Abstract

Defusing the `Population Bomb.'

This September in Cairo, the United Nations (U.N.) will convene a world conference on population and development, a sequel to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on environment and development. Both population and environment rally active constituencies in this country. What the U.N. and the overwhelming majority of its member states has recognized is that development is inextricably linked to both concerns. In the countries accounting for three-quarters of the world's population, the poor are compelled to ravage the environment just to stay alive extending their farming onto marginal land and burning the forests, thereby advancing the deserts; silting and polluting the rivers and poisoning the onshore waters of the ocean.