While the call by Pope Francis that religions should take far more responsibility for rampant environmental damage is most welcome (Environmental destruction is a sin, says pope, 2 September), he should be reminded that by far the most damaging cause of impending crisis is the huge near-threefold increase in the human population over the last 75 years to more than 7 billion.
Organised religion has stubbornly resisted all realistic forms of birth control and must take its share of the blame for this catastrophe. Worse still, even in the face of this evidence they persist in treating control as a sin. Is this not time for a rethink?
Emeritus Professor Colin Green
University College London, Northwick Park Institute for Medical Research
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