The Guardian has strongly advocated the view that 'limiting population growth, on its own' will not reduced carbon emissions because more 'advanced' countries, with declining birthrates, counter-intuitively produce more green house gases (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/02/the-guardian-view-on-population-control-empowering-women-may-not-save-the-environment). This link may well be currently true (and shouldn't be used by developed nations to escape responsibility) but populations in 'developing' nations generally seem to at least aspire to the living standards of the 'west'. It is claimed that there are more people currently alive on the planet than in all of recorded history combined. Some of this may well be down to people living longer and, no, I don't advocate not trying to find better ways of controlling disease. But more people do require more resources (land, food, water et cetera) and even in the 'depopulating, advanced economies' the rest of the species on the planet (on which we depend) appear to be pressured by anthropogenic effects. So perhaps limiting population growth (as an aspiration) may not be a bad thing?
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