False Targeting: Family Planning and the Environment

Environmental degradation and climate change are urgent problems that need careful consideration and action. We should strive to better understand their sources, so we can arrive at socially just responses that benefit the environment, people and our communities.

This means recognizing when population trends like urbanization and density have
an environmental impact. However, it also requires challenging the notion that popu- lation is inevitably the source of environ- mental problems. We should take on what eco-socialists Ian Angus and Simon Butler call “populationism” in environmentalism.