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    • November 23, 2009

    UNFPA says population control is necessary for healthy climate

    by Eric Pavlat

    Tagged as: climate, population, UNFPA

    The views expressed by the authors and editorial staff are not necessarily the views of
    Sophia Institute, Holy Spirit College, or the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts.

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    Eric Pavlat

    By Eric Pavlat

    Eric Pavlat is a convert from Unitarian Universalism who entered the Church in 1996. He lives in Maryland with his wife and six children. He is also a perpetually professed Lay Dominican in St. Pius V Pro-Chapter, located in Catonsville, MD. He founded Democrats for Life of Maryland, Inc., in 2004, served one term as president, and stayed on the board of directors until 2010. He now considers himself more a Distributist than anything else. Eric teaches 10th grade honors and special education students in English literature, composition, and grammar at his alma mater, Parkdale High School.

    More from Crisis

    • Ender
    • Anne

      Well, we’ve come full circle haven’t we? God’s first command was to be fruitful and multiply. The antiGenesis movement’s final command is to do the opposite. The culture of death has it’s new AntiCreation story. I wonder when it will become mandatory…

      [smiley=evil]

    • Mike S.

      It requires a major leap of imagination to believe that CO2 is warming the climate, that polar bears are endangered, or that rising seas will inundate Florida. Nonetheless …

      Are you serious? I don’t think there is any dispute that the planet is warming and that polar bears may soon be in trouble due to their shrinking habitat. The question is to what degree this is man-made or a natural cycle. And what to do about it. Regardless of its cause, there can be serious implications for human populations when climate changes, as we see throughout history.

    • Ender

      Are you serious? I don’t think there is any dispute that the planet is warming and that polar bears may soon be in trouble due to their shrinking habitat.

      NOAA’s annual State of the Climate report released this past August confirms that global warming since 1/1/1999 has been exactly … 0.00 degrees (after the EN/SO effects are removed). Regarding polar bears, in 2002 the World Wildlife Fund published a study of polar bear populations that showed 45% were stable, 16% were increasing, and 14% were decreasing (25% was unknown). I am familiar with the alarmist claims; the evidence doesn’t support them.

    • Mike S.

      I’m not sure of the particulars of that particular NOAA study, but it only covers 10 years – which is nothing, and I’m not sure how it fits with the report they came out with this past January acknowledging that climate change is largely irreversible for the next 1000 years.

      The UN IPCC released a report in 2007 which more than acknowledged climate change.

      The nay-sayers of climate change seem to have their heads in the sand for fears of joining the “alarmists.”

      While polar bears are not yet considered endangered, they were re-classified in 2005 as “vulnerable” by the IUCN World Conservation Union because of melting polar ice. Are you disputing the changes taking place in the Arctic? You may wish to take a trip up there.

      Your comments seem to suggest you see this in black and white terms – either you’re an “alarmist” – aka radical environmentalist, or you’re on the side of truth, denying that ANY climate change (and its effects) is taking place. I’m afraid there are many of us who do not fall into those extremes.

    • Ender

      I am not an extremist, I simply do not believe most of what is being said about global warming and, especially, I do not believe that CO2 is the culprit. I realize that a decade without warming does not prove that warming has stopped, but ten years (soon to be eleven) is significant in that NOAA also indicated that fifteen years without warming would pretty much break all of the climate models.

      For example, your claim about the Arctic – which you refer to as “melting polar ice” – is suspect in that we have two poles and ice seems to be increasing at the other one. More generally, however, pretty much every observed change is implicitly being blamed on increased CO2 even though the connections even to global warming are (like the polar bear scare) tenuous at best.

      • Bono95

        Amen, brother :-)

    • Mike S.

      I am not an extremist, I simply do not believe most of what is being said about global warming and, especially, I do not believe that CO2 is the culprit. I realize that a decade without warming does not prove that warming has stopped, but ten years (soon to be eleven) is significant in that NOAA also indicated that fifteen years without warming would pretty much break all of the climate models.

      For example, your claim about the Arctic – which you refer to as “melting polar ice” – is suspect in that we have two poles and ice seems to be increasing at the other one. More generally, however, pretty much every observed change is implicitly being blamed on increased CO2 even though the connections even to global warming are (like the polar bear scare) tenuous at best.

      I can appreciate your suspicion of some of the information out there, however I think a distinction needs to be made between global warming and climate change. Looking at history, climate change is a real cycle the earth goes through – and it has significantly impacted populations over time. Add to it the human factor post-industrial revolution and it’s very possible the process is accelerating or being exacerbated. “Change” doesn’t mean everything is warming, it means climate is changing, and has potentially serious implications for populations today.

      Global warming, on the other hand, suggests the entire earth is warming, and that seems to be a point of contention among scientists. Clearly, some places seem to be cooling, but that would make sense if other places are warming.

      It seems to me that it’s important to determine as best we can, how we can minimize impact of climate change, even if we’re not positive to what degree humans are causing it.

    • James

      Climate change is a myth. Over population is a myth. Not suprising that they are being pushed by the same people…

    • Kevin in Texas

      Mike and Ender,

      I appreciate both of your series of posts and I think they all link up well with the issue of global climate change as “science” based on the latest revelations from the hacked e-mails at UEA in England. Whatever else they may or may not prove, it’s nearly unthinkable to claim that they show anything less than complicity among some climate scientists around the world in manipulating data, calling it “science”, and then using it to push political ends and/or manipulate gullible politicians and laymen like many of us into believing that somehow those same scientists are engaged in objective scientific research. Like another poster mentioned on another entry here on IC, the leaked e-mails do much to raise suspicions of most sensible lay people as to what many scientists claim in the future.

      Politicians make policy, while scientists, if they are truly dedicated to the scientific method and objectivity, do research and conduct experiments to attempt to explain observable natural phenomena. Politicians (e.g., Al Gore) shouldn’t be speculating on science about which they have no expertise, and on the flip side of that same coin, scientists shouldn’t be involved in making public policy directly. The issue of sources of research funding for scientists is thus a tricky matter, but I think it’s easy to say that we fallen human beings are always going to be tempted to massage our “data” to favor the views of those funding us. This goes for scientists being paid by drug companies or big oil just as much as for those funded by Uncle Sam, i.e., Joe Taxpayer.

      As Catholics we are called to be good stewards of all God’s natural creation in this world. We are also given dominion over all creatures, and that is an awesome responsibility. We can and indeed must make prudential decisions in the micro-realm (e.g., in our individual lives) and in the macro-realm (i.e., at the state and Federal levels) on how to balance the needs of human beings and those of nature. Obviously differences of opinion are strong here, and thus the art of politics is involved. What I abhor, and what we should all abhor, is the degree to which politics drives scientific research, as the two are essentially at odds in many ways in terms of what we know from the Natural Law and from Catholic Tradition and teachings. Look at the UN population groups, abortion rights groups, and radical environmental groups like Greenpeace to see plenty of ungodly examples of putting the rights of the planet and nature above those of human beings from conception to death.

      Alas…no easy answers are forthcoming[smiley=angry]