Population Control : the immincent world crisis

Present and prospective rates of population growth pose one of the most critical problems of our times. At the outset of the Christian era, world population stood at 250,000,000. Not until 1650 did it reach the 500,000,000 mark, at which time it began to rise more rapidly. By the middle of the nineteenth century, it exceeded 1,000,000,000; by the middle of the twentieth century, 2,500,000,000. Since then, it has risen to 3,000,000,000, and by the it is conservatively expected to exceed
This phenomenal and unprecedented growth-awesomely and apprehensively termed a "population explosion" by some observers-prefigures crises of grave pro portions ahead unless it is promptly and decisively checked. Scant comfort, indeed, can be drawn from sanguine assurances that advancing technology will keep food supply abreast of population increase and thus maintain current levels of living for this is not enough. These levels must rather be raised substantially in distressed areas if existing material disparities among the world's peoples are not to perdure and intensify a foci of domestic instability and international tension. Moreover, one crucial resource, space on this planet, is quite finite and absolutely limits the extent to which an expanding world population can be accommodated-especially since interplanetary and interstellar migration promise little relief in the foreseeable future. And finally, deep concern has been occasioned by the prospective deterioration in the quality of population that present fertility differentials among different societal segments seem to foreshadow.