Last week, in the right-wing populist newspaper The Sun (2) and in a television programme for the BBC, Attenborough had pledged his support for the OPT and their fear of overpopulation. This came after the Trust announced a new carbon offset scheme: instead of planting trees, they'll spend the money of those obsessed with their green egos on discouraging the birth of children in 'developing nations'.

The OPT have an ingeniously simple way of eradicating poverty in developing countries – eradicate the poor! And every African child that does not get born (now a ‘non-person’ as the OPT call it) won’t contribute to carbon emissions. Because the poor have this terribly unsustainable aspiration to improve their lives:

“In short, one less birth into poverty is not only one less person to suffer poverty and the expected severe impacts of climate change, but also one less to produce more greenhouse gases in (hopefully) escaping poverty. In recent years millions of previously-poor Chinese have been doing just this: getting richer, so inevitably causing more CO2 emissions”(3).

A British member of the Camp for Climate Action who was part of the action said: “It’s time to draw a line between us and the green austerity movement and anti-human campaigners. It’s time to oppose David Attenborough and the Optimum Population Trust.”

The negative focus on a population increase of poor people in the majority world is the kind of policy position they share with the fascist right. BNP leader Griffin has let it known that "every person we take from the third world with a tiny climate footprint and bring them [sic] into the western world, we're massively increasing their impact of carbon release into the world's atmosphere.” (4)

The OPT want to reduce the world's population by half to its 'optimum' level. They claim to object to control and coercion in this effort, though border control and deportations are very much part of the picture. All this in the name of carbon offsetting.

For the activists who successfully shut down the Trust's meeting in Copenhagen, this is anathema to the spirit of the ecology movement. Drax 29 defendant Paul Chatterton wrote last week: “this isn’t a movement against carbon, but one for greater equality and justice ... our fascination with the environment has brought a fascination with austerity and rationing.” (5)

With this in mind climate activists in Copenhagen will continue to target the proponents of false solutions this week, whether they come in the form of carbon trading or population management.

(1)  http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7803/
(2)  http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2764068/Attenborough-on-a-growing-threat-to-mans-future-the-growing-population.html#ixzz0ZIaQK1T2
(3)  http://www.popoffsets.com/faq.php
(4)  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/10/nick-griffin-environmentalism
(5)  http://www.redpepper.org.uk/New-article,1906