It’s great that Grist, the environmentally minded media outlet, is recognizing that media isn’t doing their jobs when they spend a lot more time covering news of the royal baby than climate change. But is it time for Grist to aggressively report on better family planning policies as the most comprehensive and effective way to mitigate the variety of harms climate change is causing?  

Environmentalists have long treated family planning as a taboo subject. It’s glaringly absent from the Green New Deal. But it’s time to break taboo. The businesses that are destroying our environment are breaking it, and urging parents to produce more babies to increase consumption, and to increase a glut of cheap labor and taxpayers for the future. 

We know how to fix this.

A better family planning model and policies – with a focus on smaller and more equitable families – are likely the most effective solution to most of the world’s crises today. Remodeling family planning is the most comprehensive and effective way to promote the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and in some cases proves twenty times more effective than other reforms. Simply stated, the current family planning model used by the United Nations is the fundamental source of the problem. It ensures unsustainable population growth in a way that degrades equality, democracy, and our environment.

This archaic model predates our understanding of climate change, the impact of early childhood development, the way birth conditions and early childhood can exacerbate inequality, etc. Many better models have been proposed, including one by leading political theorist Sarah Conly, and Having Kids’ own model, the Fair Start approach (detailed here).

Take action:

Contact Grist CEO here and urge him to help Grist to break the taboo and aggressively report on better family planning policies. It’s the most comprehensive and effective way to mitigate the harms of climate change.