Gynaecology

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Is human population size the ultimate driver of
environmental unsustainability? If so, what can
we do about it?
Cambridge 25th June 2008
John Guillebaud (Gil-boe) Emeritus Professor of
Family Planning and Reproductive Health,
University College, London Trustee, Margaret Pyke
Trust, London Surgeon, Elliot-Smith Vasectomy
Clinic, Oxford
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Each dot 1 million people
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James Gasana, Rwanda's Minister of Agriculture
and Environment in 1990-92

• In the report I wrote for the IUCN's Task Force
  on Environment and Security, I suggested that
  four lessons be learned from this tragic chapter
  in Africa's history
• First, rapid population growth is the major
  driving force behind the vicious circle of
  environmental scarcities and rural poverty. In
  Rwanda it induced the use of marginal lands on
  steep hillsides, shortening of fallow,
  deforestation, and soil degradation-and resulted
  in severe shortages of food.
• www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id1780

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The 9/11 Commission Report

• By the 1990s, high birth rates and declining
  rates of infant mortality had produced a common
  problem throughout the Muslim world a large,
  steadily increasing population of young men
  without any reasonable expectation of suitable or
  steady employment is a sure prescription for
  social turbulence.

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The Pill is Mightier Than The Sword
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Population growth 1950 -2050
Source United Nations, World Population
Prospects The 2002 Revision (medium scenario),
2003.
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CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ARE HARD TO PREDICT OR
QUANTIFY - but the poor are already suffering
most!
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• 1500
• Barrels
• of
• oil/gas
• equivalent
• 
  
• per second

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Water
Aquifers emptying
Per capita demand for water globally is
estimated to exceed the available sources by
about 2050 - Sir David King, Chief
Scientific Advisor to UK Gov 2005
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www.popconnect.org www.ecotimecapsule.com www.opt
imumpopulation.org
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The IPAT equation

• Environmental IMPACT has only 3 causes which
  multiply with each other
• I P x A x T
• Technology, its green-ness per person
• Affluence/effluence and consumption, again
  per person
• Population, the number of persons.

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So, we want to REDUCE I Impact?

• T technology will help but almost all
  scientists in agreement, cant do it all
• A affluence/consumption OUGHT, globally, to go
  up as the only way out of poverty is by
  ?affluence of the very poor (happening in China
  now..)
• Leave alone the problem of persuading the
  already affluent to reduce their per-person
  consumption! Lets be honest, most of actions by
  Govts and individuals so far are token
  gestures.
• P Population is the only factor left!
• Yet it continues as
• the elephant in the room that no-one talks
  about

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Two factors

• Population People feel they cant talk about
  it but there is a large unmet need for smaller
  family size i.e. it is amenable to change.
• Consumption People can talk about it but
  there is no unmet need for reducing consumption.
  More difficult to change. Wont, sufficiently. ..
• High time population stops being seen as a
  given to try to adapt to.

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Mahatma Gandhi said

• The world has enough for everyones need..1
• But not enough for everyones greed!.. 2
• No 2 remains COMPLETELY true, BUT
• No 1 may no longer be true, because we
  probably now have too many everyones if we want
  all on earth to live (lets say) a modest
  British lifestyle
• Humans currently utilise c 130 of worlds total
  biological capacity and by 2050 IUCN/WWF
  estimates we will need 200!
• Another planet? Or half as many of us?

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Isnt this THE most Inconvenient Truth?
Planet finiteunending growth not an option.
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Two sides of the same coin
per
no. of
person
persons
Greenest energy is the energy you dont use!
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AN ABSENT HUMAN HASNOFOOTPRINT
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Population/Birth Planning

• has major relevance to all the following
• Over-use of fossil fuels and climate change
• More to die in each climatic or Natural
  disaster
• Human rights/violence/genocide/terrorism
• Mass migrations
• Disease including HIV
• Maternal mortality
• Infant mortality
• Poverty, per head, even with development
• Shortage of water and of food
• Shortage of other basic resources ( energy)
• Conserving biodiversity/habitats/the Natural
  World

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• Family planning could bring more benefits to
  more people at less cost than any other single
  technology now available to the human race
• James Grant
• UNICEF Annual Report 1992

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Arent these as much icons of the environment as
her bicycle!
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A DAMAGING MYTH

• that any quantitative concern about human
  numbers on a finite planet is intrinsically
• coercive - or
• exclusive - of other vital concerns
• especially poverty and Northern
  over-consumption
• anti-human

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Good guideline 2 offspring replace the parents
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• Isnt it true that, in rural poverty (reinforced
  by culture)
• Every mouth has two hands ? (Chairman Mao) to
  work for the family and supply a measure of
  social security
• High infant mortality needs to be compensated for
  ?
• Partly but for starters no woman wants the
  biological maximum number of children!
• Plus so MANY conceptions are unplanned

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There is a widespread unmet need for family
planning
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Actual TFRs between 3 and 6
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Successful family planning

• Make as wide a range of fertility regulation
  options available as possible
• Use as wide a range of distribution channels
  (including private as well as governmental) as
  resources permit.
• REMOVE BARRIERS TO WOMEN

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TFR Decline among Nations with Well Organized FP
Programmes
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Contraceptives available accessible barriers
removed, misinformation corrected
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Wild species now comprise only 3 of vertebrate
flesh on planet earth!
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