Witkins rightly argues that population may be deemed a valid sustainable
development indicator—that sustainability can only be implemented by limiting
population below the carrying capacity of the Earth. This thesis works relatively
line well when one presupposes that global per capita consumption is homogenous,
(5) and that the global ecosystem can perform with uniform effectiveness the tasks
of supplying resources and assimilating wastes, but in reality population effects
vary widely due to vast regional differences in ecosystem characteristics. While
large populations exert considerable stress on their ecosystems, small
populations with high rates of consumption can eclipse the effect of larger
(10) populations operating at lower rates of consumption. Per capita consumption of
energy may exponentially exceed the physiological energy requirements of
humans, requiring that both population and consumption be taken into account.
Witkins thus ignores the corollary that the impact of population tends to be more
significant on a national level than that of consumption adjusted population, but
(15) on a global level, the opposite obtains.

According to the passage, the impact of development is most evident in which of the following cases（）