Showing posts by Meaghan Parker.
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Eye On:
Demographic Dividend and the Rise of the Global South
›By Meaghan Parker // Friday, March 15, 2013
The Global South is “radically reshaping the world of the 21st century, with developing nations driving economic growth, lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and propelling billions more into a new global middle class,” says the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) 2013 Human Development Report, released yesterday. “More than 40 developing countries have made greater human development gains in recent decades than would have been predicted.”
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From the Wilson Center:
Seven Ways Seven Billion People Affect the Environment and Security (Policy Brief)
›By Geoff Dabelko & Meaghan Parker // Thursday, January 17, 2013The Wilson Center Policy Briefs are a series of short analyses of critical global issues facing the next administration that will run until inauguration day.
Seven billion people now live on Earth, only a dozen years after the global population hit six billion. But this milestone is not about sheer numbers. Demographic trends will significantly affect the planet’s resources and people’s security.
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Eye On:
UN Security Council Debates Climate Change
›By Meaghan Parker // Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Today the UN Security Council is debating climate change and its links to peace and international security. In this short video, ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko outlines his hopes for today’s session and its follow-on activities. He suggests it is time to move from problem identification to problem solving by developing practical steps to respond to climate-security links.MORE
This Security Council debate was held at the instigation of the German government, chair of the Security Council this month. But it is not the first time this body has debated climate and security. In 2007, the United Kingdom used its prerogative as chair to introduce the topic in the security forum. Opinions from member states diverged on whether the Security Council was the appropriate venue for climate change.
Largely at the instigation of the Alliance of Small Island States, the UN General Assembly tackled climate and security links in 2009. The resulting resolution also spurred the UN Secretary-General to produce a summary report on the range of climate and security links.
Sources: Reuters, UN. -
On the Beat:
What’s the Link Between Population and Nuclear Energy?
›By Meaghan Parker // Monday, April 4, 2011The popular Big Green Purse blog, written by best-selling author Diane MacEachern, recently asked the Worldwatch Institute’s Robert Engelman, “What’s the Link between Population and Nuclear Energy?” The blog, which encourages women to use the “power of the purse” to improve the environment, wanted to know: “Why aren’t we talking about reducing population as part of our global strategy to minimize dependence on power sources [like nuclear energy] that pollute the environment and threaten people’s health?”
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While “reducing population” is not possible, slowing population growth may be, if fertility rates continue to fall. As always, Engelman answered the tough question with thoughtful aplomb, offering three core values as a starting point:One: see the global environmental dilemma not as a problem to be solved but as a predicament to be responded to. We can’t control our future, but we can act with integrity as we aspire to build just societies in an environmentally-sound world. Addressing our numbers can become part of that.
But I’m wondering how the readers of Big Green Purse – which is replete with media-friendly lists like “Top Ten Eco-Tricks” – can translate population and its messy intersection of human rights, health care, and consumption levels into an individual purchasing decision.
Two, embrace human rights as a foundation for our actions. All people – even if too many or consuming too much – have dignity and a right to be here. As it happens, population policies based on the right of all women to choose whether and when to bear a child actually slow the growth of population. …
Three, acknowledge that no one can claim a greater right than anyone else to use energy and natural resources. This is called equity. We cannot object if the poorest people living today and yet to be born succeed in gaining the means to consume as much as Americans do.
As Engelman writes, “The idea that we can easily trim our individual consumption to come into balance with nature – worthy as that effort is – looks increasingly naïve. If people in the developed world slash their per capita greenhouse emissions by half, their effort could be counterbalanced by people in developing countries boosting theirs by just 11 percent.”
