18 Nov Curbing population growth will do little to solve the climate crisis
Previously published on The Guardian.
In the short time that we have to prevent catastrophic global heating, population rises are irrelevant, writes Ian Brown, while Daniel Rodriguez says the problem is overconsumption in the west
I am hugely disappointed to see John Vidal suggesting that slowing population growth can help solve the climate crisis, when he fully acknowledges that the rich generate orders of magnitude more emissions than the poor (It should not be controversial to say a population of 8 billion will have a grave impact on the climate, 15 November). Population growth will cause many problems, not least increased resource consumption, but our ability to “solve” climate change in the here and now has nothing to do with future population growth because of the relative timescales involved. To argue otherwise is not controversial, it is merely wrong.
Keep on reading on The Guardian.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.