The mere size of the number is staggering, enough to make anyone wonder of the doomsday predictions are correct. Today the world population has 5982 million people and growing at an exponential rate of 1.4% per year (United Nations, 1999). This means that by the year 2010 there will be 901 million more people to feed, clothe, and house. That is 5982 million people X 0.014 = 93 million, an average increase of 1.6 million people a week, 227,000 a day, 9400 an hour. At this rate it takes about:5 days to add people equal to the number of Americans killed in all US wars.9 months to add 75 million people, the number killed in the bubonic plague epidemic of the fourteenth century, the world's greatest disaster.12 years to add 1.17 billion people, the population of China in the mid-1990s.Since 1960, the number of Americans has increased from 179 to 270 million. By 2025, that number is projected to increase by 65 million, the equivalent of adding another two states the size of California. Unless something is done, the world's population is projected to be 8054 million people by 2025 and could triple to 14 billion by the next century. Population: How do we deal with it in the 21st century. Literature ReviewThe pessimistic view led by Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute, states that as a result of our population size, consumption patterns and technology choices, we have surpassed the planet's carrying capacity. "Our ability to sustain ourselves in a habitat for a long period of time. And that the growing pressure on the world food resources point to hungry times ahead as Third World population continue to explode." The world may be at its biological limit, and the only hope lies in family planning and a continued search for new ways to produce food" (Miami Herald, Jan 1999).Mr. Brown's concerns about population pressure are far from new. Most people associate these concerns with the name of Thomas Malthu, whose essay on the princ...
