Is Organic Farming Better for the Planet?
“What people don’t want to understand is that you don’t feed the plants. You feed the soil.”
Those words came from a man named Cornelius. I met him years ago, briefly, on his land. He was tall and quiet, with a kind of presence you don’t see much anymore. Cornelius made compost—horse manure, to be exact—and he treated it like a living thing. He sourced it carefully, tested it constantly, and walked his piles like they were a field of crops. If there’s such a thing as a master composter, he was it.
His philosophy, that healthy soil creates healthy plants, has stuck with me. And in many ways, it’s at the heart of organic farming.
But in today’s climate conversations, where fossil fuels dominate the headlines, it’s easy to forget that agriculture is the second-largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Between carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, farming plays a massive role in warming the planet. So how we grow food matters. A lot.
Which brings us to organic farming.
It’s easy to think of organic as a shortcut to sustainability. Fewer chemicals. Healthier soil. Better for the planet. That’s true. But like most things in the climate space, the real story is more complicated.
In this piece, we’ll take a closer look at what organic farming actually offers. We’ll dig into soil health, carbon storage, water use, pesticides, fertilizer runoff, and the elephant in the field—land use. We’re sticking to crops here. Livestock is another topic altogether.
By the end, you might still believe organic is the better option. Or you might see it differently. Either way, the goal isn’t to pick a side. It’s to understand what we’re really growing when we talk about feeding the planet.
The Basics of Organic Farming
So what exactly is organic farming?
In simple terms, it’s a method of growing food that avoids genetically modified organisms and uses natural processes to support soil health. This includes techniques like crop rotation, cover cropping, and composting. Instead of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, organic farming relies on natural materials like plant-based compost, manure, and pest treatments made from minerals, plants, or animal sources.
That all sounds fairly straightforward, but putting that “Certified Organic” label on a product involves a lot more than skipping GMOs and spraying neem oil.
In the United States, the organic certification process is managed by the USDA. To earn and maintain that label, farmers have to follow a long list of rules covering everything from seed sourcing to packaging. On-site inspections can be unannounced, and meticulous recordkeeping is mandatory. It’s a whole process that gets inspected, not just a label that looks nice in the produce aisle.
This is where terms like greenwashing come into play. Companies that want to appear environmentally friendly—but don’t meet organic standards—often rely on unregulated language. You’ve probably seen labels that say things like “Free Range,” “Sustainably Harvested,” or “100% Natural.” None of those are regulated by the USDA, which means there’s no guarantee that those practices are actually in place.
That doesn’t mean every product using those labels is misleading. Smaller farms might follow great practices but skip certification due to cost or red tape. Still, when something is labeled “Certified Organic,” it means the farm followed a specific set of rules, and someone actually checked.
Soil Health & Carbon Sequestration
One of the first things people point to when talking about the benefits of organic farming is carbon sequestration; the soil’s ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide. And yes, organic farming does a better job of this, at least for a while.
When soil is treated with compost, crop rotations, and cover crops—the staples of organic farming—it gets healthier. That health makes it better at soaking up carbon. The soil acts like a sponge, pulling in CO₂ and holding on to it instead of letting it escape into the atmosphere.
And that’s the heart of what Cornelius meant when he said, “You don’t feed the plant. You feed the soil.”
But even the best sponge has a limit.
Over time, the soil becomes saturated. After about a decade of consistent organic practices, its ability to sequester carbon levels off. As researchers at Cranfield University in the UK put it, “the soil will eventually reach a steady-state when carbon sequestration rates fall to zero.”
So yes, organic farming improves carbon storage in soil—but only up to a point. After that, it’s basically a draw between organic and conventional methods.
That doesn’t make it meaningless. A decade of pulling more carbon out of the atmosphere is still a win. But it’s important to see the full picture, not just the headline.
Pesticides
Organic pesticides are typically made from things like plant extracts, minerals, microorganisms, or even animal pheromones. There is also a short list of synthetic pesticides that are allowed when no organic option exists to deal with a specific pest. For example, if a certain fungus threatens an entire crop and there’s no effective organic treatment, a targeted synthetic might be approved. Still, the list of allowable synthetics is limited and tightly regulated.
