The Apolcalypse is on Schedule
- Lindsey Grant
- March 3, 2011
- Forum Papers
- Forum Paper
- 0 Comments
… or perhaps ahead of schedule. Climate change is the popular topic, and there are multiple news reports of the accelerated pace of change: the melting Arctic ice cap; the sudden and erratic increase in run-off from Greenland’s glaciers; the breakup of the Ross ice shelf in the Antarctic; the droughts of 2005 and 2010 in the Amazon; the storms and droughts that may reflect climate change; and the past decade’s record-breaking temperatures.
Other ominous changes receive less publicity but are well documented: peak oil; the mounting damage to the world’s farmland; the gathering fresh water crisis; the threats to the biosphere that supports us.
I have written about those issues. In this paper, I propose to show how population growth permeates several other current issues which are seldom addressed from the demographic standpoint. Like climate change, those issues have come on faster than we anticipated, largely because of population growth. This exercise may suggest how the growth in human numbers is shaping our future. And I will have the temerity to suggest that the future may be better, though the adjustment will be painful.
Reall the full paper – Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version
Lindsey Grant is a retired Foreign Service Officer; he was a China specialist and served as Director of the Office of Asian Communist Affairs, National Security Council staff member, and Department of State policy Planning staff member. As Deputy Secretary of State for Environmental and Population Affairs, he was Department of State coordinator for the Global 2000 Report to the President, Chairman of the interagency committee on Int’l Environmental Committee and US member of the UN ECE Committee of Experts on the Environment. His books include: Too Many People, Juggernaut, The Horseman and the Bureaucrat, Elephants in Volkswagen, How Many Americans?
