Nature.org reported that climate change affects the whole world, impacting various sectors such as agriculture, economics and health. For this, one of the advisers to the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, offered a possible “solution.”
Talking to BBC, Cardinal Peter Turkson said that birth control can help alleviate the growing food concerns that the changing climate has wrought, especially in warmer regions.
"This has been talked about, and the Holy Father on his trip back from the Philippines also invited people to some form of birth control, because the church has never been against birth control and people spacing out births and all of that. So yes, it can offer a solution," he said.
Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace, explained that birth control will directly affect the number of people that eat.
"Having more mouths to feed is a challenge for us to be productive also, which is one of the key issues being treated over here, the cultivation and production of food, and its distribution,” he said.
"So yes it engages us in food security management, so we ensure that everybody is fed and all of that,” he added. “The amount of population that is critical for the realisation of this is still something we need to discover, yet the Holy Father has also called for a certain amount of control of birth."
The Cardinal said that the climate change is an impending ecological problem. However, although he considers birth control to be a possible solution, artificial birth control methods such as the contraceptive pill are “no-nos” for the church.
"You don't deal with one good with another evil: the Church wants people to be fed, so let's do what the Church feels is not right?” he said. “That is a kind of sophistry that the church would not go for."
Aside from emphasizing natural birth control methods to help alleviate climate change-related food problems, the Cardinal stressed that having a strong agreement at the Paris talks will be very important.
“We need to look at the front line states and what they are going through now, and in the light of concern for what they are feeling now, to simply adopt a measure that can ensure the existence of all of us,” he said.
He added that what drives it all would be “love for God.” "Our profession of love for God must necessarily lead to our love for the handwork of God, for what God has made, so let's have some love for creation and for the human beings," the Cardinal said.
