ELLEN GOODMAN’S piece “The ‘human’ factor is missing in Copenhagen’’ addresses one of the issues that will have a huge effect on our planet to face global warming and oil depletion - overpopulation. She notes fertility rates go down without coercion when women have access to contraceptives and family planning. Environmental groups have shied from the problem of population because they are afraid of anti-abortion groups.

Yet some people have started to speak out again. We will not solve the problem of global warming if we do not reduce the number of humans on the planet. There is the problem between the poor countries and the rich, but having been a Peace Corps volunteer twice, once in Ivory Coast and once in Senegal, I know that many African women would like to reduce the number of children they have, but have no access to birth control. Their lives would be better.