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Population and the Global Environment
by Joseph A. Davis

Why Cover Global Population?
It matters to the mother in Bangladesh who must carry firewood
for miles to cook her family’s food. It matters to the toddler in
South Africa who has lost his parents to HIV-AIDS. It matters to
the parents in Haiti whose children are sick with diarrhea because
drinking wells are too close to open sewers.

Not only does the future environmental well being of the planet
depend to a large degree on slowing human population growth,
but the well-being of families does as well.

It’s a hard story to tell, because it isn’t simple. Population density
by itself does not always harm people and the environment
directly. Population is linked to human and planetary well being
through complex causal chains of poverty, education, agriculture,
natural resources, health care, and economic development.

Telling the story takes courage, because the forces trying to
silence the tellers are powerful. Journalists who tell it risk antagonizing
religious groups, ideological groups, ethnic groups, and nations. And
they may get little support from publishers and broadcasters who can make
more money with news that is lighter, more sensational, and more entertaining.
The story is worth telling because it matters, yes, but also because it is often
a story of sex and violence, blood and tears, secrecy and scandal, suspense
and betrayal.

And while the most terrible drama in the population story often
occurs far from North America, decisions on the outcome are
made every day by the officials we elect.

Story Ideas
1. How did your Senators vote on the September 7, 2003, Senate
motion to repeal the "global gag rule"? How did they justify their votes?
(http://capwiz.com/zpg/issues/votes/?votenum=267&chamber=S&congress=1081)

2. How did your Congressional representative vote on the July 15, 2003, on
the Smith amendment to restore funding to the UNFPA? How did s/he justify the vote?
(http://capwiz.com/zpg/issues/votes/?votenum=362&chamber=H&congress=1081)

3. What population groups have immigrated recently from abroad to your region?
How does this immigration relate to population pressure in their country of origin?

4. What jobs have recently been exported from your region? How does this "outsourcing"
relate to the population situation in the countries to which those jobs are going?

Background and Context
Human population affects the global environment (or local environments
abroad) in many ways - often by stressing resources like forests,
farmland, water, and air. As growing populations change the
landscape to make way for farms or cities, they also change existing
ecosystems. In the end, these processes can affect people’s health
and quality of life, often adversely.

The human impact on the planet was scarcely noticeable when
city-states were first settled some three millennia ago and the population
was scarcely 100 million. Today, as the global population exceeds
6 billion, we have altered an estimated one-third of Earth’s
ice-free land area and driven numerous species to extinction.

Sheer human numbers alone are only one factor driving the
changes people have wrought on the planet, and consequently, "population
control" alone can hardly be thought of as a sufficient solution.

Consider:
— The 20 percent of the world’s population who live in the world’s
richest countries gobble up about 86 percent of the world’s private
consumption, according to PRB - while the poorest 20 percent of
Earth’s population make do on a measly 2 percent share.

— Four countries (the United States, China, Japan, and India) generate
almost half of the carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere.

— About 20 percent of the world’s population, more than 1.1 billion people,
live within the Earth’s 25 most species-rich and environmentally
threatened areas, according to PAI.

— With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the United
States consumes almost one-quarter of the world’s energy.

Automobiles. While the number of people on the planet doubled from
1950 to 1996, the number of cars grew tenfold, Worldwatch points
out. They are not distributed evenly. More than one quarter of the
more than 600 million motor vehicles on the planet are in the United
States. Environmental impact is more than a matter of population.
Worldwatch says automobile congestion in the U.S. costs $100 billion
yearly in wasted fuel, lost productivity, and rising health costs.
The typical Bangkok motorist, they say, spends the equivalent of 44
working days a year in traffic. To accommodate every additional
five cars, an area the size of a football field is paved with concrete or
asphalt.

Forests. The explosive population growth during the last 10,000 years
or so has been largely the result of agriculture, which in many places
has resulted in cleared forests. Cutting forests for building materials
and fuel has accelerated as population has increased. Although estimates
are controversial, some think that about half the pre-human
forest cover is now gone.

Water. People need clean water to live for drinking, irrigation, and
industry. Yet human settlements usually end up polluting ground and
surface water and making it less usable unless special measures are
taken. In other cases, the amount of use by a growing human population
and economic activities depletes water supplies. According to
the Sierra Club, some 500 million people worldwide lack enough
clean water to drink - a figure that could grow to 3 billion people by
2025.

