Families should have no more than two children - British thinktank

Families should have no more than two children if they want to help combat climate change, according to new research by a thinktank. According to the report, published by the Optimum Population Trust, Britain's high birth rate is a major factor in the current level of climate change, which can only be combatted if families voluntarily limit the number of children they have. Women in the UK have 1.87 babies on average - the highest birth rate for 26 years, says the report. The report calls for a 'two-child' policy in the UK that would reduce the nation's population from 60 million, as it currently stands, to no more than 55 milllion by 2050.

High population and accelerating consumption means that humans are outstripping the planet's biological capcity, says the report. By 2050, with the global population rising to 9.2 billion, humans will be using twice the Earth's natural capacity. Figures released in the report highlight the links between human population and climate.

Prof John Guillebaud, the report's author, said: "Climate change is now widely regarded as the biggest problem facing the planet but most of the solutions seem to involve national or international agreements that look as far away as ever. We're nearing the point of no return and people are feeling increasingly desperate and helpless. The answer lies in our own hands. We're simply failing to acknowledge the link between human numbers and global warming."

"We have to recognise that the biggest cause of climate change is climate changers – in other words, human beings, in the UK as well as abroad - so deciding to stop at two, or at least to have one child less, is probably the simplest, quickest and most significant thing any of us could do to leave a sustainable and habitable planet for our children and grandchildren."

- These three factors are closely linked : climate change, resource depletion, and over-population. The first is getting more attention nowadays, the second is barely there on the collective radar screen, but hardly anyone has brought up the third until now.

The reasons are obvious. It is a very personal and a very emotional issue - "how dare you presume to tell us how many children we are going to have?". It could also be religious, seeing how certain religions exhort their followers to "go forth and multiply", or some such - the better to "spread the word" you see - the more followers the better. Guess what. The penchant for "growth" is going to collide head on with physical and economic reality.

The doomers often talk about "bacteria in a petri dish" - seeing how the bacteria quickly multiply and eventually eat up all the resources in the dish, and die off. But I'm a moderate myself, not a doomer. And I hope that we are a little bit smarter than the bacteria.

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