Aims of the Optimum Population Trust
MAIN AIMS
- To advance the education of the public in issues relating to human population worldwide
and its impact on environmental sustainability;
- To advance, promote and encourage research to determine optimum and ecologically
sustainable human population levels in all or any part or parts of the world and to publicise the results of
such research;
- To advance environmental protection by promoting policies in the United Kingdom or any other part or
parts of the world which will lead or contribute to the achievement of stable human population levels
which allow environmental sustainability.
SUBSIDIARY AIMS
- To encourage UK governments to act on the recommendations of the
Government Population Panel in 1973, which stated that "Britain must face
the fact that its population cannot go on increasing indefinitely" and
called on the government to "define its attitude to questions concerning the
level and rate of increase of population".
- To oppose the view generally held by politicians, economists and the
commercial world, that a perpetually expanding economy, with perpetual population growth, is desirable
and possible.
- To oppose the view that an ageing population calls for mass
immigration or incentives to raise large families.
- To make it widely understood that failure to reduce population is likely to lead
to a population crash when fossil fuels, fresh water and other resources become scarce.
OPT's overall task is to enable people to recognise the links between the
quality of life and environmental destruction and (a) high population levels; (b)
wasteful consumption; and (c) poor technology. OPT concentrates on (a) because other
environmental organisations dangerously neglect this component. OPT believes that all other human rights and
needs will suffer if this issue continues to be ignored.
OPT POPULATION POLICY
OPT campaigns for
policies to achieve environmentally sustainable
population levels
both globally and in the UK.
The ecological issue is one of population
numbers, resource demands and the environmental impacts created by different sizes
of population at given levels of affluence and technology. For more details see the
Fertility,
Migration,
Population policy projections,
Briefings and submissions
and other sections of this website. OPT
recommends the following population policies:
Globally, that full access to family planning should be provided
to all those who do not have it,
that couples should be encouraged to "Stop at Two" children to lessen the impact of family size
on the environment, and that this should be part of a holistic approach involving better education and
equal rights for women.
In the UK, that population should be allowed to stabilise and
decrease by not less than 0.25% a year to an environmentally sustainable level,
by bringing immigration into numerical balance with emigration,
by making greater efforts to reduce teenage pregnancies, and
by encouraging couples to "Stop at Two" children.
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This website launched June 2002
This page last updated 29 August 2007
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