We’re all going to die!  Only a lot later and with healthier arteries according to political satirist Stephen Colbert’s side-splitting riff on recent reports that the global bacon supply is “cooked”.

Britain’s National Pig Association released data recently showing that European pig herds are declining “at a significant rate” in a trend mirrored around the world.  Nothing sinister at play here, it’s chalked up to conscious decision-making by individual farmers as they react to rising feed prices.  Those price spikes, in turn, can be pinned on global warming and growing competition for corn and soybeans from processed foods and biofuels. Think this doesn’t matter to pork-eschewing folks in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Gulf states? 

Think again, too, my vegetarian friends.  America’s Corn Belt suffered its worst drought in 56 years. Devastated corn and soybean crops in that nation translate into less feed for the rest of the world: America’s the top supplier.  So, operating costs rise for commercial pig farms across the European Union (EU), who react by reducing herds.  It’s a trend that’s “being mirrored around the world,”  according to the Financial Times.  Other types of animal ranching are also feeling the pinch.

Pigs may seem an unlikely economic indicator, but in China, as example,  the food price cycle is driven largely by pork, China’s staple meat.  In the next 6 months, Chinese farmers are also expected to stage sell-offs to cut steep overheads.  The resultant reduction in animal stocks will cause prices to surge. Increased food prices bump up inflation, but rising prices will also fuel social unrest.  China imports 60% of the global soybeans commodity and is the sixth-biggest corn importer.

Next year, the number of  pigs slaughtered throughout the EU could drop 10%, doubling European pork prices.  The US Department of Agriculture reported that last month America’s warehoused pork soared to record highs, rising 31% to over 580 million pounds. This supply bulge becomes problematic when hog stocks are not replenished.  Grab those chops while you can, America, because when this batch goes the next shipment will be smaller and costlier.

And here, Patient Reader, is where the story comes back to Middle Eastern pantries.

What do you think pork-eaters will turn to when it’s priced beyond their means? Potentially, if this trend continues, beef and chicken farmers (also dependant upon vegetable-based feedstock) will drop production.  Our food streams are interlinked, it’s the perfectly named “foodchain”.

No pork?  It’ll stress chicken, beef and fish producers.  People in lower economic brackets will depend more on grains and vegetables. The global shopping cart gets filled in new patterns.

Green Prophet’s reported on Iranians who are  moving towards vegetarianism since meat is no longer in the budget.  Tafline’s written about how Iranian films may be banned if chicken meals play a cameo role due to concerns it would incite the poor to rebel. Last July, the World Bank reported world food prices jumped 10% higher than June figures.   Soybeans rose 17%, while corn and wheat skyrocketed 25%.

The Guardian stirred the pot, reporting that we may need to switch to a near-vegetarian diet over the next four decades “to avoid catastrophic food shortages.”  This warning stems from concerns that water-dependent meat production for a predicted 9 billion people is unsustainable. It takes tenfold as much water to sustain a meat-based diet as it does to support a vegetarian one.

“There will not be enough water available to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets in western nations,” the report by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.

Reduce one food source and increase pressure on others.  This is serious stuff.  Even the International Federation of Competitive Eating has reacted announcing it will suspend all bacon eating contests.  In a news release to the Huffington Post, Richard Shea said calling off the competitions “was the right thing to do.  We cannot, in good conscience, allow [top ranked eater] Joey Chestnut to eat bacon during a global pork shortage,” said Shea.  “We estimate that Joey alone could eat 20 pounds of bacon in 10 minutes of competition.”

But perhaps think of it this way.  The supply chain and transportation of meat and dairy and their by-products create over half the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Less meat-eating means less agricultural water consumption and a steep cutback in global methane production.  So this could be the start of a paradigm switch, an after-effect of global warming that may actually force more sustainable behaviors on us. Just don’t hog my hummus.

Picture of happy pigs from Shutterstock 

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With dwindling environmental resources and rampant poverty exacerbated by rapidly growing populations, family planning is a crucial environmental issue across the Middle East.

According to a recent report by The Jordan Times almost 25 percent of births in Jordan are unplanned because of a lack of available family planning resources.

Iraq and Yemen have especially high fertility rates, with the potential to double their populations by 2100. Qatar and Bahrain also have steadily growing birthrates.

