The focus of the discussion of US national environmental efforts on population growth issues is on carrying capacity, the impact of the antiabortion movement, the insensitivity of some population control advocated to people of color, and congressional and presidential actions. Efforts are being made to surmount the mistrust that has characterized efforts to deal with population issues. The World Wildlife Fund, the Sierra Club, and the National Audubon Society recognize the need for population stabilization, albeit with meager budgets. Carrying capacity is the number of people the earth can sustain without rapidly depleting non-renewable resources or degrading resources necessary to sustain life. In 1970, Earth Day called for stabilization of the global population, but most celebrations of Earth Day in 1990 did not recognize this. Sensitive issues are involved, and the abortion controversy has muffled open forums on population growth. Lobbyists were successful in having the US withdraw funding for international family planning (FP) programs that had abortion components. Then Reagan eliminated all funding to the UN Fund for Population Activities, because of China's FP policies. The results for women have been disastrous. Zero Population Growth has been conducting information meetings for environmental groups. The National wildlife Federation has a new program linking population and environmental issues but will not deal with the issue of abortion. A Philadelphia editorial recommended implanted contraceptives for welfare mothers, which raised fears of the reemergence of the eugenic movement which sought involuntary sterilization or population control for the poor. Another effort was to protect the US from immigration as a way of curbing population growth. Meaningful change means education women, changing unfavorable survival conditions, and heeding the reasons women have children. Japan's FP Association criticizes population control efforts undertaken for economic and political benefit without attention being paid to people's lives. An informal coalition is supporting a large FP grant to the USAID. Senate leadership is more open for FP issues, and a bill has been proposed to increase international FP funds.
When the assumption is made that economic growth must be increased by 10% to accommodate population increases and to reduce poverty, the question is raised as to whether or not sustainable development is possible. The human population increased 3 times since 1900, and global economic activity has increased 7 times faster than population. Use of fossil fuels has increased by 30 times, and industrial production has increased by 50 times. The by-products of population growth and economic activity are loss of tropical rainforests; species extinction; desertification in Africa, India, and the US; toxic and radioactive pollution; and greenhouse warming and ozone depletion. The atmosphere's stability and human habitation is threatened. Sustainable development, as defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in "Our Common Future," is meeting present needs but not at the expense of future needs. Economic growth must proceed at different rates in different countries to close the gap between the rich and poor. Economic expansion has been criticized by the president of Negative Population Growth and the Environmental Defense Fund's coordinator of reform for the World Bank's environmental policies and Third World countries. US government response during the Reagan administration has been indifference, while support has come from the World Resources Institute, the Worldwatch Institute, the US National Wildlife Federation, and the Population Reference Bureau. Recent support has come from signers of the "G-7 Summit" and from IBM and the Dow Chemical Company. A few shared tenets are 1) that economic development is not sustainable, 2) environmental reforms are necessary to make development sustainable, 3) a trade-off is needed to increase Third World energy use, and 4) population must be stabilized. Many proposals have been offered including reducing population to 2 billion, or 40% of the current level. Reducing poverty globally is an environmentally sound policy. High tariffs and protectionism, debt payments, and International Monetary Fund structural adjustment programs have made the situation worse for the Third World. Many suggestions have been made to correct the poverty imbalance, including no growth or steady state economics.
The issue of pesticide use and US export of pesticides to developing countries is critically examined. Under the US Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) pesticides must be registered with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in order to prevent unreasonable adverse effects on humans and the environment. However exports are not restricted. Compounds such as heptachlor chlordane and butachlor which have been banned in the US because of documented adverse effects ("unregistereds") are available for export to any country that does not have any environmental regulatory system for pesticides. This means unrestricted use of unregistereds in many developing countries. FIFRA also has an export provision which stipulates that unregistered pesticides exported must be reported by the manufacturer to EPA. EPA notifies the country of the dangers and the responsibility ends. However the US Government Accounting Office in 1989 found that only 10% by weight and volume of unregistered exports were checked. A GAO estimate in 1987 suggested that 19% of liquid pesticides were unregistereds and 33% of solid pesticides were unregistereds; the total was 58000 tons. Pesticide use has increased in developed countries as reported by WHO but tracking unregistereds from source to final destination is difficult. The harm from pesticide use has been reported by WHO as 1 million persons/year in a 1981 book "The Circle of Poison." The circle comes back on itself when foreign food products are imported into the US e.g. 42000 pounds of Honduran beef arrived with chlordane residues 8 times the US limits and was sold before authorities were alerted. A 1986 GAO report found that maybe 1% of imports are tested. In December 1989 Senator Pete Wilson introduced an amendment to ban exports of unregistered pesticides and provide for an Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides position is that there are still too many loopholes and that Senator Patrick Leahys draft bill which bans globally all pesticides banned in the US and requires foreign government approval of a banned pesticide is preferred. Other restrictions on residues in food are pending also.
