Was David Attenborough wrong not to mention our population problem?

REGARDING Sir David’s namesake W. Attenborough’s letter in Monday’s Mail (‘Sir David and the real threat to life on Earth’), it really was quite a disappointment that Sir David didn’t focus on the size of the world’s population when he addressed the UN Climate Change Conference. This is particularly pertinent since he is a patron of Population Matters, the only charity in the UK that is seriously concerned about the subject of continuing unsustainable population growth, which is still running at the rate of 85 million more every year. That means a billion more human carbon emitters on the planet every ten to 12 years — and there he was at a climate change conference! Mind you, he only had a few minutes to speak. My guess is that he would have been given less applause had he mentioned such a touchy subject as

human overpopulation among those United Nations representatives. After all, the UN didn’t think it important enough to mention the need to stop population growth in any of their 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Surely it must be pretty obvious to all those important people that it is not much use reducing our individual carbon footprints if we keep on increasing the number of feet? It has been calculated that having one fewer child can achieve a far greater carbon reduction than any of us can by personally adopting all the other commonly recommended carbon reduction measures put together throughout our whole lifetime.

Bill Dowling, sandhurst, Berks.

FOR goodness’ sake, leave our national treasure Sir David Attenborough alone. So he didn’t mention every single factor and problem facing the world — well, it was a short speech. I doubt if any person on this planet has raised so much global awareness of the environmental damage we are doing. And he’s still doing it in his 90s. Bravo!

Simon Campbell, Glasgow.

YOUR correspondent (Letters) criticises Sir David Attenborough, when speaking at the UN Climate

Change Conference, for failing to mention the relentless rise in the human population, and says this comes as no surprise. In fact, Sir David is listed as a patron of the Population Matters organisation and is quoted as follows: ‘If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us, and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most.’

LaRaine BeRanic, codsall, staffs.