And so as is the case across the planet, but especially so in the Middle East, women’s reproductive rights are intertwined with issues beyond gender equality. Poverty, national security, environmental problems and economic development are all influenced by women’s access to family planning resources.

During the last week of May the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), met in Paris to sign an agreement linking reproductive rights and family planning to climate change, especially in developing countries.

These agreements were created before the Rio+20 U.N. Summit in Brazil in the hopes of making women’s health a priority in global climate talks. Egypt’s Kenana NGO For Women And Youth Development and Dr. Hala Yousry, a representative from an Egyptian Arab women’s group, signed onto the Women’s Rio+20 petition urging the U.N. to link women’s health and equality to sustainable development efforts.

It’s naive to think that a U.N. agreement would automatically impact the planet’s dire overpopulation problem. A woman’s access to family planning is complex, depending on her education, resources and community infrastructure. No ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution would be able to address population control and reproductive rights across the religiously and culturally diverse Middle East. It will not be quick or easy. But finding appropriate, local solutions is vital to the region’s stability.

Image of pregnant woman from Shutterstock

Read more about the growing population in the Middle East:

World Population Hits 7 Billion Today
MENA and the Muslim World: Can Having Less Babies Really Save The World?
Iranian President Wants Girls to Marry at 16

The post Women, Rio+20 and the Green Future of the Middle East appeared first on Green Prophet.

Israel will host the first SlutWalk in the Middle East this weekend, but the movement has growing support in other countries, including Morocco. Will these efforts finally lead to greater freedom for women of all religious persuasions?

When I wrote the article, The Middle East Needs More Sluts, the response was overwhelming and heated, with opinions following roughly along religious lines.  Secular and progressive readers understood that the title was more than a headline grabber, and an invitation to reconsider the negative stereotypes of language used to denigrate and control women. The more conservative respondents were horrified by the language, and pointed to the moral values of modesty, something they couldn’t see in women who seemed to dress, look or act certain ways.

Both groups have valid points. Now that SlutWalk is coming to Israel, will they meet at the intersection and finally talk?

Even as I champion the causes of social justice and women’s rights, particularly sexual and reproductive wellbeing, I’m also conscious how that freedom must be balanced with a deep sense of self and other respect.  Modesty and sexual freedom may not seem like common bedfellows, but they are part of the whole continuum of empowering women and men alike.

That is because the real power of SlutWalk is the separation of a woman’s worth from her sexuality. Male or female in fact – our morality and virtue must be severed from our reproductive rights and abilities. SlutWalk isn’t just for those who dress provocatively or experience their sexuality outside current social morays.  It’s a statement of freedom for everyone who specifically understands and wants to eradicate harm from vitriolic language and ‘slut-shaming,’ as well as those who believe that full and complete female emancipation benefits us all.

What’s more, creating an environmentally sustainable world rests on women’s shoulders.  “Women are often the first ones to transmit [environmental] values to their societies and children,” wrote Green Prophet founder and editor, Karin Kloosterman, in SlutWalk Israel –  A First for the Middle East.

Israel isn’t the only country in the MENA region focused on this effort. SlutWalk Morrocco boasts an active Facebook page for those who read French.

Finally, another essential factor of SlutWalk cannot be stressed enough: The surest route to maintaining environmentally sustainable populations is basic sexual rights for women.

It Starts With Basic Human Rights

The International Women’s Health Coalition’s stance on the right of women to control their sexuality is unequivocal on this.

“The right of women to control their sexuality—the basis for sexual rights—is an indivisible part of their human rights, and that without it, women cannot fully realize their other human rights. This notion has been reaffirmed at several subsequent international meetings, but in practice, few countries’ laws and policies provide women with effective protection against coercion, discrimination, and violence, and fundamentalist states and movements all over the world consistently target women’s sexual and reproductive autonomy.”

Nicholas D. Kristof, renowned a New York Times Op-Ed columnist and co-author with Sheryl WuDunn of, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009), pointed out that critical relationship between elevating the roles of woman and building stronger societies.

He writes: “greater female involvement in society and the economy appears to undermine extremism and terrorism.  Now it is emerging that male domination of society is also a risk factor; the reasons aren’t fully understood, but it may be that when women are marginalized the nation takes on the testosterone-laden culture of a military camp or a high-school boys’ locker room.”

