One child, one world, and one permit expired

Abstract

Demographer Maurice King calls for a one-child world, in which the planet's inhabitants restrict themselves to a solitary heir or heiress for the betterment of humankind and to deliver us from “entrapment,” the deadly curse of exhausted food supplies and civil war that comes with overpopulation. Africa, King argues, is a continent in the throes of entrapment and, although a commission sponsored by politicians and rubber stamped by pop stars has identified governance as the primary obstacle to Africa's emergence from poverty, it would be an error to sideline a debate on demography. The Commission for Africa promises much—an …