Population is problematic. For society to florish, continuous growth is needed – there must always be more people now than there were, to support the previous generation in retirement, and because only through growth can jobs be created. If an economy isn’t growing, it’s dying. At the same time though, growth simply cannot be sustained forever – basic laws of physics make this quite clear.

So the choice is between leveling off population now, and having a demographic crisis in sixty years, or continuing to let it grow and having mass starvation in a century or two. Screwed either way.

John Lennon had it right, for once…