About this Book

It has been our aim to produce a reasonably comprehensive and reliable sourcebook for the study of questions related to population, resources and environment - a book that can serve the needs of teachers and students as well as the needs of general readers who may not be enrolled in any formal courses.

We have tried to make clear, by providing adequate detail and documentation, our reasons for sharing with many well-informed and concerned citizens of the world a gloomy prognosis for mankind. We have also tried to include many constructive proposals and suggestions that offer possible means of brightening that prognosis.

The wide diversity of sources we have drawn upon is indicated in the annotated bibliographies at the ends of the chapters, and the general bibliography at the end of the book. We have listed only a small selection of references from technical journals, but these should provide the interested student with adequate guidance for a further exploration of this literature. We have not hesitated to include, in addition, bits of information from such sources as newspapers and the scientist’s "grapevine", if such information seemed sufficiently important and timely, even though this might entail some risk of possible small losses in the scientific accuracy.

Because, as indicated in the acknowledgements, the various drafts of our manuscript were thoroughly reviewed by a large number of critics who are competent in the various areas covered, we believe that the factual basis of the book is sound throughout. We do not believe that such minor errors as may be revealed in any of our figures, estimates, or interpretations will change the thrust of our major conclusions. In many areas, of course, it is impossible to determine exactly what has happened, or to know what the significance of certain trends may be. Data are often unreliable or unavailable, and our understanding of the complexities of ecological systems and human behavior is still fragmentary. But in dealing with the population-resource-environment crisis, it is important to recognize that people are going to have to learn to make decisions in the face of uncertainty. Possible benefits will have to be weighted against possible risks, and a great deal of thought given to possible future events which may seem unlikely but which will be catastrophic if they do occur. It would be a major step forword for mankind if all people could know the general state of the world and could be informed as to just what changes are being taken with their lives and the lives of future generations.

From the almost limitless number of subjects which might have been included in the book, choices of those that were to be treated in detail had to be made. We have tried to emphasize those which seemed to us to be of the most general importance, and we make no apology either for our selection of subjects or for the personal style and approach we have used throughout. We have not attempted to give equal weight to both sides of all controversial issues; where we think one side is correct we have so indicated. We also make no claim to having tried to detailall exceptions to general rules. We hope that this book will provide concerned readers with enough background to enable them to make informed political decisions about environmental issues and to combat what C. P. Snow has referred to as the "excessive unsimplicity" which, in his words, "crops up whenever anyone makes a proposal which opens up a prospect, however distant, of new action. It involves a skill which all conservative functionaries are masters of, as they ingeniously protect the status quo: it is called the "technique of the intricate defensive".

Finally, we hope that all our readers will understand that the primary purpose of this book is to inform and convince them about the elements and the dimensions of the environmental crisis, rather than merely to frighten or to discourage them. Nothing in this book is intended to cause feelings of guilt, resentment, or defensiveness in anyone who happens to be a parent or a child of a large family. It is not our purpose to offend anyone; in fact, to do so would only help to defeat our own goals. The future of our concern, and clearly, any measures that may help to defeat our own goals. The future is our concern, and clearly, any measures that may help to brighten the prospects for mankind will requoire the understanding, the goodwill, and the enthusiastic support of all.

 

CONTENTS

1. The Crisis

2. Numbers of People

Birth and Death Rates
Growth Rate
History of Population Growth

3. Population Structure and Projection

Age Structure
Distribution
Urbanization
Demographic Projections
Projected Changes in Density and Distribution

4. The Limits of the Earth

Outer Space
Heat
Energy
Nonrenewable Mineral Resources
Water
Food and Nutrition
A Hungry World
Common Deficiency Diseases
Implications of Severe Malnutrition and Hunger
The Picture in America

5. Food Production

Solar Energy and Food
Recent History of Agricultural Production
Amount of Land Under Cultivation
Improving Yields on Land
Food From the Sea
Novel Sources of Food
Reduction of Food Losses
Should We Be Pessimistic?

