Originally posted by Malinsky:
Everyone has heard of the “population explosionâ€. In just over sixty years, Brazil’s population has increased by 318 per cent; Colombia’s by 352 per cent, and Ethiopia’s by 503 per cent - and so on, with, in general, the most impoverished of these nations showing the most unbelievable increases.
While everyone knows that the population of the Third World has increased dramatically, how many realize that there are now 73 million people in Ethiopia - more than the population of Britain or France - or 43 million in Colombia? The supergiants of China (1.3 billion) and the Indian subcontinent (1.4 billion) will be less surprising, perhaps, than the current size of several countries not on the above list, such as Indonesia (242 million), Nigeria (129 million), or Mexico (106 million).
The causes of these vast increases are obvious enough: WESTERN medicine, applied to the eradication of communicable diseases and epidemics and to a decrease in infant mortality, in countries which have not undergone the “demographic transition†to smaller family size and lower rates of population growth, such as Britain experienced after about 1870, and in cultures where birth control and family limitation are shunned.
http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/.php1900 - Africa 133 million people - Asia 946 million - Europe 408 million - Latin Am. & Caribbean 74 million - Northern America 82 million
2050 - Africa 1,997 billion people - Asia 5,266 billion - Europe 664 million - Latin Am. & Caribbean 769 million - Northern America 445 million
Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nation. World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision.