African woman journalist takes Sir David Attenborough to task for his ‘condescension’, ‘blatant inaccuracies’ and ‘common stereotypes’

Television celebrity Sir David Attenborough (pictured) has come under fire for blaming famine in Africa on population growth and the Catholic Church in a controversial interview reported in the Daily Telegraph.

These latest comments follow the broadcaster’s descriptionof human beings earlier this year as ‘a plague on the Earth that needs to be controlled by limiting population growth’.

Sir David, who is a patron of the Population Matters, has spoken out previously about what he sees as the ‘frightening explosion in human numbers’.

This week in an articleposted on Culture of Life Africa, and republishedon Life Site News, African woman journalist Obianuju Ekeocha takes the presenter to task for his ‘condescension towards the people of Africa’, his ‘lack of understanding of the African reality’ and for predicating his comments on ‘blatant inaccuracies’ and ‘common  stereotypes’.  

The article is well worth reading in full but here are some highlights:

1. Sir David exhibits the exact alarmist mindset and philosophy that set the Chinese government on the painful path of extreme population control , a path now paved with the blood of millions of innocent unborn babies and soaked with the tears of millions of women coercively deprived of the joy of motherhood (See my previous blog on 160 million Asian women missing as a result of ultrasound and second trimester abortion).

2. The undeniable decline in population, which is now occurring in many western countries where the fertility rate has dropped below replacement rate, is creating all sorts of complex fiscal and economic difficulties associated with population aging, labour shortage, loss of tax revenues, collapse of social welfare systems and general economic decline. This has real consequences that are now slowly but surely paralyzing some of the most powerful countries in the world: growing elderly population, shrinking workforce, increasing health needs and the move into the ‘lonely world of the nursing home’ (See this articleand my previous blogon Japan).

3. By contrast in the developing world there are enough children and grandchildren to care for their elderly parents in warm and loving multigenerational households.   A child is not just a mouth to feed, but a specially unique individual with incredible potentials to learn, love and live a life of service to the family and community. Africans encourage marriage, celebrate motherhood and welcome babies because they are a sign of hope for the future. 

4. With more than three times the population density of Ethiopia, there is still abundant food to feed the vast numbers of people living in Great Britain, so how can anyone living therein point an accusing finger to the Ethiopians to control their wildly reproducing population or forever face the scourge of famine? (Famine is Africa is due not to population but to a variety of factors including deforestation, poor farming, climate change and also war, often fought with weapons supplied by the West!)

Ekeocha concludes with an appeal to all the ‘population control minded elite of the western world, who are propagating and pushing their philosophy to the ends of the earth, to please respect the African people in their quest for sustainable authentic growth and development that is consistent and compatible with their Culture of Life.’ Strong words indeed!

Some previous blogs on population

Britain’s growing elderly population is a massive challenge which requires a radical solution

Peter Singer backs abortion for curbing population growth

Population control lobby seeks to impose its agenda rather than addressing the real causes of poverty

The false prophets of the population control lobby and their appalling track record

The economic challenge of a greying population: An alternative to the Sunday Times chilling 'final solution'

Is seven billion people too many? More nonsense from the population control lobby

Global warming is much more about per capita consumption than population

Seven billion - BBC brings some welcome balance to the population debate

The demographic time bomb and euthanasia

Saying that too many babies are being born to poor people in developing countries is a new form of global racism

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Peter Singer backs abortion for curbing population growth

Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher and currently Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is former editor of the Bioethics journal and one of the most influential thinkers in bioethics today.

Singer espouses utilitarianism, a system of ethics that seeks to minimize suffering and maximize wellbeing. The New Yorker has called him ‘the most influential living philosopher’.

One of the clearest expositions of Singer’s position, and interestingly the first thing I read of anything he wrote, is a seminal article titled ‘Sanctity of Life or Quality of Life?’, published in the American Journal ‘Paediatics’ in 1983. In it he argues as follows:

'We can no longer base our ethics on the idea that human beings are a special form of creation, made in the image of God...Once the religious mumbo-jumbo surrounding the term 'human' has been stripped away, we may continue to see normal members of our species as possessing greater qualities of rationality, self-consciousness, communication and so on than members of any other species, but we will not regard as sacrosanct the life of every member of our species, no matter how limited its capacity for intelligent or even conscious life may be... If we can put aside the obsolete and erroneous notion of the sanctity of all human life, we may start to look at human life as it really is, at the quality of human life that each human being has or can achieve.'

