Population growth only postpones the day of reckoning. According to the Census Bureau’s 1992 most likely “medium”‘ projection, there is the troubling prospect of nearly 400 million Americans by mid-century.
In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus tried to inform “people that a human population, like a population of any other species, had the potential to increase exponentially were it not limited by finite support from its resource base.
In 1798, an English clergyman published an essay about human population growth that served to define the terms of debate on this issue for the next two hundred years.
Although the United States is generally thought of as a leader in social policy, when it comes to demographic policy the U.S. is well behind much of the rest of the world.
Around 1969, college and university students developed a major interest in the environment and, stimulated by this, I began to realize that neither I nor the students had a good understanding of the implications of steady growth, and in particular, of the enormous numbers that could be produced by steady growth in modest periods of time.
Dr. Bartlett’s comments on the 20th Anniversary of “Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis” Background Around 1969, college and university students developed a major interest in the environment and, stimulated by this, I began to realize that neither I nor the students had a good understanding of the implications of steady growth, and in particular, of the enormous numbers that could …
The post-mortems marking the 25th anniversary of Watergate earlier in 1997 overshadowed another quarter-century milestone of the Richard Nixon era – one of even greater long-term consequences for the nation’s future.
There are many pieces to our environmental puzzle, which when assembled can ensure that our planet and everything on it has a joyful ride now and into the indefinite future.
This intriguing piece takes a look at the beginnings of America’s concern with overpopulation, and our lack of a national population policy today. The first section describes the unfortunate abandonment of congressional support for changes deemed necessary by the Rockefeller Commission 25 years ago including President Nixon’s dismissing of the Commission’s recommendations even though the Commission had concluded that “no …
Very few writers seem to recognize that growth cannot continue forever in a limited space, and that mathematical truism applies to the real world, today.