global warming and global crowding

Dear Current:
I'm sending you a copy of a response I wrote to the New York Review of Books about a recent Bill McKibben article on books about global warming. The theme - population - merits more attention and may be of interest to the people involved in Current.

To the editors:
Once again a highly informative, well-written, and lively article by Bill McKibben on books with an environmental theme (Can Anyone Stop It?, NYR, Oct 11, 2007). Even enjoyable, notwithstanding the frightening prospects in store for the planet, even in some of the better scenarios. But it seems a crucial element has been largely overlooked in the review (not the fault of McKibben, I am sure), as in most of the recent public discussion of global warming and the growing scarcity of natural resources: population.
In the early '70s, towards the beginning of the modern environmentalist movement, one often heard about ZPG or zero population growth or (more ambitious yet) NPG or negative population growth. At the time there were, I think, barely four billion people on the planet, at a level of resource consumption considerable lower than today. I recall thinking then, bad enough already the environmental impact of the developed world; how much worse will it be when the average Indian or Chinese also has an automobile, a refrigerator, and air-conditioning? (Nothing against the Indians and the Chinese as such, of course.)
I don't know where the political will might ever be found, in any country, to suppress unrestrained consumption. By themselves, higher prices for energy (and water, and food) won't do it, I'm afraid. I see little inclination, even on the part of environmentally enlightened people, to make any life-style choices that would entail personal sacrifice or any significant reduction in living standard (as measured by resource consumption). We'll heat the house a bit less and wear sweaters indoors in winter. We'll buy smaller cars. Seems we're all betting on technology and public policy to save our planetary butt. But is this such a good bet? Should we feel optimistic, given the world-wide political climate today?
Prudent gamblers and investors all know about hedging. Any attempt to curtail global warming or to provide renewable resources (and to make the non-renewable ones last a little longer) will be at a grave disadvantage without a serious initiative to bring population growth under control - or even reduce it over the decades to come. Population acts (I suppose) pretty much as a simple multiplier in this massive and otherwise complex calculation whose product may well be a multifaceted global calamity (which would be a very unpleasant way to correct our overpopulation). All other factors being whatever they will be, we can only gain by having n billions of people instead of 1.2n or 1.5n or 2n. Is this really a hotter potato than the one that would ask us to give up our cars? Bill, why aren't we all talking more about this?

best regards,
Allen Schill
Torino, Italy