Universal access to birth control should be a fundamental human right — but it would not have prevented Shell’s massive destruction of ecosystems in the Niger Riverdelta. It would not have halted or even slowed the immeasurable damage that Chevron has caused to rain forests in Ecuador.

If the birth rate in Iraq or Afghanistan falls to zero, the U.S. military— the world’s largest single polluter — will not use one less gallon of oil, or fire one less shell made from depleted uranium, or clean up any of the toxic waste dumps it has created around the world.

If every African country adopts a one-child policy, energy companies in the U.S., China and elsewhere will continue burning coal, bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe.

Focusing on population growth weakens efforts to build an effective global movement against ecological destruction. It divides our forces by blaming the principal victims of the crisis for problems they did not cause. Above all, it ignores the massively destructive role of an irrational economic and social system that has gross waste and devastation built into its DNA.