To Singer and many influential thinkers like him, man is nothing but the product of matter, chance and time in a godless universe; merely a highly specialised animal. The value of an individual human being is determined by his level of rationality, self-consciousness, physical attributes or capacity for relationships. Human life that has fewer of these qualities is of less value and can be disposed of.

This Darwinian ethic with its aim of 'survival of the fittest', once popularised and politicised, places the demented, mentally handicapped, brain-injured, unborn and disabled newborn in great danger.

Dave Andrusko, writing for Life Site News this week, reviews a blog that science writer John Horgan has written about Singer for the Scientific American after the latter paid a visit to Stevens Institute where Horgan is Director of the Center for Science Writing.

‘(Singer) has a knack for pushing people out of their moral comfort zone,’ Horgan writes. ‘Although his positions—especially on mercy killing of severely disabled infants and adults–have sparked public protests both in the US and abroad, (he) is disarmingly cool on the page and in person, even when talking about the hottest topics.’

Singer has tip-toed around some of his most infamous statements, but still adheres to the position that a child does not attain ‘full moral status’ until somewhere between one and two, which makes infanticide in some cases (actually many cases) acceptable.

To Singer the unborn is a member of the species Homo sapiens but not a ‘person’ because ‘the idea of a person involves the capacity to see oneself as existing over time’.

Says Horgan, ‘Singer nonetheless believes that abortion is ethical, because even a viable fetus is not a rational, self-aware person with desires and plans, which would be cut short by death; hence it should not have the same right as humans who have such qualities. Abortion is also justified, Singer added, both as a female right and as a method for curbing overpopulation’.

In his support for abortion as a means of controlling world population Singer is interestingly in good company with some notable Western politicians and policy-makers.

In 2009 Jonathon Porritt former chairman of the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Commission, said that curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of efforts to combat global warming, and that couples who had more than two children were irresponsible.

In the tradition of Malthus and Ehrlich, Porritt warned of ecological and environmental disaster ahead unless we do something rapidly to curb population growth (I have previously argued against this view here)

Former International development secretary (and until recently Chief Whip) Andrew Mitchell is another supporting abortion (subsumed within ‘family planning’) for population control. He argued recently in the Metro as follows:

‘The British government is working to improve access to contraception and family planning education for 10 million women in the developing world. This will prevent five million unintended pregnancies, save the lives of 50,000 women and avoid the deaths of 250,000 newborns by 2015.’

And the source of the information on which Mitchell based his policy? Well not surprisingly it is a report by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), a key supporter of China’s population control programme, which is in large part responsible for 160 million missing women (as a result of sex selection abortion) in Asia.

Mitchell’s policy is consistent with a report by UN Special Rapporteur for Health, Anand Grover, which linked unrestricted abortion with the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Grover adamantly affirmed his intention to redefine the ‘right to health’ in UN conventions and treaties to include abortion.

Peter Singer, like most philosophers, will never personally carry out his plans. To him they are just ideas. But ideas that are whispered in the ivory towers of universities in one generation get shouted in the streets in the next and become the basis of future public policy.

Let’s therefore keep a close eye on Singer and also, perhaps even more carefully, those policy makers who share his worldview and seek to put it into practice.

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The demographic time bomb is most marked in Japan

The demographic time bomb – whereby the elderly population assumes a greater and greater proportion of the total population - is no more marked than in Japan.

Falling birth rates (as a result of abortion, contraception and delaying childbirth) and increasing longevity as a result of better medical care have created this situation.

If we look at the population age structure in Japan (see graph above) we can see how dramatically its shape has changed since 1950 and how much more it will change by 2050.

The same trends are spelt out numerically in the table below where different countries are compared.

The population pyramid of 1950 shows that Japan had a standard-shaped pyramid marked by a broad base. The shape of the pyramid, however, has changed dramatically as both the birth rate and death rate have declined.

In 1950 the population of elderly citizens (65 years and over) accounted for just 4.9% of the total population. This had risen to 21.5% by 2007 and will rise to 39.6% by 2050.

This growth in numbers of older people has been matched by a shrinking of the younger population. In 1950 those under 15 made up 35.4% of the total population but this had fallen to 13.5% by 2007 and will fall further to 8.6% by 2050.

Note also that those of working age (15-65) constituted 65% of the population in 2007 (two thirds) but will account for only 51% (half) by 2050.

They could well account for much less given that many of those in the 15-65 age group, as of now, might be in education, or alternatively not in education, employment or training.

