World population is still set to rise by 40%.

 
Population - Greenpeace says it’s “not an issue for us”, Oxfam doesn’t list it on its website A-Z and the Greens didn’t even mention it in their 2005 election manifesto. As an issue, population, is, in short, off the radar. Many greens argue it is about how much we consume rather than numbers, so should we be taking more interest in this issue?

The UK – where both Queen and prime minister have four-child families, and where each citizen uses five times more energy than the average Chinese – is actually more densely populated than China. So which country really needs a population policy?

 
Ecological footprinting techniques, of the sort familiar to many through publications such as WWF’s Living Planet, suggest that the UK’s optimum population is in the 20-30 million range, with the world’s between two and three billion – less than a third of its forecast mid-century peak.

Read article in Green Futures:

http://www.greenfutures.org.uk/features/default.asp?id=2389 

Grist article

Read more of David Nicholson-Lord is an environmental writer and research associate for the Optimum Population Trust.
www.optimumpopulation.org