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Page added on February 29, 2020
Population explosion is over
For thousands of years, philosophers have wrung their hands because of fears about the supposed negative impacts of population growth on life as they knew it.
In the 5th century BC, Confucius argued that population increases would reduce the quality of life.
In ancient Greece both Plato and Aristotle maintained that a growing population was not sustainable for their resources.
In the 2nd century AD, Christian philosopher Tertullian, worried that Carthage, with its “teeming population”, was becoming unsustainably “burdensome to the world”.
But none of the warnings had much impact on modern society until Dr. Paul Ehrlich, formerly a butterfly biologist at Stanford University, successfully scared the world with his 1968 book The Population Bomb.
In it, he attempted to convince readers that the English economist, Thomas Malthus, was right in predicting the end of the world back in 1798.
As a result of his highly inaccurate publication, Ehrlich was awarded a MacArthur Genius Award. This gave him prominent platforms from which to give annual predictions of doom and gloom, 100 percent of which proved false.
Now 87, Ehrlich maintains he has been right all along, just off in the timing. It reminds one of global warming activists who brush aside their numerous errors by claiming that only their timing is off.
Now it is the turn of the population alarmists led by the United Nations with their prediction of 11 billion by the end of this century, who are about to have egg on their faces. The demographers, who study population trends, are now certain that, not only will we not reach that number, but instead predict the world’s population will begin to decline before we reach 9 billion.
In the near term, a decline in population is a benefit, relieving pressure on the environment and the Earth’s resources. However, the economic models of our future will require a total rebuild. We need to prepare not for the consequences of a population boom, but a population bust.
Market economics failed to topple Chinese communism, but the potential halving of its population by the end of the century just might. Their 30-year program of allowing no more than two children per family actually resulted in a lowering of the average birth rate to less than one child per family.
When accounting for single-child families, multi-child families and the no-child families, who decided life was easier without any children, the birth rate in China is now actually 0.7 per family.
The United Kingdom-based newspaper, The Independent, reports: “In January, a government-affiliated think tank warned that the population in the world’s second-biggest economy could start to shrink as soon as 2027.”
Even in Africa, there is encouraging evidence of population decline, where Kenya, for example, has halved its birth rate in recent decades. Woman are marrying later, getting an education and then entering the workforce.
As a result of these three factors, not a single country in the developed world even has a replacement birth rate (2.1 children per woman, according to the UN Population Division) any longer. The United States will continue to grow a little as a result of immigration. India’s rapidly growing population has finally slowed and may one day stabilize.
Economically, we can expect countries to struggle with fewer young workers and taxpayers. Automation will help but robots don’t buy refrigerators or smart clothes for the office party. Consumption is the bedrock of any economy.
Growth in every way has carried economics and industries forward for generations. Job growth will eventually stop and staying much longer in one job will very likely become common.
Happily, we likely have as much as three decades before the effects of declining birthdates will be evident on the size of most countries’ populations.
Many nations will have experienced stability long enough for governments to study how they have managed their economies. It is clearly going to be a new world for economics but likely something societies can deal with.
25 Comments on "Population explosion is over"
DerHundistLos on Sat, 29th Feb 2020 8:40 am
Trump newest “hoax” to perpetuate among his ditto-heads:
“Trump calls coronavirus criticism Democrats’ ‘new hoax’ and links it to immigration.” The Guardian
Sissyfuss on Sat, 29th Feb 2020 10:04 am
A one sided view that all is well now that humans have tethered their need to breed. No mention of the ever and ongoing destruction of natural habitat for all things living. With our numbers and our resource harvesting surmounting all levels of sustainability we are still being proselytized by the BAUers and their need for greed. January was the hottest on record but don’t let that impede your desire for happy motoring and new fashion. If Australia’s immolation doesn’t register and California’s rainless months seem normal then all is well and enjoy the weekend. But the real show is just beginning.
makati1 on Sat, 29th Feb 2020 4:51 pm
The population explosion may be over, not because some countries have declining birthrates, but because the world has declining available resources. Cheap, plentiful energy is about over.
Mother Nature is shutting down the food chain all over the world. Floods in the US grain belt. droughts and fires in Australia, locusts in Africa and the Middle East, pig virus, chicken virus, now the corona virus, and more to come I am sure.
BAU is also over, though it will take a while for that to sink into the capitalist countries. Globalization is being killed by the corona virus, more than the virus is killing people. I suspect that the world as we know it is under a fast reset into a world with less. We shall see.