How Women Help the Planet

Creating an environmentally sustainable world also requires the full participation and emancipation of women. Robert Engleman, author of More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want (Island Books, 2007), addressed this in an interview with WorldWatch Institute.  He asserts that in societies where women’s rights are equal to men’s, women take control of their own fertility and invariably have two or fewer children, on average. Such low fertility rates then lead to a gradual decline in population in the absence of net immigration.

“It makes sense that those who bear children and do most of the work in raising them should have the final say in when, and when not, to do so. By making their own decisions based on what’s best for themselves and their children, women ultimately bring about a global good that governments could never deliver through regulation or control: a population in balance with nature’s resources.”

SlutWalk Israel may not be a comfortable medium for many in the Middle East, and there are those who will denounce the effort as meaningless, offensive, disrespectful or ill-advised. “But when enraged voices need to be heard, maybe a SlutWalk is a good way to vent frustrations and create a lot of press attention to the issues at hand,” writes Kloosterman.

Other bloggers have taken even stronger stances:

“Let’s separate sex and power for one second, and admit that in a 21st Century world, telling women that what they wear somehow impedes their message is antiquated. We ought to move forward in a world where a woman can dress how she would like and not be told she’s “asking for it”, not be told she’s not “serious” because her manner of dress doesn’t conform to so predetermined, archaic norm prescribed by men in order to control their impulses. The desire to rape is a psychological urge primarily experienced by men that they must deal with. Leave women out of it.”

And Alona Ferber for Haaretz Daily Newspaper wrote: “Whether or not you agree with the medium, perhaps one of the most important messages SlutWalk can deliver is that whatever their religion, taste in clothes, or sexual preference, women, and men for that matter, should be free to make their own choices, without being subject to prejudice, stereotype or violence.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Read More on Women’s Rights:
SlutWalk Israel – A First for the Middle East
Egyptian Women Forced to Take ‘Virginity’ Tests During Protest, Amnesty International
US Senator Olympia Snowe Leads Women in Renewed Call for Women’s Rights in the Middle East
When Females Rule Fornication, Mother Earth Delights

The post SlutWalk Israel A Step Forward For Religious and Conservative Women appeared first on Green Prophet.

The world population hits seven billion and the Middle East is playing its role with one of the fastest growing cities on earth

According to UN estimates the world population will reach seven billion today. It’s a pretty big feat considering that we hit six billion a little over a decade ago and the world population at the birth of Christ was just two hundred million. To mark this milestone, Foreign Policy have put together a list of the seven fastest growing cities in the world and it turns out that the capital city of Yemen, Sana’a, is one of them.

Political Instability & Population Boom

It’s been a tumultuous year for Yemen, which has seen daily shellings and protests calling on the current president Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign. Even so, the capital city of Sana’a is witnessing a population boom with inhabitants now reaching 1.7 million people.  Although the city is not the safest place to live, many choose to stay there as facilities are better in contrast to the rural areas of the country.

Yemen is believed to be one of the poorest nations on earth with many residents heavily dependent on money sent to them from relatives working abroad. Poor education and taboos against birth control also mean that the growth rate is at around 5 percent annually. Nearly half of all Yemenis live under the poverty line and more than 50% of children are said to be malnourished.

UNDP: Severe Water Shortages in Yemen

Tawakul Karman, who was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize has spoken in the past about the need for better education and women’s right in the country.

As well as being economically poor, the country is also resource poor. There is a severe lack of water according to officials from the U.N. Development Program and dwindling oil supplies mean the country can’t afford to finance desalination like other richer Gulf nations. Indeed, Sana’a is on route to be the world’s first waterless capital.

Consumption vs. Population

Whilst the MENA region population is expected to rise from 423 million (2007) to 800-900 million by the end of the 21^st century, there isn’t a direct link between our ability to deal with climate change and population numbers. As I have written in the past, mitigating climate change is more about dealing with the (unfair) consumption of the earth’s resources.

For example, one American produces the same emissions as 250 Ethiopians- as such it’s rather hypocritical for us to be asking others to limit families whilst we consume the same as a small African village.  The issue is more about consumption and trying to make it fairer. As Tafline points out in another article, the earth does have the resources to feed even 10 billion people, we just need to stop wasting food and eating so much meat whilst other barely scrape together a meal a day.

:: Image via Island Spice/flickr.

