Is Population Control the Key to Going Green?

Down on our little allotment, it occured to my best mate Nosher and me that being conventionally Green is on its own not going to save that planet unless there are also some effective measures to control the population growth.
Despite our favourite fantasy (that everyone should have an allotment) being very attractive, neither is that the answer - for although allotment-keeping has become more fashionable amongst the Green middle-classes in the Dis-United Kindgom, there are fewer allotments to be had, since allotment land is the least protected, and therefore most likely to be redeveloped into housing.
Even if we ignore the possibility that the world population level may already have passed the stage that can be sustained for long by an increasingly degraded global environment, global population growth shows no sign of declining, which means that there is a very high probability that the total number of people on the planet will, very soon, become so high that competition for ever more scarce resources precipitates us into global conflict.
And yet, as Nosher pointed out to me only the other day, the only country (of any significance) in the world that has effectively brought its population growth under control is China.
Throught the West population growth is continuing unchecked, propelled by the desire of some groups of people to breed faster than their neighbours, either for religious or economic reasons, or simply because they can't be bothered with birth control and they know the State will give them ever more benefits the more children they produce.
There will come a point, inevitably, when the political, economic, and social infrastructure required to support the ever-growing and increasingly dependent population simply fails under the burden of overwhelming demands and expectations.
The signs of growing strain on existing service provision are already visible in the Dis-United Kingdom: hospitals failing to keep pace with the rising birthrate, schools beseiged by applications for places, and not enough houses suitable for the needs of a growing population.
But the ideology of conventional growth-economics dictates that economic prosperity is propelled by increasing demand and cheap labour, and the best way of ensuring both is simply to keep on breeding more consumers and workers as fast as possible.
This pattern is being repeated all over the planet. Eventually, we will reach the point when it doesn't matter how much we all recycle, the planet's capacity to support human life at a tolerable standard of living will simply collapse.
The results are entirely predictable: famine, pestilence, plague, war. The Biblical scenario is immediately recognisable. Millions will die horrible deaths, billions more will lead truncated and utterly miserable lives waiting for the inevitable to overtake them.
On the allotment, Nosher and I know that good husbandry is essential to prevent the soil becoming overloaded with plants, so careful regulation of numbers and the effective and appropriate distribution of resources is the key to growing healthy and wholesome vegetables.
So why haven't our political and religious leaders grasped the nettle and put the issue of population control on their agenda?
They are, after all, supposed to be the clever ones (or at least they think they are), attributing to themselves the insight and abilities to make the world a better place.
Surely they must know that simply building ever more roads and houses, more schools, more hospitals, giving out ever more benefits to couples that breed irresponsibly, is taking us towards an inevitable disaster?
Are they cowards?
Or simply deluded?
Or merely stupid?
Or perhaps it's the knowledge that they won't be in power when the proverbial eventually hits the fan, so they can afford to take the expedient route and ignore the unpopular reality that continued population growth will present our descendents with a dreadful future in which there are simply too many people fighting to obtain too few resources, and society implodes.
Down on the allotment, Nosher and I will continue our Green practices of planting vegetables responsibly.
Perhaps one day - the sooner the better - Gordon the Moron, Dave 'The People's Toff' and religous leaders like Archbishop Rowan Williams and others who thus far have been remarkably silent on the issue of population growth, will find the courage to follow our example.