"We must have abortion, or our planet will soon be overcrowded" is a slogan used to propagate abortion-on-demand. Take the following quiz, (answer "true" or "False") and see how much you know about our planet and the population "explosion". Scroll down after you're finished for the correct answers.
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The International Data Base (IDB) is a resource for accurate current and historic demographic information on most countries of the world.
www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/country.php
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1. The total area of the world is about 197 million square miles.
2. The total land area of the world is about 73 million square miles.
3. The world population is about ten billion people.
4. If you represented the world as a ball about the size of a house, all the people would represent, in volume, far less than a cubic inch.
5. All the world's houses could be put into an area of about 100 miles by 100 miles (1990).
6. All the world's buildings could be put into an area of about 10,000 square miles (1990).
7. Most people in Australia and Canada live under more crowded conditions than most people in China and India.
8. China is more densely populated than England or Italy.
9. Fertility rates have been increasing in the developing nations.
10. The fertility rates of every nation in Europe are substantially less than the amount required to maintain the population at zero population growth (ZPG).
11. Earth cannot support an infinite population.
12. We now have more starvation in the world than ever before.
13. Population grows faster than food production.
14. Since 1970, both China and India have been among the leading nations in exporting food.
15. The UN has estimated about 1/3 of the world's land is potentially agricultural, nearly 1/3 is in forest, and about 1/3 is neither agricultural nor forest.
16. People eat better in the more crowded areas of the world.
17. There are critical shortages of several minerals.
18. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing and is expected to reach twice pre-industrial levels sometime between the years 2020 and 2050.
19. Air pollution is the USA has been increasing.
20. Because of population growth, the world cannot be as clean as it used to be.
21. Computer models have proven that the earth's temperature will increase by about 3.5 degrees C in about the next fifty years.
22. The US Department of Agriculture temperature measurements indicate rural US temperatures increased between 1920 and 1990.
23. US water pollution has increased during the past forty years.
24. It has been proven that a decrease in ozone will lead to more deaths.
Answers…
1. T
2. F — 58 million sq. miles
3. F — UN 2000 data states that world population is about 6 billion.
4. T
5. T (1970)
6. F (1970)
7. T
8. F — UN density data in China 117, UK 234, Italy 191
9. F
10. T (For a population to maintain itself, demographers calculate that a woman, in her lifetime, must produce 2.2 children in developing nations and 2.1 children in developed nations. Most European nations are now well below this level.)
11. T
12. F
13. F (WHO continues to assert that food production is increasing well beyond population.)
14. T (1970-1990)
15. T (1970)
16. F
17. F
18. T
19. F
20. F
21. F — Claims that the models proved the temperature increase of 3.5 degrees C were wrong.
22. F — US rural temperatures have decreased since about 1920.
23. F — Water pollution has decreased.
24. F