Vast chunks of Indonesia’s peatlands have been burned, logged, drained, and left vulnerable to fire as part of an effort to feed a rapidly growing population of more than 210 million Indonesians. 

Tropical peatlands consist of layer  upon layer of forest debris too wet to decompose. They cover approximately 50 million acres (20 million hectares) in Indonesia, or nearly 11 percent of the country’s total land area. Key areas of peatland burning include Borneo, Sumatra, and West Papua.  These are gigantic stores of carbon, woody debris that have accumulated for millennia, in places reach 66 feet (20 meters) deep.

Now the peatlands have been cleared for agriculture and burn regularly, releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere that can be seen from space. They’re rapidly increasing atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), contributing to global warming.

Raise the matter of over-population and you are in danger of being branded a neo-Nazi by the pro-life people, but the above is a prime example of how unprecedented population growth is destroying the environment endangering long-term every  creature on Earth.  Some of the worst offenders, their heads stuck firmly in the sand, are the Catholic church and the Moslems, all of whom encourage population growth.

Is it right to destroy the peatlands and let them burn?   This never happened when the Indonesian population was 100 million instead of over double that number.  Shall we stand by and be choked to death because we cannot bring ourselves to educate women and supply condoms?  Answers , please, those who say, "don’t worry, the world population is leveling off."

Epicurus would say it is unethical both to destroy the environment and to stand by and do nothing to ameliorate the conditions that allow it to happen.