1 of 1 2 of 1

Environmental educator Noam Dolgin knows that adding more kids to the planet is a no-no for nature. So when the 32-year-old East Vancouverite got engaged last month on a bike trip in Israel, he was still waffling on his own reproductive future.

On the one hand, living in a car-centred, disposable-everything society means that bearing a child can be a small environmental disaster. On the other hand, as a Jewish man, there’s pressure to maintain the culture. What’s a good planetary citizen to do?

“There are still many Jews who believe we must repopulate after the Holocaust and those who believe we have a basic religious imperative to have children,” Dolgin told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “The question in my life is between rearing children and teaching children.”¦I believe in Jewish continuity, but does that necessarily mean I need to bear that child?”

This isn’t familiar ground in Dolgin’s work. Most environmentalists decide when they’re young not to have kids, he noted, and then change their mind as the biological clock ticks on. So he’s frustrated that the movement won’t deal with the big-ticket lifestyle changes needed to avoid a climate apocalypse.

On Christmas, the 76.6 percent of Canadians who identify as Christian, according to Statistics Canada, celebrate a birth that supposedly happened two millennia ago. But when each Canadian is responsible for, on average, 1,600 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions during their life, according to UBC professor William Rees, are babies worth celebrating?

Canadian demographer David Foot wouldn’t answer that question. Though the Straight asked him repeatedly, he would only giggle and refuse.

“Population growth is probably the biggest environmental issue in the world,” Foot said from his office at the University of Toronto, where he teaches economics. He said that most governments, with the exception of China’s, won’t touch it as a “green” issue because “nobody wants to get into the bedrooms of the nation. Pierre Trudeau summed it up very well. It conflicts with religious themes; it contrasts with ethnicity. No political party wants to get involved with that.”

Foot argues that population is a global issue rather than a nationalist issue. In other words, it doesn’t matter if Canada’s women are bearing, on average, 1.5 children, well below the “replacement rate” of 2.1, while women in Niger bear 7.1, according to the World Fertility Patterns 2007 report by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (see box). What matters, said Foot, is the global rate of 2.6—enough to propel the world’s population 40 percent higher by 2050 to a scary 9.5 billion.

That rise could lead to mass unemployment and economic chaos, Foot noted, as is happening in Pakistan. Or, he said, it could result in even faster economic growth, “which creates even more demands on resources in the world”.

The David Suzuki Foundation doesn’t comment on population issues, according to communications coordinator Siri Kramps. On-line, its December 2008 “nature challenge” checklist includes cutting down on wrapping paper but not reconsidering reproduction.

Bruce Cox, executive director of Greenpeace Canada, explained why population growth is not a top priority for his environmental group.

“Look at the time line on urgency,” he told the Straight. “Controlling overpopulation is a long-term solution that will take one or more generations to turn it around. We are literally counting days on climate change.”

Beth Cruise, the executive director of the Canadian Earth Institute, told the Straight she’s “not surprised it’s not being talked about by [most] environmental groups.”¦I think it’s a core issue at the very heart of being a human.”

The institute, which promotes environmental change by involving citizens in small group discussions, does address population issues, she said. But the answer isn’t obvious. “Everyone is out buying low-energy light bulbs,” Cruise said. “But we are actually going to have to change our standard of living.”

Fertility-rate drop is a global phenomenon

> In the 30 years from 1975 to 2005, the global fertility rate—the average number of children each woman has—dropped from 4.5 to 2.6.

> Even in least-developed countries, the rate dropped from 6.6 to 5.0.

> During that period, Canada’s rate fell from 2.3 to 1.5.

> In 1975, 11 countries had fertility rates that were below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman.

> In 2005, 69 countries were below the replacement rate.

> China’s fertility rate dropped from 5.7 to 1.4 over those 30 years.

> India’s rate dropped from 4.9 to 2.8 children per woman.

> The world’s highest 2005 fertility rates were in Africa: Niger (7.1), Angola (6.9), and Guinea-Bissau (6.8).

> The world’s lowest 2005 fertility rates were in Asia: Macao (0.8), Hong Kong (1), and Korea (1.2).

> Several European countries also had fertility rates of 1.2.

> In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the 1968 encyclical letter prohibiting Catholics from using artificial birth control.

Source: United Nations World Fertility Patterns 2007 report