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SUMMARY:THE POPULATION FACTOR- HOW DOES IT RELATE TO CLIMATE CHANGE?		 - P
 rofessor Malcolm Potts\, Bixby Professor\, Community Health and Human Deve
 lopment\, Berkeley\, University of California
DTSTART:20090310T170000Z
DTEND:20090310T180000Z
UID:TALK15787@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:12189
DESCRIPTION:Any genuine effort to slow global warming will depend on a num
 ber of complementary efforts. The human contribution to climate change is 
 driven primarily by high per capita consumption in the North.  Ninety-nine
  per cent of the projected one to four billion increase in global populati
 on that will occur between now and 2050 will take place in the least devel
 oped countries with the smallest carbon footprints. The unmet need for fam
 ily planning is large and growing\, but the individual desire to consume l
 ess is limited. Generating renewable energy and sequestering carbon are ne
 cessary but expensive technologies with a single goal of reducing greenhou
 se gases. Family planning is a well understood\, low cost endeavor\, with 
 multiple benefits. There is an increasing body of evidence that family siz
 e falls\, even in poor and illiterate societies\, when the numerous barrie
 rs to contraception and safe abortion are removed. Policy makers need to u
 nderstand that birth rates can and should be slowed only by improving acce
 ss to voluntary family planning. Climate scientists need to understand tha
 t preventing unintended pregnancies in both rich and poor countries benefi
 ts women\, their families and the global environment. However\, emphasizin
 g family planning in order “to slow global warming” would be inappropr
 iate.  When the right of women to choose if and when to have a child is re
 spected\, then a welcome side effect of preventing unintended pregnancies 
 will be a modest but useful contribution to slowing global warming. There 
 is an urgent need for DfID and other donors to renew support for internati
 onal family planning.\n\n\nMalcolm Potts\, MB\, BChir\, PhD\, FRCOG\n\nMal
 colm Potts is a British obstetrician with a PhD in embryology from Cambrid
 ge University. He is the Bixby Professor at UC Berkeley and Director of th
 e Fred H. Bixby Center for Population\, Health and Sustainability. Potts h
 as worked internationally since the late 1960s\, when he became the first 
 medical director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. In th
 is capacity he conceptualized the community based distribution of contrace
 ptives and he introduced manual vacuum aspiration for abortion in Europe a
 nd many developing countries. As the President and CEO of Family Health In
 ternational (1978-1990)\, Potts initiated the first population based studi
 es of maternal mortality in poor countries\, and he oversaw collaborative 
 research in family planning\, contraceptive development\, and HIV preventi
 on in 40 countries.  Since coming to UC Berkeley in 1992\, Potts has conti
 nued his work on population and family planning in many countries. He is i
 nterested in cost-effectiveness\, the private as well as the public sector
  and in community involvement to bring family planning and health interven
 tions to a large scale in low-resource settings. He is the principal inves
 tigator in a Fogarty supported program in Northern Nigeria. The most recen
 t of his 12 books is 'Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terror
 ism and Offers a Path to a Safe World'. 
LOCATION:St Edmund’s College\, Garden Room
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