With just three months to go until the birth of the world's seven billionth person, as predicted by UN demographers, we're kicking off a special series on population. To open the series, we're joined at 1-2pm today for a live web chat with Fred Pearce, journalist and author of Peoplequake, a "groundbreaking book that reveals the truth about population levels, and where they will take us in the future." Post your questions for Pearce below.
In the Guardian review of the book, Alok Jha wrote:
Overpopulation is not the problem, he [Pearce] argues, but over-consumption: more specifically, over-consumption in the west. Ever the optimist, Pearce thinks we can solve this crisis if we recognise its seriousness. Today's technology could enable us to reduce our carbon footprints by 80% by 2050 (as the British government has committed us to do).
Whatever you want to ask about population, the environment, resources and consumption, this is your chance. Interested in whether he thinks 7bn people - eventually forecast to be 9bn by 2050 - are a 'timebomb', as some pundits have described it? Want to know why Pearce thinks consumption is the real problem?
Just post your questions below - Pearce will be online at 1pm to answer. Please note in future instalments of this series we'll be joined by a demographer from Oxford University and a representative of Population Matters, formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust.
