POPULATION PRESSURE AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS
A 2020 study found that if the climate crisis isn’t addressed, as many as 3 billion people will be living in areas considered too hot for human survival within 50 years, including places like Los Angeles and Paris. Those most affected will be the ones who haven’t been responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions but bear the disproportionate burden of an unjust, polluting system. Extreme heat and other effects of rising greenhouse gas emissions are more harmful to women, gender-diverse people, and Black, Indigenous and people of color. Climate change is worsening a wide range of health outcomes like heat-related illness, vector-borne diseases, asthma, allergies, malnutrition and mental health.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that most of the warming of the past 50 years is attributable to human activities, particularly greenhouse gas emissions from high-income countries, and has identified population growth as an immediate driver of emissions. Because population pressure increases emissions through the burning of fossil fuels, increased material extraction, deforestation, industrial agriculture, and other manufacturing processes, it’s important to advocate for policies that rapidly reduce those emissions and build resiliency in a changing climate, including the advancement of gender equity and access to reproductive healthcare. While individuals are part of the climate change solution, corporations and governments must take the lead and act now to rapidly reduce their emissions and make sustainable lifestyles more accessible.
www.biologicaldiversity.org/…
Womens Reproductive Rights :
New NPG Report: The Rise in Feminism and Its Impact on Population Growth
Birthrates and Female Empowerment Tied Together
The release of a new Forum Paper from Negative Population Growth celebrates 2019’s Women’s History Month with a report on the link between women’s economic gains and America’s birthrate.
The paper, Controlling Population in A Strong Economy: Is Feminism The Answer?, presented by NPG researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein, looks at U.S. birth statistics during tumultuous times in America’s history – from women getting the right to vote, to gaining greater access to the work force, through the arrival of “the pill,” and right up to the impact of the most recent recession.
Rubenstein highlights the long-standing correlation between economic growth and population growth throughout the paper and calls into question whether the dynamics of the past will carry forward into the future.
He states: “In recent years, however, the link between population and economic growth has gone missing. The Great Recession – the worst economic decline since the 1930s – ended in 2009. Despite a long and increasingly strong economic recovery, marked by record low unemployment and strong wage gains, births and fertility rates have continued to fall.”
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the fertility rate fell to 60.3 births per 1,000 women of child bearing age in 2017, down 4% from 2016. Rubenstein notes that: “It was the largest annual decline since 2010, when families were still reeling from the effects of the Great Recession. The number of births also declined for the third straight year, hitting the lowest level since 1987.”
Looking at those numbers, Kenneth M. Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire, is quoted as saying: “Every year I look at data and expect it will be the year that birthrates start to tick up, and every year we hit another all-time low. It’s one of the big demographic mysteries of recent times.”
Rubenstein looks at recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics that show declining birth rates by women ages 25 to 35 between 2007 and 2017 and comes to “two inescapable conclusions:”
First: “U.S. women increasingly minimize the financial distress caused by children by postponing births to their late thirties and early forties. This strategy has worked well for them. Since the end of the Great Recession women’s employment has increased more than that of men, even in jobs dominated by males. Nationally, 28% of wives earn more than their husbands today, up from 12% in 1980.”
Second: “If continued, these fertility trends portend ever lower rates of natural increase (births minus deaths) and, eventually, a smaller U.S. population.”
His takeaway from these conclusions: “When women take control of their fertility, they opt for smaller families and longer, more lucrative careers. These personal choices may explain why strong economic growth co-exists with declining fertility today
npg.org/...
Links
The Media's Refusal to Be Honest About Climate Change Is a Threat to Democracy www.google.com/…
.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Society isn’t changing fast enough to stop climate change: study
These 3 solutions could turn the tide on the climate crisis
www.google.com
.
Japan's Shrinking Population Faces Point of No Return
