ABSTRACT
Information in Chapter 1 indicated that several indicators of environmental quality worsened in Malaysia during the 1970s and 1980s, when both population and per capita income grew rapidly. On the surface, this is not surprising. A larger population means more people discharging pollutants into the air and water. Higher per capita income might be expected to result in greater pollution discharge per person, particularly when manufacturing accounts for much of the increase in income, as was the case in Malaysia during the 1970s and 1980s. The total human impact on the environment, which by definition is the product of population times per capita environmental impact, would seem necessarily to rise.
