Consumption, not population, is the issue

The birth of a baby is usually an occasion for joy. The arrival, however, of the seven billionth person is being awaited with growing trepidation about the devastating impact of humans on the planet. Environmentalists are arguing in circles about who or what is to blame: the total number of people; or the amount of water, food, mineral ores or clean air each demands. Professor Paul Ehrlich, whose book The Population Bomb helped ignite this debate, likens the environmental impact to the area of a rectangle: one side is the size of population, the other their consumption.

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