Photo Credit: “Trojan Nuclear Power Plant,” courtesy of flickr user tobo. -
Brian O’Neill: Population is Neither a Silver Bullet nor a Red Herring in Climate Problem
›By Meaghan Parker // Saturday, October 16, 2010“Slower population growth would not solve the climate problem, but it could make a contribution. It is neither a silver bullet nor a red herring,” said Brian O’Neill of the National Center for Atmospheric Research at the annual Society of Environmental Journalists’ conference in Missoula, MT. On Friday, he presented the results of a new demographic study as part of a panel, “Population, Climate, and Consumption,” moderated by Ken Weiss of the Los Angeles Times.MORE
Recently published in PNAS, “Global Demographic Trends and Future Carbon Emissions,” reports the results of a comprehensive assessment examining the impact of demographic changes – including urbanization and aging – on global carbon emissions.
To tease out the complex interactions between demography, consumption, and emissions, O’Neill and his coauthors looked beyond population size to delve into household location and composition. They found that urbanization and aging trends will have differential – and potentially offsetting – impacts on carbon emissions. Aging, particularly in industrialized countries, will reduce carbon emissions by up to 20 percent in the long term. On the other hand, urbanization, particularly in developing countries could increase emissions by 25 percent. -
On the Beat:
‘Dialogue Television’ Explores Pakistan’s Population Challenge
›By Meaghan Parker // Wednesday, June 23, 2010It’s difficult to imagine a scenario for a stable and peaceful world that doesn’t involve a stable and peaceful Pakistan. The country is among the world’s most populous and is also home to the world’s second largest Muslim population, making it the only Muslim majority nuclear state. Its history has been characterized by periods of military rule, political instability, and regional conflicts. This week on dialogue host John Milewski explores the nation’s changing demographics and what they may tell us about near and long term prospects for this vital U.S. ally with guests Michael Kugelman, Zeba Sathar, and Mehtab Karim.MORE
Watch above or on MHz Worldview.
Michael Kugelman is program associate with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program. Much of his recent research and programming focus has involved demographics in Pakistan. He is a regular contributor to Dawn, one of Pakistan’s major English language newspapers.
Zeba Sathar is Pakistan country director at the Population Council in Islamabad. Prior to joining the council, she was chief of research in demography at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics and a consultant with the World Bank.
Mehtab Karim is a distinguished senior fellow and affiliated professor with the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. Additionally, he is a senior research fellow at the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, specializing in global Muslim demographics. Previously, he was a professor of demography at Aga Khan University in Karachi.
Note: A QuickTime plug-in may be required to launch the video. -
On the Beat:
Climate Reporting Awards Live From COP; Revkin To Quit NYT
›By Meaghan Parker // Monday, December 14, 2009It’s a good news/bad news day for climate-media watchers. The Earth Journalism Awards honor some of the best climate coverage from around the world, while arguably the world’s most respected climate reporter announces he’s leaving journalism.
Earth Journalism Awards
Tune in now to watch the Internews Earth Journalism Awards webcast live from Copenhagen. The spectacularly impressive winning entries span the globe from Kenya, Brazil, Pakistan, and Papua New Guinea.
Two top-notch stories illustrate how nuanced, in-depth reporting can compellingly and accurately portray climate-security links: Lisa Friedman’s 5-part series on Bangladesh for ClimateWire untangles the knotty problem of climate-induced migration, while William Wheeler writes in GOOD Magazine about the increasingly difficult role of Indus Water Treaty in mitigating conflict between India and Pakistan.
The 15 winners are blogging from the summit, as well 40 reporters from 26 developing nations, as part of the Climate Change Media Partnership.
Revkin Frustrated With Journalism; Will Leave NYT
On the bad news side, Yale Forum on Climate Change and Media announced this morning that Andrew Revkin, the NYT’s climate reporter, will leave the paper on December 21. He cites “frustration with journalism,” but will continue writing his popular DotEarth blog.
