I often hear people talk about population and climate with confusion… or at least overlooking some important elements.
Intuitively, it makes sense that a growing population makes people wonder, how are we going to support that many people?
But, as far back as the 1800s, population growth and ecology has been used by some to advocate for letting people in poverty be completely neglected or worse. It’s an area of conversation that can’t afford having so many people misinformed.
Countries with the fastest growing populations very consistently have the highest rates of poverty and lowest carbon footprints.
This means the real work is to keep improving people’s quality of life while also working on other ways for people across the board to keep their emissions down.