Citater
DANMARK
“Klimaet har ikke godt af, at befolkningstallet stiger hverken i Danmark eller globalt. Faktisk er det værre for klimaet, hvis vi bliver flere, end hvis vi bliver rigere. Hvis befolkningstallet stiger med 1 procent, øger det CO2-udslippet meget mere, end hvis man øger indkomsten med 1 procent. Klimaet er med andre ord ikke ligeglad med, om bruttonationalproduktet (bnp) stiger, ved at vi bliver flere, eller ved at vi øger indkomsten ... befolkningens størrelse har en så direkte og stor effekt på CO2-udslippet, at vi godt kan sige, at færre mennesker entydigt vil være godt for klimaet ... for mig er den vigtigste diskussion, om man overhovedet skal gøre noget ved den faldende fertilitet, for den ser ud til at gavne både klimaet og levestandarden.”
Carl-Johan Lars Dalgaard, økonomisk overvismand og professor i økonomi, 2024.
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"Det er ikke et økonomisk problem, at vi får færre børn."
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Sofie Holme Andersen, cheføkonom i Arbejderbevægelsens Erhvervsråd, 2024.
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”Regeringens appel til danskerne om at lave flere børn kolliderer med de planetære grænser (...)
Danmarks forbrug af naturens ressourcer indebærer ifølge Global Footprint Network, at der ville være brug for 4,2 kloder, hvis alle levede som os. Den grønne trepartsaftale og debatten i dens kølvand dokumenterer, at vi har alt for lidt plads til den produktion og det forbrug, som vi knap seks millioner danskere p.t. opretholder.
Havene har vi næsten tømt for fisk i en kombination af forurenende udledninger og ikkebæredygtigt fiskeri. Den danske naturs tilstand er blandt de ringeste i hele EU, fordi monotont stordriftslandbrug fylder for meget. Stadig flere drikkevandsboringer må opgives, fordi fødevareproduktionens pesticidanvendelse forurener grundvandet.
Danskernes klimabelastning er markant over Parisaftalens rammer, hvis man medregner de forbrugsbaserede udledninger, vi tørrer af på andre landes klimaregnskaber. Med dagens livsstil, produktion og forbrug er vi med andre ord alt for mange danskere til det danske areal og det danske økologiske råderum. Hvis man, bare til illustration, gentog lommeregnerkalkylen med afsæt i Danmarks nuværende ’planetforbrug’, så ville der ikke være plads til seks millioner mennesker, men til i omegnen af 1,4 millioner. I det perspektiv fødes der stadig alt for mange danskere i forhold til, hvor mange der dør. (...)
I realiteten er det mest sandsynlige alternativ til økologisk sammenbrud måske en blanding: færre danskere, mindre forbrug, grønnere teknologi.”
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Jørgen Steen Nielsen, biolog og klimajournalist ved Information, 2024.
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"Nej, den lave fertilitet udgør ikke en økonomisk bombe under dansk økonomi. Det svar får de bekymrede journalister, der flytter mikrofonen væk fra biologer og sundhedsfaglige og over til økonomer, igen og igen. Når væksten bliver lavere og færre er i job er det ikke et problem, hvis det blot afspejler en lavere befolkning. Der er ingen tegn på at lande med store befolkninger er rigere end mindre befolkede lande ... der er intet der tyder på at fertilitet på det niveau vi har i dag, skulle udgøre noget økonomisk problem for Danmark på hverken mellemlang eller lang sigt."
Niels Storm Knigge, ledende økonom i tænketanken Kraka, 2024
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"Så for de offentlige finanser er det en fordel, at der bliver færre nyfødte, og det vil det også være, hvis det er en permanent ændring i fødselstallet. Godt nok vil det føre til færre skatteydere i fremtiden, men der vil på den anden side også blive færre opgaver at løfte for det offentlige."
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Poul Schou, chefkonsulent, De Økonomiske Råd, 2024.