Maybe Revkin’s frustration is with the disintegration of environmental coverage in the mainstream media? The Internews winners demonstrate the high quality of climate coverage at niche publications like ClimateWire or funded by non-profits like the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Let’s hope Revkin finds a more comfortable home and continues his pioneering work on DotEarth, specifically his efforts to cover population, poverty, consumption, and development connections to climate. MORE -
On the Beat:
Climate-Security Gets “To the Point” Today
›By Meaghan Parker // Thursday, November 5, 2009Today’s episode of NPR’s “To the Point” with Warren Olney will focus on “Global Warming and the Geo-Political Map,” seeking to answer the question, “What are the risks to natural resources, immigration, and political stability worldwide?”
As one of the four panelists, ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko will draw on his recent article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and ECSP’s climate-security resources.
Climate security has been heating up the media for the last few months, although most news coverage has been rather thin. That’s understandable, given the complexity of the drivers involved, and the crushing constraints on environmental reporters’ time and budgets these days. But climate security is a politically powerful argument, one which advocates from all over the political spectrum have increasingly adopting, and it deserves a more thorough, thoughtful treatment.
“Come to Attention,” a panel at this year’s SEJ annual conference (audio) moderated by ClimateWire’s Lisa Friedman, delved into some of the finer points of this often oversimplified connection. As part of the panel, Dabelko outlined seven cautions to keep in mind and suggestions for improving coverage of the difficult link.
While Grist’s Robert McClure jokingly called the session “doom and gloom without the sense of humor,” Dabelko ended on a positive note, pointing out that by coming together to battle climate change, countries may build bridges to peace, rather than war–particularly if the militaries cooperate in the fight.
In a recent op-ed, Dabelko and the U.S. Army War College’s Kent Butts argue that climate could be one of the most productive avenues for improving military relations with China, suggesting that “U.S. and Chinese militaries should jointly assess the security implications of climate change that concern both sides: rising sea levels, changing precipitation patterns, uncertain migration scenarios, and instability in resource-rich regions.”
“To the Point” airs live online at 3 PM EST. In the Washington, DC, area listen to it at 10 PM EST tonight on WAMU 88.5. MORE -
On the Beat:
If It Bleeds It Leads: Pop-Climate Hits the Blogosphere
›By Meaghan Parker // Wednesday, October 21, 2009Population and climate change get short shrift in the media—that is, until Rush Limbaugh urges you to commit suicide. It’s a disturbing sign that this extremely complex topic only gets play when the knives come out. And as this summer’s health care circus demonstrates, the blogosphere is often more interested in covering the shouting than the issues at hand.MORE
So what happened? At the Wilson Center last week, the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin (via Skype) mentioned a thought experiment he had put forward in a recent post on his blog: “Should you get credit — if we’re going to become carbon-centric — for having a one-child family when you could have had two or three. And obviously it’s just a thought experiment, but it raises some interesting questions about all this.”
Limbaugh, picking up on a post on CNS.com, a conservative online news outlet, said Revkin and “militant environmentalists, these wackos, have so much in common with the jihad guys.” The furor was reported by a number of news blogs, including NYT’s Paul Krugman, the Guardian, and Politico.
An earlier and more substantial account by Miller-McCune’s Emily Badger deftly hits the highlights, including some historical context from The Nation’s Emily Douglas. While earlier projections assumed population growth would decline following the dissemination of birth control in the West, “that assumption turned out to be false,” said Douglas, because women in developing countries have not received similar access to contraceptives.
Indeed, as Worldwatch Institute’s blog post on the event points out, “an estimated 200 million women who want to avoid pregnancy are risking it anyway because they have inadequate access to contraception and related reproductive health services.”
I’m disheartened that this kerfluffle follows a recent uptick in thoughtful coverage of the population-climate connection. At a standing-room-only panel (audio) on covering population and environment at the most recent SEJ conference, Baltimore Sun reporter Tim Wheeler (video) said that population “has those challenges of so, what do you do about it, how do you deal with it.” But he said it was reporters’ “constant challenge to continue to wrestle with these issues.”
