Environmentally Sustainable Childbirth

Journal #9: July 5, 2010
Topic: SOW Section: Environmentally Sustainable Childbirth

As I continued to read “Traditions Old and New,” I came across another very interesting section titled Environmentally Sustainable Childbirth.  The section addresses whether or not the current population is hazardous to the environment and whether or not limiting the amount of children a person can have will have any positive effect.

Many developing-country governments believe that population growth is too rapid in their countries.  Many people believe that it is time to evolve cultures that actively promote an average number of children born to each woman so low that the population shrinks in the near future. 

The current average fertility (2.5 children per woman) is only slightly above the fertility that would yield a stable human population size (2.3 children per woman).  It’s hard to tell which is the largest factor in fertility: culture and women’s response to its influence or the accumulation of accidental pregnancies.  With the exception of China’s “one child rule,” which was put into place because of a shortage of natural resources, it’s hard to identify a culture where small families are promoted to assure environmental sustainability.

One thing is for sure – countries that provide women and men access to safe contraceptive, backed up by safe abortion, have fertility rates low enough to end or reverse population growth.

There are many abuses of reproductive rights noted in many countries, such as incentive payments for sterilization to forced abortions which have been noted in India and China.  These factors have sourced policymakers and healthcare professionals on population policies, programs, and media messages aimed at convincing women to have fewer children.

Engaging Religions to Shape Worldviews

Journal #8: July 1, 2010

Topic: SOW Section: Engaging Religions to Shape Worldviews

For the first group project, the section that my group had was “Traditions Old and New.”  The section that I found most intriguing was Engaging Religions to Shape Worldviews.  This section covered how religions affect sustainability.  Before reading this, I never realized the great impact that religions can have on the environmental movement.  I’ve always known that about four out of five people consider themselves religious, but I never really considered religious leaders to be in on the environmental movement.  I now know that I was wrong.

Many religions, such as Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism can be powerful weapons in preventing an environmental crisis because of each tradition’s respect for nature.  Even though religious activism is more predominant now than it has been in the past, it is quite rare that we hear religious leaders speak up.  

According to the book, State of the World, there are several things that religious and spiritual traditions can offer in creating a culture of sustainability.  These include: educating about the environment, educating about consumption, educating about investments, expressing the sacredness of the natural world through rituals, and reclaiming forgotten assets.