Difficult Questions About Population, by Roger Plenty and other Quakers
Author: Roger Plenty. Review by Margaret Matthews
Quaker Concern Over Population (QCOP) was formed in 2015 and granted Quaker Recognised Body status in 2018. Its aim is to remind Friends of the danger of population growth and to explore the means by which it can be addressed without coercion. The group hopes to encourage Friends to overcome their reticence about discussing this difficult but vital subject.
The handbook is a means to this end. In the introduction, Beth Allen points out that Quakers work for a sustainable planet, but that the world’s resources of water, food, fuel and space can scarcely support the current global population. Over-population, however, is still the elephant in the room when we are discussing the future of the human race. How can we help each other to understand it and to change the way we live? People find it difficult and divisive to talk about the subject, which arouses strong personal feelings.
These feelings are explored in the twenty or so ‘difficult questions’ which form the basis of this book. Questions such as ‘Isn’t it a question of consumption, rather than population?’, ‘Is concern about over-population racist?’ and ‘Isn’t an only child a spoilt child?’ Some of the questions are unlikely to be voiced by Quakers but represent points of view held by many people. Each question is given careful consideration and explanation, illustrated by quotations, charts and cartoons. There is a very clear graph showing projected population growth if present trends continue, if two-child families were to be the norm, or if one-child families were universal.
Throughout the handbook QCOP is careful to emphasise that it is not telling people how many children they should have. It is providing information to enable people to make their own choices. The questions can be used for individual study or for group discussion. There is a comprehensive reading list.
The book ends with a selection of quotations ranging from Aristotle (‘One would have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property… The neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of both revolution and crime’) to Roger Martin, the former president of Population Matters (‘It’s no use reducing our carbon footprint, if we keep on increasing the number of feet’).
I personally feel that this is a subject which all of us who are concerned about the health and wellbeing of future generations need to address, and this booklet is a good place to start.
The booklet can be read at http://qcop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/difficultquestions.pdf, or contact QCOP for hard copies.
