Is population really a problem?

Speak of human population growth and the iconic figure of Thomas Malthus immediately springs to mind. More concerning is the fact that his ideas have often been adopted by environmentalists, who argue that if population could be controlled, we could move towards a more sustainable world. A subtext can often be suspected that, if only there were fewer people in poorer countries, those of us in rich countries could carry on as ‘normal’. However, it has become quite clear that as poverty is alleviated and education levels - particularly of women - increase, fertility rates decline and populations stabilise. The problem is not birth rates, but income, health care, security and simply the reduction of the need to make sure you have surviving children to look after you in your old age. These factors all improved. Therefore, the UN has revised its forecasts for population growth over the current century, now expecting it to peak at around 11 billion at some point later this century, whereafter it is set to decline (UN, 2019). What we are proposing in this book is for a sustainability approach that will avoid shifting blame onto those pining for the consumer lifestyles they have been taught are aspirational. We do not want to advocate one rule for one and one for another. We do not see any one group as more deserving of access to the stuff that they want.