| Population spread |
| Sir: Your article “Overpopulation is ‘principal threat to planet’” (7 January) is |
| misleading. If the entire population of the world were transported to the USA |
| and spread evenly, population density there would be not much greater than it is |
| now in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the quantity of the earth’s natural |
| resources consumed by the average English child in terms of, say, energy usage, |
| is eight times that of an average child in India or China. The most fundamental |
| problem is not overpopulation, but the unsustainable lifestyles of the affluent |
| West. |
| DAVID L. GOSLING |
| CLARE HALL UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE |
| http://comment.independent.co.uk |