Tom > One last thing. The population bomb is over. Finished. Dead. Population is
> still rising only because of momentum, and recent future world population
> predictions are down. 2050 will probably be the year world population
> actually starts to fall, according to the studies I have seen recently. All
> countries with developed economies have nearly stable or even falling
> populations. The US population, for example is stable for native born, and
> only rising because of immigrants, who tend to adopt American patterns by
> the second generation. Most middle income countries are approaching
> stability. Only a handful of the poorest countries still have rapidly rising
> populations, and many of those are developing to the point where they will
> probably have slower growth as well in the fairly near future.
> 
> Developed countries tend not to destroy the environment much, it is poor and
> developing nations that do. Reach a certain point, and people begin to start
> spending their time and money on nice things, like trees and animals. If I
> had a crusade, it would be to help jump poor countries over that level in as
> short a time as possible, to limit the damage as much as possible.

A thoughtful post.  We tend to see trends, either upward or downward, positive or negative, as continuing forever.  We're figuring out diet and I believe we'll continue to see improvements.  This will increase human health and decrease birth rates even more.  There's plenty of hope for the future.  Well, if we can get people to turn off their damned televisions and open a book or two ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Jim