Public health: Overpopulation, overconsumption, and economics

Last year Verkuyl presented a compelling argument for a more equitable provision of family planning technology and knowledge to the third world. In this article I want to develop that theme by exploring several interdependent issues: (a) global ecological pressures resulting from overconsumption, especially in western Europe, North America, eastern Asia, and Australasia (the North); (b) overpopulation in the third world (the South); and (c) their relation to the dominant economic paradigm operating in both North and South.