Air. Even North Americans can directly experience the unhealthy air
pollution that develops around densely settled urban regions. Historically,
we are used to thinking of air pollution as a regional problem,
with Los Angeles and Mexico City having pollution problems
specific to those areas. That assumption no longer holds true. Air
pollution is a global problem - pollution from Asia drifts across the
Pacific to the North America, dust from Africa moves across the
Atlantic to this continent.

Health. Population and human health are inextricably linked in many
parts of the globe. Revolutionary advances in medicine were one of
the reasons why population exploded during the industrial era. Lack
of adequate health care is a reason why death rates are still unacceptably
high in many developing countries. Large and dense populations
lacking adequate sanitation, especially in urban areas, are
breeding grounds for many diseases. Access to adequate health care,
however, is actually key to bringing family planning services to the
developing world.

Biodiversity. Human population pressure adversely affects the global
abundance and diversity of species in many ways. Clearing forests
for agriculture, settlements, and economic development is just one
way. There are a number of other kinds of critical wildlife habitat
that tend to vanish when human population expands such as wetlands,
coastal areas, and riverbanks. And we may forget that human
pressure impacts aquatic and marine biodiversity as well, not only
through overfishing but through disruptions of key habitats.

Fisheries. The fish harvested from the oceans increased from 19
million tons in 1950 to 88 million tons in 1988, according to PRB. It
has not grown appreciably since, although population has continued
to rise. Many of the most commercially desirable fish stocks are
declining, and most others are fished at capacity.

Climate. Scientists expect the steadily growing concentrations of
anthropogenic carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and halocarbons
in the atmosphere to cause global warming from the "greenhouse
effect." The increases have largely occurred since the beginning
of the Industrial Age, when human population exploded. While economic
and technological change played causal roles, much of the
increase in greenhouse gases seemed directly related to increases in
human population.

Issues
1. U.S. Support of UNFPA. The United Nations Population Fund since
its founding in 1969 has delivered some $6 billion in population
programs and reproductive health aid to developing countries. It works
with governments and NGOs in some of the most impoverished areas
of the world. Currently, its annual budget runs several hundred
million dollars a year, and it directly delivers about one-quarter of
the world’s population aid.

Following the mandate of the 1994 International Conference on
Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, the UNFPA says that
its policy is not to promote abortion as a method of family planning
and that it does not provide support for abortion services. Instead,
UNFPA says, it works to prevent abortion through family planning,
and to provide care for women suffering complications of unsafe
abortion.

Right-to-life groups allege that UNFPA does at least indirectly
support abortion, for example, by working with the government of
China, whose "one-child" policy they see as coercive. They have
urged the U.S. to withhold part or all its share of UNFPA funding,
amounting to about $34 million in the most recent year.

During its first year (2001), the Bush administration sought and
received Congressional funding for UNFPA. But at the urging of the
anti-abortion lobby, President Bush reversed himself in July 2002
and refused to release the $34 million Congress had provided for FY
2002. Congress appropriated another $34 million for UNFPA for
FY 2003. In a razor-thin July 15, 2003, vote, the House voted 216-
211 to support Bush’s position on FY 2003 de-funding of UNFPA.

Another key vote on UNFPA was expected in the Senate as this
issue of Environment Writer went to press. Sen. Patrick Leahy, DVT,
was expected to offer a floor amendment to FY 2004 foreign aid
bill that would force the President to fund UNFPA.

Background on UNFPA Issue:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/06/13/unfpa/index_np.html?
http://www.populationaction.org/resources/factsheets factsheet_3.htm
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/population/pc0014.html
http://www.planetwire.org/wrap/files.fcgi/4176_USfundingUNFPAtimeline.htm

2. "Global Gag Rule." Also known as the "Mexico City Policy," it was
initiated by President Reagan in 1984 during the UN International
Conference on Population in Mexico City. Essentially, it prohibits
foreign NGOs from receiving U.S. family planning funds if they
use their own funds to provide legal abortions, to provide counseling
and referral for abortions, or to advocate making abortion
legal or more available in any public policy debate in their own
country.

President Clinton rescinded the policy in 1993. President Bush
reinstated it on his first day in office in 2001.

Those who call it the "Mexico City Policy" say it simply prevents
U.S. funds from being used to support abortion, which they view as
taking human life. Those who call it the "Global Gag Rule" say it
attempts to suppress freedom of speech and democracy and ties the
hands of agencies providing a range of non-abortion reproductive
health services.

