Why I don't call myself an environmentalist: special, special edition condom edition

You could describe me as someone who's down with sexual health, and also as an environmental scientist. I like condoms. I like species. Yet I don't like the endangered species condom.




I own exactly this many condoms
Because I am a: a) monogomous b) lesbian with c) a two year-old daughter, the condoms in question have been lying around my house since forever, taunting me to write something about them. Maybe I'll send them to my sister or something (try to act surprised).

From the condom packaging, and the Center for Biological Conservation's Diversity's website:

Through the empowerment of women, education of all people, universal access to birth control, and a societal commitment to ensuring that all species are given a chance to live and thrive, we can reduce our own population to an ecologically sustainable level.

Yes, I am on board with the idea that uncontrolled human population growth is a major (yet complicated) problem. Okay, I suppose that you could argue that passing out condoms is a step towards universal access to birth control. However, I think empowerment of women might involve a variety of approaches to women's and reproductive health care, including access to birth control pills and abortion (neither of which necessarily require women to ask men to do something for them, BTW), but I'm assuming the Center for Biological Conservation Diversity is a bunch of folks with a tiny office and limited funds. Still, implying that some of you people who don't get it should have fewer children troubles me.

Also, condoms are multi-use tools. A variety of sexual acts involving a variety of bodies could benefit from condom ownership, not just potentially reproductive sex. This is one of the things I like about the NYC condom. It's just a condom, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't erase anyone. Also, it uses less packaging. Ouch.




At the future home of Legoland Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist holds a Lego
Florida panther. Which is endangered because of your condomless lifestyle.
My guess is that some of you saw the endangered species condoms and said "Whaaaa?!? What does a condom (actually, they give you two) have to do with a beetle?!?" By now, you've probably figured out the link between concern about human population growth and biological conservation. This is a very old, and very divisive issue within environmentocological circles. For example, factions within the Sierra Club have occasionally been in the news for suggesting not only that society should reduce population growth, but also that the US should adopt strict limits on immigration as a means of protecting Americans' environment at home.

There are a bazillion things that are problematic with anti-population growth and anti-immigration approaches to environmental conservation. Permit me to mention a couple (all of which Noël Sturgeon covers quite well in this text, BTW):

As with much work in ecology, I'm not sure how humans fit into the “environment” we appear to be discussing. What (or why) are we supposed to be conserving? Are we hoping to get more stuff like Central Park (which my friend C. L. assures me Frederick Law Olmsted pretty much made up after reading a bunch of neat olde-timey books). Are we thinking of the Adirondacks (IMO, these are what really amazing mountains look like when you install water parks and a super amazing cabin for every nth monied white New Yorker)? Perhaps the goal is some sort of roped-off area, where the only humans allowed in are scientists and the occasional really awesome environmentalist looking for some extreme sportage? What, precisely, is our goal, and what precisely, is humans' role?

You've probably figured out that there's a racial component to all of this, too. I'm not going to mention the demographics of my neighborhood, but yeah, I did find the condoms' appearance therein to be curious. While it may be a given that middle-aged white folks are responsible folks who have precisely the appropriate number of children, I've frequently heard complaints about how those people are always getting pregnant, where those means some combination of young, poor, of color, foreign-born, and foreign (non US and/or non global North) -living. Giving out condoms to reduce the human population and thereby save the planet fits nicely into this context, intentionally or not.




If only we had used more condoms
Lastly, there's the issue of resource use. The primary driver of [anthropogenic] species loss is the manner in which humans use our environment. Folks in the United States, for example, use many more resources than do folks in the Global South.

Sturgeon points out a key problem with of the things that had been bugging me for years with the frequent environmentalist exhortation for all of us to 'pitch in', 'do the right thing', 'be green', or some such thing. I'm all for individuals doing their part to make environmentally-sound decisions. However, focusing on individuals' actions obscures both inequalities between individuals, and the importance of collective, systemic change in managing environmental problems.

While I may recycle, never drink bottled water, and use compact florescent light bulbs, there are a lot of things I can't do on my own. Despite living near a city center, I need to own a car to buy food, get to work, visit the doctor, or go pretty much anywhere else, because I live in a city (and largely a country) that's built around the premise of universal car ownership. I can't simply put solar panels on my house (let alone buy a house in the country off the grid), because I don't even own my house (nor could I afford the solar panels). In the US and much of the Global North, processed foods and products of industrial agricultural, as destructive as they are, are cheaper than sustainably (and often traditionally) grown food.

What I'm trying to say is this: stop blaming the unprotected, potentially-procreative, heterosexual sex that I'm not having for what happened to my pelican friends. I didn't do it.

Flickr Image Credits: Legos Pelicans