World Population

World population is growing by seventy million people every year. This is the fastest growth in man's history, and the rate is still accelerating. We will number four billion in 1975 and, if current trends continue, we can expect to reach eight billion well before the year 2000. This population is making more and more demands on its environment. We are taking fresh water out of the ground roughly twice as fast as natural possessions can replace it. The demand for electric power in the US is doubling every ten years, and most power comes from the heavily polluting combustion of coal. We are building 10 000 000 cars a year—twice as many as we made only 17 years ago, and cars bum gasoline, grind rubber tires to dust, wear asbestos brakes into an acrid powder.

Until 1970, these figures were considered proud evidence of progress. After all, it was reasoned, if power demands, automobile production and water consumption are increasing even faster than population, then the standard of living of each individual must be improving; and for the advanced countries this is certainly true. Edward C. Banfield, professor of urban government at Harvard, wrote a few years ago: "The plain fact is that, the majority of city dwellers live more comfortably and more conveniently than ever before. They have more and better housing, more and better schools, more and better transportation, and so on. By all measures of material welfare, the present generation of urban Americans is, on the whole, better off than any large group of people has ever been anywhere."

It's not surprising, then, that the industrialized nations consider progress synonymous with economic growth and that the underdeveloped nations share that circle of faith. The world wants and expects more people, more and faster jet planes, more television sets, and more dish-washers. If one car in the garage is good, two must be better.