Abraham van Helsing on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 1:34 am
“Afghanistan graveyard of empires.”
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/afghanistan-donald-trump-will-sich-mit-taliban-anfuehrern-treffen-a-097a3072-0813-435e-905a-980028450cfe
Afghanistan was invaded on the pretext of the 9/11 false flag and the US strategists had that country in the crosshairs for the purpose of surrounding arch foe Iran, a major country that resisted becoming a forced member of the empire. Until today.lol
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan is yet another defeat for the empire, after Iraq and Syria.
Withdrawal from Europe is next.
DerHundistLos on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 5:49 am
I’m surprised PO.com would post such a stupid article. The article contains statements of fact without any supporting evidence. For example:
“India’s rapidly growing population has finally slowed and may one day stabilize.”
When might that be?
“The demographers, who study population trends, are now certain that, not only will we not reach that number, but instead predict the world’s population will begin to decline before we reach 9 billion.”
What demographers?
Davy on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 6:15 am
“I’m surprised PO.com would post such a stupid article. The article contains statements of fact without any supporting evidence.”
Der hund are you not aware of something call debate? Articles may or may not be smart but this will allow conversations to discuss why or why not. Your approach is only to have articles that reflect your point of view. That is the stupid.
JuanP on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 8:55 am
What a biased and uninformed piece of shit this article is. The writer doesn’t even use the correct terminology or get the math right. Birth rates per family? Birthdates? My guess is the ignorant fool meant to say “Total Fertility Rate”, which is measured in children per women in the right age bracket. The “Birth Rate” is the number of children per 1,000 people born in one year. You would have to know NOTHING of Demographics to not know this. They are completely different things. The whole article is full of mistakes and inaccuracies.
Anonymouse on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 9:32 am
Are you aware this is not a ‘debate’ club stupid? Only a retard would insist that ‘debate’ over factually challenged, ie goatshit articles is not only worthwhile, but in your delusional mind, it is pretty much a requirement (yours). Well, wrong again dumbass. I know you think this your little private debate club or somesuch, but then again, you also think you are a wealthy rural ‘farmer’ with a 1000 acres and a fallback Italian doomstead in Italy, complete with ‘Italian wife’ no less.
makati1 on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 4:43 pm
Anon, we all know Davy lives in a deluded fantasy world where he is the alpha dog, when, in reality, he is dog shit. I ignore him for the most part.
makati1 on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 4:51 pm
JuanP, if you read most articles from US sources, or their ass kissing ‘partners’, India included, they are never proof read or even thoughtfully conceived. Rarely fact checked.
Like someone is dictating into a computer program which cannot think, just copy what it thinks it heard. I often mentally ‘red circle’ such mistakes, in my mind. It detracts for the seriousness of the author’s assertion.
But often, the ‘mistakes’ are deliberate to brainwash/distract the reader. Then again, not one in 100,000 Amerikans would be educated/intelligent enough to even notice the ‘mistakes’. Ah well. A sunny Monday morning here and 74f. Going to the wet market for some jumbo shrimp. Later!
Davy on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 5:45 pm
“Anon, we all”
The “we all” you mean you and annoy, makato. You two have your special bond that supports your mutual stupidity. Nobody else cares about your “we all”. In fact there are few intelligent people here anymore to “we all” about.
Davy on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 6:01 pm
“Going to the wet market for some jumbo shrimp. Later!”
watch out for the virus. It is likely all over the p’s by now.
makati1 on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 6:11 pm
Dream on Davy, no new cases here according to the news. However, in your delusional mind, you wish it was so.
Better look to your own neighborhood where they ere not even testing so they have no idea what is happening. Oops! Italy is getting hit too! No place to run. No place to hide! LOL
Davy on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 6:17 pm
“Dream on Davy, no new cases here according to the news.”
of course, makato, your 3rd world country does not know what is going on with the virus, that’s why you are 3rd world. Go down to that market, makato1 and mingle with all those people. I am sure you don’t have a mask either. Your days are numbered being stupid and delusional.
Anonymouse on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 7:43 pm
Mak does get out dumbass. And unless he tells us otherwise, I dont think he is that worried about going out, and there nothing to suggest he should be. And he gets out far more than you ever do. When was the last time you even left the confines of your tar-paper cabin and actually interacted with other humans? Or amerikans even. The criteria for other forms of life in this instance, means organisms with less than 4 legs. Based on your ever escalating delusions and general hostility, I am willing to bet you haven’t left the dumpstead in a long time.
