Population Control

[stevil]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1319244716' post='2324903']
Ethiopia has a population density (74/sqr. km.) far lower than that of France (116/sq. km.) and other European countries.
[/quote]Overpopulation is a relative term. Ethiopia is over populated because they often cannot feed everyone.

[InPersonaChriste]

These video's are really helpful, they cover statistics for food, birth rates, and all population etc. I hope this may help you.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iodJ0OOdgRg&feature=player_embedded"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iodJ0OOdgRg&feature=player_embedded[/url]

[Amppax]

[quote name='InPersonaChriste' timestamp='1319314308' post='2325266']
These video's are really helpful, they cover statistics for food, birth rates, and all population etc. I hope this may help you.


[/quote]

not really, but thanks. The president of the people that put this together came and gave basically this talk at Franciscan this Tuesday. Not very convincing.

[cooterhein]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1319244111' post='2324899']

What relevance does her race have to any of this?[/quote]She was saying things about how awful it would be if her own ethnic group was suddenly outnumbered by some other ethnic group on a global scale. I assumed (for the moment) that she was a white person, and if that is the case, it would be worthwhile to point out how it's foolish to worry that something might happen when it has, in fact, already happened. I don't know what her race is, of course, so it's quite possible that she happens to be Asian. If that is the case, I might have some questions about why the relative population of one ethnicity to another is so important to her.

[quote]Quite frankly, your spiel about how "Asian people already outnumber everyone" sounds more than a little racist.[/quote]I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, I am not racist. Also, I'm not sure if you have a great handle on the proper way to interact with people when discussing this sort of topic.


[quote]Much of the "population control" propaganda looks to be little more than thinly disguised demographic warfare - especially as how today the great bulk of global population growth is occurring in formerly sparsely-populated African and southern Asian countries.[/quote]I disagree, but I do invite you to cite some propaganda that appears to be thinly disguised demographic warfare. You might have made that whole thing up, but if you've seen anything, please put a link up. Nothing offensive, of course. Just good old propaganda that reveals a sinister motive which may or may not actually exist outside your mind.

[quote]Can't have all those black or yellow people taking us over![/quote]This is problematic. At this point, no one is saying this kind of stuff except you. Do not introduce this kind of rhetoric to the discussion unless you have a source and a legitimate complaint. Thank you.

[quote]As for Asia, Japan actually currently faces one of the world's biggest population aging/decline problems, with not enough young people to take care of the nation's rapidly aging population due to many Japanese women having few or no babies.[/quote]This is very true. Japan has one of the worst fertility rates in the world. It's not a baby-friendly culture. That needs to change for them. Consistent population growth is good for a country, and if you're losing people, that's very bad in the short term and especially the long term. However, too much population growth is also very bad for a country along with being more difficult to manage. A healthy population growth rate is somewhere in the neighborhood of a 1% increase each year. No growth or a negative birth rate can be offset through immigration, so for any industrialized, first-world, aligned country that has few reservations about immigration, a lack of growth only becomes a serious problem when the rate of growth is negative by more than 1% on a yearly basis. In a country like Japan, the problem is especially serious because they do have some fairly entrenched reservations toward immigration. They could attract enough immigrants to mostly offset their population loss, but they simply don't want to.

Much of the developed world- especially within the European Union- faces a situation that's similar to Japan's, although Japan's crisis is among the most serious. That is happening, I am aware of it, and in some places, the problem is so great that it can't even be offset by immigration. However, most of the world is not the developed world, those are the parts of the world that have overpopulation issues that exacerbate their existing problems and hinder their ability to industrialize, and it's those parts of the world that are responsible for the global population surge to 7 billion by the end of this month. And I'm sure you realize that means the world's population has doubled since the '60s. And quadrupled since the beginning of the 20th century. That's way too fast to be healthy, especially when the problematically-fast growth has been concentrated in parts of the world that can least afford to have that kind of problem.