The speed of aging of Japan's population is much faster than in advanced Western European countries or the USA but the trends are similar throughout the industrialised world.

Add in increasing debt and rising unemployment and you have a very toxic cocktail indeed.

Unless something is done to reverse the demographic trends, ‘economic necessity’, together with the ‘culture of death’ ideology which is becoming more openly accepted, may well mean that the generation that killed its children through abortion will in turn be killed by its own children through euthanasia.

Some European politicians and economists have been chillingly open about the economic incentives for euthanasia.

Jacques Attali, the former president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, said in 1981 in an article in L’Avenir de la vie:

‘As soon as he gets beyond 60-65 years of age, man lives beyond his capacity to produce, and he costs society a lot of money... euthanasia will be one of the essential instruments of our future societies.’

The real answer is not euthanasia. The real answer is in our grasp, but it requires a completely different mind-set to that which has led us, in our reckless pursuit of affluence and personal peace to mortgage our present, bankrupt our futures, and see those who rely on us as a burden rather than a privileged responsibility.

We need instead, as a society, to stop killing our children, build up our families, live more simply, give more generously and focus our priorities on providing for our dependents, especially the older generation which fought for our freedom in two world wars, provided for our health, education and welfare, and left us the legacy of wealth, comfort, peace and security which we have squandered and taken for granted.

Data on Japan obtained from online ‘Statistical Handbook of Japan’

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Saying that too many babies are being born to poor people in developing countries is a new form of global racism

Steve Mosher (pictured), president of Population Research Institute, has made a statement today which deserves a very wide readership.

Population Research Institute is an international non-profit organisation which works to end coercive population control, and fight the myth of overpopulation which fuels it.

I have pasted his full statement below.

Baby Seven Billion. Welcome.

A few seconds after midnight a baby emerged from a mother's womb, drew a first breath, and announced his or her arrival into the world with a tiny cry. This is Baby Seven Billion. Today, 31 October 2011, is this baby's birthday.

As our numbers have grown, incomes have soared. In 1800, when there were only 1 billion of us, per capita income worldwide was a mere $100. By 1927 our numbers had doubled, but incomes had already increased five times to $500. By the time we reached 3 billion in 1960, income had tripled again to $1500. Today, as we pass the 7 billion mark, per capita income has soared to $9,000.

In 2100, when the population will be between 7 and 8 billion (and falling), it is projected to be $30,000 in current dollars.

Driving the so-called "population explosion" has been a real explosion in health and longevity. As late as the 19th century, four out of every 10 children died before reaching age five. Today under-five mortality is under 6 percent and falling. Two hundred years ago, human life expectancy was under 30 years. Today it is 69 years and climbing.

As people live longer, naturally there are more of us around at any given time.

By nearly every measure of well-being, from infant mortality and life expectancy to educational level and caloric intake, life in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has been getting dramatically better. According to the World Bank, the average income in the developing world has quadrupled since 1960.

Enough grain is produced for every person on earth to consume 3,500 calories daily. There is no need for anyone to starve in the midst of this plenty.

Population has more than doubled since 1960, but crop yields per hectare have kept pace. World food and resource production has never been higher.

Economies continue to expand, productivity is up, and pollution is declining. Life spans are lengthening, poverty is down, and political freedom is growing. The human race has never been so well off.

In fact, underpopulation, not overpopulation, is the real threat that much of the world faces today. Some 80 countries representing over half the world's population suffer from below replacement fertilitydefined as less than 2.1 children per woman.

The populations of the developed nations today are static or declining. The UN predicts that, by 2050, Russia's population will have declined by 25 million people, Japan's by 21 million, Italy's by 16 million, and Germany's and Spain's by 9 million each. Europe and Japan are projected to lose half their population by 2100.

Countries with below replacement rate fertility will eventually die out. It's just a question of time.

Even in the developing world family size has shrunk, from around 5 children per woman in 1960 to less than 3 today. And the decline continues.

According to the UN's "low variant projection"historically the most accuratethe population of the world will peak at 8 plus billion in 2040 or so, and then begin to decline.

High fertility rates are becoming rare. The UN numbers for 2010 show only 10 countries with population increase rates at or above 3.0 percent.

By 2050, persons aged 65 and above will be almost twice as numerous as children 15 years and younger. The economic consequences of population aging will be closing schools, declining stock markets, and moribund economies.

Ignoring these facts, the population controllers continue to spread their myth of overpopulation.