For more on Yemen see:

Millions Go Hungry In Yemen, Syria and Libya

Yemen Running Dry As Water Shortages Reach Extreme Levels In MENA

Arab Spring Female Wins Nobel Peace Prize

The post World Population Hits 7 Billion Today appeared first on Green Prophet.

So, all this worrying about the burgeoning population was for nought? We don’t need to be concerned that we are rapidly reaching a population of 7 billion and by the end of the century, we are likely to hit the 10 billion mark? Well, not exactly. Yes, Nature published a handy guide to increasing agricultural yields (hat tip to Nona Willis Aroniwitz from GOOD for breaking it down), but no, it won’t be easy. Feeding 10 billion people can be done, except it will require political will, cooperation, and even a bit of Jobsian self-discipline and self-sacrifice. Step on in for the most succinct five solutions to ending hunger we have ever seen.

Every nation on earth is concerned about feeding their people, but in the Middle East, we have especially good reasons to start thinking quickly. Already, in densely and economically challenged countries like Egypt – despite the rise in organic farms and the slow food movement – food is becoming scarce. And all the wealth in the world hasn’t brought the Gulf countries sufficient fertile land to achieve food independence.

This situation is leading to “land grabs” – where wealthier countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are buying up huge swaths of land from poorer countries in Africa and Asia.

• As it turns out, Solutions for a Cultivated Planet recommends that we focus more agricultural attention on Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe into order to increase agricultural yields. But we would like to add that if we do so, it should occur in a manner much more egalitarian than current resource extraction. In other words, it has to benefit the locals too!
• Farming in tropical lands is a waste of time. Although rich in biodiversity, the tropics aren’t great for growing nutritious food for a lot of people. Leave the forests to the task of sponging up our carbon emissions!
• This seems like a no-brainer since farmers and suppliers are locked into a never-ending cycle of doing just this, but it is suggested that the use of water, fertilizer, and chemicals needs to be improved. We are becoming especially adept at excellent irrigation methods in parts of the Middle East, although other countries remain woefully inefficient.
• We need to stop eating so much meat! This will send some carnivores into paroxyms of panic, but cultivating meat – particularly in wealthier countries – usurps an incredible amount of land and feed. Cattle are getting fat, but the people in Somalia are starving. Tell that to your kids at the dinner table.
• And finally, food waste must end. This isn’t only a problem during Ramadan or other holidays. It turns out that one third of all the food we produce in the world either rots, gets tossed out, or becomes fodder for pesky pests.

The 21 authors who contributed to this study make it sound so simple, but so far human beings have not proved especially talented at ensuring that everyone has enough to eat. Still, we have to believe we’ll get it right eventually!

:: GOOD, Nature

More on the Challenges Associated with Population Growth in the Middle East:

A Profile of Iraq’s Environmental Woes

The GINK Manifesto: Childless, Proud, and Loud

Fish Farming Isn’t so Evil After All

image via USAID on Flickr

The post Actually, We Can Feed 10 Billion People. Here’s How appeared first on Green Prophet.

By 2100, at least ten billion people will devour the planet.

At a recent film screening in Al Ain, one female student asked: “what’s the point of changing if nobody listens to us?” It is a powerful question and it is a powerful obstacle that becomes mute in the face of this: 10,000,000,000 (billion) people will have to compete with one another and other species for energy, food, space, and water in 2100.

This projection comes from the United Nations World Population Prospects 2010 Revision. Even more explosive, this number represents a median projection based on past fertility behavior. Adjusting the graphs by just half a child, the UN established that there could be as many as 15,800,000,000 people literally devouring the planet by the century’s end.

Countries that presently have low fertility rates will continue to have low rates, while countries with high fertility rates will keep on bursting babies.

In the Middle East, the Islamic Republic of Iran has low fertility rates, Egypt is considered to lie in the intermediate range (it is staggering to imagine Cairo with more people jostling for its already limited space), while Sudan, Iraq, and Yemen are considered to have high fertility rates.

The population of Iraq and Yemen could double by 2100, a frightening thought given that both countries already suffer from dire water shortages.

To placate the naysayers, the United Nations acknowledges that these numbers are based on projections that depend on uncontrollable variables. We may not know exactly when the 10 billionth child will be born, but we do know that he or she will be. And soon.