6. Environmental Threats to Man

Air Pollution
Air Pollution and Population Growth
Water Pollution
Solid Wastes
General Pollution
Pesticides and Related Compounds Lead Pollution
Fluoride Pollution
Radiation and Chemical Mutagens
Noise Pollution
Geological Hazards
The Environment of Modern Cities
Aesthetic Considerations
Pollution and Climate
The Epidemiological Environment

7. Ecosystems in Jeopardy

Food Webs
Concentration of Toxic Substances in Ecosystems
Biogeochemical Cycles
Modifying Ecosystems
Insecticides and Ecosystems
Agriculture and Ecology
Insecticides and Phytoplankton
Insecticides and Soils
Alternatives to Present Patterns of Insect Control
Herbicides and the Ecosystems
Nitrogen, Phosphates, Heat, and Ecosystems
Ecosystems and the Atmosphere
Ecological Accounting
Why Have We Let Our Environment Deteriorate?
Thermonuclear Warfare

8. Optimum Population and Human Biology

People Versus Earth
Optima and Environment
Evolution and Human Reproduction
The Natural Environment of Man
Determining an Optimum

9. Birth Control

History
Conventional Methods
Sterilization
Abortion
Possibilities for the Future

10. Family Planning and Population Control

Family Planning in the DCs
Family Planning in the UDCs
Attitudes and Birth Rates
Population Growth in the United States
Poverty, Race, and Birth Control
Population Control
Measures for Population Control
Population Control and Attitudes

11. Social, Political, and Economic Change

Religion
The Conservation Movement
Education
The Legal System
Business, Industry, and Advertising
Medicine
Transportation and Communication
Economic and Political Change

12. The International Scene

Latin America and the United States
Development and the Environment
Development: A New Approach
War
International Controls

13. Conclusions

Summary
Recommendations: A Positive Program

About this Book

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

APPENDIXES

World Demographic Data
Population Estimates 1960-2000
The Essential Nutrients
The Fire Ant Program. An Ecological Case Study Some Important Pesticides
Reproductive Anatomy and Physiology

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

INDEX

THE CRISIS

The explosive growth of the human population is the most significant terrestrial event of the past million millenia. Three and one-half billion people now inhabit the Earth, and every year this number increases by 70 million. Armed with weapons as diverse as thermonuclear bombs and DDT, this mass of humanity now threatens to destroy most of the life on the planet. Mankind itself may stand on the brink of extinction; in its death throes it could take with it most of the other passengers of Spaceship Earth. No geological event in a billion years - not the emergence of mighty mountain ranges, nor the submergence of entire subcontinents, nor the occurrence of periodic glacial ages - has posed a threat to terrestrial life comparable to that of human overpopulation.

Most of the members of modern societies have now seen pictures of the Earth as seen from the vicinity, of the moon, and they must have a new awareness of the finite size of our planet. In comparison with many celestial bodies, it is a rather small ball of rock. It is also possibly a unique ball of rock, for its surface is populated by a vast variety of living organisms that depend for their existence on a thin film of atmosphere, which is itself, in part, a product of those living things.

If Homo sapiens is to continue as the dominant species of life on Earth, modern man must come soon to a better understanding of the Earth and of what he has been doing to it. Yet many people - as a result of the excitement over the successful landings of men on the moon -are better informed (and perhaps more curious) about conditions on the surface of that dead satellite than they are about the damage being done by overpopulation and overdevelopment to the only life - supporting planet we know.

Only recently have Americans been astounded to learn that many millions of their own fellow citizens go to bed hungry every night. Most of us, of course, have vague ideas about starvation in India or about Brazilians living in squalid favelas, but all too many of us have no real appreciation of the dimensions of the world food problem. Why should we? The concept of one or two billion people living on this planet without adequate diets truly staggers the imagination. How can it be that 10 or 20 million people, mostly children, are starving to death each year while we pay some of our farmers not to grow food? How many presumably well-educated Americans realize that their pets receive a better diet than hundreds of millions of their fellow human beings? How many are aware that many poor Americans resort to eating pet food as a cheap source of high-quality protein?

