Mother: Caring for 7 Billion Page #6

that we empower women,

I mean it's just common sense

and it's difficult to

understand...

why we are still not getting it.

Why we are still keeping

half of the population

in a situation where,

it cannot contribute to

the wealth...

of the country and to

the wealth of the world.

I'm hoping, that one day...

we would have... more women

who would have opportunities

to go to school,

to learn how to read and write,

to learn their rights.

Not even from western ideologies,

within their culture,

within their religion,

they have rights,

but they don't know.

And we don't have to go

far to start...

teaching them these things.

We can start right from within

the culture

and then go the next steps.

You can't liberate the women...

without changing the men or

you will just end up with

a lot of beaten women.

So changing...

men's minds about the

humanity of women

is critically important.

Start talking about that

vexing thing

called gender.

You know people feel uncomfortable

talking about it,

but as the great sociologist

Louis Wirth said,

"The most important things

about a society

are those that people feel

uncomfortable talking about.

We saw that about race

and we certainly see it

about gender.

Before Copernicus

everyone thought that the Earth

was the center of the Universe

because the Sun revolved

around the Earth.

The whole field of astronomy

had to be reconstructed

and that's where we are

now with economics

and economic policy.

We've got to reconstruct

the whole thing

and to realize that

it is the economy

that is a subset of the

Earth's environment.

What does it take for

humanity to live

within the means of

one planet?

We haven't found the

silver bullet yet.

But essentially you start to look

at all these five factors:

population, consumption, efficiency...

productivity of ecosystems, etc.

to see how we can match

them all

to get us back... within,

the capacity of one planet

and possibly even below

that line because

some space we want

to leave for wild species

because they too need food.

If there's anything we know is

coded into our genes

it's out-reproduce your buddies.

That is the principle of

natural selection,

we wouldn't be here if

it doesn't work,

we do it in the laboratory

all the time,

we see it in nature all the time

but human beings use culture

to override it

No society we know has ever

fully exercised it's ability

to keep reproducing.

The big problem today intellectually

is consumption.

Many economists think

that the solution

to every economic problem

is to consume more.

But of course to consume

more means

wrecking the planet more.

And we don't have... there are no

consumption condoms.

The reason you want to

start controling

the size of the population early,

is that to do it humanely,

it takes many decades.

Whereas we know we can solve

the consumption problem,

in a very short time.

We're going to need

a different compass

than growth as it is

currently measured.

We want to grow in wisdom,

we want to grow in knowledge,

we want to grow in just

plain smarts

in figuring out how to live well

and take care of each other

on this planet.

There's many opportunities

now for

developing countries to be

able to leap frog

over the traditional path

of development,

the way that we got rich

in the US or in Europe.

In every poor community

you're going to find

these kinds of social entrepreneurs

that are figuring out

a different way to create

a better lifestyle.

People are already creating

solar energy

and bio gas solutions,

more village level or homestead

level solutions.

The real wealth of a nation,

indeed of the world

is not financial.

We've certainly seen that

in the economic melt down;

that the real wealth of a

nation consists

really of the contributions

of people and of nature.

And we therefore need

what we haven't had

economic policies that give

visibility and value

to the work of caring for people,

starting in early childhood

and caring for our Mother Earth.

Sweden, Finland, Norway,

invested in what I call

a Caring Economic System.

They have policies that are very,

very much intended

to help care for people

starting in early childhood

not only universal health care,

high quality childcare,

very generous paid parental leave

for both mothers and fathers.

Common wisdom would say

that these should be countries

with a very large population

because after all these are what

we call family friendly policies,

but on the contrary

they have a very stable,

low population growth.

By investing more,

as the Nordic nations have

in that high quality human capital

you have a more skilled,

if you will, functionally

literate society

and you also will have people

who will contribute more

to programs like social security.

This is a kind of shift

that is very tough to imagine

in our current political climate

but this idea of investment

of public goods

is a big part of a sustainable

economy.

Before I went to Ethiopia

I intellectually understood...

JP's position about having

a smaller biological family.

But now... I feel like I really get it.

About how population is

the thing

putting all this pressure on

children's rights and...

on our planet.

I think it's interesting

that I'm the one...

being in this population film.

My brothers and sisters have gone

on to have many children.

Their children are now

having children.

A lot people have advanced

degrees.

We have a surgeon,

lawyers, doctors,

but it's still just an issue

of numbers.

Each person has a car, each

person has to have a home.

The impact is huge.

And I realize that it...

it starts with

people like me and like JP

just sitting down together

at the beginning of our families

and saying, "Our planets limits

have changed. "

"How are we going to change

how we make a family?

As long as you acknowledge that

you do have choices

and you take responsibility

for those choices,

I think happiness is something

that we all can have

whether or not we

have a child, or not

whether we are parents or not.

Everyone has their own path,

everyone has their own choices,

everyone has their own desires,

hopes and dreams

and that diversity is a

good thing.

There are people working on

the climate change issue.

There are people working

on agricultural issues,

food security, HIV/ AIDS, etc.

We cannot deny...

that population growth

is the common factor

that could help the

missions and agendas

of all of these separate groups.

There should be more dialogues

between those groups,

there should be more

comprehensive...

programs being delivered

into communities.

So until we reprioritize...

we're going to continue

to just focus on...

crises that result from

population growth issues...

of the day.

We will need our collective

thinking as humans.

And that's an opportunity

maybe,

to break the barrier

between

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