The deaths of 300,000 people over several years by starvation does not even cause a squiggle in world population charts. The population explosion is our toughest problem. Solving the population problem is not simply a matter of replacing ignorance with good objective information. Population growth may be the most emotional, judgmental issue on the planet- clouded with religious, cultural and ethnic overtones. Some clerics want more souls to be delivered to God's greater glory.
Some racial minorities greet birth control with cries of genocide.
Some males are reluctant to guarantee women the social and economic opportunities, and the reproductive health requirements, that produce smaller family sizes. Some peasants fear starvation unless they have many children to care for them in their old age. And some nations are consciously trying to outbreed their neighbors. Kenya, whose population has increased four-fold since John Kennedy was elected president, hopes to triple it once again in the next three decades. If successful, this poor nation, steward to some of the most fabulous savanna in the world, will have increased its human population 12-fold in six decades with catastrophic, irreversible consequences for its previously diverse cultures, previously abundant wildlife and the once ample carrying capacity of its land.