YP Letters: Population is as big a threat as climate change

WE read dire forecasts of 
ice caps melting and great 
cities being flooded in the decades ahead.

Yet we know better than to accept this projection fatalistically but recognise 
it as a call for change from the direction in which past and current actions are leading us.

We are summoning the will to avert this fate, notwithstanding that it will require compliance by the great majority of nations – even when many may be tempted to free-ride on the sacrifice of others.

At the same time we see the world population continuing to rise steeply, placing us in a vice between growing demand upon resources and increasing uncertainly over the capacity of a climate-changed planet to sustain us.

Of these problems with excess carbon dioxide and people, the latter is more tractable as each region can benefit from its own efforts while others face the consequences of their own irresponsibility.

We might therefore expect forecasts of a UK population above 70 million and rising to be met with the resolute response that we will not allow this to happen and will do what is necessary to prevent it. Instead we see meek acceptance of this impending calamity.