There is a popular notion that to effectively solve climate change and other environmental ills, the problem of ‘exponential population growth’ has to be necessarily solved. Strict birth control is touted to prevent doomsday.

In the past, there had been concrete efforts to stem the burgeoning human population on the planet. Forced vasectomies were conducted in India and China. China also instituted its one-child policy.

But the published statistics of the world’s population boom ignore other facts such as declining birth rates and fertility rates in some places. ‘Women across the poor world are having dramatically fewer babies than their mothers did – mostly out of choice, not compulsion. Half a century ago, the worldwide average for the number of children a woman had was between five and six. Now she has 2.6.’

But population growth solutions won’t stem the world’s environmental ills altogether. ‘The real issue is not overpopulation but overconsumption – mostly in rich countries that have long since given up adding substantial numbers to their population.’

Take, for example, the matter of carbon dioxide emissions. According to Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environmental Institute, ‘the world’s richest half billion people – that’s about 7 per cent of the global population – are responsible for 50 per cent of the world’s emissions. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 per cent are responsible for just 7 per cent of emissions.’

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Via NewScientist