What does a population of 7 billion mean for our planet?

 

Today (31 October) we expect to have a population of 7 billion people, according to the UN. This is something which has caused consternation in the western world (or, at least, the media of the western world). The likely home of the 7 billionth person is the developing world, which has a much higher birth rate than the west. So what does this actually mean, for humanity, for the planet and for us in the UK?

 

Without putting too fine a point on it we in the UK, in common with much of the developed world, are greedy. We consume more than our fair share of resources. We have known this for some time. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF)’s One Planet Living Campaign kicked off in 2007. The campaign is based on the discovery that if everyone in the world consumed as much of the planet’s resources as we do in the UK then we’d need three planets to keep us all going. Obviously, we don’t have three planets. Ergo, we need to cut back on our consumption. In many ways this has been a successful campaign, ‘One Planet Living’ has entered the lexicon of business and politics. However, although we all agree we’re consuming too much, the ‘we’ doesn’t often seem to translate to ‘me’.

 

Earlier this month, our current Chancellor George Osborne, told the Conservative Party Conference: "We're going to cut our carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe."

 

In other words, we’re going to keep on consuming, thank you very much, and at the same rate as our nearest neighbours. This statement did not help boost confidence among those of us who were already sceptical of the coalition’s often repeated ambition to be ‘the greenest government ever’. In fact, one could be forgiven for thinking that they were referring to something other than environmental ambition, such as envy, or clothing colour.

 

From a Christian perspective, this excessive consumption should give us pause as our greed has a direct impact on the poorest in our global society. Our insatiable desire for more – clothing, food, ‘things’ – has to be satisfied somehow. And as the recession bites at home, we’re less willing to pay a premium for them. But someone, somewhere has to pay for your £2 top, or your £4 jeans. The chances are, that this will be someone in the developing world, where we today welcome the 7 billionth inhabitant of our planet. A book published earlier this year, by the journalist Lucy Siegle, To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World provided a chilling expose of the true cost of fast, cheap fashion. She outlines tales of forced labour in Uzbekistan, and soaring suicide rates among Indian farmers. The world is smaller than we think, and our purchasing power can be used for good or ill.

 

As Christians, can we really afford to ignore the implications of our spending? A population of 7 billion needn’t be a disaster for the planet but it certainly will be if we’re not willing to change how much and what we consume.