Limit family sizes to protect planet
Over-population is harming the environment to the point that
governments must limit family sizes, warns a report by UK think-tank
the Optimum Population Trust.
The Youthquake report said that humanity is outstripping the biological capacity of the Earth by a quarter each year, and cites climate change and food shortages as consequences of a high global population and rising consumption levels. It claims that by 2050, when the world’s population is projected to reach 9.2 billion, humans will be using the biocapacity of two Earths.
In the UK, the total fertility rate was 1.87 in 2006 – a 26-year high – and, according to the report, each new birth is responsible for 160 times more environmental damage than a birth in Ethiopia. The trust suggests that governments – both in the UK and worldwide – should introduce a voluntary two-child limit, pointing to Iran, which halved its birth rate to 2.6 births per woman between 1988 and 1996, as an example.
But while it says compulsory one-child policies such as China’s are ‘generally counter-productive and liable to discount human rights’, it adds that ‘where states or regions may be almost uninhabitable through environmental damage, [birth limitations] may become unavoidable’.
Professor John Guillebaud, the report’s author, said: ‘No-one is in favour of governments dictating family size, but we need to act quickly to prevent it. Despite the catastrophic current increase of an extra 1.5 million humans per week, there is still a slim chance that such measures can be avoided.’
The report has come under fire from pro-family organisation the World Congress of Families, which labelled the trust ‘totalitarians’ and ‘radical environmentalists’ who want the UK to ‘commit demographic suicide’.
October 2007
The Youthquake report said that humanity is outstripping the biological capacity of the Earth by a quarter each year, and cites climate change and food shortages as consequences of a high global population and rising consumption levels. It claims that by 2050, when the world’s population is projected to reach 9.2 billion, humans will be using the biocapacity of two Earths.
In the UK, the total fertility rate was 1.87 in 2006 – a 26-year high – and, according to the report, each new birth is responsible for 160 times more environmental damage than a birth in Ethiopia. The trust suggests that governments – both in the UK and worldwide – should introduce a voluntary two-child limit, pointing to Iran, which halved its birth rate to 2.6 births per woman between 1988 and 1996, as an example.
But while it says compulsory one-child policies such as China’s are ‘generally counter-productive and liable to discount human rights’, it adds that ‘where states or regions may be almost uninhabitable through environmental damage, [birth limitations] may become unavoidable’.
Professor John Guillebaud, the report’s author, said: ‘No-one is in favour of governments dictating family size, but we need to act quickly to prevent it. Despite the catastrophic current increase of an extra 1.5 million humans per week, there is still a slim chance that such measures can be avoided.’
The report has come under fire from pro-family organisation the World Congress of Families, which labelled the trust ‘totalitarians’ and ‘radical environmentalists’ who want the UK to ‘commit demographic suicide’.
October 2007
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