ABSTRACT
Few of the world’s political leaders, environmental advocates, or citizens want to touch the subject of population, and so, except for a relatively brief period in the late 1960s and 1970s following publication of Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb , it has been little discussed. Those who do bring up this topic run the risk of being accused of being elitist or anti-immigrant, since much of the most rapid population growth is occurring in the developing world or among immigrant groups within industrialized countries. At both local and national levels it is assumed that populations will just keep growing until rising worldwide affluence leads to smaller family sizes and natural population stabilization at 9 or 10 billion around the year 2100, and that attention should focus instead on accommodating this increase.