One of the main upsides of organic pesticides is that they tend to break down more quickly than synthetic ones. That usually means fewer residues on crops and less risk to non-target species like bees, birds, and soil microbes—not to mention people.
But organic doesn’t mean harmless. These pesticides still require careful use. Their effectiveness can vary depending on the pest, the weather, and when they’re applied. And because they break down faster, they often need to be applied more frequently. If used improperly, some can still harm pollinators or throw local ecosystems out of balance.
That said, organic pesticides are less likely to persist in the soil or travel through water systems. That makes a difference. When synthetic pesticides wash into rivers and lakes, they can cause serious damage. A joint study from researchers in Saudi Arabia and India laid it out clearly:
“Pesticides are frequently applied without precision, which leads to a number of adverse effects on human health, from acute intoxication to chronic diseases that include various types of cancer (brain, breast, prostate, bladder, and colon), Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, neurotoxicity, infertility, leukemia and diabetes.”
And later in the same study:
“Pesticide contamination in water poses the greatest threat to aquatic bodies, mostly through diminishing dissolved oxygen levels. They have an impact on aquatic animals at all stages of the trophic chain, from algae to fish.”
In short, when pesticides enter water, oxygen levels drop—and everything that lives in that water suffers.
Nitrous Oxide Emissions
While pesticides do plenty of damage to the environment, a conversation about organic farming wouldn’t be complete without talking about nitrous oxide.
Nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, is no joke when it comes to climate change. It traps heat in the atmosphere far more effectively than carbon dioxide and sticks around for over 100 years. That means the emissions we release today will still be warming the planet in 2125.
So how does organic farming stack up?
Let’s take a step back. Plants need nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to grow. Conventional farming provides these quickly and efficiently using synthetic fertilizers. That’s one reason yields are so high. But the downside is that these fertilizers release nitrous oxide during production and use.
Organic farming uses composted manure and other natural materials instead. These still release nitrous oxide, but generally at lower levels. How much lower? It varies. Most studies show that emissions from organic fertilizers are anywhere from 20 to 40 percent lower. The exact number depends on things like temperature, soil type, crop variety, and how the fertilizer is applied.
One thing worth noting is how these studies measure emissions. Most of them look at impact per acre, not per pound of food produced. That matters because organic farming usually yields less food per acre. So while emissions might be lower per acre, they could end up being similar—or even higher—when you factor in how much food actually comes out of the ground.
A better comparison might be something like this: what’s the environmental cost of producing 10,000 pounds of potatoes organically versus conventionally? That kind of weight-based measurement could give a clearer picture of real-world impact, but it’s not how most of the current data is framed.
Still, even with that caveat, organic fertilizers are less likely to leach into nearby water systems. They break down more naturally and don’t carry the same chemical baggage. From a water health standpoint, that’s a meaningful difference.
Water
Water use in farming is one of those areas where it’s nearly impossible to pin down exact numbers, simply because there are too many variables—soil type, crop type, climate, irrigation method, and on and on. So any broad claims about water savings should be taken with a grain of salt.
That said, there’s one trend that shows up again and again. Soils managed with organic practices, especially cover cropping and composting, tend to hold water better. That makes a real difference, especially during droughts. Healthier soil acts more like a sponge. It absorbs more when it rains and holds on to moisture longer when it doesn’t.
This doesn’t just help the crops. It also reduces runoff. And when less water runs off the fields, fewer pesticides and fertilizers end up in nearby rivers, lakes, or groundwater. Even when runoff does happen, organic farming tends to produce cleaner water. That’s because things like compost, manure, and organic pesticides tend to break down more easily in the environment.
Cleaner runoff means less harm to aquatic ecosystems, and in some cases, water that’s actually reusable.
Land Use
Simply put, yields from organic farming aren’t anywhere near what they are in conventional farming. And that’s not surprising. Conventional methods rely on things like synthetic fertilizers that are engineered to grow as much food as quickly as possible. That’s the whole point.
That gap in yield starts to make more sense when you look at how much conventional farming has benefited from modern technology. Think about cell phones. Just a few decades ago, most of us had landlines in our homes. Now, that same device not only makes calls, but manages our schedules, tracks our workouts, and connects us to nearly everything.
