Surely it is not population numbers that are a problem, but development, consumption and energy use?
This would be true if populations were much smaller and growing slowly. For example, the population of all Europe west of Russia was about 40 million in the year 1000, and took 200 years to grow to 60 million – about as many people as live in the UK today. These earlier levels of population, even had they been living at 21st century standards, would clearly have caused less impact on the environment than today’s European (EU) population alone. Put another way, if we in the UK reduce our carbon emissions by 10 per cent, but the ’emitting’ population grows by an equivalent percentage, nothing has been achieved. Of course the nature of development consumption and energy use is important – breakthroughs in carbon-free energy technology or the discovery of non-fossil fuel energy sources would make a very important difference. But in their absence, and with nearly 80 million people being added to the planet each year, population growth is seriously undermining progress on other fronts.