​”Inderst inde ved vi det. Vi reflekterer alligevel sjældent over, at det dels er befolkningstilvæksten og -størrelsen, der har forårsaget de klimaændringer, vi har oplevet over de seneste årtier, dels den stigende efterspørgsel efter og forbrug af energi – energi, som bliver brugt af klodens befolkning til eksempelvis opvarmning, nedkøling, materiale-, industri- og fødevareproduktion, transport til lands og til vands, byggeri af boliger og industri – der er årsagerne til de forandringer, vi ser i klimasystemet. (…)
Men sjældent nævnes og diskuteres hovedproblemet – nemlig befolkningstilvæksten og -størrelsen og den udvikling, der vurderes at ske i årtierne, der kommer: Mod forventeligt 9,7 milliarder mennesker i 2064 eller ifølge FN et toppunkt på 10,4 milliarder mennesker i 2080'erne. En klimapolitisk diskussion, der er yderst følsom.
En sådan skitseret befolkningsudvikling mod såvel 2060'erne og 2080'erne vil dels kræve eksempelvis en større efterspørgsel efter energi, dels et større energiforbrug – og derved forventeligt flere udledninger af drivhusgasser til atmosfæren, underforstået en stigende koncentration af for eksempel CO2 i atmosfæren, som overgår det, der har været oplevet i mindst to millioner år.”
”Vores ærinde er at påpege, at FN’s befolkningsfremskrivninger i år på omkring 10-11 milliarder mennesker i 2100 gør det nærmest umuligt at nå et mål om 2 graders global temperaturstigning. Vi er bekymrede over, at dette kontroversielle emne ikke tages mere alvorligt i klimadebatten og i FN. Med vores indsigt er dette tal alt for højt til, at vi kan nå de mål, verden har sat sig både inden for klima, biodiversitet og bæredygtig økologisk udvikling. Specielt fordi vi som de fleste danskere gerne ser en mere lige fordeling af goderne, hvor alle, også befolkningerne i bl.a. Afrika, får mere del i velfærden, end tilfældet er nu.”
Eigil Kaas, professor ved Københavns Universitet, Jørgen E. Olesen, professor ved Aarhus Universitet, 2019.
”Vi skal tage et medansvar, for man skal tænke på, at vi er allerede blevet markant flere. Går man tilbage til år 1800, var der ca. en million danskere. I 1900 var der måske to og en halv million. Og nu er vi snart seks. Så det ville bestemt ikke gøre noget, hvis vi stille og roligt nedbragte
antallet.”
Inge Røpke, professor MSO (nu emerita) i økologisk økonomi ved Aalborg Universitet, 2018.
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”Spørgsmålet er, om vi mennesker vil give plads til naturen. Hvis vi starter med os selv, er det vel ingen naturlov, at vi skal være 5,5 millioner mennesker i Danmark? I år 1800 var vi en million, og måske ville det være meget dejligere? Udfordringen til morgendagens politikere er, at menneskeheden ikke kan nøjes med at stræbe efter konstant vækst. Vi er nødt til også at have en langsigtet politik for det modsatte af vækst. Ikke en menneskefjendsk politik, men en vision som kan fremme en fredelig sameksistens mellem mennesker og natur. En vision for alle jordboere, også dem der skal leve her om 100 år.”
Rasmus Ejrnæs, (nu) professor ved Institut for Ecoscience på Aarhus Universitet, 2013.
”Årsagerne til atmosfærens stigende CO2-koncentration er mangfoldige, men de menneskeskabte faktorer, såsom adskillige årtiers voksende forbrug og stigende befolkningstilvækst, er de altdominerende – ikke naturens egne processer. (…)
Mediebilledet af den politiske klimadebat synes fastlåst omkring en ofte optimistisk vurdering af teknologiske og videnskabelige tiltag i forbindelse med en ønsket reduktion af drivhusgasudledningen. Men kan CO2-udviklingen bremses hurtigt nok alene med teknologiske tiltag, herunder energibegrænsende og -effektiviserende initiativer? Mangler der ikke politisk og konkret at blive taget højde for en stadig voldsomt stigende verdensbefolkning, der vil have klare forventninger om velstand og traditionel vækst? (…)
Presset på klodens klima og ressourcer vil fortsætte med at stige hastigt i den nærmeste fremtid, og med ni milliarder mennesker i 2050, på en varmere klode end i dag, er der her og nu behov for modig politisk debat om alle de hovedemner, som er styrende for menneskets påvirkning af Jordens klima og bæredygtighed.”
