A new UN report studying the effects of population growth on the environment provides information that challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions of population control, assumptions used to justify sterilization, abortion and contraception. “World Population Monitoring 2001,” prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, emphasizes that many of the most dire predictions about the consequences of population growth have proven unfounded, and remain unlikely to occur even if the world population rises to 8.9 billion by 2050.

The most common argument against population growth is that the earth has a “carrying capacity,” a threshold number of humans beyond which civilization will descend into chronic famine, disease, poverty and civil strife. According to the report, however, “Over the period 1961-1998, world per capita food available for direct human consumption increased by 24 per cent, and there is enough being produced for everyone on the planet to be adequately nourished.” Also, general advances in technology and industry have resulted in a dramatic growth in average material well-being — “From 1900 to 2000, world population grew from 1.6 billion persons to 6.1 billion. However, while world population increased close to 4 times, world real gross domestic product increased 20 to 40 times, allowing the world to not only sustain a four-fold population increase, but also to do so at vastly higher standards of living.” The report shows guarded optimism that these trends will continue, and that food production will continue to grow along with the population.

The report brings into question the ever-constant UN goal of decreasing birth rates worldwide. The Population Division, which makes all UN predictions about population growth, is seen as mostly non-ideological.

[This is an excerpt of a report by the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, C-FAM, which works to support life issues at the United Nations.]

Published in VSHL Lifesaver, October 2001