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Article: Planet Overload
- Article from:
- New Statesman
- Article date:
- March 9, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright New Statesman Ltd. Mar 9, 2009. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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The world's population is 6.8 billion. That figure will rise to 9.2 billion by 2050. Meanwhile, climate change is speeding up alarmingly. So are there too many of us? And if so, how long before our planet becomes unfit for purpose? By David Nicholson-Lord
If you write about the environment you become used to a measure of unfriendly criticism. In the main, it's pretty innocuous stuff- charges of miserabilism and so on. But since concentrating on the issue of human population growth, I have found the criticism noticeably darkening. The other week, after helping to launch a campaign encouraging couples to "stop at two" (children, that is), I received an email accusing me of "real, hard-hitting ...