It is to be welcomed that the Chinese government has seen fit to loosen up its one-child-per-family policy, but the outrage this policy has unleashed in the west has been little more than sanctimonious moralising (China abandons one-child policy, 30 October). To view the tackling of China’s enormous population problem as merely a human rights issue is to be myopic and naïve. The crocodile tears shed for those couples who can only have one child – as tragic as that is – ignores the simple truth that if China hadn’t taken such drastic measures it would now have a population it could neither feed, clothe nor house, resulting in tens of thousands dying of malnourishment and disease, as in India.
The recent announcement that Britain’s population will grow by more than 10 million in the next 25 years (Report, 30 October) will also confront us with difficult choices in the future. And, in the end, individual freedoms may have to be curtailed if it means saving our society and even the species itself. Population and birth control are key issues.
John Green
London
• To a biologist versed in animal population studies, it is a constant source of bemusement that economists and, I regret to say, leader writers, have an ingrained belief that human population growth can go on indefinitely (Why China and the UK both need a baby boom, Editorial, 30 October).
The Earth itself being demonstrably finite and thus – even if all other life is expunged to support humanity – there is an end point. But such a goal is surely not desirable. We should be considering the quality of future life, not just letting quantity override sustainability to satisfy demographic misunderstanding of biology.
In the wider world many animals maintain roughly constant populations in balance with their environment, a few, such as elephants, even supporting their elderly. Given the will, we can adapt to different age structures, as the Japanese are doing. Humans vitally need to stabilise their population before life for everyone becomes an intolerable anthill of urban sprawl interspersed with chemical agribusiness, with no space for recreation, adventure, wildlife or joy.
Malthus was wrong only insofar as he couldn’t anticipate the agricultural revolutions that have allowed us to escape disaster so far. There really are limits, and if we are so unfortunate as to reach them, economists are likely to be the first to be lined up and shot for crimes against humanity and the planet.
Anthony Cheke
Oxford
• Your editorial rightly argues that the rich world “needs to consume less and cut carbon emissions”. The easiest and surest way for it to do so is to stabilise and then reverse its population numbers. The global south, too, would develop more quickly by slowing its still rapid population growth. Yes, an ageing society poses challenges. But they are as nothing next to the environmental and social consequences of humanity exceeding the Earth’s capacity to support it. While China is rightly criticised for its draconian approach to population (there are better ways), it deserves credit for recognising the sustainability issue and taking action to address it. Complacency today on population, at home and abroad, will have grave consequences for future generations.
Simon Ross
Chief executive, Population Matters
• What is going on in Guardian towers? You start the year with the admirable Keep it in the ground campaign and by October, you are writing editorials saying Britain and China need to increase their childbirth. We’re on the verge of ecosystem collapse, and human population growth is the biggest – far, far and away the biggest – driver of that collapse. If we don’t massively reduce our populations within the next few decades, we’re sunk, and neoliberal economics, which state that growth continues ad infinitum as long as you have a mass of workers ready to abuse, will go the way of everything else.Please – you used to be an intelligent newspaper. Don’t head south with the rest of them.
Manda Scott
Clungunford, Shropshire
• If one reason for China’s abandonment of the one-child policy is the still increasing gender gap of its rising generation, will its government extend the implications of this policy to the energetic encouragement of the production of girls? Research into pre-conception selection? Heavy cash bribes? Perhaps it could facilitate female immigration from countries in which women have a much harder time? Mass mail order bride shipments 21st-century style? The alternative to providing the “bare branches” (China’s surplus men) with foliage and twigs might be a rise in international tension, of which there is quite enough as it is.
Margaret Brown
Burslem, Staffordshire
• You don’t mention the advantages of not having too many people in a finite country in a finite world — endless blocks of anonymous flats etc. Human rights have got to be balanced with human obligations. Our challenge now is for us old to care for the “old–old”.
Maurice King
Leeds
• The above letters were published in the print edition of the Guardian on 2 November 2015, but a technical error meant that their appearance online was delayed until 4 November 2015.