[quote]China - the world's largest Asian country - is now also facing a similar aging population crisis due to its government-forced one-child policy, which includes forced abortions.[/quote]This has been true in China's recent history. They took measures to unreasonable extremes in handling their population problem. Not so long ago, however, they were facing a population crisis as their yearly population increase was above 5%. (Anything higher than 3 becomes a problem in the long term, and of course, figures higher than 5 become a much larger problem much more quickly). Slowing their growth was good for the country in principle, but human rights and freedoms were impinged upon in the process, there have been numerous forced abortions on multiple occasions in some rural areas, and the country's birth rate plunged too far and too fast. (Although not as low as Italy's birth rate, where the government forces nothing and abortions are strictly elective). Their neighbor, India, is facing similar problems to China's former ones (and the opposite of China's current ones) and India needs to come up with better solutions. India's population will surpass China's within our lifetimes, but as that's happening, they're going to have to figure out how to manage their own over-population. (You realize the sub-continent of India is already ahead of China when you add in Pakistan and Bangladesh?) Fortunately for India, they're growing at a rate only slightly ahead of the global average, and they continue to move from the 2.6 range in fertility rate toward the 2.5 range (global average). In a lot of ways, it looks like they're handling this in a way that's much better than what China's done. They haven't forced anything or trampled on basic human rights, and they're slowly decelerating their rate of growth while keeping it well ahead of the replacement rate.

That is what you want, you know- a healthy rate of growth. Shrinkage is bad, a certain amount of growth is good, and too much growth is unmanageable. And you know something? When a country's growth rate is unmanageable, you won't see people from other countries going in and telling them they're headed for something bad as if they don't already know that. They know perfectly well what it's like to live in a country with a population that's growing too fast, and it stinketh of the elderberries. No one knows that better than someone who lives in such a country. No one is more motivated to fix that rate of growth than the people who are actually suffering through its consequences. If you ever take the time to learn something about the developing world (and if you're lucky, maybe go there), that's one of the first things you'll be aware of.

Edited October 23, 2011 by cooterhein

[cooterhein]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1319255171' post='2325007']
Overpopulation is a relative term. Ethiopia is over populated because they often cannot feed everyone.
[/quote]Life expectancy in Ethiopia is 45, HIV is a huge killer, infant mortality is unacceptable, and anyone who's able to emigrates away in search of a better life. Their population is [b]still[/b] going up at an unhealthy rate. But for all of that, life is beginning to improve there and better health care, longer life expectancy, and increased economic opportunity is not that far away. They need to get their birth rate down so they can take full advantage of this new and better way of life. No one knows that better than them. Unfortunately, that's gotten worse in the past 10 years instead of better. The fertility rate was already in the high 5's and now it's over 6. That needs to get down below 3.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

pax domine sit semper vobiscum, i believe we can indefinatelty preserve this planet well into billions upon billions of people, take away the gluttony,take away the greed,take away the lust, eco logical discerments surely dictate that we need to be more conservative with our resources(in that with trees we re-plant and not take old growth etc,though a british experiment on an island in the south pacific shows old growth only takes 125 years to establish and not 1000s) and have elemental solutions to power and not over do the fossil fuels. we can have zoos with large holding pens instead of small ones, we can have more backyards and encourage people to have a fruit tree in there yard and chickens and herbs and vegetables etc etc. There are eco LOGICAL sollutions to all our natural dillemas ie humans and nature co-existing/complementing one another. We are learning in the post vat 2 era that we need to eco concience but not environ MENTAL so to speak.vAlso all one story houses can have a shed in the backyard with a water tank attached and a bedsitter granny flat and possibly an extra story added at any time and the granny flat and extra story can be rented out and the water from the shed tank used to water the fruit trees,herbs and vegetables hey why not have a cat inside and a dog in the yard and a bird in a cage and a fish tank. there are sollutions to all this is all i am saying we can ease pressure on the natural resources and fossil fuels overtime but don't panic, this will take time as will repairing the moral damgage done by the sexual/drug revolution. We can co exist i believe with all of creation without happening to put our population growths into the negative, planet can support 1,2 or 3 children per couple effectively well into the future with the grace of god, we start to preach abstinance even in marriage right from the begging ie no hunnymoon period so to speak coz once you get into the return it is very difficult to pull up, families of more than 3 children where essential in previous generation for whatever reason,in my chrisitan opinion the sollution is ecology and abstinance not a full stop(ie enviro MENTALISM) or contraception and abortion,this may not be an exact rule but a beggining.

GOd bless you all.
JC"seek and ye shall find,knock and the door will be opened."

St Francessca Cabrini(the american saint "one whom dares nothing recieves nothing,a missionary must be fearless."
St Mary Mackillop of the cross."be eager in your desires but patient in there accomplishment."
St Paul the apostle. "How i wish you all to be like me(chaste) but i know that is not possible but i do reccomend many times of abstinance."(words to that effect anyhow if my memory serves me correctly.)

