Editor,
According to the recently released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global warming is "unequivocal," and the most likely culprits are people. It is time to open a second front in the battle against global warming by stressing the need for sustainable population growth. The United Nations projects that world population will rise 40 percent - reaching 9.1 billion - by 2050, which means the challenge of slowing climate change will become ever more difficult.
When women and couples are free to make their own informed choices and have access to family-planning resources, they choose to have smaller families. Thirty years ago, Mexican women had almost seven children each, while today they have an average of 2.4 children. Family planning makes sense for people and our fragile planet.
Globally, at least 350 million couples lack family-planning services. Here in the U.S., one-third of all births are unplanned. The Bush administration's family-planning failures - from its global gag rule to ideologically driven abstinence-only programs - contribute directly to millions of unwanted and unplanned births.
Global warming is too big a problem to be solved by energy experts alone. It's about people. It's about the very personal decisions we make about whether and when we have children, and how many children we choose to have. We can start by supporting the notion that every woman and every couple should have the resources and power to control their own reproductive lives. If every child is planned, we'll go a long way toward solving global warming and making a healthier and less-
crowded world.
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Jedrek Lamb
Albuquerque Field Organizer, PopulationConnection.org
