Sir David Attenborough the noted British naturalist was interviewed by Nick Harding at THE INDEPENDENT. I have found an excerpt which is interesting to MAHB members

The link to the original article can be found here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/sir-david-attenborough-this-awful-summer-weve-only-ourselves-to-blame-7942405.html

“There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it,” he says. “I would be absolutely astounded if population growth and industrialisation and all the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere hadn’t changed the climatic balance. Of course it has. There is no valid argument for denial.”
Over the 60 years Sir David has been a broadcaster, he has seen the planet change at a staggering rate. Wildlife paradises he visited in his early career have been decimated and he views the future with pessimism. “I’m not optimistic,” he says. “The climate, the economic situation, rising birth rates; none of these things give me a lot of hope or reason to be optimistic.”
The one ray of hope and possible solution Sir David does offer is a global slowdown in birth rate. At 86, he has become an unlikely poster boy for the population control movement.
“Population is one of my concerns. I’m not planning to contribute to it any more, but it is an interest.”
During his lengthy career, the naturalist has watched humanity more than double from 2.5 billion in 1950 to nearly seven billion. He believes the profound effects of this rapid growth on humans and the environment are unsustainable and that the matter needs to be addressed urgently before nature takes its own action.
“We cannot continue to deny the problem. People have pushed aside the question of population sustainability and not considered it because it is too awkward, embarrassing and difficult. But we have to talk about it.
The only ray of hope I can see – and it’s not much – is that wherever women are put in control of their lives, both politically and socially; where medical facilities allow them to deal with birth control and where their husbands allow them to make those decisions, birth rate falls. Women don’t want to have 12 kids of whom nine will die.”
He does not, however, advocate implementing population policies similar to China’s controversial one child edict. “Draconian measures making it illegal to bear children with horrible punishments for infringement are not going to work. You have to convince the population that it is in their interests and make it possible for them to do something. The fact is, if we don’t do something, nature will. “Quite simply, we will run out of food. People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can’t sustain them.”
For this reason, he explains, growing crops to create green biofuels is a waste of valuable resources. “Biofuels may be palliative in the short term in terms of greener energy. But in the long term we are going to run out of space to grow food, which is more important than finding alternative ways to power Rolls-Royces and superjets.”

• This topic was modified 12 years, 5 months ago by Joseph Rowley. Reason: Fix line spacing
• This topic was modified 12 years, 5 months ago by Joseph Rowley.
• This topic was modified 12 years, 5 months ago by Joseph Rowley. Reason: Changed Title, added link