Another Reason Not to Have a Child
Global Climate Change and Population Growth: Two Challenges in One
Scientists across the globe agree that the influence of humans and their activities on the earth’s atmosphere and climate is an established fact. If population growth and climate change are closely linked, then they should be integrated into policy and challenged together. Long-term strategies to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in an equitable manner will need to account for the current broad differences among nations in per capita emissions. Effective, voluntary family planning plus improved educational and economic opportunities for girls and women are a central part of good population policy as well as a key to greenhouse gas reduction.
Danya recently linked to another important article, The Guardian’s “How to save the planet“.
One of the greatest environmental dilemmas is the issue of the world’s rapidly growing population. Many argue very persuasively that we have no hope of confronting all our environmental problems without greatly reducing the number of people on the planet.
I’m doing my tiny part to help balance against “the Duggars” and “Jon & Kate” (those famous “be fruitful and multiply” Christians) in the US and the Daad Muhammeds of the world.
Related and interesting: VHEMT
Ooh…some interesting reads. What is a “Daad Muhammed?”
Heh, it’s not a thing, it’s a person. I thought maybe people would Google him, he’s not that well known, but I didn’t want to ruin the flow. He’s an Emirati who has like 80 kids and wants to have 100 before he dies. :-|
Super-Daad
Ajman baby farm
[…] You can read the full story here […]
Wow, 100 kids?! Well, I hope he’s also worried about quality as well as quantity. If I had 100 kids I’d make sure they were the best and brightest and make positive contributions to society. With the roles the mothers play though, a lot of these kids might end up dysfunctional.
Salaam Alaikum,
I am somewhat suspicious of some of those campaigning against population growth as they often have ulterior motives.
I did a post called “Barmy Stickers at Bus Stops” about this.
(I didn’t put a link so to avoid being marked as spam).
[I’ve added it for you :-) - Leena]
Salam, Safiya,
As far as I can tell, VHEMT has no ulterior motives. They admit their concerns and reasoning for the movement out front.
Unlike the org. you blogged about, VHEMT does not support any breeding. It seems the group you mentioned think that small families are okay.
I wasn’t able to see where they are necessarily directly opposed to immigration rather than global population control, maybe you can point that out on their site for me.
Are there any groups who campaign against population growth that you aren’t suspicious of?
Thanks everyone, for the comments.
That group VHEMT sound horrific. I am not a flaming pro-lifer, but their blase attitude towards abortion is deeply unsettling.
I am opposed to the concept that population control is a solution to problems, because I see rapid birth rates as a symptom of problems. As my post stated, in countries where standards of education and health care have increased, the population has fallen dramtically, the drop in the U.K birth rate from 2.4 children to 1.8 has happened in 10 years.
To say to those suffering in poverty, saying, “well, you shouldn’t exist solves nothing”. Population control groups are deeply suspicious because there is often an inherent racism there : “Well I as a healthy and rich (usually white) person do not need or wish to have children, therefore no one should have any.” Which, completely ignores the reasons behind why many people, particularly in agarian societies have children. Even in China, certain farming communities are excempt from the One Child rule for this very reason.
Look after people and resources, which we as Muslims are ordered to do anyway, and things will improve.
There will be people on the Earth until the end of the world, so shouldn’t we work on making things better, rather then nihilist solutions?
Gives a new meaning to REDUCE, reuse, recycle.
Safiya, I don’t really notice a blase attitude toward abortion on their site. Their concern starts before conception and they are not anti-life. In fact, I believe they care a great deal about ALL forms of life.
I think they agree completely with “look after people and resources” but they see the current momentum as prohibiting that from taking place on a large enough scale.
They do acknowledge that not much of anyone will listen to their concern and take them seriously, but they will not sacrifice their conscience on this issue. They are not in favor of enforcing their ideas, so I disagree with your conclusion of racism.
I also don’t think that they’re NOT working on making things better. I would assume that most of them are active in both human and environmental issues. They are absolutely doing their part to ensure that things CAN get better, if only by not contributing to the population.
Michael, that’s absolutely right… I wonder if the “inventors” of that phrase had reduction in breeding in their mind for it.
I don’t have any overwhelming beef with VHEMT besides a certain degree of philosophical difference; i.e., I believe that humans are a vital part of creation charged with stewardship (that humans on the whole have been bad at this is another issue), and am as opposed to the idea of humanity artificially ending our time here as I am of humans swarming the earth like locusts. Admittedly though, one is far more likely than the other.
Also, I share Safiya’s concerns about population control movements as a whole, though I agree with you that VHEMT is not necessarily in the same boat. Most modern family planning ideology today traces to Margret Sanger, a deeply messed up and hateful individual who openly admired the Nazis, was a proponent of Eugenics, advocated presumptive Euthanasia, and held views implying the inferiority of Black People. These views were not minor eccentricities, they were deeply tied to her view of “more children from the fit, less from the unfit”. This is totally out of keeping with an Islamic view of the world, though so, in my opinion, is just arbitrarily attempting to have 100 kids. Both are extremes, and we are supposed to follow a middle way.
I wouldn’t knock anyone who chose not to have kids, by the way; but I plan to have at least one and adopt more.
VHEMT isn’t deeply racist or deeply anything other than what they proclaim themselves to be. It’s somewhat stunning that people would jump to such conclusions without at least either cursory research or reading Leena’s comments. There is certainly a grain of salt to be taken with some of their material, but there is also plenty of sense in what they say. Quite simply, about 100 years ago this was a much healthier planet and it only had to support a billion people. Now, massive areas - even the atmosphere for frigssake - have been decimated and it is expected to somehow support over a billion people. The prime VHEMT principle is quite simply ‘don’t breed’.
Some people use shock and/or humour to deliver a message. Good luck to them. We seem inept when it comes to accepting the reality of the human situation on this planet. Furthermore, credible studies show that breeding is a human response to stress situations and links to the survival drive. As the number and scale of stress situations increase with war, population displacement, famine, drought, environmental refugees and similarly epic crises, the problem is only going to get worse. Modleling predicts that by around 2030-2040 the human population will reach slightly over 9 billion then level out. Even if it does ‘level out’ that will be a disaster - roughly 40 per cent more people than are here now.
If nature wants us to stick around, there will be some kind of massive pandemic that kills at least two billion people. If nature would rather we drive ourselves into extinction and make way for every remaining species to have another crack at life without human toxicity, then my guess is we will be allowed to keep on overpopulating, forcing push to become shove and thereby unleashing a rapid demise of our own making.
Typing
I was already familiar with VHEMT and didn’t call them racists, I specifically said that they probably weren’t. Margret Sanger was though, as were many of the people who kicked off the family planning movement. She and VHEMT had very different ideas; she wanted the “right people” having kids, which, as VHEMT astutely points out, is what everyone considers themselves.
Dave, and you felt it necessary to reply directly to my comment in a defensive tone because….?