die before reaching the age of five years. People will little assurance of sustainable lives tend to have more children to insure that some will survive. Numerous studies have proven that when parents know that their children will reach adulthood, they choose to have fewer children. Despite death from AIDS and other similar diseases, birth rates in developing countries are still twice the rate needed to stabilize world population. With an increasing number of young people, come more women who are reaching childbearing age. Some will say that population control is the key to feeding the world. What some fail to realize is that some of these women do not have a choice of whether to marry, become sexually active or have children, thus also negating the choice of contraceptive usage, education, employment and gender equality. The Population Council estimates that by delaying the onset of child bearing by 2 to 5 years would reduce the eventual world population by more than 7 billion. I do not believe that I have the choice to take away a person's god given right to have children or not. However, I do support better education in birth control and other preventive measures. The world needs to address the issue of education and health care, including family planning. Growing strains will be placed on the quality of land, water, depletion of fish stocks, and current patterns of consumption and production. Farmers of the 21st century will be under pressure to produce more fibers, fuel and materials, yet be limited by a finite amount of resources. Lands have been severely degraded through means of human induced erosion and pesticides. Seven hundred sixty million hectares of land is already in production in developing countries. Pessimists say that at current yields, over 3 billion hectares of arable land would be required to feed 12 billion people. There is 3 billion hectares of land that could be arable, but the costs to do so...
