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Rated A Planet of 3 Billion: Mapping Humanity's Long History of Ecological Destruction and Finding Our Way to a Resilient Future | A Global Citizen's Guide to Saving the Planet 4/10

"If you agree that we have exceeded the actual carrying capacity of our planet, each additional human on Earth is, by definition, doing ecological harm to the planet that cannot be avoided, due to the ecological debt that previous generations have already accumulated." Starting off with this review, I'd like to say that I completely agree with the main premise of this book: We have a people problem. There is little doubt - in academia - that anthropocentric causes lie at the heart of the demise of the natural world. I suspect that most people who pick up this book will already be familiar with the challenges humanity faces in the 21th century regarding climate change, loss of biodiversity and the general pollution of our environment. Having said that, I do not think this book adds much to the public discussion. It is basically a summary of the latest ecological scientific findings (which are quite gloomy), which the author uses to support his thesis. Contradictory to my expectations, this book does not cover the moral implications of the 3-billion target. The author does little to explain why he settled for 3 billion (which he admits is somewhat trivial). He also doesn't tell us what the optimal, so not simply the barely sustainable, global population would be. You could probably make a better case for 1 billion, 100 million or even less. As for how to achieve a population of 3 billion people, the author repeatedly mentions emancipation of women - especially in developing nations with high fertility rates - as the main strategy of lowering the global population. I wholeheartedly agree this is part of the solution, but the way the author puts it, it feels incompletely. Surely other tactics are also needed to achieve such a lofty goal. The author could also have elaborated more on how to achieve this envisioned emancipation, especially in conservative, religious states where it might be harder to change culturally embedded beliefs about child-bearing. All in all, I would only recommend this book if you have a basic understanding about what's currently happening to our natural environment and want to become more familiar with the exact scientific details. If your especially interested in the moral case for a smaller population and how it is to be achieved, you are probably better off somewhere else (and please feel free to post such suggestions in the comments!).

Edited 31d ago