1. The population of the world has been increasing faster and faster. In 10,000 B.C., there were probably only 10 million people. In A.D. 1, there were 300 million. It took 1,750 years for the world population to reach 625 million. In 1850, only one hundred years later, the population reached the figure of 1,300 million. In 1950, the had more than doubled to reach 2,510 million. In 1985, only 35 years later, there were 4,760 million people. In 2000, the world′s population was about 6.6 billion, and by 2015 it is expected to be over 7 billion.
Does the Earth have enough resources to support this many people? Different give different answers to this question. Some say that there are enough resources to support 8 billion people. Others say that we must limit population growth because our resources are limited. Only 10 percent of the earth′s land can be used for farming and another 20 percent for raising animals. There is a limit to the water we can use. There are also limits to the amounts of petroleum, iron, , gold, and other metals.
Research has shown that the Third World woman has more children than she wants. Among the women who do not think they have too many children, half of them do not want any more. However, although millions of women want to limit the size of their families, they know of no safe way to have fewer children. Safe birth-control methods for family planning are not to them. It is time governments and international organisations did something to help them so that the world population growth can start to decrease instead of continuing to increase.