While reading an article on David Attenborough I learned about the Optimum Population Trust, a “leading think tank in the UK concerned with the impact of population growth on the environment.”
The population clock on the website is kind of scary. Since I started this blog about 500,000,000 people have been born. I really do think that population control is the #1 solution to almost all of the world’s problems. That, and education – and really I think they go hand in hand. We won’t have one without the other. Attenborough says:
we can make sure women have the choice as to whether they have children. If you spread literacy, education, a decent standard of living, the population increase drops. That’s why the notion, the ability, to restrict population growth should be around. I don’t believe women want to have 12 children where eight of them die, as they did in this country 150 years ago. Now they have a choice, and that is the reason we have an almost static population here – if you discount immigration.
On the OPT site:
What’s the population solution?
GLOBALLY: reduce birth rates. NATIONALLY: reduce or keep birth rates low and/or balance migration to prevent population increase. All countries need environmentally sustainable population policies to underpin other green policies. PERSONALLY: have fewer children and work a few more years before retiring.
OPT POPULATION POLICY
OPT campaigns for policies to achieve environmentally sustainable population levels both globally and in the UK. The ecological issue is one of population numbers, resource demands and the environmental impacts created by different sizes of population at given levels of affluence and technology. For more details see Population policy projections, Fertility, Migration, Briefings and submissions and other sections of this website.
OPT recommends the following population policies:Globally, that full access to family planning should be provided to all those who do not have it, that couples should be encouraged to voluntarily “stop at two” children to lessen the impact of family size on the environment, and that this should be part of a holistic approach involving better education and equal rights for women.
Stopping at zero would be best, but I can’t ask for the moon.