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UDLANDET (forskergrupper, forskernetværk m.m.)
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“In a world with finite resources, unlimited growth is a perilous illusion. We need bold, transformative change: drastically reducing overconsumption and waste, especially by the affluent, stabilizing and gradually reducing the human population through empowering education and rights for girls and women, reforming food production systems to support more plant-based eating, and adopting an ecological and post-growth economics framework that ensures social justice.”
The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth, 2024.
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“We call for a transformation of the global economy to prioritize human well-being and to provide for a more equitable distribution of resources (Hickel et al. 2021). We also call to stabilize and gradually decrease the human population with gender justice through voluntary family planning and by supporting women's and girls’ education and rights, which reduces fertility rates and raises the standard of living (Bongaarts and O'Neill 2018).”
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The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory, 2023.
“Globally, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and population growth remained the strongest drivers of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the last decade (high confidence).”
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IPCC, Sixth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2022 - Mitigation of Climate Change, 2022.
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"Keys to curbing the ecological overshoot involve greatly reducing overconsumption and waste by the global middle class and especially the wealthy, stabilizing and gradually reducing the human population by providing education and rights for girls and women, and implementing a sustainable ecological economics that ensures social justice ..."
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World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency, 2022
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"Humanity must commit to transformative change on all levels in order to address the climate emergency and biodiversity collapse (...) While the speed at which climate disruption and biodiversity destruction are unfolding is alarming, the population factor continues to be ignored, sidestepped, or denied (...) This makes no sense—population is a primary variable underlying humanity's net consumption and waste output and thus a significant driver of global change."
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Scientists' Warning on Population, 2022
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“For citizens of rich countries, having fewer children is the single most effective way to individually reduce future GHG emissions.”
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World Scientists’ Warnings into Action, Local to Global, 2021.
“Economic and population growth are among the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion (Pachauri et al. 2014, Bongaarts and O’Neill 2018); therefore, we need bold and drastic transformations regarding economic and population policies. (…) Still increasing by roughly 80 million people per year, or more than 200,000 per day (figure 1a–b), the world population must be stabilized – and, ideally, gradually reduced – within a framework that ensures social integrity. There are proven and effective policies that strengthen human rights while lowering fertility rates and lessening the impacts of population growth on GHG emissions and biodiversity loss. These policies make family-planning services available to all people, remove barriers to their access and achieve full gender equity, including primary and secondary education as a global norm for all, especially girls and young women.”
World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency, 2020. Underskrevet af over 11.000 forskere.
“Key indirect drivers [bag biodiversitetskrisen] include increased population and per capita consumption”.
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“Human population dynamics or trends, particularly population pressure, and economic development have been acknowledged for many decades as the primary drivers of environmental change.”
UN Environment Programme, Global Environment Outlook GEO-6: Summary for Policymakers, 2019.
“We are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats.”
World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice, 2017. Underskrevet af 15.364 forskere fra 184 lande.
“Globally, economic and population growth continued to be the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion.”
IPCC, Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Summary for Policymakers, 2014.
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“The earth is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and destructive effluent is finite. Its ability to provide food and energy is finite. Its ability to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. And we are fast approaching many of the earth’s limits. Current economic practices which damage the environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued without the risk that vital global systems will be damaged beyond repair. Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth.”
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World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, 1992. Underskrevet af over 1700 forskere fra hele verden, inklusive 104 af videnskabernes nobelprismodtagere.
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UDLANDET (enkeltpersoner)
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“This is now our planet, run by humankind for humankind. There is little left for the rest of the living world.”
“All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people and harder – and ultimately impossible – to solve with ever more people.”
“One thing you can say is that in places where women are in charge of their bodies, where they have the vote, where they are allowed to dictate what they do and what they want, whether it’s proper medical facilities for birth control, the birth rate falls.”
“As I see it, humanity needs to reduce its impact on the Earth urgently and there are three ways to achieve this: we can stop consuming so many resources, we can change our technology and we can reduce the growth of our population.”
“Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it’s time we controlled the population to allow the survival of the environment.”
Sir David Attenborough, engelsk biolog, naturhistoriker og mangeårig BBC-vært (født 1926)
“Educating and empowering women and girls and providing family planning information enables more people to choose the size of their families. These are the kind of positive actions governments can take, and must take if we’re to address the biodiversity loss we’re facing.”
“We can’t go on like this, we can’t push human population growth under the carpet. It’s been shown all around the world that as women’s education improves, family size tends to drop. I would encourage every single conservation organisation, every single government organisation, to consider the absurdity of unlimited economic development on a planet with finite natural resources.”
“The climate crisis that now threatens life on Earth as we know it results from a combination of different human activities, including the pollution of land, air and water, our reckless burning of fossil fuels, the destruction of forests, extreme poverty, and the unsustainable life styles of so many of us. And all of this is impacted by the relentless growth of human populations and their livestock. Educating and empowering women and girls and providing family planning information enables more people to choose the size of their families. And choosing to have fewer children is one of the most important choices we can make.”
Dame Jane Goodall, engelsk primatolog, FNs Budbringer for Fred og naturforkæmper (født 1934)
“We are in a bottleneck of overpopulation and wasteful consumption that could push half of Earth’s species to extinction in this century.”
Edward O. Wilson, amerikansk topbiolog, entomolog og dobbeltvinder af Pulitzerprisen (1929-2021)
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“The sheer number of humans and scale of economic activity are undermining the functional integrity of the ecosphere and compromising essential life-support functions. Unaddressed, these trends may well precipitate both global economic contraction and a significant human population ‘correction’—i.e., civilizational collapse—later in this century.”
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William Rees, canadisk professor (nu emeritus) i humanøkologi og økologisk økonomi og medophavsmand til måleenheden økologisk fodaftryk.
“Kenya is becoming a desert. There’s pressure on the environment because we use charcoal and firewood. The larger the family, the more it consumes. There’s no provision to plant trees because trees cost money. If nothing is done soon there won’t be any resources left. Communities are beginning to realise that it’s better for the eco-system around them if they have smaller families.”
Wendo Aszed, kenyansk grundlægger af NGO’en Dandelion Africa
“We must alert and organise the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises – exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.”
Jacques Cousteau, fransk undervandsforsker, filmproducent og forfatter (1910-1997)
“Educating girls lays a foundation for vibrant lives for girls and women, their families, and their communities. It is also one of the most powerful levers available for avoiding emissions by curbing population growth.”
Paul Hawken, amerikansk miljøaktivist og grundlægger af Project Drawdown, der er en af verdens førende klima-NGOer
“When girls are educated and when they stay in schools, they get married later in their lives, then they have less children and that helps us to reduce the impacts of climate change that the population increase brings.”
Malala Yousafzai, pakistansk modtager af Nobels fredspris (født 1997)
“We keep being fed the idea that somehow population and consumption can keep expanding without any consequences. They can’t. As population grows, the pressure on our planet is heightened. One of the many changes needed to give my generation a chance of a healthy future is for people to recognise that choosing to have fewer children helps relieve that pressure. We should and must be talking about population and family size.”
Bella Lack, engelsk ungdomsambassadør for Born Free Foundation og The Jane Goodall Institute og forfatter (født 2002)
“There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort. Fighting alone, they may win temporary skirmishes, but united they can win a decisive and lasting victory to provide food and other amenities of a progressive civilization for the benefit of all mankind. Then, indeed, Alfred Nobel’s efforts to promote Brotherhood between nations and their peoples will become a reality.”
Norman Borlaug, amerikansk modtager af Nobels fredspris og faderen til Den Grønne Revolution (1914-2009)
“Overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the well-being of many people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet of ours.”
Albert Einstein, tyskfødt fysiker og grundlæggeren af relativitetsteorien (1879-1955)
“Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.”
Martin Luther King, amerikansk præst og borgerrettighedsforkæmper (1929-1968)
“The idea that population growth guarantees a better life – financially or otherwise – is a myth that only those who sell nappies, prams and the like have any right to believe.”
