We need fewer people to halt global warming

…Prof Rapley believes that there is an “unequivocal” link between mankind’s fossil fuel emissions and the global temperature rise seen over the past few decades. However, it’s not only this conviction that could strike fear into the hearts of the climate change sceptics.

It is Rapley’s view that the “jury is still out” on the prediction by Thomas Malthus, the 19th-century demographer, that the human race would exceed its food supply by having too many children.


Last year, Rapley wrote an article on the BBC website saying that “if we believe that the size of the human ‘footprint’ is a serious problem (and there is much evidence for this) then a rational view would be that, along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed”.

Though he stressed at the time that this was a personal view, his unanimous selection as director of the Science Museum by a board of trustees that included Lord Waldegrave, the chairman, and Lord Rees, the head of the Royal Society, indicates that many in the scientific establishment would agree with him.

Telegraph