During the first two weeks of September, 1994, some of the world’s great minds met to discuss the danger of rapidly increasing world population. The 20,000 people gathered at the United Nations conference on Population and Development met in a most appropriate city for such considerations. Cairo, Egypt was originally planned for a population of four million but now is home to 14 million.
This was the third such conference sponsored by the United Nations in the last 20 years. In that time, the world has added about two billion people to the population base.
The issues
Representatives of governments, religious organizations and international agencies attempted to confront and resolve volatile issues facing the world today. Among them were:
- Can the earth contain its present rate of population growth?
- Who is to blame for the destruction of natural resources? Profligate consumers in industrial nations or the desperate poor in overcrowded, under developed countries who strip the land of vegetation in order to survive?
- Who will pay for plans aimed at population control?
- Who will receive such money? Governments or grass-roots groups working in villages?
- Will donor countries try to attach human rights or other conditions to any aid?
Mind-numbing numbers
The conference opened with the presentation of a barrage of statistics indicating the world’s population growth will soon be uncontrollable. “More than 90 million people are being added to the population each year, the highest numerical growth in human history. In only 11 years, from 1987 to 1998, world population will grow from five billion to six billion, adding more bodies to feed, house, clothe and educate than the present combined population of Europe and Latin America.”
The rate of population growth is staggering: “It took 123 years for the population to grow from one billion to two billion, and at far higher fertility rates. Even in 1950, when the population was half of what it is now, women were having 5.3 children on average worldwide. Though the total fertility rate has since dropped to 3.4 children, the number of new people added each year has doubled because the base has expanded and infant mortality has declined.
“More than 90 percent of the growth is in the developing world, much of it in the poorest nations in South Asia and Africa. These developing countries add a million people every five days to lands that are often already over-worked and depleted of water and cheap sources of energy” (New York Times, September 4, 1994).
Food for all?
The biggest issue faced at the world population conference was -How will food be provided for the growing populace?
In the last four years, Asia’s rice production has not increased while the area’s population has grown by 56 million. Food supplies are threatened as the supply of irrigation water reaches its limits, seas are over fished and agricultural land in some of the poorest and most densely populated nations is turned over to industry.
Even in North America, the Canadian government has placed a moratorium on North Atlantic fishing and prime farm land is being taken over by urban sprawl. The president of the World watch Institute says, “the world has entered a new era, one in which satisfying the needs for seafood, for example, of 90 million people being added each year requires reducing consumption for those already on earth.”
A world of contrasts
It seems odd that the world would be undergoing a population explosion. In January, 1994, there were about 100 wars raging in the world, according to the Toronto Star. The continents with the highest rate of population growth are also the continents with the greatest number of casualties due to war.
Angola has reported about 100,000 deaths in the past year, Chad’s civil war has slain about 90,000. Liberian gangs have killed an estimated 80,000. Rwanda’s civil war has displaced six million and resulted in about one million dead already this year. Since 1992, 30,000 have been killed in Afghanistan and over 10,000 in Bangladesh.
Yet, overall, the population still increases far more rapidly than before. As it does, people wonder where all the food will come from.
The prophetic outlook is not encouraging in this regard for scripture reminds us that famine will be part of the latter days: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (Matt. 24:7 RSV).
Let us pray that we will remain faithful to the end for we are warned, “At that time, many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other.”
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