John Mott-Smith correctly noted in the June 17 Enterprise that greenhouse gas emissions represent an impending disaster and that the major underlying factors contributing to these emissions are increases in population and consumption. He then incorrectly asserts that much policy attention has been directed to consumption but not to population.

Mott-Smith mentions Ñ again, correctly Ñthat global and regional population has increased dramatically since 1950. But he fails to mention that that population increase provoked a dramatic global policy response.

Nearly all countries in the world now have population policies and family planning programs, and birth rates are declining nearly everywhere. For example, the average number of children born per woman in several very large developing countries is 1.6 in China, 2.7 in India, 2.5 in Indonesia, 2.0 in Brazil, and 2.3 in Mexico, in all cases at least 50 percent lower than 40 years ago. World population is projected to peak around 2050 at 9.5 billion, about a 40 percent increase from 2010, and then decrease slowly.

Mott-Smith says almost nothing about projected increases in consumption or relevant policy responses.

Certainly many countries are trying to promote energy efficiency, but these efforts are totally swamped by high rates of growth of consumption.

In the past 30 years income, and hence consumption, per capita has increased by over 400 percent in China and well over 200 percent in India, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico. This growth has produced massive transportation congestion, dense air pollution and widespread environmental degradation. I know of no country with a policy to reduce the rate of increase in consumption.

In short, global consumption is increasing much more rapidly than population (approximately 10 times faster) and the discrepancy is projected to accelerate. While most countries have effective population policies, few if any have comparable consumption policies. We should applaud and reinforce our success at curbing population growth and turn serious attention to the problem of consumption.

Jim Cramer

Davis

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