Being a ‘National Treasure’ appears to be a license to talk rot

Take, for instance, the curious case of Sir David Attenborough. The poor booby is another neo-Malthusian. Which is another reminder that expertise in one area is no guarantee of good sense in another. As I wrote in The Scotsman this week:

Attenborough is a supporter of Population Matters, a creepy outfit who have previously suggested Britain’s optimum population lies around the 20 million mark. Let’s rewind the clock to 1850 then. Like other Malthusians, Population Matters is coy about how it proposes to reduce Britain’s population to this “sustainable” level. Emulating China’s one-child policy may be tempting, but will not reverse the terrifying tide of prosperity and population growth now threatening our planet.

Promoting his latest television series Sir David noted that famines in Africa are really quite simply explained. “What are they about?” he asked. “Too many people for too little [a] piece of land. We are blinding ourselves. We say, get the United Nations to send them bags of flour.