\nchoice not to have children<\/a>. What’s
\nall too easy to forget is that many women still don’t have any reasonable choice about their fertility. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An estimated 200 million women around the world don’t have <\/p>\n I’m not talking government mandates or coercion or <\/p>\n Most green groups don’t like to talk about all this—population <\/p>\n Technologists don’t like to either—they’d rather talk <\/p>\n But it may be that many of the technologies with the most <\/p>\n <\/a>GINK: green inclinations, no kids<\/a>Better still, providing contraception to women who lack it <\/p>\n As Laurie Mazur puts it in [T]he developed countries’ share of When you look at those numbers, paying for condoms and IUDs Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Debunking the “you’d be a great green parent” argument<\/a><\/p>\n Say it loud: I’m childfree and I’m proud<\/a><\/p>\n Population growth should be curbed, argues Jane Goodall<\/a><\/p>\n
\naccess to family-planning tools. If they
\ndid, 52 million unwanted pregnancies could be averted every year, according to the Guttmacher Institute<\/a> [PDF]. <\/p>\n
\nheavy-handed tactics—those approaches aren’t just ethically dubious, they’re
\nwholly unnecessary. We just need to give
\nevery woman everywhere contraceptive options so she can have basic control over
\nhow many children she has and how close together she has them—something that
\nwe in the developed world take completely for granted. If we did so, many women would choose on
\ntheir own to have fewer children, or to space them further apart. Not only would there be fewer new
\nbodies on our already crowded planet, but the lives of women and the children
\nthey do choose to have would be
\nimproved.<\/p>\n
\nhas become the third rail of the environmental community (more on that in a
\nfuture post). <\/p>\n
\nabout traveling-wave
\nnuclear reactors<\/a> and CO2-sucking
\nmachines<\/a> and space
\nsunshades<\/a>. We do need to explore and invest in cleantech options; climate change is serious enough that it requires all of our best efforts in all arenas.<\/p>\n
\npotential for averting climate change already exist—the Pill, the condom,
\nthe IUD. We just need to spread them far
\nand wide. <\/p>\n
\nis one of the most cost-effective ways to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. Each $7 spent on basic family planning over
\nthe next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a metric
\nton, while achieving that same reduction with the leading low-carbon technologies would
\ncost a minimum of $32, according to a recent study by
\nthe London School of Economics<\/a> [PDF], commissioned by the Optimum
\nPopulation Trust. And if you compare
\ncontraception to the potential costs of geoengineering<\/a>,
\nthe potential savings are even more massive. <\/p>\n
\nthe Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists<\/a>,<\/p>\n
\nthe cost to provide reproductive health services for every woman on earth is
\n$20 billion—about what the bankers on Wall Street gave themselves in bonuses
\n[in 2008]. The U.S. share of the cost is
\n$1 billion, less than 2 percent of what the United States will spend on the war
\nin Afghanistan [in 2009]. In contrast,
\nthe scheme to launch mirrors into space is estimated to cost a few trillion
\ndollars.<\/p>\n
\nlooks to be not just a huge bargain, but startlingly sane. It may not be as
\nsexy as space mirrors, but when’s the last time sexy solved a pressing global
\nproblem? <\/p>\n