Robert Engelman of Yale University says the world population
is growing much faster than previous estimates.
He also says most governments no longer make family planning
a priority, perhaps because of the influence of the Catholic Church.
Engelman says the United Nations increased its population
estimate for 2050 from 8.2 billion people, an estimate made 10 years ago, to
8.9 billion.
That 700-million increase is almost equal to today’s
European population.
Engelman points to some examples – 5.1 children per woman
has increased to 6.3 in Afghanistan and 3.8 has increased to 5.4 in Southern
Sudan.
And on the food-supply side, Lester Brown has written an
article noting that topsoil is vanishing faster than new topsoil is being made
over a third of the world’s cropland.
Brown says topsoil developed over thousands of years is now
being eroded in a matter of decades.
