Max Singer

In the following viewpoint, Max Singer rejects the idea that human population growth is skyrocketing uncontrollably. He maintains that human fertility rates are actually decreasing and that, because people throughout the world are having fewer and fewer children, global population will begin to substantially decrease by the middle of the twenty-first century. However, he warns, this does not mean that population will ever stabilize at a certain level; rather, human populations tend to either increase or decrease, and depend most heavily on people’s personal choices about how many children to have. Singer is the founder of the Hudson Institute, a public policy think tank, and coauthor of The Real World Order.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. For how long have U.S. fertility rates been falling, according to the...