Population growth of humans and animals needs debating

On one email discussion list I'm on, the issue of population growth was raised - some of my response is below - I include mainly because this issue is still not getting enough 'air time' and because the issue of animal population growth is something I haven't got my head around...and indeed appears even more of a not-talked about issue....

Population as a recent Ecologist article notes is a hot potato - Jonathon Porritt recently got attacked in a totally unreasonable manner in The Guardian by Madeleine Bunting - anyhow the figures on population growth are staggering and should be cause for concerns (read more at the Optimum Population Trust).

We had last year a Cafe Discussion in Stroud on this issue that produced some very interesting discussions - the main parties have still not grasped the radical change needed to tackle climate change - standby button, light bulbs etc are important but only a tiny part of the solution - and in reality we are still only talking only about one half of the equation: the emissions we generate, not how we generate them - indeed standby buttons and low-energy light bulbs are dwarfed by the pressure of a global population rising by the equivalent of Britain every year.

As one article notes: "Put simply, if governments want to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent, and the world's population rises to the mid-range forecast of 9.2 billion, each person would in fact have to slash their emissions by 72 per cent."

Some population campaigners argue the world can only support a population of around three billion, some even less - but even if reducing the world's population is uncomfortable, it is worrying that there is not even a proper debate about this - certainly the biggest obstacle to debate is the matter of possible solutions. Here is another comment: "Propositions such as ignoring disease or limiting life-saving medical treatment can be ruled out as unacceptable, and birth control is objectionable to many on moral, religious and libertarian grounds. It is not surprising that green groups and politicians, worried about offending supporters, stay silent. There remains a fourth barrier to raising the population issue: even when people acknowledge the problem and brave the debate, it seems too big to solve. But there are things that can be done at least to reduce population growth."

Family Planning is one of those - over 200 million women in the world don't have access to 'safe and effective' contraceptive services plus some 45 countries have policies to increase birthrates. Certainly as noted in others comments to this list good family planning services, especially combined with women's education and human rights, are a part of the answer.

It was then that someone posted to the list: "By far the biggest population explosion is in animals which we are deliberately breeding for food. The number is now so great that they eat 5 to 10 times as much plant food as humans and compete with us for many scarce resources (especially land, water and fossil energy used in production) to supply a comparatively small quantity of meat. As well as breathing out CO2 they also produce methane which is 20 times more powerful. This area needs to be addressed, and could be dealt with a lot quicker than the human population."

This issue of the impact of animals on climate change is one I've raised before on this blog - but I have to say I wasn't aware of this explosion in numbers - it is absolutely right it needs tackling but we need to address both these issues - human and animal population growths - both have massive effects on climate change.