Makes us wonder what you subsist on, and how you pay for your discount internet cell-plan. Do you eat bark, grass and piggyback on your closet open wireless network that is in range?
makati1 on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 8:17 pm
Anon, Davy has delusions of grandeur. He thinks he knows everything. I can see him sleeping with the goats to keep warm in winter. The nannies are his only sex. No real woman would have him.
I hope you are stocked up and prepared for a long economic siege. I hope I am wrong, but I think it is just starting in the US. From all I read, it seems the US numbers are low because they are not testing like other countries. Not to mention having an uneducated president.
Davy never bothers to put things in perspective. 80,000 (Chines infected) vs 1,400,000,000 Chinese = ONE in Eighteen Thousand. Do the math.
In the US there is more than 2 1/2 times the chance you will die in a car accident. The corona virus is safer than riding in a car in Amerika. I bet he doesn’t consider that when he drives to the local bar.
Not to mention that China has a product dependent market when the virus clears up so their economy will quickly recover. Not so for dependent Amerika.
makati1 on Sun, 1st Mar 2020 8:42 pm
Caronavirus: “Here’s Why I Don’t Really Trust the Official American Coronavirus Numbers”
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/can-we-trust-the-official-american-coronavirus-numbers/
“Hardly anyone is actually being tested in the United States.”
Exactly what I have been saying.
DerHundistLos on Mon, 2nd Mar 2020 8:30 pm
Davy,
Do you always suffer from reading comprehension issues or do you enjoy being a prick due to loneliness? My comment asked for proof to substantiate statements of fact. This isn’t a point about debate. Proof/Evidence may be voluntary for you and the source you routinely cite, Zero Hedge, but not for most intelligent people.
DerHundistLos on Mon, 2nd Mar 2020 8:41 pm
Are you suggesting Donald Trump is a pathological liar?
Yes, and then some. Between when President Trump assumed office in January 2017 and the end of 2020, the average number of public false or misleading statements he has made per day has been increasing.
According to the Washington Posts’ Fact Checkers:
“For the president’s first 100 days, Trump averaged 4.9 false claims a day. Since we last updated this tally two months ago, the president has averaged 15.7 lies a day. Our calculations suggest that if the current escalation rate remains steady, by the end of his term the president could be making as many as nineteen public false statements a day, on average.”
grater supremacist muzzied worldwide on Mon, 2nd Mar 2020 8:44 pm
grate news muzzies are fightin hard
caliph erdogan is killing muzzies
Duncan Idaho on Mon, 2nd Mar 2020 9:42 pm
“When passing laws and changing regulations prove onerous, the Trump administration simply guts the government of expertise so that basic functions wither away, the well-connected feed on the remains, and the survivors keep their heads down, until the day comes when they face the same choice as McCabe and Yovanovitch: do Trump’s dirty work or be destroyed.
Four years is an emergency. Eight years is a permanent condition. “Things can hold together to the end of the first term, but after that, things fall apart,” Malinowski said. “People start leaving in droves. It’s one thing to commit four years of your life to the institution in the hope that you can be there for its restoration. It’s another to commit eight years. I can’t even wrap my head around what that would be like.”
makati1 on Mon, 2nd Mar 2020 10:33 pm
“American Führer: Delusionary, Dictatorial Donald Trump Is Drunk on Power”
“The word ‘corruption’ cannot fully embrace how this insulting megalomaniac is tearing apart our country, our democratic practices, and our moral norms….last July Trump declared “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.””
https://www.globalresearch.ca/american-fuhrer-delusionary-dictatorial-donald-trump-drunk-power/5705240
All we have to do now in Police State Amerika is wait for the Red baseball caps…er…Brown Shits. Kristallnacht coming soon to a town near you?
Davy on Mon, 2nd Mar 2020 11:07 pm
Go Trump!
Make Amerika grate again!
DerHundistLos on Mon, 2nd Mar 2020 11:13 pm
Trump’s re-election does not simply represent another four years. Re-election means Trump will have zero accountability. As Trump himself stated to supporters, “Give me re-election and that’s when the fun really begins….. you haven’t seen anything yet.”
world grater supremacist muzzies lover on Mon, 2nd Mar 2020 11:43 pm
supertard der
why u love muzzies
u running for #1 lover of muzzie world wide?