Too Many People?

From ten miles up, the world appears unpopulated. Nevertheless, a small proportion of the world's surface is well peopled, and that population, in its tentative, human way, is still growing. Last week a man who has spent a lot of time on the subject--Warren Simpson Thompson of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio--broached some cautious but implicitly staggering facts (Plenty of People; Jacques Cattell Press; $2.50).-Some of them:

The nations of northern and western Europe and of North America, chiefly industrial, grew fast in the past century, from 115 million in 1800 to 435 million in 1940. But most of them will grow no more. The U.S., an exception, will increase to some 160 million by 1975, will then join the other dominant nations' decline.

Southern and eastern Europe, Russia and Japan, chiefly agricultural nations, will increase in population for some time to come. The U.S.S.R. will grow from 174 million to 251 million by 1970, while Europe is declining from 542 to 225 million.

In the next few decades India may grow from 389 million to 500, China from 400 million to 600. This "will raise economic and political problems which cannot be solved within the political structures built up by Europe during its period of growth and dominance. Either we must organize the world ... so that the inevitable and desirable needs of peoples for raw materials, etc. can be met ... or we must look forward to periodical and devastating explosions such as we are now having. . .

"Even the fulfillment of the most sanguine hopes of science and industry for increasing the means of living will be inadequate ... if birth control does not become the rule in all the world. . . . We cannot long support the population arising from a high and uncontrolled birth rate and a low and controlled death rate."

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