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We are living in a pivotal moment: pivotal for the earth’s climate, for other natural systems, and for world population. The decisions made today, especially by policymakers and by the world’s estimated 3 billion people under the age of 25, will determine whether human numbers grow from 6.8 billion to 8 billion, or even 11 billion, by 2050.

As the world struggles to respond to climate change, concern about population growth is making a comeback—and raising critical questions: To what extent are demographic changes a factor in today’s environmental problems? Are these issues a subject for debate in Copenhagen? Could renewed interest in population growth present an opportunity to mobilize resources for reproductive health, women’s rights and other vitally important programs? Is there a risk that fears of exponential growth will revive population policies that trample, rather than advance, women’s health and human rights?

Join Laurie Mazur, editor of A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice and the Environmental Challenge (Island Press, 2009), and a panel of experts to discuss the complex connections among population growth, climate change and other environmental issues, and explore the policies necessary to advance environmental sustainability and reproductive rights, equity and justice.

Copies of A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice and the Environmental Challenge will be available for purchase at the event.

Featured Speakers:

Laurie Mazur, editor, A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice and the Environmental Challenge

Andrew Light, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress; Director, Center for Global Ethics at George Mason University

Rachel Harris, U.S. Climate Change Campaign Coordinator, Women’s Environment and Development Organization

Moderated by:

Shira Saperstein, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress