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Tech tycoon Elon Musk, currently the richest person on the planet with a net worth of around $300 billion, has said that "one of the biggest risks to civilisation is the rapidly declining birth rate"...
Speaking at a conference, he said this:
"So many people, including smart people, think that there are too many people in the world and that the population is growing out of control... It's completely the opposite... If people don't have more children, civilisation is going to crumble, mark my words."
This advice it at odds with what those in the climate lobby have been advising us.
Let's leave aside, for now, the fact that it's all well and good for Elon Musk with his hundreds of billions to contemplate adding to his band of six kiddies.
It's not exactly like the two hundred grand price tag of having a child will be putting him off.
And let's be honest, the man is a bit of a lunatic, who named his last born son X A.I A12 ...
But I'm on Elon's side on this one. I'm fed up of virtue-signalling eco-warriors and green-haired piercing-encrusted tree-huggers telling me not to have more children to save the planet...
Yes, it's true that that the world population is projected to reach nearly ten billion by the middle of the century, around four billion more than the population at the start of the century but low fertility rates cause major problems for developed countries....
The fertility rate reached a record low in England and Wales in 2020, as it did in America, and Australia, and Japan, and in many other nations. And this isn't the Covid effect, it's a running trend...
In fact, the UN predicts three in ten countries are set to see declining populations over the next few decades.
Low fertility rates mean shrinking labour forces as those of working age decline, which poses massive risks for productivity and economic growth...
A smaller labour force and a burgeoning pensioner population means a strain on government budgets and much higher taxes for the working population....
It means lower living standards, underfunded and over pressured social services...
Stemming population growth on a global level is not a universal solution to all countries' woes – especially not developed countries...
In fact, government should be doing MORE to help people have more, not fewer, children. Hungary's infamous policy to boost fertility shows how desperate some governments are to increase their populations.
Families are given cash to buy new homes, and more cash for every additional child they have. A married couple buying a new house with at least three kids could get a payout of between around 40 and 60,000 pounds, with every extra kid bagging you thousands.
So, don't listen to the doom-mongers who want us all to be childless and miserable, Elon is right - more babies will be good for society