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I have absolutely promised not to let this blog get population-obsessed, but I have absolutely got to go on the record to clear up any misunderstanding caused by Madeleine Bunting’s recent article in the Guardian (September 10th) about why most environmentalists can’t bring themselves to utter the dreaded “p� word.

I’m sorry to have to do this. I think Madeleine is a brilliant journalist, and her ongoing battle with Richard Dawkins is just great – someone has to keep on pointing out just how prattish it is for someone like him to wage a war against religion with such religious intensity.

So I was delighted when Madeleine said she was about to do a piece on population – and sure enough, the first 80% of the article is excellent. Check it out for yourselves. But then we find these paras:

“Jonathon Porritt, chair of the government’s Sustainability Development Commission, admits it is ‘tough territory’ but argues that ‘it is intellectually unjustifiable’ for the environmental movement not to address it. He wants to see a UK population policy that covers both family planning and immigration, aimed at long-term population decline. That would mark a dramatic shift in policy. In particular, he rejects the oft-cited need to keep up the birth rate to pay for pensions. But his attempts to get the government to engage have got nowhere.

“As Porritt ruefully admits, his position lands him in some unsavoury company. The Optimum Population Trust proposes some batty ideas such as government campaigns on the unattractiveness of parenthood. And it gets much worse. As is often the case where there is a disconnect between public debate and popular sentiment, the British National party (BNP) is stepping in to grab the territory. It argues that ‘our countryside is vanishing beneath a tidal wave of concrete’, ‘immigration is creating an environmental disaster’ and Britain could become ‘a tarmac desert’.”

That is all so misleading as to beggar belief! As a Patron of the Optimum Population Trust, am I really likely to slag it off in public for having batty ideas – especially as I spend most of my time telling anyone who will listen that it’s an excellent organization that they should actively be supporting. And would I really be talking of it as “unsavoury company�!

Worse yet, is it really fair, by virtue of (presumably deliberate?) juxtaposition to put the BNP and the OPT in the same category. Madeleine knows it’s not, and unless she can blame such sloppy journalism on her editor (which is of course perfectly possible), then she really has got a bit of explaining to do. I know I shouldn’t complain too much. It’s great that more people are joining the debate on such a critical issue, and it’s not as if I’m not aware of the controversies associated with taking a high profile on it. But it’s not really me I’m worried about in this instance: it’s the OPT, which may now, in the minds of many deluded Guardian readers, be seen as some kind of batty, BNP look-alike. Which is as far from the truth as one can possibly get.

You can do better than that, Madeleine.

Source: http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/index.xml