Monbiot against populationism
What with the 7 billionth baby and the UN’s (badly reported) revision of its population projections, the old romance between the apologists and the Malthusians has much heated up lately. George Monbiot replied with this short, sweet takedown, which would be hard to beat. (“Population is much less of a problem than consumption. No wonder the rich are obsessed by it.”)
In the “parameters matter” department, here’s the point to remember. The increase in projected peak-population (from 9 billion to 10 billion) was the result of “what appeared to be an arbitrary decision to change one of the inputs it fed into its model. Its previous analysis was based on the assumption that the average number of children per woman would fall to 1.85 worldwide by 2100. But this year it changed the assumption to 2.1.”