The Sunday Times reports today that the environmentalist campaigner Jonathan Porritt will this week repeat his assertion that population control in Britain is vital if we are to build a 'sustainable' society.'
Or rather, he goes somewhat futher than that: the country needs to reduce its population to around 30 million.
When Porritt first pointed out that we should limit the amount of babies we are having for the sake of the environment, one could fairly assume that he was aiming his diatribe at those whose ears would already be open to his message: white, middle-class and with an 'environmental' conscience.
In which case, he needn't worry. This part of the population - indeed, the whole of what was once called the indigenous but is now more frequently referred to as the 'traditional' population - are reproducing less and less.
In fact across Europe, there is a catastrophic decline in the birthrate. Many European countries are no longer reproducing at what is called replacement level. There will, for example, be considerably fewer Italians in 2050 then there are now. With the exception of the US, the population surge is happening anywhere but in the developed world.
As the paper notes: 'Population growth is one of the most politically sensitive environmental problems The issues it raises, including religion, culture and immigration policy, have proved too toxic for most green groups.'
You can say that again. For example, the new film The Age of Stupid, which is released this week, is a docu-drama set in the future which, looking back, lambasts us for not taking the threat to the environment seriously at a time when we could still have made a difference - ie now.
Along the way it has the run-of-the-mill anti-Western swipes at US imperialism and corporate greed. But the huge elephant in the room, which remains unmentioned throughout, is massive population growth.
So why does the Green movement hold back? It's not so difficult to see why. The Muslim population in Britain is growing exponentially, at ten times the rate of the rest of the population. Immigrant groups have much higher birthrates than that 'traditional' population. This is the case too in other EU countries.
Addressing such specific causes of population growth would require extraordinary nerve on the part of environmentalists - and of course the last thing they would want to be accused of would be cultural imperialism or insensitivity. Expect them to run a mile from any such discussion. Altogether easier, perhaps, to avoid these uncomfortable facts and continue instead to guilt trip all those nasty, materialistic rapers-of-the-planet and their lackies.
