Don't import trouble, export population control.

• Author: Reddy, Raymond M.
• Position: From Readers - Letter to the Editor

Population growth is not "one of the most significant drivers of environmental change" (Letters, July/August), it is the primary driver of destruction. Until it is reversed, worsening inequality in income, wealth, and social power cannot be turned around; and sprawl, habitat destruction, resource depletion, and desertification cannot be stopped. For example, improving women's standing depends on lowering the number of children to which women must devote their lives. And we can't eradicate poverty if people continue to have more children than they or the society can afford. Reversing the growth in human numbers is absolutely necessary, even if not sufficient.

Direct methods of birthrate reduction--outright birth control programs--have proven effective. The combination of (1) using mass media to promote a culture in which people understand the necessity for and the benefits of smaller families, and (2) furnishing contraceptives to all who want them, constitutes a relatively low-cost way to reverse population growth relatively quickly, if appropriately funded. Even poor, very overpopulated Bangladesh has thereby achieved a dramatic reduction in fertility in recent years, improving women's low status and raising per capita GDP. ellbeing is often associated with low fertility, but it's easy to confuse cause and effect. Human betterment depends much more on our reversing population growth than...