I found a really excellent response to an earlier Monbiot column dismissing population growth at a blog called Zone 5 - the edge between nature and culture. Here's a quote, but read the whole thing. It's really good:
Playing around with statistics to show that consumption is the real problem, not population, as Monbiot does, again fails to see that the two issues are inextricably linked. For example, it is often said, if we all become vegetarian, the world could support a bigger population. But what happens then if we achieve this and the population continues to grow?
Presumably, the response to those who try to raise the issue of population control will once again be:
“Ah, yes, but if we all just live on one bowl of rice a day and huddle round a single light bulb the world could support twice the current population! Let’s have 10 billion! Let’s have 20 billion!”
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