Moving the wrestling match into the center ring is bringing a new focus to the debate, which could be useful, as Suzanne Petroni writes in the ECSP Report: “A careful discussion of the ways in which voluntary family planning can further individual rights, community development, and, to some extent, climate change mitigation, could increase awareness not only of the outsized contribution of developed nations to global emissions, but also of their appropriate role in the global community.”
As Revkin says at the end of his response to Limbaugh: “And of course there’s the reality that explosive population growth in certain places, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, could be blunted without a single draconian measure, many experts say, simply by providing access to family planning for millions of women who already want it, but can’t get it – whether or not someone gets a carbon credit in the process.”
Family planning advocates—who have long been wary of linking contraception to climate mitigation—would mostly agree with that statement, although they would phrase it a little differently. Better reproductive health care is “an end in itself,” with climate mitigation being the “side effect,” rather than the primary goal, Barbara Crossette writes in The Nation.
Population experts cautiously agree there is a link, but warn that quantifying it is not so simple. At a major conference of demographers in Marrakesh, researchers previewed forthcoming research described the potential for emissions “savings” brought by decreases in fertility.
In the near term, it doesn’t look likely that all this attention will lead to policy action at Copenhagen. Population Action International reports that while almost all of the least developed countries’ adaptation plans mention population as a factor which increases their vulnerability to climate change, only a few state that investing in family planning should part of their strategy.
I encourage you to watch the webcast of the event and add your own (thoughtful) comments to the dialogue below. No suicide threats, please. -
On the Beat:
Population’s Links to Climate Change
›By Meaghan Parker // Wednesday, October 14, 2009“Covering Climate: What’s Population Got to Do With It?”—webcast live from the Wilson Center—will analyze the challenges facing science and environmental reporters as they prepare to cover what New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin calls “the story of our time.” Cosponsored by the Society of Environmental Journalists and the International Reporting Project, the panel—including Dennis Dimick of National Geographic and the Nation’s Emily Douglas—will discuss the significant barriers to nuanced reporting, including stovepiped beats, the shrinking news hole, and old-fashioned squeamishness.
However, in the past month, there’s been a veritable baby boom of news coverage on climate change and population. Spurred by three high-profile reports—the study commissioned by the Optimum Population Trust, research in the Bulletin of the WHO, and an editorial in the Lancet—the mainstream media and some key bloggers finally got some condoms in their climate change.
It’s gratifying to finally see this issue pop up in the media, almost a year to the day after the 2008 SEJ conference panel on population and climate change moderated by Constance Holden of Science that attracted a respectable (but not remarkable) audience of 40. The panelists decried the media’s relative silence on the impact of population growth and other demographic dynamics on environmental issues.
NPR’s Steve Curwood pointed out that while it’s “something we don’t talk about at all in America,” U.S. population growth increases emissions faster than developing-country population growth, due to our larger per capita consumption. A lone AP article, “Population growth contributes to emissions growth,” reported on the discussion.
In contrast, a population-climate panel at last week’s SEJ conference drew an overflow crowd of more than 100 people. Former SEJ President Tim Wheeler read off recent headlines demonstrating that the media does mention population. However, he noted that “most of the instances I cited are op-ed opinion pieces, not news coverage or feature stories.” In recent climate coverage, he said, “population gets mentioned as an undercurrent and afterthought; our attention intends to be on the immediate. And it has those challenges of so, what do you do about it, how do you deal with it.” But it is “our constant challenge to continue to wrestle with these issues.”
Here’s a short list of recent coverage:
Associated Press: “Birth control could help combat climate change”
Reuters: “Contraception vital in climate change fight -expert”
Bloomberg: “African Condom Shortage Said to Worsen Climate Impact”
Matt Yglesias: “Population and Climate Change”
The Nation: “Factoring People Into Climate Change”
Inter Press Service: “POPULATION: Where’s Family Planning on Climate Change Radar? Zofeen Ebrahim interviews noted social demographer KAREN HARDEE”
The New Republic’s The Vine: “Abortion: The Third Rail of Climate Policy?”