That same level of innovation has been applied to conventional farming. From high-efficiency fertilizers to genetically modified seeds to precision irrigation, conventional agriculture is playing with a stacked deck. Organic methods, by comparison, are still operating with more basic tools. It’s not a fair fight.
As a result, organic yields are often 20 to 40 percent lower than their conventional counterparts. That might not sound like a huge deal, until you scale it up to the global food supply. Feeding the planet organically would require more land—land we don’t necessarily have.
So where does all of this leave us?
Is organic farming better for the planet?
Like most things that matter, it’s complicated.
If we’re talking about what goes into the ground—pesticides, fertilizers, water—organic has some clear wins. It’s gentler on the soil, on surrounding ecosystems, and likely on our bodies too. But if we zoom out and ask what it would take to feed billions of people this way, the answer gets murkier. Yields are lower. Land use is higher. And we’re still living in a world where profit tends to outrun patience.
But maybe that’s exactly the point Cornelius was making all those years ago.
“What people don’t want to understand,” he said, “is that you don’t feed the plant. You feed the soil.”
Why You’re Overeating and How to Stop
“I’ll just have a little bit”, when the tub of buttered popcorn is passed your way while you’re at a movie with some friends. Past experience tells you though, that it won’t be a small handful, you’re likely to go in for more, and even more when the opportunity presents itself.
Or the bowl of potato chips when you’re at a gathering, watching the Super Bowl or the Oscars. It’s not going to be just a few, you’ll keep going in for more, because that’s what you do.
For some of us, the temptation to eat more than we’d like is an impossible temptation to resist. And, as many times as we’ve tried to overcome it through diets and sensible portion sizes and just stopping at one piece of pizza, it seems like our brains just keep telling us to eat and eat some more.
While food is something that we need, something that our bodies require, eating too much, too often, can lead to some serious health conditions like Obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and more. It also makes us feel uncomfortable, sluggish, and just, bad.
So why do we do it? What is it that compels us to to eat, well beyond the point at which we’re still hungry? And, more importantly, how do we rid ourselves of this tendency to binge?
What is Hunger?
First, let’s look at exactly what hunger is. Webster’s dictionary describes hunger as, “A craving or urgent need for food or a specific nutrient.” Notice that the definition begins with, “A craving or urgent need…” At first glance, that seems pretty cut and dry, but give it some thought, and it’s actually an open-ended definition, leaving a lot of room for interpretation. After all, “a craving or urgent need,” can mean a lot of different things, so let’s talk about that.
There are two main types of hunger that we experience, one is physical hunger and the other is emotional hunger.
Physical hunger, or true hunger, is when or bodies are tell us that we’re running out of energy, and that energy needs to be replaced. Our stomachs may feel empty, we may feel low on energy, or get a little dizzy or light-headed. And, when this happens, give our bodies some nutrients and, before too long, we’ll be good to go.
Emotional hunger, unlike physical hunger, originates from our emotions or psyche. It’s not true hunger in the sense that our bodies physically need food. Rather, it’s more the idea that our desire for food is an emotional response to things like stress, anxiety or boredom. In other words, it stems from how we emotionally feel as opposed to what we physically need. And, unlike physical hunger, which can be easily satisfied, emotional hunger realistically can’t be satisfied simply because, it’s not the actual issue; it’s merely a response to something that lay much deeper.
And, to get an idea of how widespread of an issue this is, Dr. Susan Albers from the Cleveland Clinic says that, “Research has indicated that about 75% of all of our eating is emotionally driven. We eat not because we're hungry, because we're bored, we're stressed, we're anxious.”
| Characteristic | Physical Hunger | Emotional Hunger |
|---|---|---|
| Onset | Develops gradually | Develops quickly |
| Trigger | Triggered by physiological cues such as an empty stomach, low blood sugar | Triggered by emotions such as sadness, loneliness or stress |
| Satisfaction | Satisfied by balanced, nutritious meals | May persist even after eating, difficult to feel satisfied |
| Impact | Supports overall health and well-being | May contribute to unhealthy eating habits, potential weight issues |
| source |
You’re not alone
If the description of emotional hunger sounds a bit too familiar to you, firstly, know that you’re not alone. Approximately 9% of the US population will experience an eating disorder at some point in their lives, but I suspect that number is very conservative. And I hate the term, “disorder”, because it implies that there’s something wrong with you, which there’s not; it simply tends to be the best term that’s suited for our condition.