Research demonstrates that when women are educated, birth rates become more manageable. The recent Arab Spring has opened up a space for Arab women to grow within their own cultural context, a sign that it may be possible to grab hold of runaway population growth so that we can rather meet the UN’s lowest projection.

By stepping up education and family planning campaigns in the high fertility countries, it is possible that we can actually reduce the growth trend such that only 6.2 billion people will compete for resources in the next ninety years. This is less than the 7 billion people that are currently eking out an uncertain living.

If matched with powerful and virulent sustainable agricultural, energy, and water campaigns, we might escape becoming earth’s next ants.

:: Grist

More on the role of women in the Middle East:

Bedouin Women Bring Solar Power to Their Villages

The Rising Voices of Arab Women – From Social Activism to Eco Feminism

Harassmap Lets Women Cyclists in Cairo Report Abuse by SMS

image via Adrian Boliston

The post The Latest Most Urgent Reason To Breed And Consume Less appeared first on Green Prophet.

Stefanie Iris Weiss advocates for a greener shade of love and intimacy in her 2010 book, Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make your Love Life Sustainable.

For the past few years, Earth Day has turned a racier shade of green thanks to the work of eco-sexuality advocates, such as Stefanie Iris Weiss, author of Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable (2010).  A long-time adviser to the Green Love column, Ms. Weiss isn’t one to shy away from provocations, especially when the wellbeing of the planet and her inhabitants are at stake. From using safer forms of lubrication to advising tree-humpers on how to prevent pregnancy, Weiss dishes out her insights in delightfully green doses.

In our exclusive interview, this committed GINK (Green Inclined, No Kids) explains how her bottom line philosophy combines sexuality with ecology, and why even environmentalists are sometimes afraid to admit to hard truths with regards to the toughest question of all: How many babies should we be having on our overcrowded planet?

Greenprophet.com: You wrote your groundbreaking book, Eco-Sex, in 2010. Tell me when you first heard of eco-sexuality, and why you decided to write this book.

Stefanie Iris Weiss: I think I first heard the term used in 2006 or 2007. I’d been thinking about these issues for years, and finally found a word that perfectly described the natural merging of these two fundamental arenas: sexuality and ecology.

GP: Ecosexuality is a new-ish field, with not a lot of consensus yet on what the term actually means. How would you define it?

Weiss: Ain’t that the truth! It’s a very new field, so we’re just beginning to figure out what it all means. From my book’s perspective, Eco-Sex is about finding healthy, safe, non-toxic ways to be sexual and sensual. It’s a way to enhance your sex life by developing a new relationship with your own body — one built on putting only truly natural substances on it and IN it. (That’s why I go from soup to nuts in the book — from beauty products to sex toys).

For others in the ecosexual world, it’s more theoretical — for instance the amazingly brilliant Annie Sprinkle’s tagline for ecosexuality is: “Make the Earth your lover, not your Mother”. She believes that we shouldn’t see the planet as an entity that’s here to take care of us — we need to treat it as an equal, nurturing, stimulating, and serving it in mutually beneficial ways. I love that concept.

Our kids can learn to recycle, eat organic food, compost, and use the right light bulbs. That’s all good, but the sad reality is that it’s not going to save us from what’s coming. Only deadly serious changes at the governmental level will, and that’s not looking terribly likely when mega-corporations pretty much rule the world.

GP: Changing one’s habits isn’t always easy, and marketers tell us that many of us talk one way, and walk another when it comes to living sustainable lives. What are some baby steps you recommend to folks to help them become more ‘greenish’ in their sex lives?

Weiss: Lube is a great place to start. Ditch the chemical-laden KY and go for something organic and glycerin-free. Or just buy a jar of organic coconut oil and use it for massage, with a few drops of your favorite essential oil. (Be careful, though — don’t use coconut oil with latex condoms, because it will degrade them.)

GP: You’ve made it clear in the book that population growth is a critical component to creating a more sustainable global community, and that to that end, you won’t be having biological children of your own. But that’s a difficult pill for many to swallow, and they’ll argue otherwise. I’ve read environmentalists’ comments that suggest greenies should have babies to raise more conscious citizens! And in the Middle East, where large families are the norm based on census data, many take offense to the suggestion that they limit family size. Care to comment?

