Population and HIV

My friend (but unrelated) Bob Burton sent a comment to one of my blogs, which I think deserves much more careful inspection -- and shouldn't be buried among the responses to past blogs. He wrote:

A recent news report on the G8 meeting said that HIV/AIDS is the top of the agenda. Population control did not appear.

It's odd that the problem was at being discussed 30 years ago. Now that the world population is so much greater and the problems so much more obvious, it has disappeared from debate.

It really is quite bizarre how the population problem has fallen off the edge of the conference table. Many of the problems confronting the environment, and ultimately the survival of the human species, are anthropogenic. And the more humans there are, the bigger the problems become. Mosre wilderness is cleared, more forests are felled, more pollution is created, more CO2 is emmitted, more water is used etc.etc.etc And the greater the risks of pandemics and epidemics. So dealing with HIV/AIDS in isolation from population growth is potentially like pouring petrol on the fuse of the time bomb that has already been lit.