Lester R. Brown has it (almost) right:
Countries everywhere have little choice but to strive for an average of two children per couple. There is no feasible alternative. Any population that increases or decreases continually over the long term is not sustainable. (Quoted from Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, by Lester R. Brown. 2008. W. W. Norton & Co. p. 133.)
The fertility rate in Ethiopia is 5.4. Where the Saunterer lives (he calls it “Little Ethiopia”) the fertility rate is not much lower. One old man was written up in the local newspaper last year as if he had done the human race a great turn for having spawned more than 240 people. So far as what is good for the world, Ethiopians and Little Ethiopians are unequal causes in the destruction of Earth’s wild nature: its forests, its whales, its great apes and its tigers, and beyond. The Little Ethiopians, by their greater income, constitute the really powerful cause of destruction. Lester R. Brown would have it exactly right had he said that countries ought to strive for an average of fewer than two children per couple, reducing population.
For a brief biography of Lester R. Brown, click here.
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