Treehugger.com: Contraception Five Times Less Expensive Than Low-Carbon Technology in Combating Climate Change
Washington Post: “When It Comes to Pollution, Less (Kids) May Be More”
Inter Press Service: “CLIMATE CHANGE: Rising Seas Demand Better Family Planning”
LA Times Booster Shots blog: “Can condoms combat climate change?”
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Combating Climate Change with Condoms
›By Meaghan Parker // Thursday, September 17, 2009
Mountains of reports and studies have proposed expensive technological responses to climate change. But the scientists and policymakers working to protect the planet may have overlooked one of the easiest, cheapest ways to reduce carbon emissions: contraception.
A recent study commissioned by the Optimum Population Trust estimates contraception would be almost five times cheaper than conventional green technologies. “Each $7 spent on basic family planning would reduce CO2 emissions by more than one ton,” researchers conclude, while low-carbon technologies would add an extra $25 per ton.MORE
Slowing population growth could not only cut emissions, but also help poor families in vulnerable areas adapt to the impacts of climate change, such as land degradation, drought, and loss of food security. However, while governments of the poorest countries often cite population growth as a factor in environmental catastrophes, few address family planning as part of their adaptation strategies, IPS reports from a recent NGO forum in Berlin.
Enabling women to plan their families is not only climate-friendly, it’s also right. Currently, more than 100 million women worldwide want—and can’t get—modern methods of family planning. Better reproductive health care is “an end in itself,” with climate mitigation being the “side effect,” rather than the primary goal, Barbara Crossette writes in The Nation.
While many policymakers shy away from getting population in their environment, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said, “It’s rather odd to talk about climate change and what we must do to stop and prevent the ill effects without talking about population and family planning.” At the Berlin forum, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark linked the goals of education, equality, and environmental sustainability in a “virtuous cycle.”
As the world’s largest per-capita emitter, the United States has a special obligation to examine its growth and consumption patterns. While the lives of Bangladesh’s 140 million people are acutely threatened by climate change, each new U.S. child and its descendants will be responsible for 160 times the carbon emissions of a Bangladeshi infant according to Oregon State University researchers writing in Global Environmental Change.
Unfortunately, condoms are unlikely to become heroes at Copenhagen. Some populous developing countries like India object to bringing population into the climate change debate without more focus on reducing consumption in developed countries. The Washington Post called the connection “unpopular,” and compared its odds to another “long shot”: geoengineering. Anti-contraceptive groups, development “silos,” sexism, and old-fashioned squeamishness are also formidable barriers to an open and nuanced discussion of how family planning can contribute to mitigation and adaptation.
Too bad, because as Suzanne Petroni writes in the latest issue of the Environmental Change and Security Program Report, “A careful discussion of the ways in which voluntary family planning can further individual rights, community development, and, to some extent, climate change mitigation, could increase awareness not only of the outsized contribution of developed nations to global emissions, but also of their appropriate role in the global community.”
A shorter version of this post will appear in the October issue of Centerpoint.
Photo courtesy Flickr user OsakaSteve. -
The Creek Runs Black in West Virginia – and Dry in Mexico City
›By Meaghan Parker // Monday, September 14, 2009Two articles in the Sunday New York Times revealed that some residents of Mexico City and Charleston, West Virginia, share a common bond: lack of clean water. While drought and leaks have drained Mexico City’s reservoirs, pollution and run-off from coal plants has befouled water supplies in West Virginia’s small towns. But in both cases, the less powerful are the ones stuck up the creek without a paddle.
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No Water for the Poor in Mexico City
Mexico’s worst drought in 60 years has depleted the massive Cutzamala system, which brings water from miles to the west to meet the needs of the capital. In response, officials have begun to restrict the water supply in many poor neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, the lawns of rich neighborhoods are suspiciously green. According to a National Polytechnic Institute study cited by the NYT, the city’s wealthy households consume four to fives times as much water as poor households on the city’s east side.
