英语六级阅读理解100篇.docVIP

1 We can begin our discussion of ―population as global issue‖ with what most persons mean when they discuss ―the populationproblem‖: too many people on earth and a too rapid increase in the number added each year. The facts are not in dispute It wasquite right to employ the analogy that likened demographic growth to ―a long thin powder fuse that burns steadily and haltinglyuntil it finally reaches the charge and explodes.‖ To understand the current situation which is characterized by rapid increases in population it is necessary to understand thehistory of population trends. Rapid growth is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Looking back at the 8000 years ofdemographic history we find that populations have been virtually stable or growing very slightly for most of human history.For most of our ancestors life was hard often nasty and very short. There was high fertility in most places but this wasusually balanced by high mortality. For most of human history it was seldom the case that one in ten persons would live pastforty while infancy and childhood were especially risky periods. Often societies were in clear danger of extinction becausedeath rates could exceed their birthrates. Thus the population problem throughout most of history was how to preventextinction of the human race. This pattern is important to notice. Not only does it put the current problems of demographic growth into a historicalperspective but it suggests that the cause of rapid increase in population in recent years is not a sudden enthusiasm for morechildren but an improvement in the conditions that traditionally have caused high mortality. Demographic history can be divided into two major periods: a time of long slow growth which extended from about 8000BC.till approximately AD. 1650. In the first period of some 9600 years the population increased from some 8 million to 500million in 1650. Between 1650 and the present the population has increased from 500 million to more than 4 billion. And it