Humanists and the Natural World<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

We received the following question from a reader in Ireland:

Your fourth article of the IHEU Amsterdam Declaration states “... and recognises our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world.” How do you propose to honour your above-stated commitment? Or is it just an aspiration?

 

We replied as follows:

 

It is because human beings are top of the evolutionary tree that we have a responsibility for the natural world. It is hubris to believe that somehow we have become independent of it and are no longer part of it. And the longer we continue to exploit the Earth and foul our own nest the worse the day of reckoning will be when it comes.

 

The Earth is finite. The history of Easter Island provides a chilling example of what can happen when a finite environment is over-exploited. But over-exploitation is not only a question of numbers; it is also a question of consumption. A child born in southern India today will, in its lifetime, consume less that 3% of the energy and natural resources of a child born today in the United States. We must develop low-consumption lifestyles if we are to avoid the fate of the Easter Islanders. Their population crashed by 90% in less than 100 years.

 

Many countries have long been aware of the problem of rapid population growth. India initiated a population control programme almost 50 years ago. It was a total failure in a society where children were seen as a gift from God and any government programme was viewed with deep suspicion. When India’s family planning programme became coercive it set back any hope of reducing family sizes for a generation. But since the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 there has been a worldwide consensus on what needs to be done. Steven Sinding, now Secretary General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, showed that simply giving women the right to choose how many children to have, and when, would do more to stabilize population growth than any government target-driven population control programme. The proof of this can be seen in Western Europe today, where women have complete control over their own fertility and total fertility rates have fallen well below replacement level. The reason this has not happened worldwide is because in developing countries women are still denied the right to choose; contraception is still not widely available; and western governments, in particular the United States, have reneged on the commitments they made in Cairo to provide adequate funding for family planning programmes – largely, it has to be said, because of intense political pressure from the Vatican and its allies, and from the Christian Right in America.

 

For an excellent analysis of how we are damaging the environment and what we can actually do about it, I recommend almost any of the publications of the Worldwatch Institute: www.worldwatch.org. They produce an annual “State of the World” report. The introduction to this year’s report states: Building a world where we meet our own needs without denying future generations a healthy society is not impossible, but the challenge is to mobilize governments, businesses, and civil society to construct economies that are healthy for both people and the planet.

 

There are a number of European organizations working in the field of reproductive health (the new politically correct term for family planning and related services). Notable among them is the Irish Family Planning Association (http://www.ifpa.ie).

The IFPA is a member of the European Network of Population NGOs and takes a keen interest in family planning programmes in developing countries.

 

Humanity is, and always will be, part of the natural world. We continue to foul our nest at our peril. Support for NGOs like the IFPA, World Population Foundation (http://www2.tribute.nl/wpf/uk/main.html), the International Foundation for Population and Development (http://www.ifpd.org) and the Worldwatch Institute (http://www.worldwatch.org) will help raise awareness of the problems of population growth, resource consumption, and sustainability, and hopefully inspire our politicians to help fund worthwhile programmes that can have a real impact in these areas.

 

Roy Brown, IHEU Vice-President