Introduction

How do you want to change the world?

       Ten years into the new millennium, the Earth seems to have become a much smaller place. Although its geographic size has not changed, its human population has become much more connected and infused all over the globe. Although this “small-world” effect has improved systems like food exchange and technology sharing, it has also amplified the idea that the entire human population shares the same collective problems. In recent years, one of the leading collective goods problems that have been discussed is the issue of sustainability. The issue of sustainability is a broad category, ranging from environmental issues to humans, crops, and technology. However, sustainability can be defined as the establishment of an equilibrium that ensures the survival of the human species and planet together.

             A subset to the discussion of sustainability is the issue of the world’s population becoming too large and overtaking the Earth’s carrying capacity. Although the human population is already huge, there is concern that if it grows larger, it may become too much for the natural resources available on the plant to support. It is estimated that the world population surpasses 7 billion people on October 30^th, 2011. Furthermore, it is calculated that an additional 225,000 people are added to this total each day, translating into about an extra 1 million people every 4.5 days (Global Population Speak Out). This translates into a lot of mouths to feed and people to transport and care for. These huge numbers, coupled with the reduction in the availability of natural resources (clean water, oil, lumber) and biodiversity, will eventually lead to a scarcity in some essential lifelines for the human population. Apart from wreaking havoc on the human population, through catastrophic death rates, this absence of resources would also destroy other species by throwing the ecosystem out of balance.

In the area of consumption, not all humans are equal. In particular, the more developed “West” has an enormously higher rate of consumption and resource use than the less developed nations. The wealthiest countries, only 20% of the world’s population, are responsible for a large majority of the consumption of natural resources, over 86% (United Nations Population Fund). This correlation means that an average person in a developed nation, like the United States, causes about 16 times more damage to the Earth and its resources than the average person in a developing nation. Therefore, each person born into a developed nation causes a great amount of damage to the sustainability of the population. However, between 40-50% of pregnancies in the United States are either unplanned or unwanted (Global Population Speak Out), causing a large amount of unnecessary resources usage. Through improved means of family planning and the use of contraceptives, the extreme growth in population can be curbed and the necessary steps towards a sustainable society can be made.

The facts around the issue of overpopulation are solid and have been researched by numerous individuals and agencies. However, action to curb the population growth has been greatly deterred due to ethic, religious, and political opposition. According to Hans Rosling’s TED Talk, the root of the solution to overpopulation rests in the education of both the developed nations and, especially, the undeveloped countries. He continues that family planning must be implemented and a green economy must be established (Rosling, 2010). Although the solution of education and family planning does not sound very controversial, some religious and political beliefs are directly opposed to the two. As John Feeney said; “Population control should be like education and health care, it has been done wrong and abused in the past, but we don’t abandon it.” (Feeney, 2009) Supporting the idea that population control has not been abandoned, many governments across the world have established committees and passed laws to promote and oversee family planning and education. For example, in the United States, Title X of the Health Service Act is a law enacted as a protection and assurance for family planning. Passed in 1970, the law is committed to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related health services (“Office of Population Affairs”). The legislation allows for grants to be distributed and programs to be funded in order to educated citizens about family planning and ensure the availability of services and products to Americans.

America does provide a large portion of the world’s funding for family planning and other health services for the developing nations. However, 129 countries do provide direct support for some form of family planning. This funding can be for education, contraceptives, or a wide array of other means of population control. If so many countries provide funding for these services, it is a valid question as to why only about 50% of families use some form of contraception. The answer lies among the cultural norms and mores that encompass human society. In many developing nations, it is believed that the use of contraceptives will cause the extinction of the family line due to a lack of offspring. Even in the United States, there is a great opposition to sexual education and the distribution of contraceptives (Engleman, 22-29). However, as the experts have stated, it is essential to educate the population about and provide them with family planning resources in order to combat overpopulation. The questions remains: how do we do it?

The question of how to control the population in a way that both provides a sustainable society while adhering to the ethics of a human culture has been a difficult one to answer. For this project, I have attempted to contribute to the discussion by developing my own means of educating the public about overpopulation and family planning while simultaneously providing a means of contraception. Although this may sound like a daunting task that has been tried by many in the past, I believe it can be broken into two relatively simple steps: distribute condoms and distribute the facts. For the first part of the solution, most of the work has already been done. By taking advantage of the “Endangered Species” condoms developed by the Global Population Speak Out campaign; I already have a catchy and effective means of distributing contraceptives. I have already signed up to receive my 100,000 condoms to distribute to the public. Accompanying the condom is an eye-catching wrapper that features endangered specie and some quick facts about over population and its relation to sustainability. In addition to the condoms, I have created another handout that will serve as an informational guide to family planning resources. It features some quick facts about both sustainability and overpopulation. More importantly, the handout has various email addresses that can provide recipients with more information about the sustainability movement and further family planning.

My goal in this project is to create more awareness about the issue of overpopulation and the already existing means of prevention that we have available to us. As a develop society, we must take advantage of the tools we have to prevent over population and reduce the probability of overstepping the carrying capacity of the planet. Although this is just a drop in the ocean of the sustainability issue, any little bit helps. If family planning prevents an unnecessary mouth for the world to feed, we may save on some resources that can be given to an already staving mouth.

 

Work Cited

 

Engleman, R. (2009). “Population & Sustainability”. Scientific American Earth. 3 19(2), 22-29.

 

Feeney, J. “Population: the elephant in the room”. BBC News 2 Feb 2009. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7865332.stm&gt;

 

Global Population Speak Out. 2010. Population Institute. 25 Oct 2011. <www.populationspeakout.org>

 

“Office of Population Affairs”. United States Department of Heath and Human Services. 2011. <www.hhs.gov/opa/>

 

Rosling, H. “Global Population Growth”. TED@Cannes. June 2010.

 

United Nations Population Fund. RSS 2.0. United Nations. 25 Oct 2011. <www.unfpa.org/public/home>

 

 

 

 

 

 

Semester Project

The idea of sustainability can trigger a different train of thought in every person’s mind that hears the word. In my own mind, I lean towards a sociological and political approach to the idea and the problem that it entails. Sustainability as a social movement to “save the Earth” has been required due to the overpopulation of the Earth. As a species, we are approaching the carrying capacity of this habitat and are exhausting the resources available for our disposal. Therefore, the issue of creating a sustainable society takes a different form in my mind that it does for someone who sees the sustainability movement as a strictly agricultural and/or environmental issue.

In my view of sustainability, people are the root cause of our current environmental issues. Due to overpopulation and population stresses on our resources, we are beginning to overuse our resources and create pollution and other damaging byproducts of existing as a modern society. To create a sustainable society, we must work on reducing the amount of overpopulation through the use of contraceptives and education.

For this project, my plan is to create an educational program for the “underprivileged” areas of downtown Madison. Essentially, I will be developing educational materials (pamphlets, handouts, signs, etc.) and a means of distributing them (areas of interest to leave them, places to pass them out, etc.) for the homeless population of Madison. Along with the educational materials, I will also concentrate on providing condoms and other contraceptive materials (Planned Parenthood contact information) for the same population.
It is my goal with these small initiatives to create and understanding among the less informed that overpopulation is a major issue for the sustainability of our planet. In order to combat this, we must become conscious of our reproductive activities and attempt to limit these activities, if and when possible. Additionally, this plan can serve as a model of environmentally conscious reproductive practices for other underprivileged areas (like the third world). Although this program will be extremely broad and on an extremely long-term scale, it could contribute to creating a sustainable population, contributing to reaching a state of equilibrium with the environment.