labor and endowment only applies to male westerners buying financial securities. Giving people the ability to choose the size of their family is liberal fascism.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
That’s not to say we should be engaging in coercive limits on people’s ability to have children, that would be a cure that’s far worse than the disease.
Really? Be honest: do you really wish China hadn’t enforced its one-child policy for the last thirty years? No question it’s a nasty cure and there are probably much better ones available to less coercive governments, but realistically the disease of overpopulation is responsible for massive misery too.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
iluv beat me to it. Any whisper of anything that implies men can’t do whatever they want (beat their children, rape their spouses, etc.) goes against what JEEBUS wants!
The screamers have taught their lesson well — don’t promote policy that will set them off, and isn’t worth the hassle.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
When will you idiots realize that “global warming” has always been a club of rome eugenics agenda.
Do nothing about global warming, and you’ll really get to see some suffering from the world’s poor.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
And global warming will result in population control. So, there you go. The problem is the solution… eating it’s own tail.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Got to agree with ColoZ here. Is preventing a family from having kid #3 really such a great evil given the massive public cost of childbearing? I just don’t see it.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I would suggest Americans euthanizing at least one of your children would be an excellent first step in the fight against over population/over consumption. Sterilization would certainly be in order as well.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
. . . And the reason the sensible establishment doesn’t want to talk about it is that the wingnuts immediately scream “eugenics” and “euthenasia!”
Just like when you can’t talk about gay marriage without them snarling about child molesters and men having sex with dogs. Some sort of tell, do you think?
September 20th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
This is why most of the discussion about limiting carbon usage is sort of hopeless. It becomes a question of when do we want to burn through all our oil, in 2100 (say) or 2120? Either way, all that carbon is going up in the atmosphere, and the climate effects will be basically the same.
Carbon sequestration. It’s the only way.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Yeah, but that’s racist!
September 20th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
You know what would be another slam-dunk way to reduce global carbon emissions? Don’t let people illegally immigrate to America. Funny how environmental activists never mention that either.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
This doesn’t really go to the substance of the post (which I basically agree with), but what kind of jackass uses “efficiency” the way Matt does here. Not doing something at all is not the height of efficiency.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
“That’s not to say we should be engaging in coercive limits on people’s ability to have children,”
Oh we shouldn’t? Why not exactly?
Extra human beings result in negative externalities for everyone. You see the logic of curbing this for pollution, but you refuse to go on to the next step. If we refuse to deal with this issue, then why bother tackling the rest of climate change? The game is just going to play out inevitably, as the ever-increasing masses demand that coal be burned to create the nitrogen fertilizer to keep them alive. And if we’re going to burn all the stuff anyway then why not just follow the GOP and enjoy the proceeds ourselves, rather than squandering them on the next three billion people?
Matt, of course, hopes that a combination of trying very hard and technomagic will change this. Good luck with that strategy.
Look, can we at least agree that if we’re not going to prevent people from having kids, we should at least stop subsidizing them?
You want day care, school, healthcare for your little bundle of pollution? Then you pay for it — ALL OF IT. No more tax credits. No more mortgage deduction helping with the cost of your larger house. No more crap about SUVs (primarily used by families with kids) getting different pollution treatment. etc etc etc.
So how do handle the situation of being confronted with some kid who didn’t want to be born suffering because of his feckless parents?
Well that’s where the rubber meets the road in Matt’s “let’s not coerce anyone” isn’t it? I’m not allowed to hold a gun to the head of people to stop them breeding, but they ARE allowed to hold a gun to my head once the kid is delivered.
My recommendation would be at least we start off with
- mandatory depo-provera for all girls at 12 or so (oh shut up, you whining feminists — we can do the same for boys if the equivalent chemical exists)
- the contraception only goes out if you provide substantial proof that you’ll be able to pay EVERYTHING for your kid for the next 21 years of its life
- if you miss those payments, mandatory sterilization, and the debt will last with you till you die
Drastic. Yes. And yet, we appear to have no choice. As I said, if we do not reduce our numbers (not just stop them growing) all that coal WILL BE BURNED to make fertilizer — all the whining in the world about organic farming won’t change that.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
You know what would be another slam-dunk way to reduce global carbon emissions? Get Steve Sailer to suck on a tailpipe.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
The total fertility rate in Mexico has fallen to about 2.3 babies per woman per lifetime, but the total fertility rate among foreign-born Latinas in California in 2005 was 3.7.
In other words, people are illegally breaking into America to have the extra children they couldn’t afford to have in Mexico.
For some reason, the Sierra Club, which used to favor immigration restriction, never mentions this.
Oh, now I remember why that is! The shift in Sierra Club stance followed zillionaire David Gelbaum’s secret $100 million donation in the mid-1990s, which came with the proviso that the Sierra Club must never ever say anything critical of immigration.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Matt writes:
“And what this study is talking about is specifically what could be accomplished by closing the gap between the level of contraception that people want to have and the level of contraception they’re actually able to maintain. There are dozens of good reasons to think closing that gap would be beneficial, the impact on the environment is one of them, and there’s no reason people should refuse to say that.”
The reason everybody who is anybody is refusing to say that is because everybody knows that, by and large, making contraception more available to women who want to have contraception means reducing births in the Third World. And favoring reducing nonwhite births (even if that’s just the effect of your policy, not the specific intent) makes you racist, which makes all nice people put their fingers in their ears and drone “I can’t hear you!”
September 20th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Nobody uses less energy than a person who doesn’t even exist.
In the event that the environmental movement ever becomes the fascist/Nazi caricature that certain right-wing elements are always trying to portray it as, I think we could do a lot worse than this slogan.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
To those who were actually paying attention in class (clearly not Yglesias), it’s clear that the biggest driver towards smaller population growth (and even shrinkage) is wealth. When a civilization is wealthier, family sizes drop.
You want smaller populations? Instead of pushing for policies that will make people poorer, push for those that will make them wealthier. If the climate change fanatics get what they really want – deindustrialization and a return to farming on a large scale, we’ll see average family size start going up again.
But Matt thinks that the 180 degree opposite of abstinence programs (hand out condoms) will somehow result in magic.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
No, we can’t agree to that because the two things are qualitatively different.
First, before you argue that they’re the same from an economics standpoint (because various economic subsidies for children is the same thing as encouraging them), the costs of having and raising a child are almost astronomically larger than the sum total of all subsidies for them.
Secondly, there is a strong distinction between “having children” and “having too many children”. More to the point, having too few children is both culturally and economically bad even if having too many is also bad.
Also, the much stronger rationale for subsidies for children are not that they are subsidies to ease burdens on parents, but that they materially, sociologically, and psychologically improve the lives of children, which we all once were. (And thus improving the lives of children is a core part of improving general welfare.)
I have very little sympathy with all absolutist ideas about parental rights with regard to children, including having them in the first place. I do think there’s a strong case to be made that people have some limited “right” to reproduce; but I believe that right is strongly mediated by the combined concerns of both general and specific welfare. With that in mind, I would be perfectly happy to support reproductive limits in the US, perhaps something not much beyond the replacement threshhold.
With regard to population increase, there’s two different kinds of factors to look at. It’s certainly true that for the Chinese, their limiting of reproduction has greatly reduced suffering that otherwise would have existed due to extreme overpopulation. On the other hand, from a global environmental perspective, any ten Chinese (or possibly more than that by as much a factor of ten, I’m guessing) equals a single American in environmental impact. From that view, it is we who should have a one-child per family law, not the Chinese.
Well, with all due respect, “fuck you” in response to your gratuitously insulting “whining feminist” remark.
But, were the medical science adequately cheap and safe, I’d completely agree with you about mandatory birth control for all children. I’d prefer a reversible sterilization procedure performed at birth with a universal government credit (or provided by government freely) for an optional reversal beginning at legal adulthood. I don’t doubt that this is possible; but it would require a strong change in cultural attitudes given that the entire field of birth-control research is chronically and massively underfunded in puritanical American culture. (Almost all birth control advances in the last generation have been researched and developed outside the US.)
September 20th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
If it’s just the effect of policy, then it’s not “favoring” nonwhite births. Your language betrays your true motivations and based upon this and many other things you’ve written, charges of racism against you are entirely appropriate.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Re: Really? Be honest: do you really wish China hadn’t enforced its one-child policy for the last thirty years?
