Posted on December 28, 2008 by lowimpactman, translated by Didier.

A few people have made the remark on this blog that overpopulation is an important cause of the increasing pressure on our planet. It is self-explanatory that with an increasing population, we get an increasing usage of available space, resources and energy. When I was born there were about 3 billion people, now close to 7 billion, and predictions are pointing towards stabilizing on approx. 9 to 10 billion souls on Earth. Scientists assume that the planet will be able to deliver enough food supply and resources to sustain the whole lot in a fairly good lifestyle, but not to sustain our Western Wasting Way of life.

Sometimes people make the remark that the environmental pressure would be a lot less if there would be less little Africans, Indians or Chinese born. We have however to account the personal eco-impact of each child born. A baby born in India or Bolivia will at age 60 have produced an estimated 60 tons of CO 2 emissions. Who is born in Belgium or The Netherlands will have produced no less than 900 tons of CO 2 emissions by the age of 60, which is approximately 15 times. It is for that reason a bit silly to demand from Third World countries to implement birth control and to stimulate the number of babies born here. The best methods to slow down the growth of population in the South are well known an rather cheap:

Education (especially for girls)

Healthcare (especially related to reducing mortality of little children)

Access to affordable and reliable contraception

Employment (especially for women)

Social services (amongst which family planning and improvement of the economical situation of the poorest groups)

Access to drinking water and sanitary facilities.

It are these facilities which has contributed to the strong reduction of child birth in our regions in just a few generations. So the best thing which could happen to reduce the demographic growth and worldwide environmental impact is to redistribute worldwide the available resources, combined with measures which limit population growth both in the North and South. And if you would like to check the actual number of colleague humans walking on this globe, you can use this counter.