Just a quick note from a non-scientist on the almost obligatory round of population-panic (see here, for example) that's accompanied the U.N.'s recent announcement that there are 7 billion of us on this big ol' ball.
Since 1950, global birth rates have been slashed, from 4.95 to 2.45 children per woman. The replacement-level birth rate for any population is, as a simple matter of mathematical logic, 2.1. This trend is occurring all over the globe without exception. It is slowest in Sub-Saharan Africa (where birth rates have stubbornly declined just 66% in 60 years), and most dramatic in China, where birth rates have fallen from 6.11 to 1.56, an extraordinary drop of almost 400%. [Source, United Nations, not A Right-Wing Think Tank]. Again, I'm no scientist, but this must count as the most dramatic shift in global birth rates in recorded history.
Now, as a caveat, death rates have also dropped significantly, and so as a matter of statistical fact it will take a while (some say 3-4 decades, others 150 years) for the world's population to smooth out. But the fact remains that barring some bizarre and improbable change, it will smooth out. Baby 7 Billion may even live to see that happen. According to the U.N., a reasonable estimate is that 8.5 billion will be the peak. But is that really a problem? Could the real problem be something else?
In fact, rising demand for resources is so clearly the major problem here that one really has to wonder why all of the focus is on population. It's easy to worry about population as an academic, blogger or science writer in the affluent West: we don't have very many children at all, why are they having all those babies? It's an easy cop-out, one that conveniently disguises the fact that it is we, not they who are the problem. Our lifestyle, and the loads of people on Earth who are trying to emulate our lifestyle, is stripping the planet bare. That's just bloody obvious.
In fact, it's so bloody obvious that one almost wants to formulate a moderate Chomsky-style conspiracy theory. What could be more convenient to an established economic order than for people to descend into panic about mythical over-fertile foreigners instead of panicking about their own overconsumption? Why weren't there headlines when the global mean consumption rate passed 2.0 times replacement-level, for example?
However, that's just speculation. The primary problem here is an ethical one. Can we pease avoid displacing blame on to an ill-defined mass of foreign people and refocus on ourselves?
Since 1950, global birth rates have been slashed, from 4.95 to 2.45 children per woman. The replacement-level birth rate for any population is, as a simple matter of mathematical logic, 2.1. This trend is occurring all over the globe without exception. It is slowest in Sub-Saharan Africa (where birth rates have stubbornly declined just 66% in 60 years), and most dramatic in China, where birth rates have fallen from 6.11 to 1.56, an extraordinary drop of almost 400%. [Source, United Nations, not A Right-Wing Think Tank]. Again, I'm no scientist, but this must count as the most dramatic shift in global birth rates in recorded history.
Now, as a caveat, death rates have also dropped significantly, and so as a matter of statistical fact it will take a while (some say 3-4 decades, others 150 years) for the world's population to smooth out. But the fact remains that barring some bizarre and improbable change, it will smooth out. Baby 7 Billion may even live to see that happen. According to the U.N., a reasonable estimate is that 8.5 billion will be the peak. But is that really a problem? Could the real problem be something else?
In fact, rising demand for resources is so clearly the major problem here that one really has to wonder why all of the focus is on population. It's easy to worry about population as an academic, blogger or science writer in the affluent West: we don't have very many children at all, why are they having all those babies? It's an easy cop-out, one that conveniently disguises the fact that it is we, not they who are the problem. Our lifestyle, and the loads of people on Earth who are trying to emulate our lifestyle, is stripping the planet bare. That's just bloody obvious.
In fact, it's so bloody obvious that one almost wants to formulate a moderate Chomsky-style conspiracy theory. What could be more convenient to an established economic order than for people to descend into panic about mythical over-fertile foreigners instead of panicking about their own overconsumption? Why weren't there headlines when the global mean consumption rate passed 2.0 times replacement-level, for example?
However, that's just speculation. The primary problem here is an ethical one. Can we pease avoid displacing blame on to an ill-defined mass of foreign people and refocus on ourselves?
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