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Population is not a front page issue : Comments
By Valerie Yule, published 17/12/2007Not openly discussed at the Bali Climate Summit 2007 is a factor that will make it harder to stop increasing greenhouse gas emissions - population growth.
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Keeping population growth in check will be important, but realistically there simply isn't much that can be done to keep our numbers below 9 billion. I could argue that if it were that easy to convince people to have less babies, we would have succeeded doing so by now - however it's also a false dichotomy to assume the only alternative is to "consume less". My whole point is that there isn't a *necessary* link between increased consumption and increased environmental destruction - up to now, it's simply been cheaper to do it that way. And I certainly don't see the solution as some sort of "technological utopia", where brand new unproven technologies save us all: in many cases it may mean reverting to older technologies, or at least older patterns of use (such as increased reusing and repairing, rather than tossing away and buying new). We have the technology right now to design consumerables to be mostly recyclable, with reusable components. We have the technology right now to produce energy in a manner that doesn't pollute and compromise the atmosphere - indeed it's existed for decades. Once we have clean energy and goods made out of largely recycled materials, our environmental impact could be a fraction of what it is now, to the point that 9 billion of us could potentially all enjoy a high standard of living and still not be comprising the planet's ability to support life.