Jane Goodall And The Elephant In The Room

Primatologist Jane Goodall wants people to face the fact that human population growth is a big problem:

It's very frustrating, as people don't want to address this topic. It's our population growth that underlies just about every single one of the problems that we've inflicted on the planet.If there were just a few of us, then the nasty things we do wouldn't really matter, and Mother Nature would take care of it - but there are so many of us.

In Goodall's opinion - expressed in an interview with the Associated Foreign Press - the only way to stop population growth (and the environmental degradation it causes and exacerbates) is to improve the lives of the world's poorest. Improved quality of life, she argues, will include better education, lead to a better understanding human dependence and impact on the natural world, and promote a culture of responsible family planning.