ColoZ,
Actually, I disagree. The evidence of the last few decades shows that dropping birth rates has less to do with religion, ideology, or government coercion than with education, access to contraception, and the status of women. The birth rate has dropped precipitously over most of the world- in the former Soviet bloc, in Western Europe and North America, in East Asia, in Southeast Asia, and now in South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Few of those countries had to use as coercive means as China.
Twenty years ago it was possible to argue that while the brutality and cruelty of the Chinese policy was terrible, it was also a necessity and that more gentle means would not have worked. It’s no longer possible to maintain that- lots of other countries are on track to achieve the same decrease (if a little more slowly) without the need for forced abortions, denying rations to large families, and similar cruel tactics.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I agree with you that it does seem that those who are the most fanatical about ensuring that climate change is as severe as possible are advocating mass de-industrialization. I’m not sure if that is their goal, or that they wish to return us to “large-scale” farming. But they do seem intent upon destroying the world’s economy via the mass disruptions that will result from unhindered climate change.
These people are dangerous.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, promoting contraception in the Third World was a popular and prestigious charity for Establishment figures in America, such as Nelson Rockefeller and George H.W. Bush. Over the years, though, it has largely dropped off the social prestige radar screen because it seems vaguely eugenicist and racist to make contraception more easily available to non-whites.
Thus, for example, condom distribution programs in Africa are now promoted as keeping the population of Africa up by preventing deaths from AIDS instead of keeping the population of Africa down by preventing unwanted births.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Re: With that in mind, I would be perfectly happy to support reproductive limits in the US, perhaps something not much beyond the replacement threshhold.
Keith M. Ellis,
Fortunately enough, our birth rate is already ‘not much beyond the reproductive threshold’, and making contraception and education more available to teenagers who _don’t want to_ get pregnant would reduce it a bit further. There isn’t any need (leaving aside the morality of it) to insist that families who want three or four kids shouldn’t have them. There are few enough of those that they are balanced out by the voluntarily childless hipsters. Personally I’d like to have three kids.
Re: If the climate change fanatics get what they really want – deindustrialization and a return to farming on a large scale, we’ll see average family size start going up again
Wrongo, James Robertson. Cuba experienced something of a return to low-input agriculture in the last 15-20 years, and the birth rates continued a slow decline. Venezuela is currently implementing a back-to-the-land initiative, and in spite of government exhortations, the fertility rate isn’t rising (it’s around 2.5 right now).
Re: My recommendation would be at least we start off with
- mandatory depo-provera for all girls at 12 or so (oh shut up, you whining feminists — we can do the same for boys if the equivalent chemical exists)
- the contraception only goes out if you provide substantial proof that you’ll be able to pay EVERYTHING for your kid for the next 21 years of its life
- if you miss those payments, mandatory sterilization, and the debt will last with you till you die
Wow. And the hipsters call _me_ authoritarian. (A label which I don’t really reject, but Mr. Handley’s proposals go well beyond garden-variety authoritarianism. I rather think making decisions about one’s family size are somewhat more intimate, personal and intrinsic to the human person that the freedom to vote for a particular party.)
September 20th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
It’s a nicely articulated argument, but it’s wrong.
The appropriate comparison to China isn’t Eastern Europe, but India. Currently, China’s reproductive rate is 1.7 while India’s is a high 2.8. India is scheduled to surpass China as the world’s most populous country in 2030, which is about the same time that China’s population is expected to begin to decline. Meanwhile, India has also experienced rapid economic growth.
It’s certainly true that prosperity has a very strong effect of reducing the reproductive rate. It’s also true, though you unsurprisingly failed to mention this, that this effect is very strongly correlated to the emancipation of women and their increasing control of their reproductive lives. Nevertheless, while these things have contributed to China’s reduced reproductive rate, by far the largest factor has been the government’s policies controlling reproduction. That’s incontrovertible.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Well, I meant that this should be evaluated with regard to total population growth, which includes immigration, of course. I’d support something which would probably be Steve Sailer’s Hell: increase in population almost entirely due to immigration. But, at any rate, whether such a policy is presently needed, I’d support it being official US policy in principle.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Emancipation of women does matter, but I suspect that the most decisive factor in reducing the family size is the Social Security and its equivalents; old-age safety net. Old-age safety net is a replacement of your personal safety net: a bunch of children who will grow up and support you when you’re old. Italy is a good example of that.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
“than with education, access to contraception, and the status of women.”
