In your May issue, you missed out the most important contributing factor to climate change, the exponential rise in human populations around the world. In the early 19th century there were fewer than 1 billion people on Earth. When I was young I learnt at school (in 1940s/1950s) that the world population was 3.5 billion. Now it is over 7 billion – it has doubled in my lifetime.
The increasing use of fossil fuels, and the disappearance of forests and other natural habitats for increasing agriculture, are all aimed at providing for the ever-increasing human populations. Our planet simply cannot continue to support this trend. The forests absorb carbon dioxide and enrich the atmosphere with oxygen – which we need to breathe! When all the forests have been turned into fields of crops or grazing farm animals, how shall we survive? We are also endangering the existence of other organisms, including those that pollinate our crops.
Cuthbert Bull, London