Weiss: The article that I recently wrote for the Huffington Post about my decision to adopt instead of having biological children indeed generated a ton of controversy. It’s important to note that I never, ever told anyone what they should do with their own lives — I just told my own story. And I think that having environmentally-aware, sustainably-savvy kids is an absolute must if you’re going to breed. I know tons of green mothers raising green kids, and I know they will do their best to make the world a better place.

At the same time, these kids will be growing up in a world where rampant, deadly overpopulation is the rule, and there is nothing we can do to stop that — except have fewer children. I wish there was a better way to address it, because I truly worry about what kids under ten years old are going to have to deal with in fifty years, when the ravages of flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis, drought, water wars, and melted ice caps will be just another day in the neighborhood — everywhere on the planet.

Our kids can learn to recycle, eat organic food, compost, and use the right light bulbs. That’s all good, but the sad reality is that it’s not going to save us from what’s coming. Only deadly serious changes at the governmental level will, and that’s not looking terribly likely when mega-corporations pretty much rule the world.

Happy Earth Day!

More eco-sexuality news:
The GINK Manifesto: Childless, Loud and Proud
The Ins and Outs of Personal Vaginal Lubrication
Five Ways to Make Love to One Another and the Planet

Tinamarie is a regular contributor to Greenprophet.com. Follow her @ModernLoveMuse. She blogs at www.tinamariebernard.com.

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From the rhythm method to condoms, choosing the right eco-conscious contraception choice is trickier than planning how many children to have.

Making love can be a low-impact, eco-friendly form of pleasure that generates warmth and joy without taxing our environment, as long as couples are careful to mitigate the impact of unwanted pregnancies. There are many options for family planning – including opting out of procreating altogether for the sake of an overcrowded Mother Earth – some that are better for peoples’ and the planet’s health, and others that are decidedly less so.

Concerned about hermaphroditic fish and other byproducts of intimacy? Read on to learn the pros and cons on contraception for tree-huggers in love.

The Pill:

No one will deny that the birth control (BC) pill revolutionized female reproduction, and over a half-century after their introduction, scientists are busy searching for a male-pill counterpart. But there’s a dark side to these hormones, known as endocrine disrupters; over time, the amount of them excreted through urine (and also via the use of hormones in agri-business) has meant that they have ended up in our wastewater system.

More research is necessary to fully flush out (no pun intended) the impact of synthetic vs. natural estrogen/progestin (the most common active ingredients in the pill), but there’s no denying some icky truths of hormone over-use: Inter-sexed fishes and amphibians at the tail end of this excretion, and precocious puberty in children unwittingly exposed to hormones via trace amounts in the food chain.

Besides improving the water treatment facilities (which is up to the authorities), what can eco-conscious lovers do? Switch to a pill with lower amounts of these hormones (if possible), or better yet, rethink this ecological gamble and opt for less toxic BC options. The pill is approximately 92% effective.

Condoms:

Most condoms sold worldwide, including here in the Middle East, are made of biodegradable latex (good, right?) but are treated with compounds that aren’t eco or body friendly (bad!). Women in particular can experience unpleasant side effects from the lubrications and hardening agents (they’ve got to withstand a certain amount of friction, after all). Vaginal irritation and dryness, skin reactions, fatigue, diminished libido and pain upon intercourse have all been linked to many lubrications and condoms.

Then there is the issue of waste not, want not. Condoms are one-time use disposable products that end up in our landfills, and many don’t breakdown quickly enough (rubber/latex) or not at all (Polyurethane).  Add up all those condoms and wrappers and, well, that’s a whole lotta love waste – tons, in fact.

Another concern: eco-sexuality advocates need to ask, just where do our rubbers come from, and are they made from sustainably harvested, fair-trade materials?

Fortunately, a few condom companies are now in the business of making sex and reproduction safer for you and the planet, including Love Begins with L., a women-focused online distributor that also gives away free condoms to women in underdeveloped countries who otherwise couldn’t afford them. Bottom line: condoms may be the right option for you if you want to prevent the spread of diseases as well as unwanted pregnancy, and you’ll be doing the planet better if you go with the greenest condom options. In general, condoms are about 83% effective.

