People who are afraid of overpopulation seem to be very short-term thinkers. Come 2050 (40 years from now) it will be too late. Population will top out, and will begin to fall. By then, we will be scratching our heads and wondering how it all came to this.
If one looks at population articles by Jonathan Last, one can see where population is headed. Fertility rates have dropped by over 50% worldwide in less than 40 years. Just to replace existing population, the average woman has to have 2.1 children.
One can view the current fertility rate from the CIA world factbook — Country Comparison :: Total fertility rate. As can be seen, already 59 nations (44% of the world population) are seeing less than 2.1, which is the needed replacement for any population. Historically, no culture has ever reversed a 1.9 replacement rate. Because it would theoretically take 80-100 years to reverse a rate of 1.3, it is considered impossible.
In 1970, the average woman had 6 children during her lifetime. Today that global average is only 2.9. Even the United Nations Population Division (UNPD) predicts a further decline to 2.05 by 2050, which is when the total world population would start to decline.
Walter Radermacher (VP of Germany’s Federal Statistical Office) has already admitted his country's inability to reverse its 1.41 replacement rate. This is documented in the above link.
The United Nations has revised its population forecast for 2050. The U.N., which has espoused the overpopulation theory for years, now seem to realize what will happen if nothing is done to stop the drop. But it will be far too late if we wait for the full realization in 2050. Practices such as abortion, sterilization, contraception, “abortifacient” devices, and China’s one child policy have all had a significant effect on the world’s actual fertility rate. Pregnancy is quickly becoming an advantage of the past.
Items such as AIDS, the elimination of DDT (millions get malaria because mosquitoes are not killed), and rescinding the right to bear children all directly affect procreation. And they’re all direct results of human decisions.
Once population decline begins, it will accelerate. Strong evidence shows the most successful and educated in society are reproducing at the slowest rate. The global fertility rate is only half that of 1972. The Empty Cradle (Phillip Longman) describes how population growth is necessary for economic growth. Herein lays the sobering part.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jon Sobel
Much food for thought here, but I'm not sure what "overpopulation radicals" you're referring to - at least in the Western world, especially Western Europe, it's been recognized and worried about for many years that population (at least of "native" Europeans) is declining. I remember a news story about an Italian town that was paying its young people large sums of money to have kids.
2 - Rick
The situation we are in with dropping fertility rates seems to be getting increased exposure of late. I recently read that Russia was losing 800,000 of its population a year. Closer to home in the U.S. half the states are at a total fertility rate that is less than 2.1.
Too many people consider children a burden whereas they are really the future.
3 - perceptions_now
Whilst I agree that some of these future scenario's may actually play out, I would pose the question of what happens beyond economics?
There are other questions involving Energy Supply (Fossil Fuels), Food Production & Climate Change, to name just a few, that revolve around Population levels and there are strong suggestions that the total Global population will be very much limited by these and other factors!
4 - Kevin
Perceptions--There are no suggestions that global population will be limited by energy supply. There's too much oil in the US waiting to be claimed once regulations are curtailed. And that's not even discussing abiotic oil.
5 - Baronius
Good article, Kevin.
6 - Kevin
Thanks for your kind words, Baronius.
7 - Ed Darrell
Generally, you're right about dropping fertility rates. As we end poverty, richer people have better survival rates among children, and so they have fewer children.
But you convinced me you're not paying attention to the facts and statistics here:
There was no rise in malaria because DDT was banned in the U.S. The U.S. hasn't had malaria for a long time. DDT was never banned in any place that had malaria, if that nation chose to use it.
So, what are you saying, that Africans are too stupid to use DDT if it would save their lives?
I don't think you thought that one through.
8 - Cindy
I thought this article would be about how to control the reproduction of those who don't like to think. But I see now, it is about how nature has beaten us to it.
Strong evidence shows the most successful and educated in society are reproducing at the slowest rate.
I guess that depends on how you define successful and educated. Killing off the species is hardly a credit to success by any definition. I take it you don't mean tribal people who have managed to avoid the grasp of 'civilized society'?
One of two scenarios would appear to result from the above picture. 1) The Muslim population, with a high 7.34 fertility rate, dominates and eventually takes over the world, or 2) the world as we know it ceases to exist in a few hundred years.
See aforementioned tribal people. I can see them now, heaving a sigh of relief that the insane ones have finally killed themselves off.
9 - Cindy
Two years ago I was convinced, for a short scary while, that the peak oil/die off overpopulation scenario was inevitable. Now comes the underpopulation theory. I had to look up abiotic oil. Finding out what it meant didn't fill me with confidence in anything you said in your article, Kevin.
Personally, I don't believe anyone any more.
