LETTERS Birth and the earth
Sir: It seems to me that Dr Andrew Purkis of Lambeth Palace (Letters, 6 June) is in a muddle about population. Indeed, I think he would be well-advised to avoid the expression 'population explosion' altogeth- er. In the 1960s the doom merchants were very active in predicting a disastrous dou- bling of the world's population by the turn of the century, with inadequate food sup- plies, and famines everywhere. In many cases where there are stable governments, their predictions have been falsified. Only in parts of Africa is the situation really des- perate, and that is where law and order have totally broken down, not because the food is not there or cannot be supplied. Countries like India and China have not only been feeding burgeoning populations but actually exporting food to less well-run countries. Dr Andrew Purkis, purportedly writing on the Archbishop's behalf, may prate at length of misrepresentation, but the fact remains that the Archbishop's words are often naive to the point of being childlike; perhaps no bad thing in a Chris- tian, but nonetheless puzzling and even unhelpful to the theologically sophisticated. Dr Purkis may succeed in convincing us that the Archbishop now knows, or perhaps always did know, the difference between a heresy and a dogma; but is he really aware of the fact that the so-called 'population explosion' is actually due to a declining death-rate in infancy, not to an increasing birth-rate?
George Chowdharay-Best
27 Walpole Street, London SW3
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