Overpopulation

Report Outline
Consequences of World Population Growth
Accelerating Rates of Population Increase
Proposed Solutions for Overpopulation
Food Supply and Overpopulation
Special Focus

Consequences of World Population Growth

For Most Americans, who view their country as a vigorously growing nation with ample resources to maintain an increasing population, the world prospect of over 60,000 additional mouths to feed each day is not a cause of serious concern. Little heed has heretofore been given to warnings of population experts who say that mankind is breeding more new life than the world's resources can support.

In recent years these warnings have taken on new urgency and the significance of world population problems to the United States is now becoming increasingly clear. Total population of the globe in 1950 was estimated at 2.4 billion. According to current estimates, if the human race continues to multiply at the rate of the first three postwar years, world population in 1980 will total 3.5 billion—a rise of nearly one-half in three decades. The bulk of this increase would come in Asia and in Latin America which already have areas of serious malnutrition or starvation.

West's Contribution to Population Pressures

With the best of intentions, the United States and other advanced nations have contributed, through humanitarian application of their scientific knowledge, to the building up of intense population pressures elsewhere. Japan and Puerto Rico are prime examples.