And secondly, these cravings that you experience, these desires to eat even though you’re not physically hungry, are not your fault.
Way back, in the dawn of humanity, calories were scarce at times, and the threat of starvation was something that was faced on a daily basis. Because there was a very real possibility that we would go for days, or longer, without food, it was in our best interest to eat as much of it as we could. And it was the calorie rich foods that were most sought after, things like honey and animal fats.
Now consider that, keeping our hard-wired tendencies in mind, food is all around us. We no longer have to forage or hunt for it, we simply need to pull our smartphones our and order it, or get in the car and drive to the nearest fast food restaurant, which is less than a mile away in most cases. When we go to meetings, food is there; we show up at a social event, food is there; we get together with friends, food is there; and most of it isn’t the nutrient rich foods that are bodies truly crave.
As a culture, we’re putting away more and more calories each year. In 1961, we took in an average of 2880 calories per day and, and that jumped to 3600 calories per day in 2016, an increase of 24%. And, by the way, if you were wondering what our recommended caloric intake is? It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000-2500 calories.
Clearly, we’ve transitioned from a people who no longer eat based on what our bodies need; rather, we tend to eat based on what our brains want. And keep in mind that this doesn’t apply to everyone, there are those of us who seem to have an easier time of it, they’re able to resist temptation and eat sensibly, while not succumbing to the temptations that exist all around us.
Different people, different struggles
Understand that our brains aren’t all wired the same, some will naturally have an easier time staying away from food. But, we all have our issues, areas in which we’ll always struggle. For some, it may be an unhealthy obsession to keep their house or apartment clean; for others, there may be an extreme guilt associated with not being the most productive person at work or getting the best grade in school; and for others, it may be a fear of being alone, of not being continually surrounded by others.
The bottom line is that everyone has their “thing”, those issues in which we’re always going to struggle. And, though some may, on the surface at least, seem more beneficial than others, they each present a very real struggle for those who experience them.
Advertising: It starts at a young age
From the moment we are born, we’re bombarded with messages telling us that we should eat high sugar and highly processed food. Children are very important targets to manufacturers of snacks, cereals and fast food, and kids have the ability to influence how parents spend money. Have you ever been in a grocery store and seen a child pleading with their parent to buy those things that they’ve seen advertised on TV? Now, imagine being that parent.
Here’s the rub. These same young children who are targeted in advertising campaigns don’t yet have fully developed cognitive skills. Meaning, they tend to accept things at face value and don’t have the ability to think about the implications of their choices on their long-term health. So, the constant exposure, and the satisfaction that they receive when eating these foods has the potential to go a long way towards forming thinking as we mature into adulthood.
It continues into adulthood
As we become adults, because of our hard-wired tendencies to eat more than we probably should, and those desires are reinforced from the time that we’re young, it’s entirely understandable that turning to food as a coping mechanism may seem quite natural for some. And again, if you’re prone to dealing with some of life’s issues with food, you’re not alone.
Let’s look at some numbers from the American Psychological Association about how widespread of an issue this is:
“Thirty-eight percent of adults say they have overeaten or eaten unhealthy foods in the past month because of stress. Half of these adults (49 percent) report engaging in these behaviors weekly or more.
Thirty-three percent of adults who report overeating or eating unhealthy foods because of stress say they do so because it helps distract them from stress.
Twenty-seven percent of adults say they eat to manage stress and 34 percent of those who report overeating or eating unhealthy foods because of stress say this behavior is a habit.
After having overeaten or eaten unhealthy foods, half of adults (49 percent) report feeling disappointed in themselves, 46 percent report feeling bad about their bodies and more than one-third (36 percent) say they feel sluggish or lazy.”
That last point is interesting. Almost half of the adults experience negative feelings after eating as a coping mechanism for stress, yet they still continue the behavior. Sound familiar?
Fight or Flight? And I’m bored!
Stress can put us into “fight or flight” mode and, going back to the easier days of humanity, makes us crave calories. After all, regardless of whether we choose to fight, or we choose flight, calories will be needed.
