Jonathon Porritt: Families should only have two children, says green guru

Published on Monday 2 February 2009 00:41

JONATHON Porritt, the leading environmentalist, has said couples who have large families are "irresponsible" and that we should all limit ourselves to two children in order to help save the planet.

But his argument, in a newspaper article, brought an angry reaction yesterday.

It upset many parents, who feared it risked putting the UK on a par with communist China, where couples are limited to just one child each.

Susan Christie, of Cromarty, on the Black Isle, who has three children – Conor, 14, Tigue, 11, and Marley, nine, with husband Fraser Mackenzie, is very happy with the size of her family.

Ms Christie, 45, said society already seemed to have its own idea of how many children constituted a family.

"If you go to the cinema or a museum and buy a family ticket, it only covers two adults and two children," she said.

"It should not be down to a cinema or Jonathon Porritt to say how many people should make up my family."

Mr Porritt, who chairs the government's Sustainable Development Commission, said curbing population growth through contraception and abortion should be at the heart of the fight against global warming.

The commission's report will say that governments must reduce population growth through family planning.

"I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate," Mr Porritt said.

"I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible."

The population of Britain, currently 61 million, is expected to pass 70 million by 2028.

The Optimum Population Trust, a campaign group of which Mr Porritt is a patron, estimates that a baby born in Britain will burn carbon equivalent to around two-and-a-half acres of oak woodland during their lifetime. Mr Porritt said he wanted environmental activists to campaign on population issues.

But Ms Christie said that trying to tell people how many children they should have was a breach of their human rights.

"I don't want to live in a world where people are being told by the state or by an organisation that they can't have a third child. Putting a limit on is the wrong way to go," she said.