Putin’s War Diverts Attention From Climate Crisis Caused By Too Many Humans

By Donald A. Collins | 2 March 2022
Church and State

(Credit: Dreamstime.com)

Today’s Ukrainian invasion headlines seem likely to continue for a long time; hopefully not, as the UN report on our climate crisis, the world’s nearly 8 billion have only 10 years to solve the problems climate is causing!

Read here the urgent request for action from the UN.

As author, Jake Johnson, for Common Dreams started in the above story with the heading “UN Chief: IPCC Report a ‘Damning Indictment of Failed Climate Leadership’”–“The facts are undeniable. This abdication of leadership is criminal,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.”

Yes, the adverse facts on climate are recognized. Hooray for brave young Greta Thunberg in raising support, of which much more is needed.

However, the main problem is not recognizing (or admitting) the underlying problem articulated so cogently by many top environmental scholars and activists such as Sir David Attenborough and the late E.O. Wilson.

That problem, as I and many other writers have so often articulated, is that human numbers now outstrip the earth’s capacity to sustain habitable life.

My book, among many, repeats the excess population story and elucidates why population excess is ignored: Briefly key factors include the result of competitive business growth which ignores environmental problems and the activism by some religions to restrict family planning. These impediments lie at the root of pursuing a plausible, voluntary, inexpensive solution: providing all women free access to safe, convenient, inexpensive methods of family planning.

A fraction of what the US now spends on military preparedness could pay for all family planning in the US and even in large parts of the world, with huge cost savings in general health care and in avoiding abortions.

The hot button of abortion gets used by religious zealots, who are often against all family planning, ignoring the fact that in the US now over 50 percent of all pregnancies are unintended!

The disasters of war, famine, pestilence, and disease will continue to accelerate, goaded by these burgeoning factors, led by failure to grant full equity to women.

Experts advise that family planning would reduce the present yearly growth of human numbers by about 80 million instead of now adding a net addition of 80 million (births over deaths) which if unaddressed could mean 11 billion by 2100. This assumes no massive reductions in human numbers from the above punitive causes. Human population in my 91 years has grown four times from 2 billion.

So many abject human failures to act! Currently they include Roe’s likely demise, the world’s leaders continuing failure to act on human numbers, the failure to seek full equality for women, and the religious and secular biases that increases the urge for more tribal members, will continue to attack efforts to reduce our human numbers.

Putin may “double down” in Ukraine and his threat of using nuclear weapons could make the situation highly perilous, but I predict that some Russian group will act on the inanity of Putin’s war and do as Nikita Khrushchev did in avoiding a nuclear response. I loved the idea of one pundit I heard on CNN who recommended that NATO offer safety, jobs and citizenship in other countries to any Russian army defector, as so many are young, and very unenthusiastic about low pay in worthless rubles and getting killed.

Worst case scenario now will be seeing the need for Ukrainians to continue to conduct a punishing guerrilla war with huge losses on both sides!

Let’s hope some brave Russian Nikita’s will arise soon.

But until the women of the world are giving full access to family planning including abortion, the world situation will continue to deteriorate.

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?: Leaders Commit to Reduce Human Population” and “Vote”.

U.N. report warns of devastating impacts of climate change

Sir David Attenborough on overpopulation

Climate Change: Code Red for Humanity — UNFPA

What Happens To Abortion Rights If The Supreme Court Overrules Roe v. Wade?

Will Putin start a nuclear war over Ukraine?

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