World War III by Michael Tobias

This book, published in 1998, is not about a literal third world war. It's subject is "Population and the biosphere at the end of the Millennium". With a forward by the conservationist Jane Goodall, and reviews by, amongst others, William Shatner (of Star Trek fame), this is not a work of "science fiction". However, it covers a subject which has become strangely taboo in recent years : human population growth, and its impact upon people and other life on earth.

In a recent - and rather short - interview on BBC Radio 4, a representative from the London School of Tropical Medicine pointed out that "family planning" is the most effective means of reducing child poverty in less-developed/developing countries, and argued that this message still applies to African countries, notwithstanding the AIDS crisis in some of these. He also said that this evidence-based policy instrument has become increasingly difficult to advocate.

Population and demography are certainly complex issues, and whilst it is true that certain countries, such as Russia, are experiencing a decline in numbers of people, overall world population is very much on the increase. Similarly, in the UK, whist Scotland has the highest rate of population decline in Western Europe, England has one of the highest rates of forecast population growth.

Increasing numbers of people raise important issues in the global and international context, as well as for national, regional and local planning, and particularly where there is rapid population growth alongside poor environmental management and infrastructure development. This is indeed an issue where we need to think globally and act locally. However, it is also an issue where policy making is increasingly marginalised, and left to so-called "market forces".

"The Edge of Town" is precisely the place where population pressures are most being felt : whether in "plans" to expand English towns and cities into the surrounding countryside, or to build entirely new ones; or in the slums and shanty towns through which the burgeoning cities of some Asian countries are spreading into rurals areas, often displacing small farmers who have to seek their livelihoods elsewhere.

The consequences of this expansion of human habitat are profound and often devastating. Such issues provide the material of Michael Tobias's book which I strongly advise people to read. The perspective is primarily ecological, and it calls for a fundamental reappraisal of the kind of economic thinking which very much links "growth" with population increase whether at the national or international level.

However, I would also argue that population growth in the form now taking place in some regions of the world brings with it the potential to create the conditions for an actual World War III. For in many of those countries experiencing rapid population increase, there is not a commensurate increase in economic and employment opportunities, particularly for young men. This is precisely the kind of scenario from which major conflicts tends to arise.