“The fate of the world is in your hands … and in your pants,” read the poster for the E3 and Sierra Club event titled “Sex and the Environment.”
The lecture will provide information to students about the connection between reproductive health services and sustainable environmental resources, and will take place today at noon in La Kretz Hall.
Chrissy Scarborough, a member of E3 and community coordinator for the Sierra Student Coalition at UCLA, acted as the liaison between E3 and the national Sierra Club for planning the event. She said that the event will focus on the issue of overpopulation, and its effects on the environment.
Scarborough said that the event will include a lecture by Edna Cano from Belize, a former fellow with the International Health Program’s Youth Leadership in Sexual and Reproductive Health Program, and Dorothy Le, a UCLA student and keynote speaker from last year’s California Sustainability Conference.
The lecture will attempt to show connections between unavailability of family planning, overpopulation, and subsequent resource depletion, Scarborough said.
“If we don’t use family planning practices, we end up having overwhelming population growth, and that population growth impacts the environment we live in,” Scarborough said.
She added that the exponential rate of population growth opposes the need for sustainable resources.
Emily Bagdasarian, a second-year microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics student, said she thinks the event will focus on main issues in environmental conservation.
“I think it’s an issue that affects everybody,” she said.
The Sierra Club is currently touring several universities in California, promoting family planning and birth control as solutions to overpopulation around the world, Scarborough said.
She said that the main point of “Sex and the Environment” at UCLA is one of education, in which students can learn about the subject in a lecture and discussion setting.
Scarborough said that the event will also stress voluntary family planning.
“Our decisions about sex impact the world,” Scarborough said. “The U.S. should be thinking about this. Comprehensive sex education has been basically gagged by the Bush administration … (and it) is necessary to stem this growth in population,”
Jennifer Ward, a second-year ecology, behavior, and evolution student, said that she plans to attend the event because of the importance of learning about environmental issues.
“I think it’s something that’s an increasingly prevalent and relevant issue,” she said.
Sam Karimzadeh, a third-year political science student, said that while he agrees that measures should be taken for environmental conservation, he would prefer that funding was used to support organizations such as the Sierra Club, a environmental advocacy group in Washington, as opposed to holding an educational lecture.
Scarborough said the event will also provide information about how students can become politically active in organizations such as the Sierra Club or E3.