Global Population

Scary but there is a lot more than one estimate of when or if we are doomed.  

Interesting TV prog a year or so ago that expounded the theory that as pollutions mature & prosperity & life-style aspirations change the population incremental growth will start to fall. Although the total will continue to grow it will begin to slow as the breeding age sector start to age,  then over time population count will really begin to fall. 

This graphic sort of tells the story

It does not worry me as i wont be around but i think world leaders need to start looking now at ways of stopping world population growth. If they dont then i think in years to come i can see huge shortages in some of the worlds basic needs IE......oil/gas/water/lead/copper/iron & food stuffs.

Mista H

Only in China has an effort been made to curb population growth by force of law, and this has been relaxed recently.

If it is true [and it seems to be] that as populations gain prosperity and a high level of education, then the population rate can actually decree, then we are doomed as the great populations of the world - being India, South America, China, Africa, and much of Asia are in the majority part poorly educated and living often in grinding poverty. To give these massive population blocks a sufficient education and standard of living to curb population growth is already beyond the world's resources to provide.

Fortunately I'll be dead in the next twenty to thirty years, so I shall not see the mass starvation or culling by disease of the human population, but the writing is already on the wall for the current generation of twenty years olds and younger.

ATB from George

Mike, I think this is the program you're referering to. Fascinating how he demystified the "doom and gloom scenario".

Here is a link if anone is interested. Its almost an hour long but worth watching in its entirety.

Dear Tony,

I am a pessimist, but was able to see the possibilist in me after seeing this film.

It will not affect my extreme view of fuel economising. I just hope that such information can permeate the old Western World [Europe, USA, and the Anglo Saxon cultures elsewhere] to moderate their consumption of energy.

Flying [military and civilian] should become the exception rather than the norm. Cars need to all become 70 mpg plus variants. Houses should be insulated to the point where the fuel bill is less than £50 per month over the year ...

Will it happen? I don't know. The professor called it a huge challenge. But it must happen ...

ATB from George

Dear George,

I am an eternal optimist and,  judging by the evolutionary process of the last 150 years, am sure mankind will find a way, through pure necessity or cataclysmic, to ensure the bettering and survival of the species. 

It is paramount that we educate the populations, in richer, poorer and developing nations of the options available now. It won't be in my generation or next either but it will happen.

The eternal optimist,

Tony

George

The "one child" policy in China has been "relaxed" because it didn't work, and was a human catastrophe. Sure, China's population growth has slowed, but hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of innocent girls have been murdered as a result of this policy; and in any case, it is a matter of debate as to whether the decline in birthrate is down to the murderous policy, or to China's increasing prosperity. Governments intervening in reproductive matters does not have a happy history, and must be resisted. The Nazis, Stalin and other totalitarian regimes have all tried it.

Actually, the key to reducing birthrate is actually quite simple - it involves women being a) better educated and b) having more control over their bodies. In every country or community where this has happened, birthrate has fallen. Stop priests and mullahs and patriarchs meddling in private matters and we might start getting somewhere.

The Catholic Church also has a huge role to play here, of course, which - to its eternal shame - it has thus far failed to do.

Dear Kevin,

I did not state whether the one child policy in China was ethically or morally a good thing. I am in no position to give an adequate overview of it in any case. I am sure, however, that you would realise that I could never support such an idea in terms of my limited perspective, any more than I would support selective euthanasia. 

I am not quite able to comment on your view of the Holy Catholic Church on a public forum either. That is a subject that I would not enter into a debate on except face to face. 

One thing that the linked film showed me was that I am behind the times in efforts to bring education to so many more than I believed - assuming the film is not itself wrong ...

As I did say in my earlier post, I shall not live to see the outcome, but that does not mean that I take a selfish view in terms of consumption of finite resources. Indeed my pessimistic view means that I would never want to become a parent, and so I am already contributing to a change in direction in population growth, and that must be a good thing.

Please forgive this reply. It is probably as behind the times as my first post.

ATB from George

George

I certainly didn't have you down as a supporter of China's one-child policy, so you have no need to worry on that account!

I have seen the film and I am a bit suspicious of some of its rather pat and Panglossian conculsions, but I think you may be being overly pessimistic. That said though, I don't think things are going to be easy in 50 years' time...

Really enjoyed that, thanks.

G