When I taught environmental science at Emerson College in the early 1980s, global warming was a relatively new concept, and population growth became a discussion point. At that time, there were fewer than 5 billion people on Earth; 50 years later, there are more than 8 billion people alive. The root cause of climate change is, and remains, the rapid rise in the human population over the past 70 years, with 9.7 billion projected by 2050. Their associated needs for food, energy, housing, and more are the drivers of climate change.
As before, the United Nations has avoided mentioning population growth in its recommendations following the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There can be no solution to climate change until there is strategic planning based on the stabilization of the human population. Every day wasted ignoring this uncomfortable truth further jeopardizes our children’s lives and the lives of future generations and assures further ecological and environmental disasters.
Ira Dinnes
Marblehead