“It’s also true, though you unsurprisingly failed to mention this, that this effect is very strongly correlated to the emancipation of women and their increasing control of their reproductive lives.”
Read more closely, Mr. Ellis.
India is not at replacement level fertility yet, but two Southern states are already at well below the replacement level. (Incidentally they aren’t the richest states, although they do have higher education levels and less oppression of women than the North.) Which shows that it can be done, in the Indian context, without the need for extreme coercion as in China. I’m not sure why the northern states lag behind in this regard but I suspect it’s a combination of more oppression of women and more incompetent and corrupt state governments.
Certain authoritarian measures would do a lot to reduce the birth rate in India, among other benefits- I mean things like imposing President’s Rule on Bihar and U.P. for a few years, and perhaps taking a harder line on backward practices like child marriage. I don’t think that Chinese-style reproductive limits are either necessary or licit however.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Creepy!
September 20th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Re: Well, I meant that this should be evaluated with regard to total population growth, which includes immigration, of course.
Uh….ok. I’m still not clear on your policy. Do you want to set a strict limit on the number of children American families can have? And if so, how many?
September 20th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Re: Old-age safety net is a replacement of your personal safety net: a bunch of children who will grow up and support you when you’re old. Italy is a good example of that.
Did a “bunch of children” ever support their parents? My take on this from all I have read about the past (including family histories) is that old people were generally supported by a single child and that child’s spouse and children (if any). Generally this would be the child who expected to inherit the family home and so would live under the parental roof gradually making it his/her own. Most of the other children went their own way and may have visited from time to time, but had rather little to do with supporting or caring for Mom and Dad in their dotage. That being so, what you’d really need is one reasonably prosperous child (or someone married to a reasonably propserous spouse) who loved you, or over whom you could hold hope of a decent inheritance. Lots of kids would be unnecessary as long as there were enough so you could get this much out of them.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Keith M Ellis,
Correction: as of this year, _ten_ Indian states have a total fertility rate of between 1.8-2.3. I’m not sure what the replacement level fertility is for India but it’s probably around 2.4 or so, given the higher death rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_states_ranking_by_fertility_rate
September 20th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
The non-existent fat men in the doorway help keep down drafts.
September 20th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Generally this would be the child who expected to inherit the family home and so would live under the parental roof gradually making it his/her own.
Well, this is probably true in some cultures, but you still need one good male child, with, probably, one or two in reserve in case something happens to the first son. This is already, including the daughters, 5-6 children in total.
Typically, though, you would probably use your children as free labor for many years, and then also get a bunch of goats for your daughters when they get married. It’s all economics.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
There is more incentive to have children when they can go out and work and earn money from age 7 and up than when you have to support them totally until they are 21 and beyond.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
The article is about making contraception more available to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Women in third world countries want contraceptives. It seems thinking it may appear eugenicist is ignoring the needs of women. I see nothing truly controversial here.
September 20th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Here’s the problem… Not one of you “global warmer’s” is a climate scientist. Not one of you “global warmers” has the slightest clue as to who TOTALLY POLITICIZED the so-called ” science” that is the basis for your irrational beliefs is. You fools “choose” to believe elite propagandists like AL (I invented the internet” Gore who have positioned themselves to profit on you ignorance. Not one of you “global warming” fools has the slightest clue what an energy balance is and even simple science proves undeniably that it is the SUN and the Earth’ orbit (specifically its eccentricity) that determines climates cycles. You fools just need something to worry about and the controlling elites who stand to prosper from your stupidity aim to give it to you.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I’m not a climate scientist, but I trust that the National Academy of Science and other similar bodies world-wide haven’t fallen under the spell of Al Gore.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Personally I would prefer a massive population culling world wide war: individualist vs. collectivists (where is get to go send to hell where you belong as many authoritarian collectivist fvuckers who dare think they can tell how many children I can or can’t have or what chemical enter my body for that matter) than to live in some fucked up Orwellian hell hole of a society some of you so-called liberal so-called progressives are advocating here. I’m sure us individualists would kick your demented asses. And you people wonder why the Republicans draw any supporters at all? Just look at yourselves…. fricken pathetic elitists who think you know better than everyone else. You’re mostly a bunch of naive morons.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
@39wiley
Like I said…. You’ve chosen to believe the propagandists. You have no clue how it works do you….
