The Covid-19 pandemic has raised questions about population size again

A pandemic aided by our interventions in nature has brought back focus to questions about human population size, but advocates of population limitation also have questions to answer

Surroundings

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November 11, 2020

LETTERS to New Scientists in response to reporting on environmental issues often leave a blatant loophole: Why don’t we mention the elephant in the room, namely the number of people on the planet?

A pandemic aided by our interventions in nature has given human population size issues a new focus. Such issues have been highly controversial since at least 1798, when Thomas Malthus issued the terrible warnings that still set the tone of the debate in an essay on the principle of the population.

See The Great Population Debate: Are There Too Many People on the Planet? …