Population growth : its effect on human security with emphasis on South Africa

Abstract

As early as the 1960s a number of demographers warned that the world was fast bocoming over-populated. They held international conferences to highlight the problem, and attempted to get the attention of world bodies like the United Nations, as well as that of national governments. They made recommendations on how the global population explosion should be curtailed, and then stabilised to substainable levels. Their efforts have been largely ignored, because family planning and birth control are personal issues reaching into the privacy of human existence. The political will to force the issue does simply not exist in most states. The attention which global warming and climate change are currently receiving may goad governments into action. The global warming problem has a major over-population component and a direct influence on human security.