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The population issue revisited

When it comes to looking after the environment, is population control the elephant in the room?

Climate ‘strikes’, street protests, extreme weather events and alarming warnings from scientists are focusing our attention on the global warming threat. But are we in danger of ignoring a basic issue of population numbers?

One perspective on world population growth is to consider it in terms of one’s own family lifespans. Figure 1 illustrates how many more people there are today, compared to the recent past, using my family as an example. World population has doubled since I was born, with 2 billion more added just in my son’s lifetime. When my parents were born world population was less than half of the population of Asia alone in 2019 (4.6 billion).

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Why geographers make great management consultants

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Mackinder’s Heartland theory

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