“Population stabilisation should become a priority for sustainable development, including a strong focus on the empowerment of women and girls.”
Kofi Annan, ghanesisk diplomat og tidligere FN-generalsekretær (1938-2018)
“Saying ‘it’s only consumption, it’s not the number of people that counts’ is like saying ‘the area of a rectangle is determined only by its width, not by its length’. Certainly, consumption is a big problem. So is population size. The two multiply together to give you your impact on your life support systems.”
“A lot of people think the population problem is too many Indians or too many people in Africa, and so on. Actually, it’s too many people in the United States to start out with. You and I consume much more than the average person in Africa or the average person in India.”
Paul Ehrlich, amerikansk biolog, forfatter og professor (nu emeritus) i befolkningsstudier (født 1932)
“Those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.”
James Lovelock, engelsk videnskabsmand og ophavsmand til Gaiateorien (1919-2022)
“If the human population of the world continues to increase at its current rate, there will soon be no room for either wild life or wild places (...) But I believe that sooner or later man will learn to limit his overpopulation. Then he will be much more concerned with optimum rather than maximum, quality rather than quantity, and will recover the need within himself for contact with wilderness and wild nature.”
“You know, I have often thought that at the end of the day, we would have saved more wildlife if we had spent all WWF’s money on buying condoms.”
Sir Peter Markham Scott, engelsk medgrundlægger af Verdensnaturfonden (1909-1989)
“Population growth, poverty and degradation of local resources often fuel one another.”
Sir Partha Dasgupta, indisk-britisk professor (nu emeritus) i økonomi (født 1942)
“One of the great challenges today is the population explosion. Unless we are able to tackle this issue effectively we will be confronted with the problem of the natural resources being inadequate for all the human beings on this Earth.”
“The growth in population is very much bound up with poverty, and in turn poverty plunders the Earth. When human groups are dying of hunger, they eat everything: grass, insects, everything. They cut down the trees, they leave the land dry and bare. All other concerns vanish. That’s why in the next 30 years the problems we call ‘environmental’ will be the hardest that humanity has to face.”
Dalai Lama (født 1935)
“If we accept that forging and maintaining a sustainable society is the critical challenge for this and future generations, we must also accept that stabilizing our population will be key to determining our success or failure. (…) The issue is not racism, nativism, or any other "ism," however. The real issue: numbers of people and the implications for freedom of choice and sustainability as our numbers continue to grow. Population stabilization will be a major determinant of our future, how we live and in what conditions”.
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Gaylord Nelson, amerikansk politiker, medlem af Det Demokratiske Parti og grundlæggeren af Earth Day i 1970 (1916-2005)
“The world is finite. For everybody in the world to have the same lifestyle that we [in the West] have now, at only six billion people, would take four additional Earths.”
Margaret Atwood, canadisk forfatter (født 1939)
“We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction unless we address issues of population and reproductive health.”
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, saudiarabisk politiker og tidligere FN-undergeneralsekretær (født 1946)
“Population growth is straining the Earth’s resources to the breaking point, and educating girls is the single most important factor in stabilizing that. That, plus helping women gain political and economic power and safeguarding their reproductive rights.”
Al Gore, tidligere vicepræsident i USA (født 1948)
“…as the soaring demand for food, water and energy is exacerbated by climate change, it is no longer legitimate to leave policies for lowering birth rates off the policy agenda.”
Sara Parkin, skotsk politiker, aktivist og medgrundlægger af Forum for the Future (født 1946)
“The wealthy nations and wealthy consumers have, of course, the greatest impact, but sheer numbers do count. There are ways that we can stabilize human population without unpleasantly imposed restrictions, namely with universal women’s rights, education and available contraception.”
Rex Weyler, amerikansk-canadisk medgrundlægger af Greenpeace (født 1947)
“We should be talking about population and we should be talking about consumption that goes with population. It is true, the average Nigerian, as a single person, does less damage than the average American, British, European or Russian, or any of the others, but then a lot of us do a lot of damage as well. I think it is not ‘either or’, it’s ‘and with’. It’s not a binary issue, really.”
