I would like to ask Carson Bennett, is there a world population number you would say is "enough"? Many of the serious estimates of the earth's carrying capacity for humans suggest we're near or beyond it already. The lowest estimates are coming from environmental scientists, the higher ones from economists. That should tell us something. Similarly, our global "ecological footprint" tells us we're using 23% more resources than the Earth can sustainably provide.

At any rate, I posted a piece about this article on the Growth is Madness! site:

http://growthmadness.org/2007/04/11/a-different-feminist-take-on-population/

John feeney

Boulder, Colorado

Bennett (04/02/2007) and Bavinck (03/21/2007) both used the same tired argument for why "our" babies are better than "their" babies. They complained that Pollit's approach was simplistic, arrogant and uncaring. In fact, her's was the humanist outlook, precisely because she called for equity and adequate support for all children everywhere. Both Bennett and Bavinck expressed an isolationist, 19th century vision of the world where Sudan is not connected to Japan and no matter how large the population size, contraction of it is regarded with horror.

On one point, Bavinck was quite correct: the encouragement by governments of population growth is nothing new. In fact, ambitious empire builders have always wanted more subjects – more people means ample cannon (and canon) fodder and cheap labor, both of which are prerequisites of the current insane perpetual growth trade system that we refuse to abandon. This has been so since trade was adopted as the central economic model. In fact, although we've tweaked things around the margins quite a bit, no real socio-economic progress has been made in several thousand years. This suits the many people who detest the idea of change regardless of the potential benefits.

Bavinck should be aware of Europe's population crisis. The ESPON atlas gives the density of its 29 participant territories as less than one hectare per person. That includes, of course, all the areas that are essentially non-productive due to terrain, climate or other constraints. Less than replacement birth rates in Europe are cause for jubilation. The United States is also feeling the impact of too little land per person and, with its population size continuing to grow rapidly, problems there will only get worse.

Alone, inequity and poverty cannot be solved by any approach to population size; it is an institutional problem. If, however, equity is something we want, then reduced population size will greatly ease achieving it and maintaining it. Indeed, the two issues are related only because minimum size leads to fewer management problems, increased individual worth and maximized opportunities for equitable self-realization.

Clayton Macdonald

Karlskrona, Sweden

As a statistician, there is often discussion of the level of "numeracy" in the general public. This article, published in one of the country's leading magazine of thought, is kind of stunning.

"Six billion is enough." It is? Does it matter how old they are? What skills they have? Where they live? This "just do a global head count" approach to demographics is interesting.

The plan to train the Arab teenagers in France or the youngsters in the orphanages in Russia to fill future jobs in the EU isn't just about teaching a skill like how to type -- ask the West Germans who have tried to absorb a generation of East Germans. It means teaching a world-view.

Hearing someone living in upscale, downtown US say "six billion is enough" sounds a bit simplistic. "Train orphans" sounds beyond smug -- that, unfortunately, sounds like Jonathan Swift.

Carson Bennett

Tempe, AZ

On the face of it, it does seem silly to promote childbearing in an overpopulated world. But it's not as simple as the author of this article makes it sound.

If the industrialized countries fill up the demographic gap through increased immigration, they will obviously let in the educated classes of the developing world, not the illiterate ones. This brain drain is in fact already happening and it is not diminishing population growth in the South, but increasing it by retarding development.

The underdeveloped world needs those people which it spent so much to educate much more than the West does.

Some other factual errors:

One: Europe did not recently start encouraging births. These policies date back to the aftermath of the FIRST world war. So many young men had been killed that women had to work the fields and factories while simultaneously replenishing the population. The day care and subsidy programs have been expanded since then but they are hardly new.

Two: France's "immigrant" Arabs have French nationality and go to French schools. They don't need to be discovered as they are fully counted in the demographic debate.

Mostly though, it is the idea that you can just add up people and move them around like commodities that is wrong. If Japanese engineers don't have enough babies, the problem is not solved by bringing in Sudanese farmers. Nor by educating those farmers to be engineers and then depriving their home countries of their skills.

Hans Bavinck

Toulouse, France