The shortsighted policies of the present towards population growth are dangerously narrowing our options for avoiding environmental disaster in the not so faraway future. Ignoring the problem of rapid population growth in the developing world could be the ultimate global blunder - one from which there may be no recovery. Numerous concerned organizations are involved in a noble effort to slow the continuing deterioration of the world environment including scores of potentially catastrophic concerns which have long term consequences such as the ozone layer, increased emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere causing temperature rise and thus melting the ice cap with the resulting rise of ocean levels, the exhaustion of the crude oil supply and deforestation until there is not enough plant life to convert carbon dioxide back into oxygen, to name just a few. The set of circumstances that will be focused on here are fresh water supply, urbanization, and lastly waste and pollution.

The time it takes a population to double in size is a dramatic way to picture rates of population growth, one more easily understood than percentage growth rates. Human populations grow in a pattern tha

t is essentially exponential. According to the Worldwatch Institute, "At the end of 1997, we shared the Earth with 80 million more people than a year earlier. Of this total, nearly 50 million people were added in Asia, the region that is already home to more than half of humanity. Each month, the world adds the equivalent of another Sweden"(WWI 15). In 1950 the world population was 2.556 billion and by 1987 it had risen to 5.018 billion (U.S. Bureau of the Census). According to these figures it only took 37 years for the population to double; with these figures it could be predicted that in the next 50 years world population could reach 9.4 billion calculated at 1.4% annual growth rate. Controlling population growth depends on the international community's willingness to make population issues a priority. The worldwide political community will not, because it cannot, make harsh decisions without public acceptance. However, when overcrowding lowers the quality of life sufficiently the populace will not only accept but demand controls on human conduct.

We can no longer blame industry for all of our environmental problems. It becomes clearer with each new study that "non-point source" pollution - the result of individual resource use and waste generation - is what is increasingly responsible. As much as we try to change our lifestyles, we can't stop needing food, and we can't stop producing waste. The greater the number, the greater the demand. According to author and director of the Population Institute Werner Fornos, "Pollution, once thought to be primarily a problem of the industrialized world, is today a crisis for the developing world." (Humanist)

The ecology of cities is a continuing challenge to city managers simply because cities require the concentration of huge quantities of water, food, energy, and raw materials. The waste products must then be dispersed or the city will become uninhabitable. As cities become larger, the disposal of residential and industrial wastes becomes even more challenging.

As societies urbanize, the use of basic resources, such as energy and water rises. In traditional rural societies, for example, people live on the land and thus do not need to travel to work. But once they migrate to cities, commuting becomes the rule, not the exception. In villages, most of

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Approximate Word count = 1572
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)