Dr Muhtari Aminu-Kano, nigeriansk økolog og generaldirektør for Nigerian Conservation Foundation
“There is room in the world, no doubt, and even in old countries, for a great increase in population, supposing the arts of life to go on improving, and capital to increase. But even if innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain, in the greatest degree, all the advantages both of cooperation and of social intercourse, has, in all the most populous countries, been attained. A population, may be too crowded, though all be amply supplied with food and raiment. It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species. A world from which solitude is extirpated, is a very poor ideal. Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character, and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man’s use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture. If the Earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it.”
John Stuart Mill, engelsk filosof, økonom og forfatter (1806-1873)
“The one real remedy is birth control – that is getting the people of the world to limit themselves to those numbers which they can keep upon their own soil.”
Bertrand Russell, britisk filosof og matematiker (1872-1970)
“Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful if the race was to survive. But now to preserve the race it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation.”
Helen Keller, amerikansk forfatter, aktivist og forkæmper for handicappedes rettigheder (1880-1968)
“Some of these (Asian) countries, like India, far from needing a bigger population, would be better off with fewer people.”
Jawaharlal Nehru, tidligere premierminister i Indien (1889-1964)
“This is the force which in general terms can be called overpopulation, the mounting pressure of population pressing upon existing resources. This, of course, is an extraordinary thing; something is happening which has never happened in the world’s history before. I mean, let’s just take a simple fact that between the time of birth of Christ and the landing of the Mayflower, the population of the Earth doubled. It rose from 250 million to probably 500 million. Today, the population of the Earth is rising at such a rate that it will double in half a century.”
Aldous Huxley, engelsk filosof og forfatter (1894-1963)
“The problem of the growing food shortage cannot be solved without in many cases a simultaneous effort to moderate population growth.”
U Thant, burmesisk diplomat og tidligere FN-generalsekretær (1909-1974)
“The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.”
Arne Næss, norsk filosof, professor og mijøaktivist (1912-2009)
“The more people there are, the more food we need, the more space we occupy, the more resources and consumer goods we wish to have and the more development has to take place in order to employ the extra population. (…) Who is going to be the first to face up to the need for self-restraint in the number of children brought into the world?”
H.K.H. Prins Philip, Hertugen af Edinburgh (1921-2021)
“Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race.”
James P. Grant, amerikansk diplomat og tidligere administrerende direktør for UNICEF (1922-1995)
“Either we reduce the world’s population voluntarily or nature will do this for us, but brutally.”
Maurice Strong, canadisk diplomat og tidligere FN-undergeneralsekretær (1929-2015)
“In 1974, I led the Indian delegation to the World Population Conference in Bucharest, where my statement that ‘development is the best contraceptive’ became widely known and oft quoted. I must admit that 20 years later I am inclined to reverse this, and my position now is that ‘contraception is the best development’.”
Karan Singh, indisk politiker og filosof (født 1931)
“Everybody with a womb doesn’t have to have a child any more than everybody with vocal chords has to be an opera singer.”
Gloria Steinem, amerikansk journalist, feminist og aktivist (født 1934)
“Some people think that – excuse my expression here – that in order to be good Catholics we have to be like rabbits. No. Parenthood is about being responsible. This is clear.”
Pave Frans (født 1936)
“I think still it is very fine not to want children. There are far too many people in the world. It is my contribution to ecology.”
Dame Helen Mirren, engelsk skuespiller (født 1945)
“A world of fewer people would be far better placed to deal with climate change than the heavily overpopulated one we are heading for now.”
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John Gray, engelsk filosof og forfatter (født 1948)
“Population growth patterns are linked to nearly every challenge confronting humanity – including poverty reduction, urban pollution, energy production, food and water scarcity and health.”
Babatunde Osotimehin, nigeriansk læge og tidligere administrerende direktør for United Nations Population Fund (født 1949)
“Clearly, other things being equal, fewer people will do less damage to the planet.”
Fred Pearce, engelsk videnskabs- og miljøforfatter (født 1951)
“Climate change, environmental degradation, overpopulation and war each threaten the future of our life on Earth. They are our own man-made Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
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Jeanette Winterson, engelsk forfatter (født 1959)