And stress isn’t the only emotional trigger that causes us to overeat.
Boredom is also a major trigger for over eating. When we’re bored, we’re looking for something to do, something to occupy our time. When food is so ready available, it satisfies that need to do something, making us feel purposeful, as if we’re accomplishing something.
And then there are some foods that are just naturally addictive. Foods like potato chips, French fries and buttered popcorn. The reality is that there are certain types of foods that are nearly impossible not to eat far more than we should for those who are prone to over eating.
Researchers at the University of Michigan conducted a study involving addictive-like foods and they found that, “92% of participants exhibited addictive-like eating behavior toward certain foods…” Not surprisingly, these foods all tended to be highly processes, and high in sugar and/or fat.
And yet one more thing that makes things even tougher for those of us who have issues with food, is that food is something that’s required for our survival. People who struggle with other issues, such as the previously mentioned habitual cleaners, or those who can’t stand to be alone, don’t have that same problem. Food is basic to our survival, and we’re exposed to it all throughout the day, just about wherever we go. Its temptations are literally impossible to remove from our lives in most cases.
The way out
So where do we go from here? If you struggle with food, as many of us do, how do we learn to tame this obsession or suppress some of these desires that seem to sabotage us on a daily basis?
There’s good news, and there’s bad news, bad news first.
It’s likely a temptation that’s always going to be there for some, there is no magic wand that can be waved to suddenly “fix” us and get rid of these urges. But, there are some things that we can do to make things a heck of a lot better.
Firstly, talk to someone, talk to a friend or significant other, someone who you can trust and is safe and let them know what you’re struggling. And, if you do chose this route, by all means be prepared to tell them how not to respond.
For those who don’t share the same struggles as you do in the area of food, who can’t relate to your what you’re going through, it can be tempting to say things like, “Have you tried a diet?”, or “Just eat less, have a little willpower…”. Uhmm..ya, thanks for that. Been there, done that, it doesn’t work. Let them know that you don’t expect them to understand, but that this is a very real issue for you and you would appreciate their support.
Talking to a therapist who’s familiar with this issue may also be something to consider. Speaking with someone who’s familiar with your situation can be a real life saver when it comes to helping you dig into the reasons why you’re struggling and how to navigate out of them.
Getting enough sleep is also important and, when it comes to food, it’s a bigger issue that you may imagine. Simply put, when we don’t get enough sleep, our bodies tell use to eat.
Firstly, it inhibits activity in our brain’s frontal lobe, which is the part that’s responsible for things like self control and decision making.
And secondly, it causes a whole host of chemical reactions in our brains that make it much harder to resist the urge to eat. In fact, some studies suggest that, when we don’t get enough sleep, we get the “munchies”, that mirror the urges to eat when we’re stoned.
When in doubt, move!
Exercise can also be a very important component. When we dive into and commit to an exercise program, a few things happen. Firstly, our urge to eat drops in the few hours following exercise. A Drexel University study says this:
“When participants did not engage in exercise, the risk of overeating in the following hours was 12 percent. Whereas when participants engaged in 60 minutes of exercise, the risk of overeating was cut by more than half, to five percent.
For every additional 10 minutes of exercise a participant engaged in, the likelihood of overeating decreased by one percent in the few hours following exercise”
And then, as we see our bodies change as we become more physically fit, the desire to eat foods that are more nutritious begins to take over, our purpose for eating can begin to change and we start to give our bodies what they need as opposed to what our brains tells us we want. A study at Leeds University in England suggested that. “working out for a period of time could nudge us to rethink the kinds of foods we want to eat.”
In my experience, Ive found this to be amazingly accurate. Committing to an exercise program, in my case, it’s running, has dramatically changed my food choices. Because I no longer what to sabotage my progress, things like deserts, sugary high-fat foods, are much easier to resist. Portion sizes are much easier to control. When I’m in situations where food is abundant, find myself talking much smaller portions, and I’m a lot less likely to go back for seconds. Of course the temptation is always there, it’s just easier to resist because my purpose has changed.
The reality
One more thing that I’ll mention is that you may need to make some hard choices when it comes to your environment. If there’s a situation where the temptation may be difficult to resist, don’t put yourself there. And when shopping, don’t buy foods that you know will cause issues, be ruthless in your purchasing decisions, don’t allow yourself to be surrounded by things that will make things harder for you. Instead, opt for high fiber foods, things like whole grains, fruits and veggies.
