There really are too many of us! More people are coming into the world than are going out? So by 2100 there could be 20bn feet jostling for position on this little planet – that means 10bn people!
You’ve got to feel sorry for our grandchildren and their off-spring! No amount of Green Deal, to be published in October, will compromise their situation. Global warming will only get worse and food demand will probably have trebbled by then. And prices will be so high we’ll all be on protein pills!
Fortunately cars may never exist at the turn of the century and we certainly won’t need laptops, emails or mobiles either! You’ll just turn to the person next to you, who probably won’t be more than few feet away and, like Chinese whispers, say ‘pass it on’ and your message will eventually reach the right person!
Well, that’s probably how it might work and Stephen Emmott, professor of computational science at Oxford University, could possibly agree?
He’s been giving an hour-long illustrated talk each evening to 80 very concerned individuals at The Royal Court Upstairs theatre in London’s West End.
One of his recent, more than avid listeners, was columnist Michael Billington who underlined that it was one of the ‘most disturbing evenings I have ever spent in a theatre’. This was primarily because, Emmott explained with concealed fury, we were facing ‘an unprecedented planetary emergency.’
But this ‘emergency’ is nothing new! It’s been creeping up on us ever since Adam and Eve, if that’s your persuasion? Yet nothing seems to have been done, probably because culling civilisation doesn’t win votes!
Understandably, Billington says: “Over population is too big a subject to be ignored and what is impressive is that Professor Emmott argues his case with an implacable logic.” In fact, the Professor iterates the feelings of another eminent conservationist – Professor James Lovelock – when he says ‘I think we are f….d’!
Indeed we are, and you can tell that to the marines!
More information: www.nhic.org.uk
Photo shows Professor Emmott