Poor Maddie, she really doesn’t get it.
Population management is just as emotive. People quickly bristle at the
idea of any government telling them how many children they can have.
The whole policy area of population was given a bad name by India’s
enthusiasm in the 70s and 80s when government programmes ensnared
uncomprehending young men into having vasectomies. But should the UK
government pursue a policy of persuasion, a Stop at Two campaign, to
bring people’s attention to the carbon footprint of having lots of
children? If it did, would it work? Internationally, population policy
has been crippled by US and Vatican opposition on abortion and
contraception. Have they managed to bully environmental organisations
into this awkward silence?
We know how to reduce population. In fact, not only do we kow how to do it, we’ve done it. If you look around th world then, absent immigration, all of the rich countries have birth rates below replacement (as well as a few poor ones too). And birth rates are falling in all countries (again, absent immigration: first generation immigrants tend to bring with them the birth rates of their origin).
We actually have an empirical answer: being rich reduces birth rates. Which is why there is indeed a rise to 9 billion predicted: and if economic growth continues as it has for the past century or so, then a decline, to 7 billion in 2100.
Whatever it is that we needed to do about population growth, we’ve already done it.
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