September 20th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Did a “bunch of children” ever support their parents? My take on this from all I have read about the past (including family histories) is that old people were generally supported by a single child and that child’s spouse and children (if any). Re: Generally this would be the child who expected to inherit the family home and so would live under the parental roof gradually making it his/her own. Most of the other children went their own way and may have visited from time to time, but had rather little to do with supporting or caring for Mom and Dad in their dotage. That being so, what you’d really need is one reasonably prosperous child (or someone married to a reasonably propserous spouse) who loved you, or over whom you could hold hope of a decent inheritance. Lots of kids would be unnecessary as long as there were enough so you could get this much out of the
This is still very much the case in India (and I would imagine in many other developing countries) even among the middle class who have small families these days. So no, it doesn’t take 5-6 children. Like Jon says, two kids is enough (especially since these days the parents may live with one of their daughters after they retire).
Re: The article is about making contraception more available to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Women in third world countries want contraceptives
This is actually true, for the most part. There are two separate issues here: 1) whether we should make contraceptives available to people who don’t want to have a child right now, and 2) whether we should try to change the minds of people who do want to have a child right now. I would only support the second in certain limited circumstances and through gentle and voluntary means, but I fully support the first. Opinion polls in India indicated that if women had only the number of children they wanted, they would already be at replacement level fertility.
Re: Not one of you “global warmer’s” is a climate scientist.
I just got back from a conference having to do with (among other things) the impacts of climate change, and yes, climate scientists do believe in climate change. Much as they believe that water is wet, or that snow is cold.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
@42 hector
Wrong Hector… virtually all climate scientists agree earth is coming out of the mini ice age and has been since before the industrial age began… That IS global warming an its real and natural. However only climate scientists who are dependent on AGW global warming research money (who want to keep their job that is) believe in anthropogenic global warming. AGW is a political agenda (eugenics) that comes directly from the club of rome.
September 20th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
This thread needs to be retitled “Thomas Disch as Optimist: A Defense of 334 As Utopia”
September 20th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
For very small values of “virtually all”
September 20th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
re: 43
There was no global phenomenon called the Little Ice Age.
There were several periods discontinuous in space and time across a span of several centuries with lower than average temps.
The extra energy due to the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution just happens to be enough to have raised the temperature of the atmosphere by the observed amount.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that “the cure is worse than the disease.” It is pretty tricky, philosophically. Is it moral to bring people into this world if they are fated to die from privation, if they will cause others to die?
If we start seeing a Malthusian scenario, we’re going to wish we had swallowed the bad-tasting medicine. Maybe we won’t need to take these steps, it seems that as nations develop their birth rates decline, but their per-capita resource consumption also increases…I just don’t see this issue as clear-cut, practically or ethically.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
I can think of one reason not to say it: It’s one group of people talking about how much better the world would be if only there were fewer of another group of people. Just because the one group is liberals and the other group is babies doesn’t make it less unsavory.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
P.S. Jesus Christ…how can anyone argue in good faith against anthropogenic global warming? have you not heard about the hockey stick graph? Anyone who isn’t blind to see it can tell the second derivative went positive right around the start of the industrial revolution.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
@Matt:
The other group isn’t babies, it is a group of people who don’t exist. It is going to be hard to come up with a functional system of ethics that starts granting rights to all hypothetical people, as the pool of hypothetical people is, by definition, infinite.
