The United Nations recently reported there are now about seven billion people on Earth. Most live in poverty. More are on the way.

Population will greatly increase in Third World countries, which raises the question: Why are some nations rich while others are so poor? Is the disparity due to overpopulation?
There's complex answers to those questions with no single explanation. World inequality is a phenomenon that most people nowadays are well aware of. There's no question some have more than others. It's an unequal world, after all.
But inequality isn't really that important, right? No. Inequality can be very dangerous. Those who have much more have historically tried to convince those who have far less that they should take their inequality lying down.
Millions of the world's poor are multiplying. In fact, the UN reported that the world's population is projected to surge past nine billion before 2050 and then reach 10.1 billion by the end of the century, if current fertility rates continue at expected levels.
And based on projections, the number of people in the world — currently close to seven billion — should pass eight billion in 2023, nine billion by 2041, and then 10 billion at some point after 2081.
Most of the increase will come from what the UN calls “high fertility countries,” mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in some nations in Asia, Oceania and Latin America.
Without question, overpopulation is, and will still be, a major problem in the Third World. The widening gap between rich and poor will cause more civil unrest, revolutions and deaths.
Ways must be found now to avoid a future global catastrophe due to economic underdevelopment. The obstacles are many in terms of development in poor nations. Overpopulation is just one hurdle.
Overpopulated, developing countries face more food shortages, water scarcity and stunted economic growth by far than more developed nations.
Chronic hunger is common in these countries where poverty reigns. Some other problems are overcrowding, misguided economic policies, mounting debt, land shortages, high rates of childbearing, inadequate infrastructure, capriciousness of the climate, unusable land, lack of agricultural technology, soil erosion, air pollution, depletion of aquifers, wars, dislocation, unfair trade, deliberate economic retribution, and powerlessness of the masses, among many other problems.
Lack of education, unresponsive governments, and poor resources also characterize the state of developing countries. Low income (Third World citizens make less than $1 per day), disease and illiteracy plague the Third World and will continue to well into the future.
Unfortunately, without a higher standard of living, economic opportunity and better quality of life, the Third World's economic status stands to worsen as time marches on.
Without even going into battle, Third World countries have already lost the war on poverty. And as for Third World inhabitants, where every day is a major struggle just to survive, overpopulation contributes to intractable problems.
According to neo-Malthusians, overpopulation causes hunger and other problems in developing countries. Uncontrolled fertility causes poverty, which causes hunger, scarcity and distress.
The solution to problems of world hunger, therefore, is population control. Countries should be limiting the number of people coming into the world, because about 75 million babies are born every year, which means more mouths to feed.
One would think that the wealth from the land should allow the poor to be better off than they are today. But most poor people inhabit rich lands.
The economic capacity of developing countries is greatly limited. Land is a major issue.
For example, Latin America doesn't feed itself because most of the land is used for export purposes. Latin Americans must import much of their food to feed themselves.
Their markets are such that they produce for export rather than for national consumption. Thus, economic growth becomes constricted, diverted and misdirected. And because their economies remain linked to exports, it nurtures dependency.
Third World governments should start planning for massive population increases before it's too late. And without question, all developing nations need to get their economic houses in order.
They've been economically handicapped for so many generations. They'll suffer worse insurmountable abject poverty from population increases if nothing's done.
People need housing, income (it does no good to have food supplies, if people don't have the money to buy them), and adequate infrastructure, among other things in the Third World. It's time to avert a catastrophe.
(Source: theunion.com)