MARGO MacDONALD might have a point after all. I have listened to her campaign for voluntary euthanasia with mixed views but, thanks to Sir David Attenborough, I am now coming round to the idea.
Though I have always held the Edinburgh Medal recipient in high regard, I think, given his pronouncements this week on global over-population, he might soon be taking a trip to Switzerland himself. After all, he's 83 and has had a rare old life – con
tributing two children to keep the human race going – so now that he's become patron of the Optimum Population Trust, a body which is attempting to reduce our numbers, perhaps he'll want to lead by example.
This trust believes that over-population is a bigger threat to the survival of the human race than global warming or eating too many deep-fried confectionery products. It is probably right. But its suggestion to avert catastrophe is that people have no more than two children. It isn't clear on which people should have no more than two offspring – the impoverished in Africa or the wealthy in the West – but it is adamant that there are too many of us, so curbing kids is the way forward.
Now, as someone with a vested interest – I'm about to have my third child – I'm obviously going to disagree with the idea of limits. Environmentally speaking, I can't see how our extra addition will add to our use of precious resources. We'll still be in the same house, using the same amount of gas and electricity, driving the same car, recycling our stuff, using the same pram bought for child number one, using environmentally-friendly nappies and never, ever, going anywhere abroad on holiday, so our carbon footprint is pretty good.
Fingers crossed, hopefully all three will reach adulthood and then, admittedly, there is possibly a "green" issue to face. All might well produce children of their own, they'll have to eat, have their own places to live in and heat etc. But then they might not. Also, their parents may kick the bucket early (chances are high given the stress of raising three), thus evening up the numbers somewhat.
That, to me, is the crux of the matter – and why the trust is going at this issue the wrong way round. Surely the real problem about the over-population of the world is not that people continue to breed, but that we're failing to die off.
The idea of three score years and ten (the Biblically correct term apparently) has long gone thanks to advancements in medical science. The reality is that it's the pressures of an ageing population – which ultimately contributes less to the world than the young in sheer economic terms and yet uses just as many of our diminishing resources – that has to be tackled, rather than telling people not to have more than two children.
Perhaps the trust should be suggesting voluntary euthanasia for the over-70s rather than preventing too much new life on Earth, or maybe we should end blood donations and the donor card system. Perhaps we should just remove all aid to the Third World and let people starve or die of easily preventable diseases. All these things would bring the population explosion under control, even if it all seems a bit fascistic.
But the other problem with the trust's position is that most affluent Western countries' populations are on the decline. Scotland's population is both falling and ageing. Since 1981, there has been an 18 per cent decrease in the number of children under the age of 15 and a 29 per cent increase in the over-75s.
Already, a report by Scotland's Demography Research Programme has shown that mothers in Scotland are more likely to stop at two children anyway. It would seem I'm a researcher's blip (or perhaps blimp given my current size). Sadly, though, the same research also showed that parents in Scotland actually want more children than they have. The average ideal family size is 2.48 children but, in practice, the average size is 1.24 children. Finances dictate this outcome, rather than environmental issues.
Of course, the world cannot house an infinite number of people, but nature tends to have ways of dealing with this problem – ways which might be drastic and potentially catastrophic for thousands of people, but that is the lottery of life.
Perhaps Sir David needs to get together with that other great thinker of our time, Whitney Houston. It's a crude fact but it is the children – and not the elderly – who are our future.
Turning a deaf earNot that I want to harp on about the obvious dislike of the current Lib Dem administration to any kind of public dissent, but there were another two prime examples just this week of its failure to listen to the Edinburgh electorate.
First, it was decided that parents could no longer sit on the school closure consultation committee.Then, in a manner of which a sneak thief would be proud, they told parkies to remove posters from the Meadows, put up quite legitimately by the Friends of the Meadows organisation. Why? Because the group wants to raise awareness about its campaign to reduce what it claims is "inappropriate use" of the city centre's green lung. The council instead thought that it was the posters which were inappropriate.
What is increasingly obvious is that the Lib Dems have no stomach for listening to opinions other than their own. They might do well to remember it was accusations of this kind of arrogance levelled at the previous Labour administration which saw it eventually voted out.