September 20th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Re: I’m sure us individualists would kick your demented asses
The Viet Cong collectivists seem to have roundly kicked the @$$es of the inidvidualist Americans the last time they went at it.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:33 am
Altemeyer’s research on Authoritarians involved playing a “world power” simulation game. Right Wing Authoritarians’ self-aggrandizing behavior and xenophobia led to typical results of killing off 1 – 2 billion people (through wars, famine, etc.) Clearly, it is easier to vote Republicans into power than try to implement birth control. Thus we can eliminate the need to control global warming AND overpopulation by voting “R”. This has the added benefit of bringing the Rapture to those 1 – 2 billion and probably hastening it for others from poor countries.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:29 am
Mr. Ellis would have no problem restricting immigration to wealthy white Europeans, strictly due to cultural and financial considerations, no?
September 21st, 2009 at 1:47 am
Hector is right that India has actually made some real progress in controlling it’s population. But what disturbs me about India is that condoms are still hard to find. You’d rarely see them on the shelves unless you’re in a Tibetan convenience store. Most pharmacies don’t have them. In general, India is loathe to discuss sexual issues, but they need to be more open about it. They really need something like Thailand’s Cabbages and Condoms restaurants. Thailand faced the same problem with cultural resistance to any discussion of sexuality. But this restaurant chain broke through the taboos, and made it fun.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:31 am
But the infallible market dictates that more people means a bigger consumer base and cheaper labor. What could possibly be wrong with that? Next thing you know people will start thinking that corporations don’t have their best interests at heart.
September 21st, 2009 at 5:41 am
“have access to contraception, that on average they want modest-sized families. ”
No, sorry, more complex than that.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1273.html
Ninety percent of the differences across countries in total fertility rates are accounted for solely by differences in women’s reported desired fertility. Using desired fertility constructed from both retrospective and prospective questions, together with instrumental variables estimation, it is shown this strong result is not affected by either ex-post rationalization of births nor the dependence of desired fertility on contraceptive access or cost. Moreover, despite the obvious role of contraception as a proximate determinant of fertility, the additional effect of contraceptive availability or family planning on fertility is quantitatively small and explains very little cross country variation. These empirical results are consistent with theories in which fertility is determined by parent’s choices about children within the social, educational, economic, and cultural environment that parents, and especially women, face. They contradict theories that assert a large causal role for expansion of contraception in the reduction of fertility.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:07 am
These empirical results are consistent with theories in which fertility is determined by parent’s choices about children within the social, educational, economic, and cultural environment that parents, and especially women, face.
Yeah, that sounds about right, but in the end it’s determined by the socio-economic base, because the superstructure elements listed here (social, educational, cultural) are determined by the same thing, by the socio-economic conditions: existing concept of property, patterns of division of labor, etc.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:14 am
Re: I’m sure us individualists would kick your demented asses . . . The Viet Cong collectivists seem to have roundly kicked the @$$es of the inidvidualist Americans the last time they went at it.
Uh . . . are you aware that the Viet Cong were pretty much wiped out during the Tet Offensive. The Vietnam War was won, essentially, by the North Vietnamese army by outlasting both the Americans and the South Vietnamese.
The war was a damn fool notion to begin with and bungled by American and South Vietnamese military and civilian leadership. As a test of individualist and collectivist cultural philosophies and their effect on soldiers, not really a good test case.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:16 am
These empirical results are consistent with theories in which fertility is determined by parent’s choices about children within the social, educational, economic, and cultural environment that parents, and especially women, face.
. . . All of these factors, of course, directly influencing the availability, awareness, cultural approval, and use of contraception.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:28 am
Fix said:
Barbara says:
Why not euthanize yourself? What privileges your life over that of a child who has already been born? They probably have more to learn, more to give, and more creative potential in the long run than you do.
But regarding the premise of Matthew’s post — there is no doubt that when women (and men) have access to affordable contraception they use it and limit the size of their families. The Philippines is Exhibit A in the human catastrophe of not having such access when people want it.
It’s why I no longer go to or give any money to the Catholic Church, which is retrogressive, coercive, and punitive in the extreme on this issue.
It’s sad that even proposing greater access to contraception, with no coercive measures to use it, is considered outrageous eugenics, but the opposite position, which coercively denies such access is not also considered outrageous, and eugenicist in impulse in its own perverse way.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:28 am
Re: Uh . . . are you aware that the Viet Cong were pretty much wiped out during the Tet Offensive. The Vietnam War was won, essentially, by the North Vietnamese army by outlasting both the Americans and the South Vietnamese.
