In the time it takes you to get to the end of this sentence, seven people have been added to the population of the world (I don’t know if that’s true but it sure does make for a kick ass header to a blog). At this growing birth rate, the United Nations estimates the number of people on the planet will nearly double by the middle of this century. Even with significant reductions in birth rates, the population is expected to increase from 6.7 billion now to 9.2 billion by 2050.

These figures are staggering!!! Yet this news doesn’t make the head lines. Instead, global warming is getting attention and seems to be what every political party is discussing. They talk about how they will tackle what is commonly agreed to be the biggest threat facing the planet.

Even with these debates (and well needed discussions) everybody is still only talking only about one half of the equation: the emissions we generate, not how we generate them. (That will make for an entirely different blog in the near future).

All the standby buttons, gas reductions, recycling, fuel efficient cars and low-energy light bulbs are small potatoes in comparison to a global population raising the equivalent of Britain every year (that’s about 65 million extra consuming faces yearly.)

But even if reducing the world’s population is not popular or distasteful, it is incredible that there is not even a debate about limiting and maybe one day reversing growth. Any conversation that begins with “population control” is going to get a lot of slack I am sure.

Lets say a discussion on birth control begin, how would you start it? Ideas as crazy as ignoring disease & plaques or limiting life-saving medical treatment can be ruled out as unacceptable (for obvious reasons). Birth control, according to many is a huge moral and religious issue. It is not surprising that politicians or any activist would shy away from the topic.

There are many understandable reasons for not bringing the debate up either. In countries like Canada, United States and Britain, we are experiencing the opposite, a population decrease. We are filling our dwindling countries with immigrants. But my question for today has to be “is having a lower population a bad thing?” Don’t we have enough people?

Our solution it seems is more efficient technology, renewable energy and lifestyle changes (which will help a lot) but growing prosperity and consumption in developing countries will also make it harder. More and more countries are seemingly looking more and more like North America in regards to consumption and even as shitty the emissions North Americans has; other places are WORSE!

It is understandable then that people are worried about discussing population capping. Fears of misrepresentation, offense or failure are not good enough reasons to ignore such an obvious and out of control situation. Some population activists argue the world can only support a population of two to three billion, even as few as 500 million in the future.

In closing, maybe global warming isn’t such a bad thing, (please note my sarcasm here) with an increase in shore lines and so many people living on the shore….. Well you get the picture.