Population Growth an Environmental Problem?

The deep ecology inspired organization, Optimum Population Trust (OPT), calls for increased efforts to restrain population growth—meaning abortion—in their August 2009 statement, reminding us that a plank of the deep ecology movement is that the number of human beings on the earth threatens life and those numbers need to be reduced.

Catholic teaching is clear that each baby born into the world is a blessing and each baby aborted is a grave evil, as the Catechism teaches us:

“Abortion

“2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.

“My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.

“2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

“You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.

“God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.”

An excerpt from the OPT statement calling for population control.

“All environmental problems, and notably those arising from climate change, would be easier to solve with a smaller future population. Population restraint in rich countries and communities would reduce the future number of major carbon emitters (who will also be victims). Restraint in poor countries and communities would reduce the number of minor emitters and likely major victims.

“The gap between the extremes of the UN (2008) population projections for 2050 is 3 billion people. Current trends, with less aid for family planning, point towards the higher end - 11 bn, with no change in fertility (the UN median projection, at 9.2 bn, assumes a considerable reduction in fertility). Just meeting known, but currently unmet, need for family planning services, however, would point the projections near the lower end - 8 bn.

“The recent Global Humanitarian Forum on the Human Impact of Climate Change in Geneva accepted OPT’s position that population growth is a major environmental problem, making equitable mitigation and adaptation policies harder – and ultimately impossible – to solve.”