Man and His Environment

It is generally agreed that knowledge of what affects the environment is markedly inadequate. Due to inadequate monitoring and measurement what is happening to the atmosphere or the biosphere is unknown. Research is needed to keep track of what is happening and to develop the techniques that will produce the goods that are wanted without the associated evils. Attention is directed to an economists review of resource exhaustion population growth in the United States connection between population and pollution and policies that would affect the growth of population. Population in the United States today is a little more than 200 million having increased by slightly over 50% since 1940. If this rate of population increase continued throughout the next century the population would reach a billion shortly before the year 2100. A reasonable goal would be to reduce fertility as soon as possible to a level where couples produced just enough children to insure that each gneration exactly replaced itself. The connection between the current population growth and the deterioration of the environment is esstially an indirect one. With the will and intelligence to devise and apply proper policies the environment can be improved with the current population of 200 million or with the population of 50 years from now which will probably be 300 million. Although slower population growth would make it easier to improve the environment the task would not be much easier.