PIP: The United Nations has noted that 250,000 people are added to the global population daily. Urgent steps must be taken to curb such growth and stabilize the size of the global population. Existing population consumes available resources at an unsustainable rate, littering the environment with its waste. Even the global climate is changing as a result of these unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development scheduled to be held in Cairo, September 5-13, will bring together delegates from countries around the world to discuss these issues and develop a plan to curb population growth and save the environment. Unlike the rest of the world, the Pope and the Vatican fail to see reason. Despite the pragmatic call to increase the practice of modern family planning, especially in developing countries, the Church has actually intensified its campaign against the conference and its objectives. The Pope argues that the conference will accelerate moral decline and charged that respect for the rights of the unborn and the importance of the family are contradicted by its proposals. He is especially up in arms over the UN proposition that women should be able to control their fertility through contraception and safe abortion. Approving only of natural family planning, the Pope believes that achieving world population goals by using contraception threatens mankind. Population experts, however, are urging the Vatican to face reality and help especially those women who feel their living conditions do not allow the practice of natural family planning.