What does population growth have to do with climate change? We hear from what the connections are from Laurie Mazur, who has edited a new book called A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice and the Environmental Challenge.
In this collection of essays, the authors concur that we are living in a pivotal moment. While many people are aware that we have a brief window of time to address climate change and other environmental problems, fewer people recognize that we are at a similar moment for world population: choices made today will determine whether human numbers - now at 6.8 billion - will grow to 8 billion or even 11 billion by 2050. Laurie Mazur tells us why 8 billion people will create much less stress than 11 billion on our already stressed out natural systems. We talk about why controlling the world's population by ensuring access to family planning and reproductive health services worldwide, will empower women as well as promote sustainable, equitable development, and ultimately save the world.
Laurie Mazur is the director of the Population Justice Project. She is the editor of Beyond the Numbers: A Reader on Population, Consumption and the Environment (1994) and co-author of Marketing Madness: A Survival Guide for a Consumer Society (1995).
- KBOO