'Contraception cheapest way to combat climate change'

Demonique

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6161742/Contraception-cheapest-way-to-combat-climate-change.html


Contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green technologies, according to research by the London School of Economics.


Every £4 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of £19 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, the research says.

The report, Fewer Emitter, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, concludes that family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emissions reduction. The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended.

If these basic family planning needs were met, 34 gigatons (billion tonnes) of CO2 would be saved – equivalent to nearly 6 times the annual emissions of the US and almost 60 times the UK’s annual total.

Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust at the LSE, said: “It’s always been obviously that total emissions depend on the number of emitters as well as their individual emissions – the carbon tonnage can’t shoot down as we want, while the population keeps shooting up.”

UN data suggests that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 million.

The research is published on the day that the Government’s climate change advisers, the Climate Change Committee, warned households and industry that a planned 80 per cent reduction in emissions are likely to prove insufficient.

EoghanIRL

Concentration camps work pretty good too .

Alf. A. Male

Just to expand on the theory, who exactly are you going to stop from having children if they want them?

fullaljackeen

Meanwhile the ONE CHILD POLICY NATION, CHINA are burning through the worlds coal reserves at a rate of knots.

But yeah. Ban the family. They're the bad guys.

lol

force eleven

Carbon tax on babies then? Seems logical.

Sam Kade

Maybe if we shot politicians and climate scientists that would solve the problem fairly quick seeing as they are the ones that keep moaning about it

Turtwig

The timing of its publication makes me skeptical. I haven't glanced at the study but most of the time carbon footprints were calculated by dividing the total emissions of a nation by its population. In short, it's not really a useful figure as certain proportions of society will invariably have a much higher footprint than others. People in Africa have no where near the emissions impact that people in the US or Europe do. In fact, over population is always analysed incorrectly. It's not about the the number of people in a country, it's about the number of resources consumed per person in that country. Looked at this way. The United States is the most over populated nation on the planet!

I only hope this report used a more refined calculation for footprints.

maryishere

fullaljackeen wrote: »

Meanwhile the ONE CHILD POLICY NATION, CHINA are burning through the worlds coal reserves at a rate of knots.

Imagine the amount of coal they would be burning now and in to the future if they had 6 or 12 in each family? That would not have been sustainable. There are over a billion Chinese as it is.

mike65

The article would have been insightful had it been written 60 years ago, as it is the population explosion is in fact over, what we are now dealing with is the unavoidable consequence of the previous two generations of fertility which will not be fully played out until about 2080/90.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxbprYyjyyU

If you have an hour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vahQwO6iHpE

gctest50

fullaljackeen wrote: »

Meanwhile the ONE CHILD POLICY NATION, CHINA are burning through the worlds coal reserves at a rate of knots.

You wouldn't think they'd be burning almost as much as the rest of the world

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=16271

Bongalongherb

Well, those cows out in the fields of the Boyne farting constantly need contraception to ease climate-change. But if we have this basic attitude, then we will need to produce a government initiative to heed human fart-extractions, and we can lower the C02 and save the planet indefinitely.

A condom on naturalness.

Nay.

Charlie19

fullaljackeen wrote: »

Meanwhile the ONE CHILD POLICY NATION, CHINA are burning through the worlds coal reserves at a rate of knots.

But yeah. Ban the family. They're the bad guys.

lol

I hope Kingspan are following this thread.

comongethappy

So having 10+ kids may not be a bad thing!

Who knew!

Chinasea

mike65 wrote: »

The article would have been insightful had it been written 60 years ago, as it is the population explosion is in fact over, what we are now dealing with is the unavoidable consequence of the previous two generations of fertility which will not be fully played
e]

Absolutely, but just like now nobody pays heed to it.

Hermy

Demonique wrote: »

...preventing climate change...

Do people honestly believe that it's possible to stop the earth's climate from changing?
It's been changing since the world started turning and no amount of family planning is gonna stop it from continuing to change.