British Scientist says Earth Too Crowded

In a BBC "viewpoint" article headlined:

Earth is too crowded for Utopia

Chris Rapley, Director of the British Antarctic Survey, says solving environmental problems such as climate change is going to be impossible without tackling the issue of population overcrowding.

As usual, the article is "all opinion" with little fact. Only this time, the opinion gets over into the "population must be controlled" realm.

Steps to Utopia

Although reducing human emissions to the atmosphere is undoubtedly of critical importance, as are any and all measures to reduce the human environmental "footprint", the truth is that the contribution of each individual cannot be reduced to zero.

Only the lack of the individual can bring it down to nothing.

The Montreal climate talks: Did they have the issue right?
So if we believe that the size of the human "footprint" is a serious problem (and there is much evidence for this) then a rational view would be that along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed.

Let us assume (reasonably) that an optimum human population level exists, which would provide the physical and intellectual capacity to ensure a rich and fulfilling life for all, but would represent a call upon the services of the planet which would be benign and hence sustainable over the long term.

A scientific analysis can tell us what that optimum number is (perhaps 2-3 billion?).

With that number and a timescale as targets, a path to reach "Utopia" from where we are now is, in principle, a straightforward matter of identifying options, choosing the approach and then planning and navigating the route from source to destination.

Mr. Rapley can take a long walk off a short iceberg. This kind of alarmism started in the 1960's and 1970's and led to such low birth rates in the Western World that many countries are projected to suffer population declines. In other words, the enlightened, advanced, concerned west commits cultural suicide in the name of saving the planet and creating Utopia. At the same time, the unenlightened, concerned with personal survival, uneducated third world keeps on breeding. I suppose this is the natural progression of Evolution. Let bright, young science teachers repeat this eugenicist mantra to more generations of kids across the western world and it's a safe bet that we'll get a reduced population. For Utopia, I'm sorry but you'll have to wait for the space craft. It's in orbit behind the moon. Have your sneakers ready. Or go talk to Planned Parenthood or some Raelian.