[Socrates]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1319319271' post='2325287']

not really, but thanks. The president of the people that put this together came and gave basically this talk at Franciscan this Tuesday. Not very convincing.
[/quote]
Exactly what part of Dr. Mosher's views do you find unconvincing?

The fact of fertility rates around most of the world rapidly declining at an unexpected rate is now acknowledged by many "mainstream" secular sources, and PRI uses population data from the UN - hardly a right-wing pro-life source. Look it up yourself.

If current trends continue, world population will peak around the middle of this century, then decline thereafter.

Of course, all projections of future population trends are just that - projections, and cannot be definitively proven right or wrong without access to a time machine.

Edited October 28, 2011 by Socrates

[cooterhein]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1319845916' post='2328375']If current trends continue, world population will peak around the middle of this century, then decline thereafter.

Of course, all projections of future population trends are just that - projections, and cannot be definitively proven right or wrong without access to a time machine.[/quote]This is the source I'm looking at. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6038

It says the median-variant (most likely) scenario is a global population of 9.2 billion by mid-century. The low is about 8 and the high projection is around 10.5. It doesn't make any prediction of a peak followed by a drop-off, although it does strongly imply that's what they're hoping for. This source consistently refers to deceleration in population growth as good news, talks about how their predictions are "optimistic" in the sense that they're hoping for the global population to slow its growth, and refers to "the possible stabilization and reduction of world population, a target that is now pushed back a few years under the most hopeful of scenarios."

It's a good target to have, and we're heading in the right direction. But it's my understanding that a slight global decline in population is something you can only see in the most optimistic "low-variant" predictions- and with the slight adjustments that became necessary just recently, I don't think the low-variant predictions can even swing that anymore. Median-variant predictions do indicate some encouraging news, though- instead of adding a billion people to the planet every 15 years or so, it might take more like 25 or 30.

[Socrates]

[quote name='cooterhein' timestamp='1320024351' post='2329144']
This is the source I'm looking at. [url="http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6038"]http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6038[/url]

It says the median-variant (most likely) scenario is a global population of 9.2 billion by mid-century. The low is about 8 and the high projection is around 10.5. It doesn't make any prediction of a peak followed by a drop-off, although it does strongly imply that's what they're hoping for. This source consistently refers to deceleration in population growth as good news, talks about how their predictions are "optimistic" in the sense that they're hoping for the global population to slow its growth, and refers to "the possible stabilization and reduction of world population, a target that is now pushed back a few years under the most hopeful of scenarios."

It's a good target to have, and we're heading in the right direction. But it's my understanding that a slight global decline in population is something you can only see in the most optimistic "low-variant" predictions- and with the slight adjustments that became necessary just recently, I don't think the low-variant predictions can even swing that anymore. Median-variant predictions do indicate some encouraging news, though- instead of adding a billion people to the planet every 15 years or so, it might take more like 25 or 30.
[/quote]
Dr. Mosher notes that past UN projections of population growth have historically proven too high, and are being continually lowered.
He also says that the current cultural and economic trends driving down fertility rates around the world show no sign of reversing in the foreseeable future.

Of course, it's impossible to predict the future. People could for some reason to suddenly decide to breed like rabbits, or plagues, wars, or other natural or man-made disasters could wipe out much of the world's population.

[cooterhein]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1320278861' post='2330518']

Dr. Mosher notes that past UN projections of population growth have historically proven too high, and are being continually lowered.[/quote]As long as the low-variant prediction isn't too high, the global population should continue to rise post-2050. Even if the median-variant prediction is considerably higher than what actually happens, there's a lot of territory between that amount of growth and actual decline. Did Dr. Mosher take the high- and low-variant predictions into account along with the median one? If the low-variant prediction has historically proven too high, I'd be very interested in that. I'd actually be interested if the low-variant proved to be consistently closer to reality than the median one. But if the median prediction has been the closest one- even if it has been consistently high- that still means we're looking at modest growth for at least the duration of our lives.

[quote]He also says that the current cultural and economic trends driving down fertility rates around the world show no sign of reversing in the foreseeable future.[/quote]Thankfully, there's also no sign that efforts pertaining to longevity, infant mortality, and quality of life will stop improving in the developing world either.

