OUR MISSION
To achieve a sustainable, healthy, and happy human population living in harmony with the natural environment.
Utah and UPEC
Utah’s beautiful, pristine, and expansive natural environment has been greatly degraded in recent years, fueled by high population growth and rapid growth of its resource extraction-based economic sectors. Utah’s leaders are actively planning to accommodate a predicted doubling of the population in the next 20 to 30 years – especially along the urban Wasatch Front.
UPEC was founded in 1997 initially to provide a data-based foundation for considering population and environment concerns and issues. It is managed and directed by board members who meet regularly (please see Who We Are).
We believe it is our responsibility as citizens of the earth to be concerned about the environment, sustainability, and population. We place special value on the unique heritage and landscape of the state of Utah.
Read UPEC’s Updated White Paper
We all face many important choices as we live our lives and form relationships with others, and with society as a whole. Many factors influence population levels, of course, but this white paper will discuss one of the most personal and important choices we face that affects our population — how many children to bring into this world — and the implications of this choice for ourselves, and our state, nation, planet. READ MORE
Population growth carries with it massive geographic and ecological footprints. This piece from the Rewilding Institute argues that President Biden’s America the Beautiful campaign must address population growth to succeed. ![]()
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rewilding.org/bidens-30x30-campaign-must-account-for-ecological-footprint/
Biden’s 30x30 Campaign Must Account for "Ecological Footprint" of a Fast-Growing U.S. Population
rewilding.org
The 30x30 campaign, and Biden’s “America The Beautiful” campaign...
The tangled relationships between population growth and the environment are key to understanding the complex system that is climate change, even if environmentalists so often ignore the controversial elephant in the room of population growth.
Population is Part of the Equation | Utah Population & Environment Council
utahpopulation.org
Happy New Year from UPEC! First, a quick announcement, and then some m...
This thought-provoking article from The Washington Post is an important reminder that family planning is not a responsibility that should fall solely on women. As Emily Wax-Thibodeaux writes, "it is time for men to take a more active role in both family planning and the fight for reproductive rights."
Men across America are getting vasectomies ‘as an act of love’
www.washingtonpost.com
Some men say they want to take a greater role in family planning, espe...
Zoe Noble, through a portrait series "We Are Childfree," documents the lives of women who decide against parenthood. In a patriarchal, political, and religious society that judges the childfree, her work destigmatizes women who are "happily not moms."
Women Who Said No to Motherhood
www.google.com
A photographer in Berlin is capturing the lives of the consciously chi...
Last month, India's government announced that its total fertility rate has dropped to 2.0, which means that the world's three most populous countries, China, India, and the United States, are now all below replacement rate. This trend is cause for celebration because, as Gerry Shih writes, "high birthrates... are often reversely correlated with women’s welfare metrics and economic progress."
India says nationwide birthrates drop below key ‘replacement rate’
www.washingtonpost.com
The figures were hailed as a heartening signal by government officials...Upcoming Events
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