The Foreign Service Journal, April 2012

demographic and health trends affect a wide range of vital U.S. foreign policy interests. These include the desire to promote healthy, productive families and communities, prosperous and sta- ble societies, resource and food secu- rity, and environmental sustainability.” The CFR report concludes: “Inter- national family planning is one inter- vention that can advance all these interests in a cost-effective manner.” Good News and Bad Our reaching the seven billion mark does not mean family planning cam- paigns have failed. Indeed, we might have exceeded that figure many years earlier were it not for the efforts already made. But the time it takes for the cur- rent rate of growth to fall to zero — the point of equilibrium at which births equal deaths — will determine how much more crowded the planet be- comes. Some population experts point with pride to the fact that we are only adding 80 million people a year to the planet (above deaths), a significant fall from the 90 million a year at the peak of growth a decade ago. They also note that the use of family planning in de- veloping countries leapt from 10 per- cent of women in 1965 to 53 percent in 2005. Worldwide, mothers now have an average of three children, down from six in the 1960s. We have long heard that the popu- lation explosion might lead to disaster. The classic dystopian film “Soylent Green” describes an American city overwhelmed by people sleeping in stairwells and churches and living off government rations —which, we learn at the end, are made fromdead people. For now, such a fate is still fiction. But the many instances of conflict over land, resources and ethnicity — along with the specter of more than 160,000 children dying each day of hunger — should remind us of the urgency of an issue first aired half a century ago. Fortunately, there is still time to de- cide whether we’ll live on a decent, sus- tainable planet with six or seven billion people — or a teeming, swarming world of 15 billion, most of them con- demned to permanent poverty and early death. 42 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 2 The tragic impact of overpopulation is becoming more and more apparent all over the world.