[quote]Of course, it's impossible to predict the future. People could for some reason to suddenly decide to breed like rabbits, or plagues, wars, or other natural or man-made disasters could wipe out much of the world's population.[/quote]You're right, no long-term prediction can possibly account for one-time catastrophic set-backs. You pretty much have to assume that an overall valence will generally hold true for a certain period of time. Wars haven't claimed all that many lives worldwide in the past 4 or 5 decades- at least, not when you compare those decades to previous ones, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of the global population. There are a few different things that could blow up between now and 2050, though, and they have the potential to claim a tremendous number of lives. Needless to say, I'm hoping that doesn't happen. But if it does, it would be healthy for global population if fertility spiked a bit in response to that. Fortunately, it's totally normal for people to make lots of babies once a war is over. Silver lining, I guess.

[cooterhein]

Another addendum: I did my best to look into the UN's track record in long-ish predictions. From the 50's to around the midpoint of the 80's, their 30-year median predictions have been consistently high by an average of 5-7%. Reasons for these predictive errors have been identified, however, and the margin of error (for predictions in the 10-30 year range) has been in the neighborhood of 1-2% since then. And maybe you haven't heard this yet, but when global population reached 7 billion on Halloween this past week, that was slightly ahead of the time frame that was predicted 10-15 years ago. But not by much- again, they are getting better at this.

One other thing: I found a UN thing that makes predictions going out to 2300. These long-range predictions are few and far between and obviously more highly speculative than predictions for, say, the next 10 years. But for some people, it's still pretty important to have something to work with. Global fertility is expected to largely settle at something close to 2.0, but variation from that norm by .25 in either direction yields low and high predictions that are wildly different on that kind of timeline- the low would be 2.4 b. and the high is 36.4 b. as of 2300.

As you may or may not know, however, the current global fertility rate is not just a quarter above 2- it's a bit above 2.5. The overall rate is dropping steadily, although it is already too low in some areas and getting higher in others. But just for fun, the report includes a projection out to 2300 that works from the assumption that global fertility stays right where it currently is.

Using that scenario- strictly for the sake of illustration, of course- global population would rise to 244 billion persons in 2150 if the current fertility rate remains unchanged, and we'd be at 134 trillion in 2300.

Yes, the current fertility rate is dropping. And it really needs to.

[dominicansoul]

i dont' know the statistics, but I do know if everyone obeyed the Almighty God, overpopulation wouldn't be a problem. In my county alone, our population has boomed, not because responsible parents are giving birth to chidren, but because of the high pregnancy rate among teens and unwed mothers...

I've had to shell out thousands of dollars more a year on property taxes to pay for the new highschool and jr. highschool becuase the old ones weren't big enough for the population explosion.

Like I've said before, sexual sins are not private, they affect the world... abortion and the birth control pill are not the solution, because even with these terrible choices, we've still managed to reach 7 billion people... the real solution is SELF CONTROL and keeping your legs closed...


I'm not bitchin' about having 7 billion people either, whether they are here out of a sinful act or not, they are here and people aren't the problem, its ideologies and unbelief and disobedience to the Creator that are the problems...

Pope Benedict called the 7 billionth person a "blessing.."

[Adrestia]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1319255171' post='2325007']

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1319244716' post='2324903']
Ethiopia's problems are due to natural disaster in the form of droughts/famines, and a massively corrupt and ineffective government/economic structure. The government often does not allow food aid from other country's to actually feed the people. Ethiopia has a population density (74/sqr. km.) far lower than that of France (116/sq. km.) and other European countries.
[/quote]

Overpopulation is a relative term. Ethiopia is over populated because they often cannot feed everyone.
[/quote]

Ethiopia has the largest GDP in East Africa. Their problems are due to political corruption, not overpopulation. The droughts of the 80s were bad, but the famine was partially caused by the leadership - they used hunger as a weapon - the president of Ethiopia during that time was convicted of genocide. Ethiopia didn't feed everyone because they didn't want everyone to live; that's not overpopulation.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='ardillacid' timestamp='1317062650' post='2310518']I will bet I hit 8 out of ten, let me know Bernie:

Aliens helped build the pyramids.

[/quote]

They didn't?

[CatherineM]

The Ethiopians are certainly coming here, and are quite welcome. We have 4 Ethiopian and 2 Eritrea Restaurants plus an Injera Bread Bakery in our neighborhood. The more the merrier, including our Eritrea Ge'ez Rite Catholic parish.