Iztapalapa, “the city’s largest and poorest borough, has endured sporadic cuts this year, including one in April when water was shut off for 36 hours,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Water Stories,” a Wilson Center multimedia project, depicts the lives of residents of Iztapalapa’s apartment buildings and shacks, where the water runs for only an hour a day (if that).
If population growth, water demand, and drought continue, authorities now warn that Mexico City may run out of water by February 2010. Other cities are in the same boat: “Los Angeles, Beijing, and Singapore are just a few of the world’s urban centers struggling to accommodate growing populations with dwindling supplies of drinkable water,” reports the WSJ.
Black Water and Clean Coal in West Virginia
Farther north, in a small community outside of Charleston, West Virginia, Jennifer Hall-Massey is living every mother’s nightmare. The latest installment in the NYT‘s “Toxic Waters” series depicts her growing realization that “we’ve got to get the kids out of here,” as her young sons’ scabs won’t heal and the neighbors develop tumors from the heavy metals in the water. But they can’t sell the house, so she cuts the kids’ bath time short to limit their exposure to the toxic soup.
While the series focuses on improving water quality enforcement across the country—and includes an interactive database of effluent violators—I hope that it also helps expose one of the greatest misnomers of all time: “clean coal.” If coal production continues to create slurry ponds full of heavy metals seeping into drinking water, no amount of carbon sequestration will clean up the mess.
It strikes me that if another country was shaving off the mountain tops of one of its most beautiful ranges and contaminating the drinking water with deadly toxins—in a region with a long history of poverty and oppression—I think we in the United States would not call it “clean.” According to a new report from Catholic Relief Services, the lack of water in both Mexico City and West Virginia is a form of “structural violence.”
Is it Safe?
The minds of most readers, however, will turn instead to a more personal question: How safe is my water? The NYT’s Cornelia Dean recommends using filters, although she notes that they won’t help against emerging contaminants like prescription drugs.
But will fear push people back to bottled water, after some successful campaigns to make it less fashionable? Bottled water may not be any better. According to Peter Gleick, whose new book on bottled water will be published by Island Press in 2010, “a substantial amount of the bottled water sold in the United States — around 60 percent — comes from groundwater.”
But there’s hope. As Gleick reports in his blog, solving water contamination problems is based on two simple principles: “don’t let the contamination into our water supply in the first place, or apply the right filters to clean it up when it does.” New EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told the NYT that “strengthening water protections is among her top priorities”—and the EPA just announced that it will review 79 mountain-top removal permits for water pollution.
Unfortunately, Mexico City’s approach to its water supply problem—ad campaigns and inequitable rationing—doesn’t seem as promising.
Photo: Tubs of water in the Iztapalapa, Mexico City. Courtesy J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue. -
Clinton, Congress Link Family Planning, Climate Change
›By Meaghan Parker // Friday, July 24, 2009Earlier this week in New Delhi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised an “enlightening” roundtable discussion with India’s minister of environment for opening her eyes to climate change’s links to population and family planning.
“One of the participants pointed out that it’s rather odd to talk about climate change and what we must do to stop and prevent the ill effects without talking about population and family planning. That was an incredibly important point. And yet, we talk about these things in very separate and often unconnected ways,” said Clinton.
Congress is taking steps to tackle this issue. The version of the bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week links family planning and reproductive health to climate change.
On page 153, $628 million is alloted for “family planning/reproductive health, including in areas where population growth threatens biodiversity or endangered species or exacerbates human vulnerability to the effects of climate change.”
In addition, in the report accompanying the bill, the Senate committee “directs USAID to review the relationships between population growth and climate change to determine how experience in implementing population-environment activities applies to climate change adaptation and to efforts to increase the resilience of local communities to climate change.”
