Lester R. Brown

Chapter 10. Responding to the Social Challenge: Introduction

Early in this new century, the world is facing many longstanding social challenges, including hunger, illiteracy, and disease. If developing countries add nearly 3 billion people by mid-century, as projected, population growth will continue to undermine efforts to improve the human condition. National food bubbles based on overplowing and overpumping will move toward the bursting point. The gap between the billion richest and the billion poorest will continue to widen, putting even more stress on the international political fabric.1 

As a species, our failure to control our numbers is taking a frightening toll. Slowing population growth is the key to eradicating poverty and its distressing symptoms, and, conversely, eradicating poverty is the key to slowing population growth. With time running out, the urgency of moving simultaneously on both fronts seems clear. 

The challenge is to create quickly the social conditions that will accelerate the shift to smaller families. Among these conditions are universal education, good nutrition, and prevention of infectious diseases. We now have the knowledge and the resources to reach these goals. In an increasingly integrated world, we also have a vested interest in doing so.