The UNFPA and other population control organizations are loath to report the truth about falling fertility rates worldwide, since they raise funds by frightening people with the specter of overpopulation. They tell us that too many babies are being born to poor people in developing countries. This is tantamount to saying that only the wealthy should be allowed to have children, and is a new form of global racism.

We should stop funding population control programs, and instead turn our attention to real problems, such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and infectious diseases. As mortality rates fall, so will birth rates.

Let us also join together in celebrating the birth of Baby Seven Billion. He or she is a sign of our future, our hope and our prosperity.

People are our greatest resource. Extraordinarily gifted people have helped to enrich civilization and lengthen life spans. But the fact is, everyone, rich or poor, is a unique creation with something priceless to offer to the rest of us.

Baby Seven Billion, boy or girl, red or yellow, black or white, is not a liability, but an asset. Not a curse, but a blessing. For all of us.

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Seven billion - BBC brings some welcome balance to the population debate

According to the BBC, when I was born, I was the 2,909,761,661st person alive on Earth and the 76,445,556,695th person to have lived since history began. You can calculate your own number on line and if you put in today’s date you will learn that there have been 83 billion people born since 50,000 BC. So that means that just under 10% of everyone who has ever lived is alive today.

According to the Daily Mirror the seven billionth person on the planet was born last night in the Philippines. Danica May Camacho (pictured) is only a few hours old but her birth is already being talked about around the globe. According to the BBC the seven billionth was an Indian girl called Baby Nargis.

The reality is that no one has a clue when the seven billionth child will be born let alone who it is.

According to some experts, the UN, who claim that the seven billionth will be born today, have jumped the gun. The US Census Bureau says the most likely date the world population will reach seven billion is between March and April next year. Sergei Scherbov of the Vienna Institute of Demography, meanwhile, says there is a 95% probability that the figure will be reached between January and July 2012.

Regardless, however, today is being celebrated as the actual date.

Some sections of the media have given a platform to politicians and ideologists – like Jonathan Porritt and Andrew Mitchell - who are using the birth of the seven billionth person as a pretext for tighter population control through contraception and abortion. I have already blogged about the false prophecies of past population control champions Malthus (who predicted respectively that the world would run out of food in 1890) and Ehrlich (who said in 1968 that there was an even chance Britain would not exists by the year 2000).

It was therefore refreshing to see a much better balanced article on the BBC website which seeks to grapple with the issues. It is critical of Malthus and Ehrlich and gives airspace to critics who argue that rich people have imposed population control on the poor for decades and that such coercive attempts to control the world's population have often backfired and were sometimes harmful.

The article, which is based on a BBC World Service serial, takes issue with the population control lobby and is worth reading in full.

The idea that the rich are threatened by the desperately poor has cast a long shadow into the 20th Century. From the 1960s, the World Bank, the UN and a host of independent American philanthropic foundations, such as the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, began to focus on what they saw as the problem of burgeoning Third World numbers. The believed that overpopulation was the primary cause of environmental degradation, economic underdevelopment and political instability. Massive populations in the Third World were seen as presenting a threat to Western capitalism and access to resources.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson warned that the US might be overwhelmed by desperate masses, and he made US foreign aid dependent on countries adopting family planning programmes. Other wealthy countries such as Japan, Sweden and the UK also began to devote large amounts of money to reducing Third World birth rates. What virtually everyone agreed was that there was a massive demand for birth control among the world's poorest people, and that if they could get their hands on reliable contraceptives, runaway population growth might be stopped. But with the benefit of hindsight, some argue that this so-called unmet need theory put disproportionate emphasis on birth control and ignored other serious needs.

In the early 1980s, objections to the population control movement began to grow, especially in the United States. In Washington, the new Reagan administration removed financial support for any programmes that involved abortion or sterilization and broad alliance to stem birth rates was beginning to dissolve and the debate become more polarised along political lines. While some on the political right had moral objections to population control, some on the left saw it as neo-colonialism. Faith groups condemned it as a Western attack on religious values, but women's groups feared changes would mean poor women would be even less well-served.

Since the UN conference on population and development in Cairo in 1994 the focus has shifted somewhat off population control and onto ‘reproductive rights’ but in practice groups like the UNFPA and IPPF are continuing with the same population control agenda under another name.

As I have argued previously, the experience of Europe is that women will voluntarily limit family size once they know their children will survive. This will follow investment in women’s education, healthcare and addressing rights to things such as food, employment, water, justice and fair wages. The rich world, with is crippling debt through overconsumption, needs to embrace far simpler lifestyles and share its resources more equitably.

