Author: Richard

I am a retired obstetrician-gynecologist who has been fortunate to live and work in the wonderful community of Durango, Colorado for 40 years.

Categories
children Environment

Keep Public Lands Public

 

Preserve public lands for children yet to come

 We are fortunate to live in a beautiful part of the world, and also fortunate to have parts of the land preserved as national monuments. Several of these are under review, and it is concerning that the national parks and other protected areas may also be in political jeopardy. Protect them so our children can enjoy them.
Richard

Rio Grande Gorge by Daniel Schwen

You have fished for the trophy trout in the Rio Grande in the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. Or perhaps you’ve hiked Sand Canyon, a bit west of Cortez, and enjoyed the wonderful walking, spring flowers and ancestral Puebloan ruins.

You can kiss these amazing places goodbye if some of today’s politicians have their way. Both the above public lands are controlled by the federal government, as is much of the land in the West. The feds don’t do a perfect job of stewardship, but at least a certain minimum standard of protection is enforced. National monuments restrict and control grazing and extractive industries.

When he was campaigning, Donald Trump pledged to keep public lands under federal control. Unfortunately, ! he is reneging on those promises.

Trump has asked Ryan Zinke, secretary of the Interior, to review 27 of the largest and most recently designated monuments. The idea would be to either abolish these monuments or to decrease their size. It appears that Trump’s motivation is to alter the special monument status for commercial reasons. Yet it is essential that humanity not lose our connection to our land and to our past.

In addition, there are threats to turn control of monuments over to state authorities. At first glance, local control sounds as though it might be a good idea. There would be local or state governments controlling these beautiful parts of our wonderful country. Furthermore, the responsible people wouldn’t need to contact Washington every time they need to buy a new pencil sharpener.

The downside of local control is that local people may! lose sight of the purpose of monuments; they might sell off rights during a time of economic difficulty. Furthermore, locals often don’t have the resources or expertise and would be unable to administer the monuments properly. Many states lack sufficient funds to run their state parks well, let alone take responsibility for national monuments!

National monuments come in all sizes, from a single historical house to the mammoth Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. They were all created by decree by presidents of both parties, on territory that already belonged to the federal government. No president has ever ordered a review before.

Many of the 129 national monuments in the U.S. are of great aesthetic value. Their beauty attracts millions of visitors and is of great value to local economies. Exploration and drilling would spoil their bea! uty and trade short-run profit for long-run ruin.

Bears Ears National Monument was designated at the end of 2016 after years of consideration. It was established with the help of several Native American tribes, who are also involved in its administration. It is under intense scrutiny, probably because of a resolution passed by the Utah legislature “… urging the president to rescind the designation of Bears Ears National Monument designation.”

The response to Utah’s resolution was quick. Clothing giant Patagonia has moved the huge Outdoor Retailer trade show from Utah, where it has been held for 20 years. Other companies joined, and the trade show has announced that the next show will be in Denver. Conservation Colorado put advertisements in Utah papers saying, “We have stronger beer. We have taller peaks. We have higher recreation. But most of all we love our public la! nds.”

Establishing an! d protecting public lands (and oceans) became prudent as our population grew, and as we harvested increasing amounts of the bountiful resources. It is essential to have places for children to explore and for adults to reconnect to the land. In addition, some of the monuments memorialize cultural resources – for instance, Canyons of the Ancients protects more than 6,000 archaeological sites.

There are many good organizations that are monitoring and fighting the attempt to jeopardize public lands. I favor the San Juan Citizens Alliance (sanjuancitizens.org) and Conservation Colorado (conservationco.org). Both have information on their websites and advocate for public lands protection.

We are fortunate to live in a beautiful part of the world that also has copious resources. We should enjoy our surroundings and use the resources carefully but r! emember those who will come after us.

I would like my granddaughters to be able to fish the Rio Grande, hike Sand Canyon and camp in Bullet Canyon without the sounds of pump jacks and chainsaws.

Like you, I have explored parts of Cedar Mesa, which are now protected by Bears Ears National Monument – but perhaps we better hurry back while the monument is still undeveloped.

Or work harder now to preserve it.

© Richard Grossman MD, 2017

Categories
Consumption Contraception Population

Look Where We Need Family Planning the Most

“As we crawled through the city, we encountered a crowded slum area. The temperature was well over 100, and the air was a haze of dust and smoke. The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing, and screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people.”   Ann and Paul Ehrlich in Population Bomb, 1968

Impact = Population x Affluence (consumption) x Technology

                                                Ehrlich and Holdren, 1971

 

Close your eyes for a moment and conjure up an image of overpopulation. Did you picture hundreds of people hanging off a train in India? or dark-skinned crowds in a street in a poor country?

Yes, family planning is important in those scenarios. Voluntary access to modern contraception is important for humanitarian reasons in the global south. You probably know the litany of its benefits: decreased maternal mortality, healthier children, economic savings, progress in standard of living and education, local environmental protection.

However, the need for effective, universal access to family planning and to safe, legal abortion is much more important in rich countries in the global north. This is because of the issue of consumption.

What! you might be asking. The average woman in many African countries has 5 or more children. Niger tops the list; the total fertility rate there is over 7! Surely the population explosion there must be causing problems. Yes, Niger is one of the lowest ranked countries in the UN’s Human Development Index. Repeated drought has caused famine; population pressure and overgrazing cause environmental degradation.

Let’s compare two countries in the Western Hemisphere—the USA and Haiti. They are, respectively, one of the richest and one of the poorest in the world. The carbon footprint of an average person in the USA is about 20 tons of CO2 per year, while that of a Haitian is 0.2 tons—one hundredth of ours! Thus it would take a hundred Haitians to equal the climate damage done by one of us.

Another way to compare the impact of a single person in the two countries is with Ecological Footprint. The ratio between the two countries is 16 to 1. Thus 16 kids of a really large Haitian family would have the same impact of a single-child family in the USA. I have to admit that there are several problems with this comparison: it doesn’t include the two parents, the average Haitian family size is just a little over 3 so I doubt that there are many as large as 16. The legacy of a large family grows over generations. In Niger, if each generation has 7 children, the number of grandchildren would be 49!

The two measures of impact are different. The carbon footprint is global, since carbon emissions into the atmosphere spread over the whole planet. The Ecological Footprint includes carbon emissions, but it also includes effects that are localized, such as damage to the local environment. In any case, the impact of a person in the USA is much greater than one in Haiti or Niger, and it is spread over the planet.

There is good news! The unintended pregnancy rate (this includes mistimed and unwanted pregnancies) has dropped significantly in the USA. Whereas this rate has hovered at about 50% for years, the latest information is that it has dropped to 45%. The news is especially good for young women, when an unintended pregnancy can be devastating. This decrease is due to increasing use of effective contraception. It is very concerning that the new administration threatens women’s reproductive health and may make contraception and abortion services either unaffordable or totally unavailable.© Richard Grossman MD, 2017