There are 3 processes that are accelerating and will end our civilization if we don't address all 3 quickly:
human consumption [including fossil fuels],
human population growth,
and environmental pollution, which results partly in climate change*.
We can address the last by addressing the first 2.
[*Climate change, or more realistically, the climate crisis, is one of the ramifications resulting from thermal atmospheric pollution created by the burning of fossil fuels. Other forms of pollution include plastics, which are invading our environment and bodies, fertilizer runoff, which is creating dead sea zones along all coasts worldwide, and various forms of industrial pollution that include carcinogens.]
Most attention is focused on one specific goal as a solution - bring down climate changing emissions by consuming less fossil fuel energy (part of overall human consumption), via conserving energy** and utilizing renewable, nonpolluting sources.
[** Increasing energy efficiency, recycling resources, and reducing material consumption.]
But this is useless if we don't address an equally vital goal: Bring our populations to sustainable levels.
Yes, reduce consumption, which means changing our economic goals and standard economic perspectives. But our planet cannot sustain the current number of people on it. Any biologist who studies how animal populations peak and crash in the natural world knows this, and understands the human trajectory we are creating.
Our technology cannot change this, but simply provide temporary solutions, as the “Father of the Green Revolution”, Norman Borlaug, admitted: he recognized that overpopulation would overwhelm his techno fix. And often, as in the case of climate change and our declining soil fertility worldwide, “buying time” worsens our ability to address problems humanely, both present and future.
Inhumane ways of reducing populations already exist: every day people die from malnutrition, poverty, or from warfare - either as combatants, collateral, or refugees. Far more focus is needed on humane solutions, such as:
- provide something that every woman and man on this planet wants and needs - reproductive freedom: control over their own reproduction via easily accessible, free universal family planning goods and services. Population health experts estimate there are about 200 million women worldwide who want these services, but have no access to them.
- recognizing and convincing (ie, marketing) people worldwide that it is good to have either one or no children, until we reach sustainable levels. Otherwise, the children we already have face no decent future.
- electing leaders who understand the vital importance of these goals and act to achieve them. Numerous studies, for example, show that family planning benefits every economy, not just the USA.
Legislating reproductive freedom in the US, which creates easy, free access to family planning goods and services for every reproductive person in the United States, could create an incredibly fast and powerful impact on climate change, and our children's future – and provide a model for other countries.
