The proper sustainable population for the earth is between one
and two billion.
The United States, because of its high per capita energy use, is
overpopulated. They say that an American strains the environment as
much as 23 inhabitants of an African country.
The impact (harmful of course) of the economy of a country
on the world environment is given by the equation
where P is the population of the country, A is the average
affluence of its citizens, and T is the level of technology used.
A good measure of the technology parameter T is the
per capita rate of energy use.
The world population is pretty sure to reach 10 billion before it
starts down.
They are hopeful that food production will rise enough to feed
the 10 billion. It will require doubling or tripling food
production which can probably be done.
This is the biggest change from Ehrlich's previous views.
They are disappointed that the Chinese aspire to a similar life
style to that of the West. They regard this life style as
unsupportable even in the West.
The Chinese are particularly mistaken in trying to fuel their
development with coal.
The influence of multinational corporations is harmful.
The world is using up its nonrenewable resources at an
unsustainable rate. The examples they give are minerals and
topsoil. They don't give a resource by resource opinion.
The increasing use of birth control throughout the world is a
hopeful sign that the population will peak out, although there are
still countries with extremely high rates of population growth.
The noble savage is a myth. Moreover, primitive life was
indeed, as Hobbes wrote, ``solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short''.
The slow growth rate of human population before modern times was
due to a balance between birth rate and death rate.
The Reagan policy of the U.S. not supporting birth control in
undeveloped countries reduced the effectiveness of population control.