Fine, substitute “The North Vietnamese army” for the Viet Cong.
Barbara,
While I disagree with the Catholic church on the liceity of the Pill, it’s worth noting that natural family planning _can_ be effective at a societal level. It’s the most common method in Poland, which has a fertility rate well below replacement.
Personally, I do all my charitable donations through Catholic Relief Services.
September 21st, 2009 at 11:03 am
Funny that this article comes directly after an article about how Obama’s disproportionately low approval ratings in the south bring down his overall approval ratings. Apparently Matt didn’t see the irony.
Population growth is highest in Africa and in countries like Afghanistan – that is, countries that don’t create a lot of carbon emissions. Population is declining in rust-belt countries like Eastern Europe and Russia – countries that are the worst per-capita carbon offenders.
Giving access to contraceptives and, more importantly, providing education for impoverished women is a good thing. It has not a goddamn thing to do with global warming. Thomas Wire is a twit.
September 21st, 2009 at 11:08 am
Hector, a good friend of mine served in the Peace Corps in Uganda and was seconded to a Catholic health clinic to teach about NFP (which is not exactly as accessible in the developing world for various reasons, like access to graph paper, thermometers and the literacy level to practice it — which is why, when it is taught there, it is a highly simplified, much less effective version of it that is often referred to as “bead counting”).
At any rate, she told me that when she first started to teach women, they openly laughed at her and told her that she knew nothing about the relationship between men and women in Uganda, which was, as we might say, inegalitarian with the balance of sexual power firmly in the man’s control.
September 21st, 2009 at 11:30 am
Barbara,
Wow, my experience is very similar. I was in the Peace Corps in a different African country, and yes, I did try to teach the women there about Natural Family Planning. (As well as other methods like the Pill or injectable contraceptives). I did talk about the cycle beads, but also about measuring the concistency of v*ginal mucus, which is considered a much more effective method.
Strangely enough, I heard a very similar response to your friend: that they didn’t like natural family planning because their men would not stand for it, and because it requires a certain education level. Even my coworker, who was the village’s Catholic lay worship leader, laughed a bit and said natural family planning was not well suited for the African context. Which is sad, especially the part about inegalitarian relationships. But isn’t the solution to try and change the culture so the marriage and sexual relationships _are_ more egalitarian? Why must we accept the reality of oppressive African social/sexual structures as a given?
I don’t think NFP should be the only solution, and I have no moral problem with hormonal birth control, but I do think NFP is a valid option which can be highly effective in the right circumstances.
September 21st, 2009 at 11:57 am
[...] weekend I saw this article on population and climate change by Matthew Yglesiasw and he asks why people don’t talk about the benefits of small families. on the enviroment. Efficiency—just not using energy—is the cleanest source of energy at all. [...]
September 21st, 2009 at 12:04 pm
The gains are usually mutually reinforcing — fewer children allow women greater economic freedom, which allows them to educate their own children, both of which tend to raise the status of women relative to men. In that regard, while the answer in general is to raise the status of women, contraception is one of the means to facilitate that change for those women who want to use it. And, importantly, contraception is or could be available now — we don’t have to wait until men decide to cede power to offer it to women.
September 21st, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Actually the real reason that contraception has been dropped from our international agenda is that the anti-abortion fanatics have succeeded in linking it to abortion.
All rational people understand that contraception is not abortion but the pro-lifers see this as the thin end of the wedge. First they prohibited the US from funding any NGOs that also supported or provided either abortions or information about abortions. This made it difficult for many well-established NGOs to continue their work. Even when they tried to sever the two (abortion and birth control) the lifers cried foul and cut them out of the loop for having anything to do with abortion at all.
Then, the lifers began pushing their agenda further by claiming (falsely) that traditional b.c. pills are abortifacients (they aren’t). Thus it became more and more difficult for outside orgs to get any funding from the US to provide basic b.c. (before the advent of depo-provera, bc pills were often the easiest, safest method to promote in areas where access to clean water (for sponges/diaphragms etc.) was problematic. And condoms were for many years rejected in cultures where the male was king and the male found them ‘unsatisfying’.