To be honest, eating veggies can be a bit boring. It’s good for us, and we know that we should eat more of them, but how do you transition to a diet that’s rich in them?
In my case, smoothies have been a Godsend. I’ll make a huge smoothie at night, then pour it into 4 different glasses, and drink them throughout the day, then make another one at night and start the process all over again. As far as I what I put in them, I’ll throw in a 5oz bag of leafy greens (usually Power to the Greens from Trader Joe’s) along with some broccoli, cauliflower and carrots (Normandy Style Vegetable Blend from Costco), along with berries, a banana and a little mango for sweetness, and I’m good to go!
At the end of the day though, the temptation to overeat, go keep consuming food well after our bodies have had enough, can be strong. Considering the fact that our brains are hard wired to do this, and the additional pressure of being taught at a very young age, that sugar and fat filled delicacies are fantastic food options, it’s little wonder that more of us don’t struggle in this area. But, getting support, committing to an exercise program and ensuring that we get plenty of rest can prove to be very effective tools in our ongoing struggle. Read more about it, educate yourself, just taking this simple step will go a long way towards keeping things in proper perspective next time that bowl of buttered popcorn gets passed around.
Sources:
Taking Control of Emotional Eating With Dr. Susan Albers
Science Explains Why You Binge Eat When You’re Tried
Sleep, Obesity and How They Are Related
Meta-analysis of short sleep duration and obesity in children and adults
Decoding Hunger: Are You Really Hungry or Not?
Overeating & obesity: How thousands of years of evolution have hardwired us to abuse food
Emotional Hunger vs Physical Hunger: How are they different?
The 18 Most Addictive Foods (and the 17 Least Addictive)
Physical activity is good for your appetite, too
How Exercise Might Affect Our Food Choices and Our Weight
Understanding the Impact of Food Advertising on Childhood Obesity
6 Charts that show how much more Americans eat than they used to
Educating Girls and Climate Change?
It’s official: because of Climate Change, 2023 will be the hottest year on record. We, as inhabitants of the earth, have managed to change this place from a hospitable, livable environment to one that is quickly changing into something vastly different than what we’re used to; the way our food is produced is changing, animals are going extinct at a record pace, and weather, well, it’s just getting weird as oceans warm and the waters continue to rise.
There’s so much doom and gloom that’s being thrown around. Much of it justified but, at some point, we need to take a good, hard look into the mirror and ask ourselves what, if anything, can be done to fix this.
The good news is that there’s a lot that we can do. One of those things, arguably one of the most powerful, comes in the form educating girls in the world’s poorest nations.
At first glance, it’s easy to look at these two issues–girls’ education and climate change–and see them as separate entities. When talking about solutions, however, there’s an incredibly strong link between the two.
Before we get too far in, I’m choosing to break this down into two separate blogs, simply because it’s such there’s so contextual and evidential information to cover.
Setting the Stage
There’s an international research organization called Project Drawdown, that released a book which details a comprehensive plan to combat climate change. In the book, they list the 80 most impactful things that we could be doing right now to combat the climate crisis; on that list, educating girls came in at number six. In other words, educating girls is the sixth most effective thing that we could and should be doing to turn the tide on climate change.
By the way, for those of you looking at a Tesla or Rivian now, electric vehicles came in at number 29.
Project Drawdown estimates that, by educating girls, we could see a reduction of 51.48 gigatons of carbon dioxide by 2050. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the same mass as 515,000 fully loaded aircraft carriers. For further comparison, the Empire State Building weighs .00003 Gigatons, and all of the people currently on earth come in at a mass of .06. So 51.48? That’s a fairly significant number.
To further strengthen the point, Project Drawdown claims that educating girls in developing nations can have a greater impact than solar farms, wind turbines and mass adoption of plant-rich diets combined.
So how does this all work? I break it down into three basic ways. I’ll call them: Family Planning, Food production, and giving women a Voice. And in this post, we’ll be discussing Family Planning.
Before we dive into how things can be, let’s spend a few minutes talking about how things are right now.
