Climate or population?

Source: Bangkok Post

The "elephant in the corner of the room" at the Copenhagen conference - population growth - has escaped notice, as it always does.

Are we seriously to believe that up to 80% more people (and 50% more energy consumption) by the year 2050 can be accommodated without increasing emissions? What nonsense!

The point our leaders fail to address is that global warming is just a symptom of the underlying problem _ over-consumption of the planet's resources. And the underlying cause of that is, simply, too many people.

What chance is there for the remaining forests, the remaining wildlife, the quality of the oceans and the atmosphere, with 80% more people consuming food, water, cooking fuel, housing, furniture, tiger gall bladders and all the rest?

You may wonder why our world leaders persistently fail to address the blindingly obvious.

Here's why. Declining population means less GDP _ a taboo topic in the ''mine's bigger than yours'' mentality that drives all global meetings. Politicians and businessmen, supported by the media, continue to brainwash the general public into believing that GDP growth equates with greater happiness (really? just ask the villagers at Map Ta Phut).

Also, thanks to the four to five year cycle of democratic elections, important long-term decisions are sacrificed for short-term expediency. ''How do we win the next election? Stimulate the economy! What about the environment? Sorry, too difficult _ leave that one to the next lot." Short-term-ism at its worst. Am I cynical? You bet! Our leaders allocated $6.7 trillion of our taxes to bail out the banks last year. At Copenhagen they've allocated just $30 billion to save the planet - and that's spread over two years!

We don't know what form the eventual apocalypse will take - wars over water when the glaciers disappear, surges of starving refugees flooding across borders causing governments to topple in their wake, Greenland slipping into the sea and taking out our coastal cities, ''weather events'' of such ferocity and frequency that international trade becomes difficult or impossible, a genetically modified nightmare rearing out of a globally-warmed swamp and going on the rampage, maybe all at once. It sure ain't going to be pretty.

The twin gods of democracy and economic growth are hell-bent on destroying the planet, so let's get prepared, let's brush up our survival skills for when the crunch comes. And let's do our bit to try to prevent it. Stop having babies _ now.

NIGEL PIKE