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Myriad warnings of im–
pending massive famines
and food shortages, as a
result of a world popula–
tion explosion, received
increasing publicity dur–
ing the decade. But by the
decade's end, there was
only much talk and little
action to avert the di–
saster predicted to strike
heavily in the mid-70's.
Many oreas of Asia, Af–
rica and Latin America
will be the first to feel the
effects of the population
bomb.
S
decade, despite al! efforts to the con–
trary.
Population Iomb
World population in 1960 was about
3 billion people; and though we
faintly realized that much of humanity
lacked the necessities of life, the threat–
ening population bomb was then like a
barely discernible warning wisp of
smoke.
In 1964, Dr. Raymond Ewell, re–
search chernist and economist, warned
that the population explosion, combined
with environmental pollution, presented
"the biggest, most nearly insoluble
problem that has ever faced the human
race."
But it was not uotil severe drought
afflicted India in 1966, that the fright–
ening reality of runaway population
and the threat of widespread famine
were impressed on people's minds.
That year the United States assembled
the world's largest peacetime armada -
600 ships- to carry grain to the starv–
ing population of India.
From the mid-60's ooward carne a
plethora of warnings of overpopulation
in the underdeveloped nations and of
mass starvatioo and impeoding food
wars to strike, probably in the mid-70's,
in major portions of Africa, Asia, the
Indian sub-continent and Latín Amer–
ica.
Books such as
Famine, 1975
-
W ho
Wi/1 Survive
?;
The Hungry Pianel;
and
The Population Bomb
attempted to
awaken a largely apatbetic Western
society.
But by the end of the decade ( with
world population at 3.6 billion) there
was only much talk, many meetings, and
little action - and certainly no govero–
ment in the world was on any crash pro–
gram to head off the calamity.
A U. N. document in late 1969 re–
vealed that the greatest population
growth the world has ever encountered
will take place in the second half of the
1970's. Other studies show that food
supplies will have to be doubled by
1980 and tripled by the end of the cen–
tury. Conversely, yearly food increases