The Population Summit: Reflections on the World's Leading Problems.

The article discusses the issues focused upon in the Population Summit held in October 1993 in New Delhi, India. Organized by 15 of the world's scientific academies, this gathering was the first large-scale collaborative activity of its kind. It brought together academicians and other invited scholars representing over 60 scientific academies to examine the relationships between population, natural resources, and the environment. The massive volume that resulted from the summit, covering the invited papers plus some peripheral materials, was published quickly, well in time to serve as background papers for the September 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. The underlying theme in the New Delhi manifesto is the need for internationally coordinated planned action. Improved pricing, taxing and regulatory policies that take into account environmental costs, thereby influencing consumption behavior is an ambitious goal. In sum, to criticize the groping for social improvement is to attack virtue, virtuous people and the greatest offense of all, a reform-minded international bureaucracy.