Cervical Caps/Diaphragms:

Reusable barrier options are on the surface greener than the pill and condoms: reusable is good. One challenge is that they are also known to have higher fail rates unless the user uses them correctly (effectiveness can be as low as 77%, depending on the type and user error).  One little mistake can mean that your carbon footprint will increase quite significantly in 10 months time…

Intrauterine device (IUD):

Perhaps the most surprising greenest barrier option is the IUD. It’s hormone-free, long lasting (up to a decade), made from small amounts of cheap, plentiful metal (copper), and 99 percent effective. Stefanie Iris Weiss, author of Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make your Love Life Sustainable (2010) considers the IUD the most sustainable BC method. This holds true particularly for people in long-term partnerships for whom STDs aren’t a worry.

Natural Family Planning:

For those who want to go completely au natural with regards to family planning, there is always the option of monitoring a woman’s menstrual cycle. The Justisse Method, for example, teaches women to monitor and interpret the three primary signs of fertility: cervical mucus secretions, basal body temperature and cervical position.

Women who learn this method chart their fertility according to their own reliable signs, which means in theory that it can be effective despite variations in menstrual cycles.  It is certainly cost effective and free of side effects (good!), with the exception of a fail rate (reported up to 23%) strongly dependent on a woman being adequately trained and committed to the daily regime of charting the ebb and flow of her cycle.

More eco-sexuality news:
The GINK Manifesto: Childless, Loud and Proud
The Ins and Outs of Personal Vaginal Lubrication
Five Ways to Make Love to One Another and the Planet

The post How Do Treehuggers Prevent Pregnancy? appeared first on Green Prophet.

UAE minister reveals that Dubai is amongst the top producers of waste in the world

Dubai, which is one of the seven emirates of United Arab Emirates, is no stranger to green controversy. From justifying mega malls by certifying them green to a growing market in shark fins despite a 2008 ban, the city certainly does have a few things to answer for. However, some point to a growing trend towards sustainability despite the fact that the region has such high oil reserves. We recently reported on the UAE’s plans to ban plastic bags by 2013, a green gas station in Dubai as well as efforts to encourage the use of public transport by going car-free for the day but it seems that all these initiatives have had a limited impact on the overall green credentials of the city.

According to reports from Emirates 24/7, Dr Rashid Ahmed bin Fahad who is the Minister of Environment and Water revealed that waste produced by the Gulf city of Dubai is amongst the highest globally.

Although he didn’t disclose any statistics, the minister explained that the high waste produced was due to the rapid economic growth the city had experienced. Emirates 24/7 reported that 80 percent of the carbon footprint of the city comes from the generation of water and energy- and 70 percent of the energy generated goes straight into air conditioning devices.

Back in 2009, we reported that waste had become a real issue in Dubai as rapid urbanisation meant that the waste infrastructure had not yet been able to deal with the growing amount of waste produced. The total waste collected in Dubai in 2005 was 11.3 million tonnes compared to 6.6 million tonnes in 2003- clearly waste was spiralling out of control.

Minister Fahad, speaking at the launch of a recycling project in the UAE, revealed that the Northern Emirates of the UAE produces around 30 million tonnes of waste annually. He also explained that the UAE is attempting to reduce its high carbon footprint through the adoption of green building codes, cleaner production and energy conservation.

Environmental security was highlighted as a special priority: “The state has adopted many laws and legislations relating to the work of the quarries and cement production units. We are preparing legislation and standards for the production of dyes and the resulting waste, either gaseous or liquid…” said Minister Fahad to Emirates 24/7. Moves to improve waste management at state level were also under way from early 2010 as ministers took the decision to develop and integrate waste services in Northern Emirates.

At the start of the month, the Dubai municipality launched a campaign to create awareness amongst visitors to desert areas of the need to keep areas clean and protect nature. Amongst their concerns was the threat plastic bags pose to camels who can die from swallowing and chocking on them.

:: Emirates 24/7

: Image via fumigene via flickr.

For more on Dubai see:

Despite Ban, UAE remains Market Hub for Shark Fins

Dubai Marine Life At Risk After Devastating Shark Catch

After Four Years, Dubai’s ‘Holey’ O-14 Tower Finally Opens

The post Dubai’s Waste amongst the Highest in the World appeared first on Green Prophet.

If she’s a GINK, her uterus is officially closed for reproduction.

