Overpopulation, climate change are intertwined problems

We keep the overpopulation issue a “forbidden thought’’ to our peril (“Forbidden thoughts’’ by Anne Bernays, Opinion, April 14).

From Thomas Malthus to Paul Ehrlich, the question of feeding an ever-expanding population has been a topic of heated dispute for hundreds of years.

Some say the so-called green revolution, which increased agricultural production worldwide, has solved the problem. But quite to the contrary, its benefits are already waning, while the dangers of growing our food with nothing but fossil fuels and chemicals are taking their toll. In the long term, this is unsustainable.

The direct link between population and climate change has also been exposed. As there are ever more mouths to feed, we continue to alter the planet in harmful ways as we struggle to grow more and more crops and raise all types of livestock, from cattle to chickens to fish.

The two problems are permanently intertwined, and we must force our world leaders to deal with them as such.

Scientists term our current dilemma overshoot, which ecologists define as growth exceeding an area’s carrying capacity. This leads to a crash and die-off.

The carrying capacity of the earth, like a lifeboat at sea, is determined by the finite amounts of all the resources we need to have for our survival.

All the other issues that Bernays describes, though important, will become moot points if we fail to prevent the overload of our lifeboat earth. There is no backup planet.

Rick Cutler

Arlington

Many overlook fact that world’s birthrate has been falling

While I thoroughly agree with Anne Bernays that the world is overpopulated and that too few people are willing to acknowledge this fact, it is simply not true that “most of the world reproduces like rabbits.’’

Many people, apparently including Bernays, don’t realize that the world’s birthrate has been falling since 1970. Today, the total fertility rate (average births per woman) worldwide is less than 2.5. In India it is 2.4.

Only in countries plagued by poverty, war, or both — mostly in Africa — does the average woman have more than three children.

The evidence indicates that most couples want to have a moderate number of children, and will do so if they have access to reproductive information and contraception.

Hundreds of millions of women, though, do not have that access. Organizations like Pathfinder International and the United Nations Population Fund seek to make family planning services available to all who want them, as most people do.

Lori Kenschaft

Arlington

The writer is a coauthor of “Gender Inequality in Our Changing World: A Comparative Approach,’’ a college textbook.