Stable Populations: a Necessary Condition for Sustainability. The Scope for Alliances with Environmentalists and Economists

Three important facts, dictated by the bio-physics of our finite planet, are widely ignored:
a) Total human impact on the planet equals, by definition, average impact per person multiplied by the number of people; so each additional person increases the rate of ecological degradation;
b) Natural resources per person are, by definition, total natural resources divided by the number of people; so each additional person increases the rate of resource depletion and reduces everyone else’s ‘share’;
c) Like growth in anything physical on a physically finite planet, population growth will definitely end at some point, either sooner by fewer births or later by more deaths; ie through contraception backed by policy and resources, or by the ‘natural’ controls by which every other species is kept in balance with its habitat - famine, disease and predation/war.
Environmentalists and economists across the UN and globally show no awareness of these, with potentially disastrous consequences. Examples are given; reasons including irrational taboos are analysed; underlying assumptions listed; the three disciplines compared; and a proactive role for population scientists proposed.