There’s a ‘dirty little’ secret that’s now coming to a green light in discussions around the sustainability cooler these days. Children, it turns out, do not guarantee happiness. In fact, the benefits of going childless are actually well documented, and in lieu of the impact of unfettered population growth on the planet, many notable environmentalists are touting the eco-sexy choice to not breed at all. They even have a name: GINKs as is Green Inclined, No Kids. Making love: Great for you and the planet. Making babies: Not so much… In her groundbreaking 2010 blog, “Say it loud: I’m childfree and I’m proud”, Grist writer Lisa Hymas (who we’ve interviewed on Green Prophet) is credited with coining the GINK manifesto. Hymas’ decisive ode to the importance of conscious choice documents the very real benefits of foregoing motherhood, beyond financial relief and increased levels of happiness.

“Time and emotional energy to invest in friendships and a romantic partnership. Space to focus on a career or education or avocation. Uninterrupted “grown-up” conversations. Travel that’s truly impulsive or leisurely or adventurous (and never involves zoos). Unpremeditated Saturday nights on the town and Sunday brunches out. Opportunities for political or community engagement. Stretches of quiet for reading or writing or relaxing. A non-child-proofed, non-toy-strewn, non-goldfish-cracker-crumb-riddled home. Eight peaceful, uninterrupted hours of sleep a night. All without any guilt that one should be spending more quality time with the kid.”

Stefanie Iris Weiss, author of the seminal book, Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make your Love Life Sustainable (2010), discusses the very real issues of sustainable population management in her book as well. She admits it’s a topic that makes folks squeamish, but she doesn’t step back from trumpeting the GINK horn from the environmental point of view. In a Huffington Post blog that generated hundreds of responses, she explained:

“Once I fully wrapped my brain around the relationship of overpopulation to climate change, especially in the West, I made a big decision: I won’t bring more kids into the world. I learned that even if I spent the rest of my life recycling, having even one child would increase my carbon legacy by 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide. I still crawl around on the floor with toddlers when given the chance, and go ga-ga for goo-goos, but my uterus is officially closed for business. I’ll be adopting kids when the time is right.”

Why is this topic so audacious? According to both authors, their decision to close their uterus factories down is often met with pity, outrage or social stigmatizing. Going childless is a choice that makes sense on many levels, not the least of which, ironically, is the survivability of our species in a crowded planet. Estimates are that humans will hit 9 billion mark by the year 2050 at current population growth rates; but even as our numbers grow, so too are the rates of hunger and concern for adequate food production globally.

This information is particularly ominous to advocates for female reproductive health who point out that our sovereignty as women is threatened by reduced funding for family planning. And in the Middle East, a region at odds with a slight global trend downwards in number of children per family, the population growth problem is additionally worrisome. In part, this is because in communities that emphasize a women’s value based on the number of children (particularly boys) she produces, certain attitudes perpetuate the justifications for larger families despite the evidence to the contrary.

For example, Population Matters, an international advocacy group for sustainable populations, argues that unfettered procreation is bad for the planet. “Some 80 million unplanned pregnancies a year might be prevented or postponed by allowing full access to family planning worldwide,” they assert on their site. “With so many of the world’s current population aged under 23 – a Youthquake – population growth has an inbuilt momentum which will be hard to stop.”

Contributing to this challenge is that many communities, agencies and governments share a vision of that, “the Earth can support another 2.4 billion people, with all enjoying a ‘sustainable’ standard of living.” Whereas, “the uncomfortable truth is that the impact on Earth’s biosphere of more than 9 billion people…could be fatal for the planet in terms of greenhouse gas emissions alone.”

Weiss and other self-declared GINKS make a compelling case for adoption as an option. And they are vocal in their support for parents the world wide doing the hard work of child rearing. Theirs is a holistic and selfless proposition.

“Imagine, for a moment, if the option of not having kids were talked about in home economics or health classes in high school, just like everything else,” Weiss writes. “If all our children were truly conscious decisions, perhaps we’d have a much happier, psychologically healthier world. And that’s not even counting what reducing the population would do for Planet Earth — making all our lives, the ones we’re living right now, safer from the ravages of climate change.”

Read more on eco-sexuality:

Are Anti-oxidants Keeping You Young and Infertile?

Sexed-Up Sustainability: Five Ways to Make Love to the Planet

Population Growth in the Middle East Bad News for the Planet

Tinamarie is a regular contributor to Greenprophet.com. Follow her @ModernLoveMuse. She blogs at www.tinamariebernard.com. Image via shandilee

The post The GINK Manifesto: Childless, Proud and Loud appeared first on Green Prophet.