The root cause of all global environmental problems is overpopulation, but there is no leadership to address it, and powerful political and religious forces are aligned to promote overpopulation.

RC from Minnesota, writing in the New York Times today,  following Andrew C. Revkin's oped on the Paris climate talks "agreement" (scare quotes for emphasis) writes in the comments section:

Mr Revkin: Where you write in your COP21 oped today that “[T]here is no one path to a solution,” that statement is false. In fact, there is only one path to a solution: regulation of the human population. The root cause of all global environmental problems is overpopulation, but there is no leadership to address it, and powerful political and religious forces are aligned to promote overpopulation.

 

Furthermore, there is no such thing as "clean" energy; all energy sources have significant environmental costs. The current focus on "climate" is naive; acidification of the oceans will affect all life on the planet. Our ecosystem is already being destroyed by the pollution generated by 7.4 billion humans. The resource demands and pollution from a projected 10 billion humans mid-century will overwhelm any incremental advances in per capita energy efficiency or anything else from the current "climate meeting". We had a choice -- quality versus quantity; we chose quantity, leaving the outcome to nature.

 

But ''Paula'' replies to RC, writing as her comment:

 

But RC, the push to identify population as the most significant issue takes the pressure off us. But consider this: the wealthiest 10% of the planet produce more than 50% of CO2 emissions, and the poorest 50% of the planet produce a mere 10%. This is about consumption. Population isn't unimportant, but it is not the main thing.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-12-02/worlds-riche...

AND -- David Brin, ''sci-fi'' novelist, writes on his blog today:

http://davidbrin.blogspot.tw/2015/12/why-are-new-economy-moguls-mostly.html

== Global Trends  ==

New projections from the U.N. suggest that, in a few decades, we could secure a stable global population. “To be clear, the forecasts do not show an imminent end to population growth – far from it. The global population has the momentum of an elephant on an ice rink. The U.N.’s medium-variant projection shows a rise to 9.7 billion people in 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100.”

The plunge in childbearing is startling. Eighty-three countries containing 46 per cent of the world’s population – including every single country in Europe – now have fertility below replacement rate of about 2.1 births per woman. Another 46 per cent live in countries where the birth rate has fallen sharply. In 48 countries the population will decline between now and 2050. That leaves just 9 per cent of the world’s population, almost all in Africa, living in nations with pre-industrial fertility rates of five or six children per woman. But even in Africa fertility is starting to dip.