Do we need population control? - SALON

Matthew Connelly: Reducing the size of a population can mean that you increase the number of households because people are living by ones and twos and threes. When people live in smaller households they tend to consume more of everything. That's why it's terribly deceptive to think that we can address the environmental problems of overconsumption just by getting people to have fewer kids. It's more complicated than that.

NVDL: I'm going to offer as brief an answer I can to that very very complicated question. Yes.

clipped from www.salon.com Ehrlich: Yes, if we cut the population in half over the next 50 years by any means, and we double each person's consumption, we're exactly where we are now. Isn't it true that right now the average woman has about 2.6 children? Ehrlich: That's right. And that's got to come down. But women's literacy is lower than men's literacy around the world. Women are treated miserably in many societies, and not given job opportunities. There are whole huge outfits trying to keep women from having the means of controlling their own reproduction. Listen to the discussion with Paul Ehrlich, Robert Engelman, and Matthew Connelly Subscribe: iTunes or RSS