EDC President Margaret Liles

The fact that this “gag rule” increased the number of abortions in the world did not penetrate the emotional armor of the so-called “pro-lifers”. I say “so-called” because I refuse to believe that my pro-choice stand makes me anti-life. I have often stated that the way to reduce abortion is to increase the availability of birth control. Laws against abortion do not reduce the per-capita rate of abortion—the abortion rate in Western Europe, where safe abortions are readily available, is much lower than it is in the USA. And the abortion rate in Brazil, where abortion is illegal, is much higher than in the USA. Ready access to family planning worldwide is crucial in addressing the greatest challenge facing humanity, human overpopulation.

Trying to solve environmental problems without solving the problem of human overpopulation is like solving a leaky fountain pen with rubber gloves. When my mother was born in 1911, there was less than one-third the population that exists today. It would take three of our planets to support the world’s population in a standard of living enjoyed by citizens of the industrialized nations. Deniers of the problem of overpopulation claim that there can be no problem of overpopulation, because the prices of basic commodities such as food, water, and oil have not increased. Well, guess what? The prices of those commodities are increasing. Over one-sixth of the world’s people do not have access to clean water. We’ve seen a lowering of gas prices, but it will be ephemeral. And anyone who does the grocery shopping knows what has happened to food prices.

Around 400 AD, a group of Polynesians colonized a small, very remote, volcanic island in the Pacific, now called Easter Island. They found an island covered by palm forest, abundantly supplied with fresh water, large seabird colonies, and many species of land mammals and birds. The huge palm trees provided not only palm fruit, but were also ideal for the construction of boats that allowed early Easter Islanders to hunt porpoises. The population grew, their civilization flourished. Huge statues were carved from the volcanic rock. More palms were hewed and used to roll and lift the huge statues into place. More palms were cleared to create fields. By 1400 the palm forests were gone. Left to the full fury of the rain and wind, the delicate tropical soil eroded away. With no forest to absorb the rain, springs and streams dried up. As resources declined, warfare between islanders increased, along with cannibalism. The population that peaked at around 10,000 in 1600, even as the quality of life declined. Then the population crashed, so that when it was “discovered” in 1722, it was below 2,000. Jared Diamond said it best, “Easter Island is the Earth writ small. We too have no emigration valve.”

Like the Easter Islanders, we are depleting our natural resources much, much faster than they can be regenerated. In the last 100 years humans have increased the level of CO2 in the atmosphere by 30 percent over the average of the last 200,000 years. Over the last thirty years we have paved over hundreds of millions of acres of good farmland. Every year we are losing two percent of the world’s precious rain forests.

So, what can we do? We can make a start, locally, by embracing “smart growth” plans that promote redevelopment rather that paving over habitat and farmland. We can support national and international voluntary falmily planning. As Madleine Albright state, a family planning program “raises the status of women, stems the flow of refugees, protects the environment, promotes economic growth and reduces abortion.”

We can become active environmentalists, “tree-huggers”. One can imaging a “tree-hugging” Easter Islander in the year 1300, suggesting to his community leaders that cutting down so many palms was killing the native birds and mammals, and might be the reason that the local spring had dried up. “Do we really need another statue, just to outdo the neighbors?” he might have asked his fellow islanders. No doubt such an Easter Islander would have been ridiculed by the local leaders—after all, the statue makers and palm cutters had to make a living. Perhaps, had there been more tree-hugging Easter Islanders, history would have told a different tale.

So, wear the title “tree-hugger” proudly.