The Numbers Game

The article starts off by explaining that overpopulation isn't people's biggest fear anymore like it was 20 years ago, as well as Ehrlich's prediction that the Earth wouldn't be able to sustain the increasing populations throughout the world. In a lot of the third world countries increasing populations are caused by many factors, including: poverty, famine, crowding, deforestation, and pollution. It is proven that the resources needed to support the population are there, but people encourage being wasteful. Back in 1971 rapid growth was seen as a danger to the human race. Most developed countries have reduced the funding of contraceptive research. The U.S. has decreased the funding to international programs for third world countries, where 90% of the future population is predicted to occur. Birthrates have started to fall so low in industrial worlds that native populations have leveled out or began declining. They predicted that in 2000 the world's population would be 7.5 billion. When the birthrate drops the population ages, meaning that the ratio of old people to young people is larger. Most governments are beginning to worry about supporting the retirees. Ehrlich and Simon have two completely different views on the situation. Ehrlich believes that having more babies puts a bigger burden on the Earth and its resources. Whereas Simon believes that there shouldn't be a limit on how many kids someone had because the human race will make ways to find the resources they need.

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