RUTHFULLY YOURS

Am I the only one who finds all of this hilarious? There is something delicious about a man who reputedly struggled to pass his Art GCSE lecturing the rest of us on intelligence and psychological bias. And who could fail to be entertained by sermons on eco-mindfulness from a couple known for travelling around the world, sometimes on private jets, who rarely wear the same outfits twice and generally enjoy the best that this (apparently sparsely resourced) planet has to offer?

But Harry’s unsolicited family planning advice is not mere wokeness. It also reflects the influence of a particularly illiberal strain of thought championed by the eco-miserablists at Population Matters – a campaign group for a lower world population. No surprises that Goodall, like David Attenborough, is a trustee. In the spirit of Chinese autocrats, they want to halve the current birth rate. Their advice emphasises the developed world, but they also want to end migration – one potential effect of which would be to keep those born in poverty where they belong (i.e. not producing too much carbon).

We can trace this kind of thinking back to 1798 when the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus published his Essay on Population, which argued that there are inherent limits to agricultural production and the rate at which it can increase. Without checks on population growth, he argued, demand for food will exceed the limits of production, leading to rising prices, declining living standards and widespread famine.

Though a brilliant sociologist, Malthus was not one of history’s prophets. In fact, the long-term trend since then has been for real food prices to decline and agricultural production to go up far more rapidly than population. Since 1960, for instance, grain production has increased three-fold without any extra land going under the plough. The good Reverend was wrong then, and his spiritual descendants are wrong now, in both cases, because they completely ignore the power of human ingenuity.

In reality, with technological development, humanity adapts and figures out how to use scarce resources ever-more efficiently. As societies grow richer they also care more and more about the planet. Contrary to the Eeyore-like pessimism of Malthus and his successors, this is partly driven by population growth – more people means more ideas, more geniuses, more prosperity and more innovation, which happens faster in large cities. The solutions to the global climate change crisis will come from these quarters – not by putting economic growth and, with it, innovation, on pause.

Demographic history also suggests that it’s better to be kind than cruel if you want to limit population growth. As wages rise (especially for women), the opportunity cost of raising children increases, and large families become less attractive. As the link between education and economic success grows stronger, parents tend to invest more in their children, often deciding to plan smaller families of their own volition – without the influence of government, hereditary celebrities or busy-bodying campaign groups.

But people are not the enemy. It is certainly not for celebs, least of all, royals – to imply there is somehow a “right” number of offspring (beyond what families decide is best). And where is the optimism? Raising a wonderful child, who goes on to contribute to the sum of human achievement, is one of the greatest gifts anyone can offer the world. Sure, fewer people on the planet may mean lower emissions in the short-term but it will also mean doing without many innovators and inventors of the future.

So, entertaining as it is, it’s time the Royals suspended their wokeness in favour of their traditional function – providing a stability that transcends the fickle flux of politics. That should not mean rehashing the failed ideologies of the past.