On August 29, 2003, President Bush issued an executive memorandum
extending the policy, which had previously covered only
USAID funds, to cover all reproductive health care funds under the
U.S. State Department.

The Senate Appropriations Committee blocked the expansion on
September 5, 2003, adopting an amendment from Sen. Harry Reid,
D-NV, to the FY 2004 State appropriation. Then on September 7,
2003, the Senate voted 53-43 to overturn the entire policy. The vote
came on a motion by Sen. Lugar, R-IN, to table an amendment by
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, to the fiscal 2004 State Department authorization.
The Senate then adopted Boxer’s amendment by voice
vote.

The issue may be resolved in House-Senate conference on one of
the bills later this year.

Background on "Global Gag Rule:"
— "Restoration of the Mexico City Policy," Pres. George W. Bush,
January 22, 2001, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20010123-5.html
— "Assistance for Voluntary Population Planning," Pres. George W.
Bush, August 29, 2003, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/08/20030829-3.html
— "Access Denied," Population Action International,
http://www.popact.org/news/press/news_092403_accessDenied.htm
— "The Bush Global Gag Rule: Endangering Women’s Health, Free
Speech and Democracy," Center for Reproductive Rights:
http://www.crlp.org/pub_fac_ggrbush.html

Players and Sources
UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Under the United Nations, the UNFPA
is the largest organization working for and funding (in 140 countries)
family planning, safe pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease
programs.
Press contact: Kristin Hetle, 212-297-5020, hetle@unfpa.org, http://www.unfpa.org/

UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The FAO works under the
UN to raise the standard of living in more than 180 countries by
improving nutrition, agricultural productivity, forestry, fisheries, and
rural development.
Press contact: Michael Hage (North America), (202) 653-0011,
michael.hage@fao.org; media office (Rome), +39 06 5705 3625,
media-office@fao.org; Nick Parsons, +39 06 5705 3276, cell 348-
257-2920, nick.parsons@fao.org, http://www.fao.org/

Population Reference Bureau. While it tends toward pro-family planning,
PRB specializes in offering a rich and wide array of relatively
objective factual information on population.
Press Contact: Ellen Carnevale, (202) 939-5407, ecarnevale@prb.org,
http://www.prb.org/ and http://www.popnet.org/

National Right to Life Committee. NLRC is the principal lobbying arm
of the U.S. domestic pro-life movement.
Press Contact: Douglas Johnson, (202) 626-8820, Legfederal@aol.com
http://www.nrlc.org/

Human Life International. International in outlook, this group hews
closely to the Vatican line as expressed in the 1968 Papal Encyclical
Humanae Vitae, emphasizing missionary work in other countries.
Contact: Reverend Thomas J. Euteneuer, (800) 549-5433, hli@hli.org,
http://www.hli.org/index.html

Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family. The official Vatican voice
on population and family planning issues, as expressed in the 1995
Papal Encyclical Evangelium Vitae. Contact: Cardinal Alfonso Lopez
Trujillo, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/.
Holy See Press Office: http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/index.htm.

Population Action International. One of the main U.S. lobbying and
advocacy groups on population issues with strong international emphasis.
Contact: Mark Daley, (202) 557-3446, mdaley@popact.org,
http://www.populationaction.org/news/index.htm

Population Connection (formerly ZPG). One of the main U.S. lobbying
and advocacy groups on population, especially strong on tracking
pending U.S. government action.
Press contact: Tim Cline, (202) 745-3155, tim@popconnect.org,
http://www.populationconnection.org/

- Nature’s Place: Human Population and the Future of Biological
Diversity, Population Action International,
http://www.populationaction.org/resources/publications/naturesplace/np_index.shtml

- Population Growth, Quarterly Review, Harvard Medical School,
Center for Health and the Global Environment, July 2002 (Vol.
4, No.1), http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge/qrsummer02/population.htm

- Making the Link: Population, Health, Environment, Population
Reference Bureau, July 2002, by Jonathan G. Nash and Roger-
Mark De Souza, http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Section=PRB&template=/Content/ContentGroups/
Datasheets/Making_the_Link_Population,_Health,_Environment.htm
or http://www.prb.org/pdf/MakingTheLinkPHE-be.pdf

- Beyond Malthus: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem,
Worldwatch Paper 143 (free PDF), by Lester R. Brown, Gary Gardner,
and Brian Halweil, September 1998, http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/143/