Taking a Pop at Population

A new initiative, the Optimal Population Trust, has been advocated by Saint David (Attenborough) and others (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/03/carbon-offset-projects-climate-change). It enables rich nations and their folk to offset their carbon emissions, not by planting trees, but by funding birth control in parts of the world where people currently have no access to it. The funding would apparently only be directed to people who want contraception (it has been estimated that there are about 80m unwanted pregnancies per year in such locations). The rationale behind the scheme is the calculation that spending £4 on birth control saves around a tonne of carbon dioxide in emissions whereas the same savings would require £8 to be spent on tree planting, £15 on wind power, £31 on solar energy and a massive £56 on hybrid vehicle technology. You get a bigger bang for your buck! It is certainly the case that human overpopulation is a major contributor to current environmental problems (the total savings generated by curtailing population growth would actually be greater than simply reducing greenhouse gas emissions). It will be interesting, however, to see how religious and political groups respond to this suggestion. I suspect it will be regarded as interference in areas supposedly taboo to science.