Critical Masses : Global Population Challenge

In September 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development was held in Cairo to report to the world that the gravest problem facing our planet today is that there are too many of us for our planet's resources to sustain.

Over-population threatens our existence as a species more than any disease, any shortage of resources, any political or military power, but these dilemmas do contribute to the population crisis, rendering it more and more frightening.

By the year 2050 the populations of many destitute countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, Mexico, Iran and India - which presently nears a population of 1 billion people) will just about double, and the governments and social services in these countries are already taxed beyond their capacities.Through the stories of families and individuals the author meets, he aims to convey the urgency of the over-population crisis and the extent of the damage it could wreak.

In this book he presents his discussions with a Palestinian farmer whose water supply is dwindling; an Indian woman, newly empowered by literacy and family planning methods, who learns she can choose not to have more children; a cleric in Brazil trapped between Papal declarations against contraception and the realization that the number of undernourished children in his cramped urban parish is alarming.

While illustrating the factors and history behind the population problem, the author simultaneously exposes what governments and citizens could be doing to improve the situation.