Slowly, inch by inch, these people have succeeded in their ultimate aim: making b.c. so difficult to obtain that women are virtually forced to have too many children.
So that’s why no one will discuss birth control and population control as a means of reducing carbon emissions. The anti-abortion people will scream bloody murder (quite literally). Thus pregnancy re-emerges as a means of punishing women for sex…..
September 21st, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Shit the cum out of your ass, Ricardo. Fucking internet tough guy.
September 21st, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Hector, is there something evil about the word “vaginal”?
September 21st, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Mother Jones: More Teen Births in Religious States
September 21st, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Euthanasia. Are they referring to the big land mass in the eastern hemisphere? but what’s it got to do with over population? I guess they mean most people live over there. I wish the right wing would use plain everyday language instead of big words the rest of us can’t understand.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Ricardo,
Most climate scientists believe there is anthropogenic global warming, and most believe that there is at least some danger posed by it. There are many gradations of belief – in confidence, severity, the degree to which human activity is responsible and so on, but on the whole, most climate scientists agree we are facing man-made global warming which poses some hazard.
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
September 21st, 2009 at 7:23 pm
But what disturbs me about India is that condoms are still hard to find.
Apparently fostert has made the time in his “Appreciation of Other Cultures World Tour”* to get to know the sex workers in Mumbai and Bangkok.
* proudly sponsored by Patagonia, Travel Channel and Visa
September 21st, 2009 at 8:07 pm
The most astounding example of human ignorance and stupidity is the failure to recognize and understand that the EARTH IS FINITE, and that THE BASIC ROOT CAUSE of GLOBAL WARMING, DEFORESTATION, AIR AND WATER POLLUTION, IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS (Israel’s apartheid settlement atrocities, Mexicans into the USA, Muslims into France-Germany, etc.) ad inf.
is the EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF THE HUMAN POPULATION, PERIOD.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:48 pm
I’ve long been puzzled by how much this idea is taken for granted — that encouraging fewer children would be a bad idea. Where do you get that from? In my mind it ranks up there with the fact that The Bible is sold in the non-fiction section of the bookstore.
Re-examining this idea will be crucial for people like you (Yglesias) to lead the true, realistic charge toward saving the planet. I see that I’m not alone in your comments section here. I hope you’ll join us sometime. This species has no mandate from mother nature to take over the place.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:59 am
Yes it does. All species do. The task is to ignore that mandate.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:23 am
Environmentalists shun the subject of population management even though, deep down, they know it’s the most effective approach to reducing environmental degradation, because of the stigma of totalitarian and coercive images that it conjures in the minds of those sympathetic to the environmental movement, especially potential donors.
Like it or not, population management is an absolute necessity if environmentalists are to realize their goals. It can be accomplished without resorting to coercive means, through economic incentives like tax policy.
But the biggest obstacle we face in changing attitudes toward overpopulation is economists. Since the field of economics was branded “the dismal science” after Malthus’ theory, economists have been adamant that they would never again consider the subject of overpopulation and continue to insist that man is ingenious enough to overcome any obstacle to further growth. Worse, they insist that population growth is vital to economic growth. This is why world leaders continue to ignore population growth in the face of mounting challenges like peak oil, global warming and a whole host of other environmental and resource issues.
But because they are blind to population growth, there’s one obstacle economists haven’t considered: the finiteness of space available on earth. The very act of using space more efficiently creates a problem for which there is no solution: it inevitably begins to drive down per capita consumption and, consequently, per capita employment, leading to rising unemployment and poverty.
If you‘re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, then I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com or PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in the blog discussion and, of course, buy the book if you like.
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”
September 26th, 2009 at 12:51 am
@ricardo–At the risk of profitlessly engaging a tarbaby (petro rather than racial entendre intended), I am puzzled by the apparent judgment that worldwide calamity, the guaranteed agony of nearly everyone, is preferable to some sort of state control of fertility. Given the gigantic cultural hurdle to such control, it’s very unlikely to take the form of the Orwellian etc. etc. that you imagine. Your relish at the prospect of mass starvation demonstrates that you expect to avoid any such discomfort yourself. No such luck is guaranteed.