The Current Situaton
In many areas of the world, girls don’t have much of a choice about how they’re going to spend their future, or how they’re going to live their lives; they largely do what they’re told, they do their “duty”, and they typically get married at a very young age. Once married, they wind up having a bunch of kids, because that’s what they’re supposed to do. Keep in mind that having a bunch of kids is advantageous for a few reasons.
Firstly, kids are needed to help with work that needs to be done, to simply survive as a community. More bodies means that more work can be accomplished whether it’s farming, housework, fetching water or selling things. Put briefly, more kids means that more work can be done. With more kids, day to day existence just gets that much easier. Things like high infant mortality rates, illnesses and unhealthy diets also affect the amount of labor a person can do. In other words, you really can’t have, say, 4 kids, and expect to have 4 productive bodies in the house. So, you’ll need to have more.
Secondly, odds are, the more kids you have, the better you’ll be taken care of as age starts to impact your ability to be productive and earn a living; a lot of kids can be a good thing if you haven’t made enough money to survive by the time you hit retirement age. Keep in mind that retirement accounts aren’t an option for people in underdeveloped nations. Instead, they rely on family to survive. More kids increases your odds of keeping a roof over your head, receiving medical care and consistently having food on the table.
Again, this is what happens when people – and we’re talking about girls here – don’t have a lot of opportunities in life. Keep in mind also that most of these societies are strongly patriarchal, to a degree to which we really can’t relate in the developed world. In poorer countries, women obey what their husbands tell them to do, simply because it’s what they’re programmed to do. It’s deeply engrained in the culture and whatever the guy wants, he’s likely to get. If the husband wants more kids, more kids will be had, no discussion.
There’s also issues such as spousal rape, which, though technically illegal in many countries, is rarely reported. Because of wives’ obligation to submit to their husbands, husbands experience the freedom to conduct themselves in whatever manner they wish within their marriage situations. In fact, in Southeast Asia, roughly a third of women will experience physical or sexual violence from a current or former spouse ***, and that’s just a number that’s been reported. Likely, the actual number is much higher.
So, when talking about the subject of girls’ education in poorer countries, as much as it’s the environmentally responsible thing to do, it’s also the morally responsible thing to do.
Another interesting thing to note is that, in some of these countries, marriage proposals can come rather quickly after two people meet, sometimes in as little as a week or two. There exists the idea that the couple will date and get to know each other after they get married, so neither party really knows what they’re signing up for. But in the end, we’re left with a continuous cycle. This continues generation after generation because, it’s just how things work.
Educating girls changes all of this.
Before I jump into how this happens, let me first say that educating boys in these countries is a good thing, but if you educate boys only, it seems that, for whatever reason, not a lot of large-scale change happens. It’s been my experience that, even when these boys are given the tools to succeed, they tend not to take advantage of the knowledge that they’ve gained. As they enter adulthood, they tend to farm the same lands using the same methods, fish the same waters in the same boats, and communities remain stagnant.
Educating boys also risks a reinforcement and strengthening of a male dominated status quo. Perhaps it can give them even more of a leg-up over women than they already have, and an even stronger platform to say, “Look, I’m a guy, you’re a girl, and I’m smarter than you, so you need to listen, not argue, play your role and do what I say.” That’s not to say that educating boys is a bad thing, but again, they tend not to create the same ripple effect with the knowledge that they gain in school. So when we educate them only, not a lot changes, economically or culturally.
Girls Education: The Game Changer
There’s an old African proverb that goes like this: If you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a nation. Experience seems to tell us that this is accurate.
To begin with, study after study confirms that girls who have had at least a secondary level of education have more options in life, and they actively take advantage of those. They’re empowered to so something in life other than “their duty”, and what they do with their knowledge impacts the community as a whole.
Educated girls have more of a choice in who and when they marry, and they tend to marry when they’re older. They also wind up having fewer children. Furthermore, children of educated women are far more likely to go to school themselves, which perpetuations a really, really good cycle. Educated women also eat healthier diets, as do their families, are able to make more money in their careers, see lower risk for things like AIDS, are less likely to fall victim to human trafficking, and so much more. Again, this is as much an issue of human rights as it is one that benefits our planet.
