Experts are demanding a Royal Commission to establish ‘an environmentally sustainable level of population’
Britain must set a maximum population level if it is to avoid destroying the environment and putting national security at risk, say experts.
The Optimum Population Trust has written to ministers calling for a policy of ‘zero net migration’ – matching numbers allowed into Britain each year to numbers leaving.
The UK’s population is projected to increase from 60 to 70million over the next 20 years, and to 85million by 2081.
Experts are demanding a Royal Commission to establish ‘an environmentally sustainable level of population’
The trust, a panel of academics and environmentalists, says achieving zero net migration would cut Britain’s population in 2081 to 57million.
Mass immigration ‘feeds through into rising greenhouse gas emissions’ and more congestion, the experts say.
The trust warns that because Britain can produce only 30 per cent of the food, energy and other goods that it needs, it will become increasingly vulnerable to ‘resource nationalism’ as foreign powers hoard their own scarce resources.
‘This imperils future national security as well as destroying the environment,’ it says.
The trust is demanding a Royal Commission to establish ‘an environmentally sustainable level of population’.
The Home Office said its new points-based immigration system would help manage immigration, ‘which will contribute to future population projections and control’.
3 responses so far ↓
The population already exceeds that amount-and the OPT……Know it!! « Centurean2’s Weblog // January 5, 2009 at 12:37 pm
[...] Britain “must set population limit to safeguard national security” say experts [...]
Absolute bullshit-lies! « uk1884 // January 5, 2009 at 1:09 pm
[...] Britain “must set population limit to safeguard national security” say experts [...]
Dan // January 5, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Facts on a plate: our population is at least 77 million
Independent on Sunday, The, Oct 28, 2007 by city eye
E-mail Print Link It is the statistic that dare not speak its name, though eventually it must. It has huge ramifications for the civil and political life of this country, the health of the equity markets and, most immediately, the residential property market. So don’t forget you read it here first: the population of the UK is presently somewhere between 77 and 80 million.
The 2001 census, already hopelessly out of date and easy to avoid for those who find filling in forms a trifle inelegant, numbered us at a little under 59 million. But as statistics go, that one’s most definitely a damned lie.
My sources for the above statement are good, but scared of admitting the truth for fear of incurring the wrath of Whitehall. It’s like the best way of monitoring illegal drug consumption: forget the pious statements from ministers – the foolproof method is to sample our water and the effluent in it. That’s easily the best way of monitoring what the nation has been consuming.
Consumption – that’s the thing. Based on what we eat, one big supermarket chain reckons there are 80 million people living in the UK. The demand for food is a reliable indicator; as Sir Richard Branson says, you can have all the money in the world but you can only eat onelunch and one dinner.
The supermarket in question was privately lobbying the Competition Commission to let it grow its market share. The argu- ment, reasonably enough, was that the market was far bigger than the regulator realised, so expanding the network was fair.
I have a second, respectable, source. A major, non-commercial agricultural institution reckons there are 77 million of us in the UK. Again, its reckoning is based on what we eat.
That faint background noise you’re hearing as you read this is the sound of everyone slithering off the record. Why? In political terms, standing behind these figures would be to toss a hand grenade into a vat of gasoline. People would be hounded out of a job for scaremongering.
The Office for National Statistics’ figures, published last week, predict a population of 75 million by 2051. It’s an honest estimate but horribly wide of the mark because number counting doesn’t work effectively. If you want to know how many there are of us, ask a food firm.
If the true numbers were revealed, the Little Englanders and xenophobes would come out in force about the evils of immigration. But that’s what made America great in the 19th century, and it’s a driving force of our economy right now. It’s also anti- inflationary.
David Buik, a money manager with broker BGC Partners, was talking of “one million Eastern Europeans unaccounted for in London” on television last week. I suspect he’s right if somewhat conservative in his estimate. How many do you see working in the construction industry and waiting at tables?
And when I say “anti-inflationary”, I mean they are getting rotten wages. Dignified by the term “cheap labour”, the hidden hordes will do well for the services sector, among others. People are assets – to maintain and to be maintained – so we are wealthier as a nation.
All of which is reflected in strong economic demand and markets see-sawing between optimism over what we all see on the streets (that 77 million figure feels right to me) and the possibility of something nasty if the Bank of England credit-crunch prognosis is correct (to echo last week, I think next spring will be unpleasant).
As for housing, property magnates and chief executives of housing associations alike say the expanding population means serious demand for the foreseeable future, credit crunch or no. Next week, I’ll look at the detail of this argument.
martin@martinfdbaker.com
Copyright c 2007 Independent Newspapers UK Limited. All rights owned or operated by The Independent.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.
Also heard on farming today BBC radio 4.
The OPT were contacted their reply stated, official stats had to be used.
That eventually they would be using another measure for counting.
Abacus perhaps!