If we try to impose population control measures without addressing these fundamental issues of injustice it simply will not work.

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A poem to commemorate the birth of the seven billionth person

With the world's population reaching seven billion we are going to hear more demands for population control.

But the fact is that families voluntarily limit the size of their families once they know that their children will survive.

So the real priority is not measures to control popluation but better education for women, community development, better healthcare, fair trade and more even distribution of resources.

To commemorate seven billion day here is a poem on a more just solution:



The folk from Guzzle Gorge (who were the richest on the planet)
Had noticed falls in food supply and wondered: 'who began it?'
'It's numbers (not consumption) that's to blame' was their deduction
And so they brought in measures to curb others' reproduction

They'd first flogged powdered milk like it was going out of fashion
And 'Lomotil' to treat the diarrhoea caused (and bring more cash in)
But now they dished out, condoms and fallopian tube ligation
And followed these with RU 486 and 'termination'

Now family spacing's fine and wise (allows the mums to rest)
And ovulation's kept at bay with babies on the breast
But lactose drinks and birth-control imposed without due thought
Can crush the very fabric of a people yet untaught

The poor will choose less offspring once they know that they will live
And poverty's made worse by those who have and yet won't give
Perhaps it's no surprise that those who guard the global purse
Seem to believe that children aren't a blessing but a curse

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The false prophets of the population control lobby and their appalling track record

On 31 October when the world’s population reaches seven billion we will be subjected to a whole host of alarmist reports about impending disaster - through overcrowding, disease and environmental destruction - and the population control lobby, led by prominent journalists and media celebrities, will try to persuade us that our salvation lies in making contraception and abortion more widely accessible.

I have already blogged about this ludicrous proposition at length and won’t reiterate my arguments and analysis here. Instead I want to point to an excellent review article on Life Site news which highlights past false predictions of the population control lobby.

The article warns that ‘Halloween is traditionally a night of witches, ghosts, and monsters. But for environmentalists and their media allies, an even bigger scare is coming this Halloween: the birth of Earth’s 7 billionth resident’.

It then goes on to note past false predictions, most notably those of Malthus and Ehrlich, the pioneers of the movement:

Panic over population growth is not a new phenomenon. Anglican clergyman and thinker Thomas Malthus, in 1798, called for extreme measures to reduce human population in his Essay on the Principle of Population (World population was below 1 billion in 1798.): ‘Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations.’ By 1890, he predicted, the world would run out of food, and thus the end of the human race would soon follow.

American biologist Paul Ehrlich echoed Malthus in his 1968 work The Population Bomb, which warned of mass starvation and environmental catastrophe due to overpopulation. (World population was below 3.6 billion in 1968.) Ehrlich made a series of fantastic predictions, including the claim:‘I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.’ The United Nations Population Fund - with its population control agenda - was founded in the wake of these scaremongering predictions.

The dire warnings of Malthus and Ehrlich were proven spectacularly wrong. The New York Times stated as much in a 2003 editorial, noting that ‘population growth rates were plummeting.’ Birthrates are rapidly declining in the United States and throughout the world. And food production has increased dramatically over the past 40 years, as new methods of growing food and using resources are discovered.

But Ehrlich has refused to concede his predictions were wrong, and the media still quotes Ehrlich and raises the ghost of Malthus.

So when you start to hear all the population explosion nonsense rehashed on Monday remember these past ‘prophetic’ predictions and don’t get alarmed. Take a deep breath, read the Scriptures below and have a look at the contrary view (eloquently put by Reuters this week in an article titled 'The next challenge: not too many people, but too few?') that the real problem we are facing, at least in the Western world, is a very different demographic crisis altogether - that birth rates are falling and the relative proportion of elderly people is rising - which is why President Putin and others are looking at measures to increase rather than decrease population.

Yes the world population is rising at present and will go higher for a while. But if falling birth rates continue, which looks virtually certain, then in the not too distant future we are headed for a lengthy downward population trajectory. As Life Site News concludes:

‘Not everyone is as terrified of the overpopulation bogeyman as the media seems to be. Colin Mason, Director of Media for the Population Research Institute, explained why fears of overpopulation are unfounded: “Historically, as human population has grown and developed technology, the manner in which we use resources has changed.

For instance, as human population has grown, we have needed to produce enough food to feed our burgeoning numbers. But as our civilizations have developed, we have also developed ways of increasing crop yield, and of growing crops on previously infertile land.”’

A series of videos produced by PRI illustrate their argument that the earth is not overpopulated.

