Dale Easley's Favorite Quotations
| Gets Worse- For Who? |
| The Middle East |
| Editorial |
| "However the United Nations or any number of interested non
governmental organizations (NGOs) dress it up, the international
conference in population and development held in Cairo in September was
about the West telling the developing world to produce less children.
Environmentalists are understandably miffed. They say that while
population control is important, it is only part of a much wider issue and
a range of spectacular comparisons back up the claim that it is not
overpopulation in the developing nations but the wholesale and thoroughly
selfish abuse of the world's resources by the developed world, that is the
root of the problem. It is difficult, if not impossible to argue with
figures that show the rich nations, with 22% of the world's population
consume as much as 92% of its natural resources and account for a maximum
87% of major pollutants entering the atmosphere." "In 1993 the Middle East contained some 265m people and had some of the highest population growth rates in the world. The population is expected to swell to 576m by 2025, more than double its current size. These growing numbers will place increasing demands on the water, agricultural land and other resources this arid region needs for support." |