p In 1900, the world population was roughly 1,500 million, in 1950 over 2,500 million, in 1960 about 3,000 million, and today it exceeds 3,500 million. According to UNESCO statistics, given the present rate of increase it will be more than 6,000 million in the year 2000.  [282•1  And according to FAO 283 estimates the production of food will have to be doubled by 1980 and tripled by 2000 to provide a decent level of nutrition for the world’s peoples (bearing in mind that at present most of mankind is half-starving).  [283•1 

p Dennis Gabor notes that the existing forms of “aid” given by the economically developed countries of the capitalist world to the developing Asian, African and Latin American countries merely make the problem more acute, without solving it. The supply of medicaments and disinfecting agents to the developing countries and expansion of the medical service there lead to a sharp decrease in mortality, particularly infant mortality (although the latter is still far higher than in the United States and Western Europe), and to an even sharper increase in the rates of population growth. Meanwhile far less substantial advances are taking place in the economy of these countries and it cannot keep pace with the growth in the number of consumers.  [283•2 

p At the same time scientists note the tremendous possibilities for increasing mankind’s food resources.

p According to Fritz Baade, it would be quite possible to double or even triple the area of land under cultivation (which today comprises only 10 per cent of land surface in the tropical and temperate zones, including arable land, orchards and plantations). But it would also be possible to increase yields on the existing area by general application of agro-technical advances to such an extent as to satisfy the need for food basically. The transition from the use of draught animals to mechanised cultivation alone would, in his opinion, lead to an increase in yield and saving in fodder which would provide food for another thousand million people at least. It is a fact that at the present time of the 350 million families engaged in agriculture a minimum of 250 million (more than 70 per cent) use either the hoe or the wooden plough as their only agricultural implements.  [283•3 

p George Thomson and many other Western scientists are in full agreement with Baade. Their forecasts on the same 284 question are based on real trends in the growth of agricultural production in the economically developed countries. Thus, in the opinion of experts from the US Department of Agriculture, if the present rate of agricultural output is maintained, there will be twice as much food in the economically developed countries by the year 2000 than is required for meeting the needs of the comparatively slowly rising population of these countries.  [284•1 

p At the same time, according to the President of the World Association for the Struggle Against Hunger, the wellknown Brazilian scientist Josue de Castro, two-thirds of the world’s population are starving.  [284•2 

p Closely bound up with all this is the problem of rationalising the size of the world population in the future, which occupies an important place in the forecasting of Western scientists. The range of the various conceptions here is extremely broad: from a few hundred million living in a rural idyll to hundreds of thousands of millions living mainly on food products made from chlorella, soya beans and synthetic food.

p Many Western scientists, examining the future outlook for the growth of the world population, base their forecasts mainly on extrapolation of existing modern trends, although these trends will obviously undergo substantial changes in the future. On the basis of such extrapolation Fred Hoyle, for example, has reached the extremely pessimistic conclusion that in a thousand years’ time the space quota for each person will drop to one square metre, making the problems of living space, transport, holiday resorts, etc., very acute.  [284•3  He proceeds from the fact that not only will the present population growth rate remain unchanged, but also the present gap between the highly developed and developing countries.

p Other scientists, for example George Thomson, believe that cultural and economic development and increasingly widespread use of contraceptives, as well as a rise in average life expectancy and a corresponding drop in the 285 birthrate may considerably reduce the growth rate of world population  [285•1 .

p Isaac Asimov maintains that solving the problem of “living space" for rapidly growing mankind can be facilitated by the conquest of other planets in the solar system. He gives an interesting interpretation of the well-known theory of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky about the possibility of colonising the asteroid belt, proposing that the asteroids should first be fragmented in order to increase the area in which they can be settled.  [285•2 

p The American scientist John Fisher thinks it likely that colonisation of planets and asteroids will begin in the first half of the 21st century and that an additional century may lead to the colonisation of perhaps a thousand asteroids, and a few more centuries to the time when these city-states will each have a population comparable to one of today’s nations.  [285•3 

p One of the most impressive projects of this kind is that published in 1960 by the eminent American theoretical physicist Freeman John Dyson, which assumes (in what is basically a development of Tsiolkovsky’s idea) that in about 2,500-3,000 years’ time it will be possible to construct a dense sphere with a radius of about one astronomic unit (150 million kilometres) around the sun out of the mass of a planet (Jupiter, for example). Dyson believes it would be possible to create on the inside of this huge meta-planet an artificial biosphere with an area about a thousand million times larger than that of the earth. Reconstructed in this way the solar system would be capable of providing heat and light for 3 x 10²³ people, i.e., a hundred thousand times more than the world population in 1965.  [285•4 

p Examining the prospects for the more immediate future, Arthur Clarke takes the view, not without justification, that in dealing with problems of over-population one must not rely exclusively on the colonisation of planets, since already 286 in our day the world population is increasing by about 100,000 a day. He concludes that “the population battle must be fought and won here on Earth".  [286•1 

p But how? A substantial number of scientists in Western Europe and the United States still regard the forcible restriction of the birth-rate in the developing countries as the only answer to this question, thereby ignoring the main problems—the abolition in these countries of the socioeconomic consequences of the colonial policy of the imperialist powers, opposition to the rapacious tendencies of neo-colonialism, and social transformation in directing the developing countries along a non-capitalist path.

p As John Bernal stated at a conference held in Royaumont that already today it is possible to supply with food the world population which would live on Earth some centuries later and which will be incomparably more numerous, if a modern or even higher rate of demographic growth is accepted. The world is able to put an end to poverty, but we shall continue to be poor, he added, unless the world is organised the old way.  [286•2 

By 2000, Professor M. von Ardenne (GDR) agrees with John Bernal, irrigation of vast arid expanses will be possible, as well as the comprehensive mechanisation of agriculture and the synthetic production of food. All this, In his opinion, “will produce such a sharp increase in the production of food that even with a substantial rise in the world population no one will starve. And if human reason and noble humanity can win through in world politics, and if the Soviet Union’s disarmament proposals are put into practice, which are aimed at excluding war as a means of solving international disputes, this most noble task of mankind will be solved".  [286•3