In this section we list a few of the many people concerned about population.
Florence Blondel is a Ugandan born environmental and population campaigner who has given considerable help and advice to QCOP. She pulls no punches in her opinion of those who state that population action is racist, read her powerful piece here.
It is often said that concern about population is `just white men telling back women what to do'. For other black voices who belie this, see here.
Sir David Attenborough Naturalist, broadcaster, former controller of BBC Two, and patron of Population Matters. His 2020 book A life on our planet contains much discussion about how our spiralling human population has played in the current planetary crisis.
Watch this video in which Sir David speaks passionately about population problem. There are many others.
For more pithy quotes by David Attenborough see here.
Dame Jane Goodall Famous for her work with chimpanzees in the wild in the 1960s, Jane Goodall is a patron of Population Matters. In a message to the 2019 PM conference, she said: “I would encourage every single conservation organisation, every single government organisation to consider the absurdity of unlimited economic development on a planet of finite natural resources."
“We can't go on like this. We can't push human population growth under the carpet......empowering women and girls was key to addressing unsustainable population growth......It's been shown all around the world that as women's education improves family size tends to drop.“
Watch her full message here.
The Jane Goodall Institute works to protect chimpanzees and inspire people to conserve the natural world we all share, so improving the lives of people, animals and the environment.
Chris Packham
Naturalist, television presenter, author, and environmental campaigner. Patron of Population Matters.
‘There’s no point bleating about the future of pandas, polar bears and tigers when we’re not addressing the one single factor that’s putting more pressure on the ecosystem than any other – namely the ever-increasing size of the world’s population.'
Jonathan Porritt Leading Environmentalist, Founder Director of Forum for the Future and former Director of Friends of the Earth, Jonathan is President of Population Matters. In 2021 he gave a talk organised by QCOP at British Yearly Meeting entitled Population Growth and the Climate Emergency: Ensuring a Just Transition. For a summary of his talk see here and a full transcript here.
Jonathan wrote a powerful piece Overpopulation and the End Times: the Silence Continues on World Population Day, July 11th, 2023. Here is an extract: "Today is WORLD POPULATION DAY. I can absolutely guarantee it will be ignored by every single environmental and development organisation here in the UK – and by the Green Party.......In refusing to address concerns about overpopulation (to the extent of being unable to even use the word “population”), those NGOs are condemning hundreds of millions of women and their children (particularly their daughters, as the impacts of this institutional misogyny pass from generation to generation) to high maternal mortality, countless illegal abortions, chronic ill-health, misery and (in the near future) utter destitution."
Lord Adair Turner Businessman and academic, Chairman of the Financial Services Authority 2008-2013, former chairman of the Pensions Commission and the Committee on Climate Change, and former Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry.
He has said: Population decline should “not be feared” because it will help the UK reach its climate goals, and that a gentle decline in birth rates would “deliver significant benefits to human welfare”. “...ceasing endless population growth will also reduce humanity’s future press on the natural environment, ease the challenge of adequate housing provision, and make it easier to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions while supporting prosperity growth in developing countries.”
For an in-depth article by Lord Turner on the challenges of population growth, see here.