These comments certainly increase the volume on this overlooked link. Some background resources that might help those new to the discussion:- In the latest ECSP Report, Suzanne Petroni of the Summit Foundation proposes some ethical ground rules, calling for “a thoughtful and deliberative dialogue around voluntary family planning’s contribution to mitigating climate change.”
A recent PAI factsheet points out that “areas of high population growth and high vulnerability to climate change impacts overlap.” - Another handy factsheet includes a brief description of how community-based programs that integrate population-environment activities can strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to the effects of climate change.
- PAI’s working paper “Projecting Population, Projecting Climate Change” warns that “population growth is not adequately accounted for in the emissions scenarios” used by the IPCC.
- The Center for Global Development’s David Wheeler recently argued that family planning could be a relatively inexpensive part of solving the climate crisis.
- A paper in Global Environmental Change estimates the extra emissions of fossil carbon dioxide that an average individual in the United States causes when he or she chooses to have children.
- In the latest ECSP Report, Suzanne Petroni of the Summit Foundation proposes some ethical ground rules, calling for “a thoughtful and deliberative dialogue around voluntary family planning’s contribution to mitigating climate change.”
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Strength in Numbers: Can “Girl Power” Save Us From the Financial Crisis?
›By Meaghan Parker // Wednesday, July 15, 2009
To promote the 20th World Population Day on July 11, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) tied this year’s theme—“Fight Poverty: Educate Girls”—to combating the ongoing financial crisis. It’s a no-brainer that, as UNFPA points out, “women and children in developing countries will bear the brunt of the impact.”
But UNFPA takes it a step further, arguing that investments in education and health for women and girls lead to increases in productivity, agricultural yields, and national income. According to UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid, “an investment in contraceptive services can be recouped four times over—and sometimes dramatically more over the long term—by reducing the need for public spending on health, education and other social services.” Ban Ki-Moon agreed: “There can be no better investment on this day or any other.”
However, I fear this approach will fall on deaf ears, particularly in the United States. World Population Day usually fails to get much U.S. media attention—partly due to its unfortunate timing in the beginning of vacation season—and this year was no exception.
One of the few U.S.-based outlets to mention it at all was the Huffington Post. Contributor and Nike Foundation President Maria Eitel posted some comments on the economic “girl effect” from her colleague Lisa MacCallum, who says that education has “just about everything” to do with population.
Also in HuffPo, CEDPA President Carol Peasley asks the population community to “forge a new consensus” that “improved family planning services enhances development, reduces poverty and reduces environmental stress,” citing the new book The Means of Reproduction, which author Michelle Goldberg recently discussed with Carol Peasley at the Wilson Center.
This year is a banner one for the population community: the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, and the 40th anniversary of UNFPA. But according to UNFPA and the World Bank, the financial crisis threatens to reverse some of the gains since the landmark 1994 Cairo conference.
And despite the valiant efforts of UNFPA and others to promote family planning and girls’ education as a key solution, I doubt that the world’s (mostly male) leaders will prioritize girls in the midst of this economic mess.
As WorldWatch’s Robert Engelman observes in the Christian Science Monitor, “Like nearly all other politicians, however, Mr. Obama doesn’t talk about population or its connection to problems from health and education all the way to food, energy security, and climate change. The topic is still too sensitive, despite the recent upsurge in attention.”
Maybe Obama’s actions speak louder: He rescinded the Mexico City policy, increased funding for family planning, and restored U.S. funding for UNFPA. Secretary of State Clinton is a strong advocate, telling the House Foreign Affairs Committee that “we are now an administration that will protect the rights of women, including their rights to reproductive health care.”
However, there is still little push to position population and its links to health and education as a key global issue. Part of the problem may be that the people at USAID and State that would push it are not yet in position; so far, only the assistant secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration has been confirmed.
