There's a sensible editorial about this in today's Guardian, pointing out among other things that women in India today have fewer babies than women in America did in the 1950s. "Average birth rates for women in developing countries have fallen from six per woman to three in the last three decades."

Poverty is more the cause of overpopulation than it is the result. And at the other end, the main threat to the world and the main drain on resources and cause of environmental damage is people living in the wealthiest countries.

Focusing attention on what people in poor countries ought to be doing or ought not to be doing distracts attention from what we ought to be doing in wealthy polluting countries, to stop using up more than our share and wrecking the place. (And when it comes to pollution and environmental damage in Third World countries, most times you can bet your bottom dollar the relevant decisions were made in western boardrooms, on behalf of western shareholders.)