THE NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS

Thirty years ago Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb and I paid no
attention.  I was engrossed in biochemistry research and preparing to go on a
year-long trip halfway around the world.  I doubt if I could have listed more
than the top two of the world's ten most populous nations.  They were, in 1968
(with populations listed in millions):

China - 730
India - 524
USSR - 238
USA - 201
Pakistan - 123
Indonesia - 113
Japan - 101
Brazil - 88
Germany (West) - 60
Nigeria - 52

The trip halfway around the world took me through four of those countries and
woke me up on the topic of population.  Ten years later, in 1978, I was testing
my students' knowledge of the planet by asking if they could list the ten most
populous countries.  The list had changed.  Brazil had just grown past Japan. 
Bangladesh had split off from Pakistan but both still made the list, knocking
Germany off.  In ten years China had added more than the whole population of
the United States.

China - 972
India - 661
USSR - 261
USA -  226
Indonesia - 145
Brazil - 116
Japan - 115
Bangladesh - 84
Pakistan - 81
Nigeria - 68

By 1988, I was no longer teaching full time, but I was still keeping track of
the top ten population nations.  Pakistan had outswelled Bangladesh, and the
numbers were getting astonishing.

China - 1,122
India - 818
USSR - 285
USA - 249
Indonesia - 177
Brazil - 143
Japan - 123
Pakistan - 112
Bangladesh - 106
Nigeria - 97

In the past 10 years the USSR broke up, pushing Russia down the list.  The
Nigerian population has more than doubled since 1968.  Though China's and
India's birth rates have plummeted, they are still adding more than 100 million
per decade.  Japan has nearly stopped growing.  There are 70 million more
people in the USA than there were 30 years ago.  The 1998 numbers are:

China 1,242
India 989
USA 270
Indonesia 207
Brazil 162
Russia 146
Pakistan 141
Japan 126
Bangladesh 123
Nigeria 122

I look at the 30-year evolution of these numbers and I see an enormous event
happening so slowly that it never makes the news -- yet it is constantly in the
news.  The instability of Nigeria, the bankruptcy of Indonesia, the kowtowing
to China, the fear that drives India and Pakistan to nuclear bombs, the growing
number of endangered species, the fires burning out of control in Indonesia and
Mexico and Florida, the changing climate.  Population growth is not the single
cause of any of these happenings.  But it is an inexorable driving factor
behind all of them.

Looking almost as far ahead as I have just looked behind, assuming neither a
great catastrophe nor a great awakening but a continued steady decline in birth
rates, here is the medium UN estimate for the ten most populous nations of
2025.  Russia and Japan are both expected to lose population; Japan will fall
off the list; Mexico will take its place.

China - 1,561
India - 1,441
USA - 335
Indonesia - 275
Pakistan - 258
Brazil - 208
Nigeria - 203
Bangladesh - 165
Mexico - 140
Russia - 134

This last set of numbers is ahead of us, not history, not destiny, but an
excruciating combination of luck and choice.

(Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at
Dartmouth College.)