Inured as I am to standing in line at check-outs that proclaim "10 items or less", I was immediately attracted to this grammatically correct quote by David Attenborough which forms part of the introduction to Dick Smith's book "Population Crisis".
It's not happy reading but while it is a natural human reaction to run away from trouble, this is a problem that needs to be faced head-on even though, as Dick Smith says, "if I do nothing it most likely will not affect me or people of my generation."
He calls himself "a newly informed amateur" on the question of population growth, and it shows since Australia is not the “gold medallist in population growth” as he suggests. Population is growing faster in well over 50 countries, and our population growth comes mostly from migrants whose presence here doesn’t increase global population.
Whether you consider it to be a book alerting you to the world's population crisis or just a colourful cocktail served up to keep Australia to ourselves, it's not easy but certainly required reading.