Herbert Greenfield Quotes

In most slums and cities in developing states, population growth is outpacing the ability of the growth in pollution and sewage. Such unmet expectations in over-crowded cities can be the catalyst for civil conflict.

Another cause of change, one less noticeable but fundamental, is the modern growth of population closely connected with scientific and medical discoveries. It is interesting that the United Nations has set up a special Commission to study this question.

Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed.

So far, the United States knows nothing of the difficulties of over-population; and historic realities of a nature to hamper the free play of economic forces exist only in a very limited degree. Quite the reverse is true in Europe.

When is population going to become an accepted part of the food debate? If it's fine to encourage people to think about halving their meat consumption, can we really not cope with a conversation about how many children we have?

In only 37 years, our population will grow by a number equivalent to all the people in the world at the beginning of World War II.

The perpetual tendency of the race of man to increase beyond the means of subsistence is one of the general laws of animated nature, which we can have no reason to expect to change.

If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply the population.

No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.

Our primary objective is to reduce British over-population. But many leaders of foreign nations approach us to help them get a handle on their burgeoning population.

Population growth is a global problem affecting all of us.

For if we can remove the turbulent Gallics [French], our people according to exactest computations, will in another century, become even more numerous than England itself.

There is room enough indoors in New York City for the whole 1963 world's population to enter, with room enough inside for all hands to dance the twist in average nightclub proximity.

Development has to rise if population is going to increase, Otherwise people will starve and all kinds of other problems.

Not everyone has to have children. If everyone had two or three, we'd run out of room.

Still, whether we like it or not, the task of speeding up the decrease of the human population becomes increasingly urgent.

Along with issues like global warming, I think a problem with the world today is population decline.

Family planning is the only exit point of the land problem. No other solution is possible.

The idea that only a limited number of people can live in a country is profound illusion. It all depends on their cooperative and inventive power.

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio.

One problem in Africa has been a small population. And the natural resources were large. So you could be as foolish as possible. But you didn’t die. You just remained there eating mangoes and bananas. Now the population in Africa is growing. So the idea that you can go on with idiotic policies is not sustainable. Because a big population needs answers.

The best "gift" anyone can give to humankind is to remain birth-free. It is a SIN for any person to birth while earth births exceed deaths. For what purpose would the world need more than 50,000 new Homo sapiens every year?

Population pressure is the ultimate cause of every war.

The only real growth industry in the Middle East has been population.

It's going to destroy it all. I use what I call my bathroom metaphor. If two people live in an apartment, and there are two bathrooms, then both have what I call freedom of the bathroom, go to the bathroom any time you want, and stay as long as you want to for whatever you need. And this to my way is ideal. And everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom. It should be right there in the Constitution. But if you have 20 people in the apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door … and so on. And in the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.