I thought this argument was done fore a long time ago, I mean, the sociologists found that "enpowering" women was more profitable, that is, women that find that can contribute to their well-being WILL use concraception, otherwise it doesn`t matter if all the drug stores are full of contraceptives.
It's anybodies guess HOW to empower women, it has been done and it's probably being done right now, but it`s not an overnight thing. Here Mexico, it has finally been accepted by government officials that given money to men, is just another way of subsidicing the beer industry or tequila, but when they give to women's groups it usually flourishes into a small buisness, so much for our macho economy. Abraham de Alba Avila Terrestrial Plant Ecology INIFAP-Ags Ap. postal 20, Pabellón Arteaga, 20660 Aguascalientes, MEXICO SKYPE: adealba55 Tel: (465) 95-801-67, & 801-86 ext. 126, FAX ext 102 alternate: [email protected] cel: 449-157-7070 ________________________________ From: Bill Silvert <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 9:08:08 AM Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Population control Recently there was a long discussion of whether ecologists are the problem, and a few posters pointed out that the biggest problem is overpopulation. There was not much discussion of this, as it is a hrad problem to solve, it is easier to get rid of ecologists. However the following Economist article is quite intriguing. Bill Silvert Green.view Fewer feet, smaller footprint Sep 21st 2009 > From Economist.com A world with fewer people would emit less greenhouse gases FAMILY planning is five times cheaper than conventional green technologies in combating climate change. That is the claim made by Thomas Wire, a postgraduate student at the London School of Economics, and highlighted by British medics writing in the Lancet on September 19th. Ever since Thomas Malthus, an English economist, published his essay on the principle of population in 1798, people have been concerned about population growth. Sir Julian Huxley, the first director general of the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organisation when it was established in 1945, remarked that death control made birth control a moral imperative. Sir Julian went on to play a role in establishing what was then the World Wildlife Fund, a nature conservation agency, linking population growth to environmental degradation. According to Roger Short of the University of Melbourne, the world's population is 6.8 billion and is expected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050. Some 95% of this growth is occurring in developing countries. In a paper published on September 21st in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, he points out that fewer people would produce less climate-changing greenhouse gas. A companion study published in the same issue by Malcolm Potts of the University of California, Berkeley, reckons that there are 80m unintended pregnancies every year. The vast majority of these result in babies. If women who wanted contraception were provided with it, 72% of these unintended pregancies would have been prevented, according to a report by the United Nations Population Fund called "Adding it Up: the Benefits of Investing in Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare". The study by Mr Wire was commissioned by the Optimum Population Trust, a British environmental charity. It examined the cost-effectiveness of providing global access to family planning between 2010 and 2050. Mr Wire totted up the cost of supplying contraception to women who wished either to delay their childbearing years or to end them artificially but who were not using contraception. He examined projections of population growth and of carbon-dioxide emissions made by the United Nations and concluded that reducing carbon emissions by one tonne would cost just $7 spent on family planning, as opposed to at least $32 spent on green technologies. Mr Wire points out that if all women who wanted contraception were provided with it, it would prevent the release of 34 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2010 and 2050. Given the myriad of other reasons to limit human fertility (Dr Potts notes, for example, that slowing population growth is essential if poverty is to be eradicated), your correspondent cannot help but commend the report to mandarins meeting in Bangkok on September 28th to discuss the forthcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
