We can help the 56 percent of the world's people who live in countries with continuing high fertility to achieve family sizes at or below replacement levels of fertility. We can do it by educating girls and boys and by providing health services, including reproductive health and family planning services, to every man, woman and adolescent. Research shows that healthy, educated parents generally choose to have fewer, healthier, better educated children. Second, we can organize our economic production efficiently. In the 20th century, the global economy is so big that this mental picture is obsolete.
Industrial ecology presents a new organization of economic production.
The by-products of one economic activity become the inputs and resources of another. Instead of linear, independent production processes, the economy becomes a network of industries and consumptive activities feeding other productive activities, just as a food web in ecology links all species in a network of feeding and recycling. Third, we can create a more conscious, forward-looking relationship with our physical, chemical and biological environments. An Earth wired with sensors will make it possible to monitor the impact and consequences of our own activities. Existing worldwide networks of weather stations, tide gauges and seismic sensors are early steps toward instrumenting the Earth.