Look at a few of these facts when it comes to educated women: (and there are a lot more; far more than I can count)
A study in Zambia finds that HIV spreads twice as fast among uneducated girls.
A study in Uganda demonstrated that each additional year of education for girls reduces their chances of contracting HIV by 6.7 percent.
In Indonesia, child vaccination rates are 19 percent when mothers who have no education. This figure increases to 68 percent when mothers have at least secondary school education.6
A 35-year study in Guatemala found a link between the years girls spent in school and the timing of childbearing. For each additional year a young woman spent in school, the age at which she had her first child was delayed approximately six to 10 months.1
A child born to a mother who can read is 50 percent more likely to survive past the age of 5 than a child born to an illiterate woman.
In Bangladesh and Indonesia, the odds of having a child who is shorter than average for its age decreases by around 5 percent for every additional year of formal education a mother has.
A study in Mali observed that educated women had an average of 3 children, and women with no education went on to have 7 children.
Population: The Key
And that last point is the main link between the family planning aspect of educating girls and its impact on climate change: fewer bodies on the planet. It’s true that I did say that having a lot of kids for some of these families can be a good thing. The reality is though, when girls are educated, everything changes.
For a little more perspective on the impact that this has on population, it’s been estimated in many studies that, if we focus on educating girls today, there will be at least 150 million fewer people on the planet by 2050. For comparison, that’s more than the total population of Russia today, and more than three times the population of the entire state of California. How many fewer people does that represent by 2070, or 2090 when the children of the children born today have even more children? The answer? A lot.
There are quite a few professionals who spend their careers trying to estimate exactly how many people this planet can support. And there are a lot of different numbers that get thrown around. Some say that we’ve already eclipsed the number, while others say that the earth can effectively double our population, provided we’re ok with the idea of drastically changing our global lifestyles, (and yes, that means even us here in the developed world). When I talk about lifestyle alterations, I’m referring to things such as including cockroaches into our daily diets.
Arriving at a precise number is difficult because it relies on far more than just a mathematical calculation of available farmland and drinkable water, it also depends on things like our ability to work cohesively to ensure that all peoples have what they need to survive, which is unknowable at best.
And, while we’re unable to generate a specific number, there is unified agreement that the course that we’re on is not a good one.
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The earth currently has over 8 billion people living on it, which is up from 6.1 billion in the year 2000, and 6.9 billion in the year 2010. That’s a trajectory that desperately needs to be altered. And again, ensuring that all girls, regardless of geographical location, have access to education is something that’s more of an imperative as opposed to something that would be nice to do one day.
That’s not to say that it’s easy, there are actually quite a few challenges associated with it, cultural and otherwise. There are however, a lot of organizations out there who are active and who are able to effectively navigate these challenges.
I’ve seen this work first hand and the difference that education makes in the life of a woman living in a less-developed nation can be astounding. Of course, nothing can guarantee positive results, there are far too many factors involved, but education is a vital course of action that must be pursued.
It’s easy to live here in the US or some other developed nation and ignore the impacts of climate change. In the less developed world however, it’s in escapable. And girls and women in these areas are the most vulnerable.
I was listening to a roundtable about the women and the impacts of climate change. One of the speakers, who was from Africa, talked about how it is forbidden for girls to learn how to climb trees as they’re growing up, there’s the idea that it makes them “less valuable”. While boys are climbing and playing, girls aren’t allowed to participate. So, when the rains come and flood waters come, boys can climb trees to escape the flood waters. Girls, on the other hand, can’t, they don’t know how. So as boys stay relatively safe, girls are swept away with all of the debris.
If we were talking only about the issue of climate change, the family planning aspect alone dictates that educating girls is something that is well worth our attention. The benefits for the climate don’t stop there though, and I’ll examine more in my next blog. Climate change aside, education is also an issue of basic human rights. Sitting on our hands and allowing these girls to remain as they are condemns them to a life of status quo, where their futures are dictated for them.
I’ve long been a believer that, if we want to change what tomorrow looks like, educate children today, I can think of no better representation of this than the opportunity that we’ve been given to educate girls in developing nations.
Below, find some links of organizations who do this. Donating to one of them would pay dividends that go far beyond helping the planet.
CARD (Community Action for Rural Development):