On Monday 14 May a lively group listened and engaged interactively with Steve Bown’s talk “Does Population Matter?” on the consequences of human population growth to our planet.
Steve Bown is a doctor and trustee of the charity, Population Matters – which has high profile conservationists Richard Attenborough and Chris Packham as Patrons. Steve started the evening introducing the subject from the global perspective and after coffee showed photographs and spoke about his personal experiences in Kenya, supporting the Dandelion Project, and the CHASE Africa charity, helping run Health & Family Planning Clinics in rural Africa, empowering women to make their own choices on childbirth and health issues. 
In the 21st century, human activity demands more of the Earth than it can provide, and threatens the health of the natural environment on which we all depend. The more of us there are, the more we consume the planet’s natural resources, build in its wild places and pump carbon into its atmosphere. 10,000 years ago our planet had to sustain just a few million people. Today, it must sustain seven-and-a-half billion and by 2050, 10 billion is most likely.
To read more about the issues faced by the planet and what organisations like Population Matters are doing please see this website www.populationmatters.org
Steve is pictured here with Club President Linda Shall (l) and Janet Tansley (r). Linda and Janet are both Members of the Club’s Sustainable Environment and Wellbeing (SEW) Team and this event was organised as a Sustainable St Albans activity. You can read more about Sustainable St Albans events on the website www.sustainablestalbans.org