Women empowerment is key to future
To the Editor:
No living human will witness a return to a preindustrial global climate. Humanity’s best efforts in transitioning away from fossil fuels will be a lengthy process and we have only begun. Science tells us that natural means of carbon capture will take many centuries for a return to normal and we’re currently adding CO2 to the atmosphere at a growing pace. Are we doomed? Well, seemingly, yes.
While we are already witnessing atmospheric heat driven calamities, it’s just the beginning. There is much human suffering to come, but it is non-human life that will bear the brunt of the damage in the current human caused mass extinction. All this is a legacy of agriculture and the industrial revolution, modern medicine, and the accompanying rapid human population growth (from one billion to seven billion in the past two centuries). So, it is human progress that led us into this mess, and only human progress will bring a correction.
We must make human population management a key part of the solution. To that end, universal contraception availability and universal education and empowerment of women are key. Humanity will be the better for it.
Herman Lankford
Weaverville
