Population growth? It's nothing to worry about

Sir David Attenborough is worried about the world's growing population. The best way to fix it is to make everyone better off, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

An interview with Sir David Attenborough in the Telegraph. He is very worried about the world's growing population. He is convinced that "we are heading for disaster unless we do something". If we don't cut back on population growth ,"the natural world will indeed, has already started to fight back.What are all these famines in Ethiopia, what are they about. about too many people for too little land. That's what it's about we are blinding ourselves."

This is standard stuff. Most people are terrified of population growth and NGOs around the world dedicate thousands of man hours every year to the extrapolation of past growth figures way out into a disastrous future. But should we really be pinning all the ills of the world on population?

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Explore More
Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.