Christopher Rapley, the new director of the Science Museum of London -- the British equivalent of the American Museum of Natural History -- has some ideas about climate change that could cause outrage among scientists and lefties.
No, Rapley doesn't disbelieve in global warming, or think people aren't the cause. In fact, Rapley is deeply convinced that humanity faces a profound threat from a warming world. But unlike most of his peers, he's not afraid to say that, as important as clean energy and conscientious consumption are, it's population control that will save our descendants from disaster.
Rapley thinks that the human population is already too big, and needs to stop growing -- that, in fact, it ought to fall by a few billion. To do this, he says, improved education, birth control and health care are the key.
It's a well-meaningly vague proscription, obviously, but Rapley seems more concerned with starting a discussion than hashing out the details
-- as, perhaps, befits his position in the public sphere. And, Rapley's beliefs aside, it's clear that he interprets his position and the role of museums very differently than most museum directors do:
Science chief: cut birthrate to save Earth [Guardian]
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Image: BBC*
