Rob Lyons: ‘Professor ideas are anti-human’

Professor Wilmut’s idea is unnecessary, pointless and misanthropic.

It’s unnecessary because we are not facing any insurmountable environmental problems. There is no shortage of resources. Take energy: as many commentators are starting to realise, we will have plenty of coal and gas for decades to come and rising oil prices make new sources and extraction methods economic. We will also be able to make more use of nuclear and renewables in the future, too.

Nor are we running out of other resources. Recent spikes in prices for food and other commodities are a product of financial speculation and changes in food and energy policies more than rising demand. The fact that global temperatures have flatlined in recent years suggests that fears of devastating climate change have been exaggerated.

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We’re not running out of space, either. Just 8 per cent of Scotland is urbanised. Prof Wilmut’s proposal is pointless because rising population is being driven by immigration and falling death rates, not large families. The fertility rate is around about 1.7 children per woman. Families of three or more children are increasingly unusual.

But worst of all, promoting the idea that there are too many people is anti-human. It sees human beings solely as consumers, not creators, hoovering up resources and pumping out pollution. The reality of decades of rising population has not been famine, disease and destruction, but wealthier, healthier societies with more resources to deal with environmental problems.

• Rob Lyons is deputy editor of website Spiked and author of Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder.

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