by Kate Booker

“There cannot be more people on this earth than can be fed” – Sir David Attenborough

It seems so obvious.  With world population hitting 7 billion this week and concerns about the environment at an all-time high, there is surely not a single environmental problem facing us today which would not be easier to address if there were fewer human beings on this planet.

Yet when it comes to environmental solutions, we talk about carbon offsets, going carbon neutral, food miles, electric cars, recycling, composting – in short, pretty much everything except the one thing which is unequivocally making each and every one of the environmental issues we face worse: creating more humans.

Why is it such a sensitive issue?  I suppose the suggestion of population control brings to mind punitive regimes such as China’s One Child Policy.  However if we act now, and focus on educating people and allowing them to make their own choices, I believe we can do it voluntarily.

Attenborough himself is the patron of Populations Matters, which raises awareness about over-population and encourages people to choose to have two or fewer children.  Population Matters also believes we can bring our population under control without forcible strategies.  If successful, this strategy will result in a stabilisation, then gradual reduction in the world’s population.

Attenborough proposes each country develop a population policy and suggests it could be as simple as making family planning freely available to every one, and empowering and encouraging people to voluntarily use it.

And an interesting correlation exists between girls and education levels.  It is well documented that where women have higher levels of literacy and access to birth control, they themselves choose to have smaller families and the birth rate falls naturally.

Focusing on ensuring that girls in poorer countries have access to free education and learn to read may therefore have as much of an impact on slowing or reversing global population growth as it does on lifting those young girls out of poverty, empowering them and improving their overall quality of life. In addition to being the key to addressing our population issues, girls are more likely than boys to suffer from malnutrition, be forced into an early marriage, be subject to violence, be sold or coerced into the sex trade or become infected with HIV (Source: Plan International).

Did you know: When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later on average and has 2.2 fewer children AND each extra year of secondary schooling a girl receives boosts her future wages by 15-25% (source: Idealist)

For these girls themselves, as well as for the planet, education is the way out.  A true win-win!

What can you do?

1. Have fewer children: would you choose to have fewer children – or perhaps even none at all – for the long-term future of our planet?  Take the Population Matters “Two or Fewer” pledge here.

2. Educate girls (and boys) better: Support programs, especially those for girls, such as those run by Plan International.  Plan International is a long-established child-centred development organisation with no religious, political or governmental affiliation.

3. Get talking and ask those in charge to take action: Sir David Attenborough himself asks us to break the taboo and raise the issue, especially with the government, relevant NGOs or the church (especially the Catholic church).  Write a letter and ask these bodies to do more about the issue of population:

Need some facts to include in your letter?  Some great facts and statistics here.

See Sir David’s speech to Population Matters here.