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Population growth throughout history is shown. The world population has quadrupled in less than 100 years. The annual increase in population of about 79 million persons means that every week an extra 1.5 million people need food and somewhere to live. Resourcing contraception therefore helps to combat climate change. British Medical Journal 2 Aug 2008 "Picture of the week"
BMJ Population control and uncertainty—a doctor’s role by Fiona Godlee, editor • BMJ’s recent coverage of climate change has ignored a key issue—the need for population control. • John Guillebaud and Pip Hayes give the same rebuke in their editorial this week (doi: 10.1136/bmj.a576). • They may be right that "population" and "family planning" are taboo words. • The BMJ hasn’t actively avoided these issues, but we could do more to highlight them. As Guillebaud and Hayes portray it, every week an extra 1.5 million people need food and somewhere to live, amounting to "a huge new city each week, somewhere, which destroys wildlife habitats and augments world fossil fuel consumption." • Every person born adds to greenhouse gas emissions, and escaping poverty is impossible without these emissions increasing.
BMJ • Population control need not be coercive, they say. Half of pregnancies worldwide are unplanned. Simply by meeting women’s unmet contraceptive needs, several developing countries have halved their fertility rates. • Clear evidence points to the demand for contraception increasing when it is available, accessible, and properly marketed. • Guillebaud and Hayes call on doctors to take an active role in overcoming barriers to the universal availability of contraception and ensuring that patients and the public understand the environmental consequences of population growth. • Controversially, as evidenced by the responses to the editorial since it was published online on 24 July (http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2008/07/29/david-payne-its-the-economy-mum-and-dad/), they say that doctors should advise patients on limiting family size for environmental reasons and should set their own example.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison with the second. [Malthus T.R. 1798. An essay on the principle of population. Chapter 1, p13] "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man".
"Could Food shortages bring down civilization?"Scientific American, May 2009, page 38. • "The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse. Those crises are brought on by ever worsening environmental degradation" They give a list of 20 countries in the world that are closest to collapse already (in 2007). Here ranked from worst to better on social, economic, political and military indicators of national well-being are:
Somalia Sudan Zimbabwe Chad Iraq DR Congo Afghanistan Ivory Coast Pakistan (nuclear!!) Central African Republic Guinea Bangladesh Burma Haiti North Korea (nuclear!!) Ethiopia Uganda Lebabon Nigeria Sri Lanka
Swarm "To survive,people will have to swarm over borders,which will inevitably lead to conflict"
Since multi-celled life first appeared 540 million years ago mass extinction events generally related to climate change have eliminated 40 to 92 % of species on the planet. 70,000 years ago a catastrophic climate change associated with the Sumatran eruption of Toba left just 5,000 breeding human females alive from whom we are all descended. 5,000 years ago there were 5 million humans worldwide, their small groupings able to move with the weather. There are now 7 billion. Scientists predict the sea level will rise 91 cms by the year 2100. This would flood 17.5% of Bangladesh. Perhaps for these reasons the Indian government is completing a 4,500 km fence along its entire border with Bangladesh. Scientists predict that by 2050 over 1 billion people will face water shortages. Food availability will also suffer. Temperatures might be expected to rise dramatically after 2020. May 2008 edition of RCA Bulletin by Dr H. Montgomery, Consultant Intensivist, University College, London.
The melting of the arctic ice cap and the warming of Siberia are predicted to release large quantities of methane gas which will accelerate the global warming already taking place due to increased carbon dioxide emissions. • Unless we can grasp the nettle of overpopulation of the planet and help and empower all women, especially those in the developing world, to limit their family size, then the four horsemen of the apocalypse will do it for us. Mark Jackson 2008 RCA Bulletin
China's 400 Million fewer • China's population reached 1.3 billion people in 2005 - one-fifth of total world population. • Zhang Weiqing, director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, has pointed out that thanks to its family planning policies over the last three decades, China has curbed fast population growth and prevented 400 million births by 2005. • "The 400 million births, if not prevented, would postpone China's drive to build a well-off society," said Zhang. "Such an achievement should be recognised as many developed countries spent over a century before reaching low birth rates."[Xinhua News, 3 May 2006].
The Prophet of Climate Change:James Lovelock • One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible - and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century. Copied from:www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock By Jeff Goodell Posted Nov 01, 2007 2:20 PM
Optimum Population Trustwww.optimumpopulation.org • Main Aims • To advance the education of the public in issues relating to human population worldwide and its impact on environmental sustainability; • To advance, promote and encourage research to determine optimum and ecologically sustainable human population levels in all or any part or parts of the world and to publicise the results of such research; • To advance environmental protection by promoting policies in the United Kingdom or any other part or parts of the world which will lead or contribute to the achievement of stable human population levels which allow environmental sustainability.
Patrons • Sir David Attenborough CVO CBE, Naturalist, broadcaster and trustee of the British Museum and Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew; and a former controller of BBC Two. • Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics, University of Cambridge • Professor Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University • Jane Goodall PhD DBE, Founder, Jane Goodall Institute, and UN Messenger of Peace. • Susan Hampshire OBE, Actress and population campaigner • Professor John Guillebaud Former Co-chair of OPT, Emeritus Professor of Family Planning and Reproductive Health, University College, London. Former Medical Director, Margaret Pyke Centre for Family Planning. • Professor Aubrey Manning OBE, President of the Wildlife Trusts and Emeritus Professor of Natural History, University of Edinburgh • Professor Norman Myers CMG, Visiting Fellow, Green College, Oxford University, and at Universities of Harvard, Cornell, Stanford, California, Michigan and Texas • Sara Parkin OBE, Founder Director and Trustee of Forum for the Future and Director of the Natural Environment Research Council and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education and Head Teachers into Industry. • Jonathon Porritt CBE, Founder Director of Forum for the Future and Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission. • Sir Crispin Tickell GCMG KCVO, Chancellor of Kent University, Director of the Policy Foresight Programme at the James Martin Institute, and former UK Permanent Representative on the United Nations Security Council
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 the Fertility, Migration, Population policy projections, 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 voluntarily to "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. • In the UK, that population should be allowed to stabilise and decrease by not less than 0.25% a year to an environmentally sustainable level, by bringing immigration into numerical balance with emigration, by making greater efforts to reduce teenage pregnancies, and by encouraging couples voluntarily to "Stop at Two" children.
Basic concept • As summarized in Disinfo in 2001, the basic concept behind VHEMT is the belief that the Earth would be better off without humans, and as such, humans should refuse to breed. • Or, as the movement puts it: "The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth's ecology. The hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us. When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, the day there are no human beings on the planet."