You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?’ If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed. (Deuteronomy 18:21,22)

‘But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. (2 Peter 2:1-3)

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Population control lobby seeks to impose its agenda rather than addressing the real causes of poverty

The world’s population is due to pass seven billion on 31 October and campaigners for population control are again using it as an opportunity to promote their agenda.

Back in February 2009 Jonathon Porritt (pictured), former chairman of the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Commission, said that curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of efforts to combat global warming, and that couples who had more than two children were irresponsible.

He is back again this week in the Independent with an article titled ‘Over-population: the global crisis that dare not speak its name’ which reruns much the same message.

In the tradition of Malthus and Ehrlich, Porritt warns of ecological and environmental disaster ahead unless we do something rapidly to curb population growth.

Today’s Metro, in a report titled ‘World’s poor hit worst as population tops 7 billion’, tells us that ‘the world’s poorest regions will be worst hit’ and that ‘areas where there is extreme poverty, food insecurity and inequality will suffer high death rates and high birth rates as part of a “vicious cycle”’.

The solution to these problems? Well you might have imagined that it would be better education of women, community development, better healthcare, more food production and more even distribution of resources, but no! According to International development secretary Andrew Mitchell the answer is still more contraception and abortion.

‘The British government is working to improve access to contraception and family planning education for 10million women in the developing world. This will prevent five million unintended pregnancies, save the lives of 50,000 women and avoid the deaths of 250,000 newborns by 2015.’

And the source of the information on which Mitchell bases his policy? Well not surprisingly it is a new report by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), a key supporter of China’s population control programme, which is in large part responsible for 160 million missing women (as a result of sex selection abortion) in Asia.

Mitchell’s policy is consistent with the report this week by UN Special Rapporteur for Health, Anand Grover, which linked unrestricted abortion with the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. He adamantly affirmed his intention to redefine the ‘right to health’ in UN conventions and treaties to include abortion.

This is despite the fact that saying ‘no’ to abortion is actually an international human right, as outlined in the recently published San Jose articles by a group of leading international lawyers, ethicists and academics.

Grover has not surprisingly come in for stiff criticism from Egypt, Honduras and Chile. The Chilean government emphasized that it is essential to recognize the right to life of all human beings. Its statement was of special interest given the country’s history with legalized abortion. Abortion was legal in Chile until 1989. After its criminalization, maternal mortality actually decreased.

Whether the world is overpopulated is debatable. All the world's buildings would fit in Scotland or Ireland alone and the world's population could currently stand shoulder to shoulder on the Isle of Wight. World per capita food production has more than kept pace with population and Europe's own past demonstrates that fertility can be managed effectively - even without contraceptives - as living standards improve.

Furthermore citizens of the developing world choose large families for good reasons, as insurance against an uncertain future in circumstances of high infant mortality, low and insecure income and labour intensive farming.

Family planning combined with economic development allows couples to plan the number and spacing of their children in the light of their own circumstances and beliefs.

On the other hand imposed population control, with all that involves, coupled with mounting developing world debt and economic austerity measures which slash health and education budgets, actually causes huge damage to poor indigenous populations.

Our stewardship of the earth is not a licence to exploit but to govern wisely. We cannot impose solutions on the world's poor without addressing our complicity in unjust economic structures, environmentally destructive technologies, and consumptive lifestyles.

I have previously argued that, regardless of what we might believe about the importance of global warning, those countries which are amongst the biggest contributors are not those in the developing world with rapidly growing populations but those with relatively static populations.

The top four contributors to global warming are China (23% of total), US (18%), India (6%) and Russia (6%)) which have population growth rates of only 0.51%, 0.86%, 1.34% and -0.07% respectively according to World Bank figures.

Carbon footprint is much more about consumption per capita than about population. It is not how many children we have, but how much resource each one consumes. That is the real issue.

Sodom came under God's judgment, at least in part, because she was 'arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; (she) did not help the poor and needy' (Ezekiel 16:49).

This description fits our Western World well. Let’s not simplistically condemn people for having children without addressing the real problem – consumption of more resources than one needs coupled with neglect of those in real need.

The real challenge is how we can live more simply in order that others might simply live.

(See also 'The next challenge: not too many people, but too few?' - Reuters; 'Media Promotes Left-Wing Panic Over 7 Billion People' - Life Site News; 'Seven Billion Strong, and Counting' - Witherspoon Institute; After 7 billion - Demographic denialists are ignoring the perils of an ageing population - Mercatornet)

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