In the meantime, women will keep having babies. As Obaid said to the World Bank, “In war or peace, natural or man-made disaster, prosperous economy or financial crisis, women continue to get pregnant…But getting pregnant in the first place can be managed only if women are able to manage their fertility and determine where, when, and how many children to have.” MORE -
South African Water Expert Suspended: Turton Tells Hard Truths – And Pays a Price
›By Meaghan Parker // Friday, December 5, 2008Anthony Turton, a South African water expert and fellow at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), was suspended November 21 from CSIR for “insubordination” and bringing disrepute to the scientific research and development organization. CSIR is supported by grants from the South African Parliament, other government departments, and the private sector.
The suspension followed a ban on Turton’s scheduled keynote address, “A Clean South Africa” at the November CSIR conference “Science Real and Relevant.” CSIR said the presentation “could not be sufficiently substantiated,” and that images of violence from the recent spate of xenophobic attacks were offensive.MORE
Now fighting for his academic survival, Turton spoke to the media to defend himself, including a video interview in which he calls the water crisis more severe than the power problems currently challenging the country. “Water scarcity is a fundamental developmental constraint, not only to South Africa, but also to the entire SADC [Southern African Development Community] region,” he says. An ECSP Navigating Peace brief coauthored by Turton and colleagues from CSIR points out that not only does the region have low rainfall, but also “the lowest conversion of rainfall-to-runoff in the world,” which “affects both surface water river flows and groundwater recharge.”
Due to South Africa’s mining industry, heavy metals, radionuclides, and other toxins in the water supply endanger human health. In addition, eutrophication in South Africa’s large dams support high levels of the potential toxin microcystin; according to Turton, while microcystin has the potential for long-term damage, “we’ve not done the science” to know for sure. He called on decision-makers to revive South African leadership in eutrophication research—a position it lost due to “lower priority status by government, which led to the termination of funding for research in this field,” reports Water Wheel.
But more graphically, Turton suggested that violence could erupt in Johannesburg’s townships in response to the water crisis; next to disturbing images of violence against Zimbabwean immigrants, his presentation asked, “Could this type of anger be unleashed in response to perceptions of deteriorating public health as a result of declining water quality?” His question could be timely; a cholera epidemic gripping Zimbabwe threatens South Africa as sick migrants cross the border to escape the collapsing nation.
As renowned water expert Aaron Wolf and others (including Turton) have pointed out, water has never led to wars between nations, but examples abound of local and civil conflicts—some of them deadly: violent protests in Cochabamba, Bolivia; pipeline bombings in California; and farmers and police clashing in China. The shocking photos of the anti-immigrant violence in Johannesburg’s townships may have touched a nerve in Turton’s intended audience, but they nevertheless drew a possible picture of the consequences of the state’s failure to meet the expectations of its most vulnerable citizens.
But which of Turton’s purported violations was more offensive to the powers that be: the violent images linking water and conflict, or his exposure of the government’s unwillingness to address the potential toxins dumped in the water supply by private interests? Both are bad for business—especially as South Africa’s economic growth slows. This situation eerily echoes the Bush administration’s suppression of climate scientists such as James Hansen for taking a similarly precautionary approach to future crises.
Wolf, who co-founded the Universities Partnership for Transboundary Waters with Turton, said in an open letter:Dr. Turton is one of the most careful and conscientious scientists I know. Moreover, he has great passion for the human dimension of his work, and holds his obligation for the betterment of society inviolable. Prof. Turton has a reputation for speaking hard truths about the world around him, and academic institutions generally have an obligation to protect academic freedom for precisely these sorts of cases.
Other public letters of support for Turton’s character and scholarship can be emailed to Mariette Lieferink, who is also leading an online petition effort.
“Must we be silenced and cowed into a corner?” Turton asks in his video interview. “This is for me a moral obligation, it’s a moral decision.”
Photo: Anthony Turton. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Woodrow Wilson Center.
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