Increase in population will have negative effects

THE Terengganu state government’s proposal to help pay the salary of the maids of young parents as part of a package of incentives to get couples to have more babies has been touted as a possible “world’s first”.

Revealing this recently, Terengganu Family Development Foundation director said: “With all this help, couples should not delay their marriage. We want them to have more babies. The state’s fertility rate has been dropping.”

Actually, the drop in the state’s fertility rate may be a blessing in disguise when we consider climate change.

Today, climate change has superseded terrorism and diseases as the world’s number one threat to its existence and unless we get our act together, it is the end for us.

More people means more carbon dioxide emission and carbon dioxide traps the earth’s heat radiation, escalating global warming.

The world’s population is expected to burgeon by 2.5 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050. And almost all the population explosion will take place in developing countries. Research by Optimum Population Trust (OPT) says that if a family had two children instead of three, the family’s carbon dioxide output would be reduced by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.

If population is left to grow indiscriminately, our quality of life would deteriorate on a daily basis. Population growth is the main cause of inflation in our lives.

At the end of the day, we must consider the macro-picture of global survival. It is not just whether we can afford more children or not.

DR A. SOORIAN

Seremban