Look for a moment at the situation in those nations that most of us prefer to label with the euphemism "underdeveloped," but which might just as accurately be described as "hungry." In general, underdeveloped countries (UDCs) differ from developed countries (DCs) in a number of ways. UDCs are not industrialized. They tend to have inefficient, usually subsistence agricultural systems, extremely low gross national products and per capita incomes, high illiteracy rates, and incredibly high rates of population growth. For reasons that are made clear in this book, most of these countries will never, under any conceivable circumstances, be "developed" in ths sense in which the United States is today. They could quite accurately be called "never-to-be-developed countries."

The people of the UDCs will be unable to escape from poverty and misery unless their populations are controlled. Today these countries have larger populations than they can properly support, given their physical and biological resources. Furthermore, their population growth rates make it clear that conditions are going to get steadily and rapidly worse. The populations of most UDCs are doubling every 20-30 years. Consider what it would mean for a country like the Philippines or Honduras to double its population in some 20 years. There would be nearly twice as many families in 20 years; todays children would be adults and have their own children. In order to maintain present living standards, such a country must, in two decades, duplicate every amenity for the support of human beings. Where there is one home today there must be two (or their equivalent). Where there is one schoolroom there must be two. Where there is one hospital, garage, judge, doctor, or mechanic, there must be two. Agricultural production must be doubled. Imports and exports must be doubled. The capacity of roads, water systems, electric generating plants, and so on must be doubled. It is problematical whether the United States could accomplish a doubling of its facilities in 20 years, and yet the United States has abundant capital, the world's finest industrial base, rich natural resources, excellent communications, and a population virtually 100 percent literate. The Philippines, Honduras, and other UDCs have none of these things. They are not even going to be able to maintain thsir present low standards of living.

Even if some UDCs should manage to maintain their living standards, this will not be acceptable to the people in those countries. The "have-nots" of the world are in an unprecedented position today: they are aware of what the "haves" enjoy. Magazines, movies, transistor radios, and even television have brought them news and pictures of our way of life - our fine homes, highly varied diet, and so forth. They have also seen in their own countries our automobiles, airplanes, tractors, refrigerators, and other appliances. Naturally they want to share our affluence. They have what Adlai Stevenson called "rising expectations." But, a few simple calculations show that they also have plummeting prospects. It takes no political genius to guess the results of not just a continual frustration of these expectations, but an actual deterioration of living standards as well. Population pressure has been described as numbers of people pressing against values. For many people in the UDCs there are relatively few values left to press against, and even these are doomed if mankind continues on its present course.

Many people in the UDCs-the Colombian mothers forced by hunger to practice infanticide, the Biafran children in the last stages of starvation, the Indian women who, during the recent Bihar famine, spent days sitting in the sun picking up grains of wheat one by one from railroad beds, and the several hundred thousand residents of Calcutta who live in the streets - have virtually nothing left to lose but their lives. The inhabitants of the DCs have much to lose. Overpopulation right now is lowering the quality of life dramatically in these countries as their struggle to maintain affluence and grow more food leads to environmental deterioration. In most DCs the air grows more foul and the water more undrinkable each year. Rates of drug usage, crime, and civil disorder rise and individual liberties are progressively curtailed as governments attempt to maintain order and public health.

The global polluting and exploiting activities of the DCs are even more serious than their internal problems. Spaceship Earth is now filled to capacity or beyond and is running out of food. And yet the people traveling first class are, without thinking, demolishing the ship's already overstrained life-support systems. The food-producing mechanism is being sabotaged. The devices that maintain the atmosphere are being turned off. The temperature-control system is being altered at random. Thermonuclear bombs, poison gases, and supergerms have been manufactured and stockpiled by people in the few first-class compartments for possible future use against other first-class passengers in their competitive struggles for dwindling resources - or perhaps even against the expectant but weaker masses of humanity in steerage. But, unaware that there is no one at the controls of their ship, many of the passengers ignore the chaos or view it with cheerful optimism, convinced that everything will turn out all right. .