Country Comments

Israel is grossly overpopulated based on its renewable natural resource availability and its citizens consumption of those resources and corresponding waste production.

Prof. Alon Tal, chair of the Tel Aviv University Department of Public Policy and a veteran environmental activist wrote in the New York Times “With urban development taking over about five square miles of open space every five years, Israel’s wildlife is in steep decline. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics projects that by 2059 the population will have doubled to 15 million, and possibly more than 20 million, which would make Israel’s population density far in excess of today’s most crowded countries, like Japan or the Netherlands. Israel’s high fertility rate (averaging three children per woman) — 50 percent higher than most other Western countries — is the result of decades of government programs that encouraged large families and created obstacles to abortion.

Tal has also said in the Times of Israel, “Failing grades in both climate change and biodiversity protection reflects the policies of a government that even during years of unprecedented economic prosperity, made sure that Israel’s environment would enjoy no environmental dividend."