CHAPTER 9
If present trends continue, according to the U.N.’s latest “Demographic Yearbook,” the population of the earth will double by the year 2006—reaching 7.4 billion just 33 years from now….
Actually, the world’s birth rate, over all, is on a decline. But so are death rates, as medical research reduces infant mortality, particularly in developing countries, and all but eliminates “killing epidemics.” In the majority of countries today, people are living longer….
So explosive is the growth in developing regions that population authorities fear hunger and famine will become even more widespread. Moreover, they warn, the more crowded that living conditions become the greater is the prospect of violence and upheaval. But bigger populations are causing difficulties—pollution, traffic co
