The Population Reference Bureau (PRB) estimated the world's annual growth at
83 million in 2009, this natural increase resulting from 139 million births minus
56 million deaths. Every week some 1.6 million extra people are being added to
the planet - a sizeable city - with nearly 10,000 arriving each hour. Already the
human species is causing serious environmental damage to its only habitat -
Earth. The long-denied consequences of exploding population on ecosystems,
food supplies and energy resources are clear to all, but peaceful population
policies continue to be low on the list of solutions. The alternatives - Nature's
methods of population control - are famine, disease and war. Without urgent
efforts to stabilise and reduce world population, can efforts to save our
environment succeed? With smaller populations, living in greater harmony with
nature, our horizons may stretch far into the future. If the world's parents had
smaller families, would their children not have a better future?