Global warming, deforestation, toxic rain, spicy mercury rolls: "Little if any of this would have transpired had human numbers peaked long ago. Such a peak might have occurred by now, even with the gains in life expectancy of the past century, if the status and reproductive intentions of women had found consistent support rather than silence and censure," writes Robert Engleman of the Worldwatch Institute in an excerpt (on Alternet) from his new book, "More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want."

So how to address our population-induced environmental crisis? "Leave to women, more than to anyone else, the decision about when and how often to bear children ... History ... suggests that doing so has moderated population growth in the past, and contemporary evidence makes clear that it does exactly that today."