10 - zingzing
you know i was excited for a new KR joint. but the man disappointed. except for the line about muslims taking over the world, which was pretty classic KR yum yum. them muslims... if all they need to do is fuck, why they wanna do anything else? next time you encounter a muslim terrorist, kevin, you just tell him to go fuck his wife. wives? meh.
(and what of the illegal immigrants? don't they produce more kids than us? can we expect that they will overrun us before the moslems? whom do we kill first?)
11 - Ruvy
Well, Kevin, for once you are making sense. I tend not to worry about these long range stats and forecasts. Your own article demonstrates how blind "futurists" really are.
The only thing I would ask you to do is stay away from erroneous translations of Hebrew and the erroneous conclusions you draw thereby. I am a Hebrew speaker and do understand the language. The adjective for fruitful and fertile is the same - purá. It is reasonable to assume that the Divine Command, p'rú urevú can mean either "be fruitful and multiply" or "be fertile and multiply" - or both.
Until we come to these lines in Genesis:
...Rachel saw that she had not born children to Jacob, so Rachel became envious of her sister; she said to Jacob, "Give me children - otherwise I am dead. Jacob's anger flared up against Rachel, and he said "Am I instead of G-d Who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?" [b'reshít/Genesis 30:1-2]
and later on:
...G-d remembered Rachel; G-d hearkened to her and He opened her womb.
[b'reshít/Genesis 30:22]
This indicates that issues of fertility and infertility are in the Hands of G-d, so to speak, rather than in the hands of ignorant men. Abortions, birth control and prohibitions on child-bearing are the work of men. But fertility itself is a function of G-d. Therefore, the more correct translation of p'rú u'revú is "be fruitful and multiply".
12 - Kevin
Darrell,
No, I'm afraid you're not thinking too straight. There wasno rise in malaria in the US because DDT had nearly wiped out the malaria carrying mosquitoes. Besides, the US is more than rich enough to pay for the much more expensive alternatives.
DDT was banned un many places, including Africa, where at least there has been 1 million deaths per year. Or didn't you read?
Africans are not too stupid. Only in your world view. DDT is much cheaper and much more effective that all the other alternatives.
Didn't have to think that one through. It already happened.
13 - Kevin
Cindy,
Didn't you hear? Evidently some tribal people are now teaching at our universities.
It sounds like you don't believe much of anything...
14 - Kevin
Ruvy,
It looks like I'll have to question your translation of hebrew. In hebrew, the word 'fruitful' is not the same as 'fertile'.
Of course you knew that. Fertility IS in the hands of God. That's why your quotation does not even remotely apply.
Fertility is dependent upon God. But anything that changes that fertility
is by man's hands. You can think of a few of them, can't you Ruvy?
15 - El Bicho
Ruvy, It looks like I'll have to question your translation of hebrew.
Oh no he didn't.
anything that changes that fertility
is by man's hands.
Wrong. What about the aging process?
16 - Cindy
It sounds like you don't believe much of anything...
It sounds that way already!? I am making progress faster than I expected. :-)
17 - Dr Dreadful
In hebrew, the word 'fruitful' is not the same as 'fertile'.
It's not the same meaning in English most of the time either. However - in certain contexts, the two words can be similes. It's fairly clear to me that God's intent, however you translate the word, is the same.
I can't believe you're taking on Ruvy over his Hebrew, Kevin. What's next - confronting Watson and Crick and telling them they're all wrong about the structure and function of DNA?
This should be good...!
18 - Dr Dreadful
And anyway, biology shows that populations naturally self-regulate. Think of the unusually high proportion of boys born in the years after World War Two.
The current and projected downturn in human fertility may be just that - nature's response to species overpopulation.
Frankly, I don't think nature gives a damn what religion a replacement population is...
19 - Ruvy
Kevin,
I was nice enough not to argue with most of your article cause it sorta made sense. I leave you alone over things you should know, like Catholicism. You should be intelligent enough not to argue with me over Hebrew - which I do know.
The letters peh-vav-resh-heh spell "fruitful" in Hebrew. I had assumed that they were pronounced purá. I was wrong. It is pronounced poréh in the masculine and porá in the feminine. There is another word spelled shin-vav-peh-'ayin and pronounced shofé'a (the masculine form) and shofá'ah (the feminine form, spelled shin-vav-peh-'ayin-heh). Both words mean both "fertile" and "fruitful".
The Biblical Command p'rú, spelled peh-resh-vav is from the same root peh-resh-yod as the word poréh. The root peh-resh-yod refers to, at base, "fruit". peh-resh-vav-taf pronounced perót means "fruit". peh-resh-yod, in addition to being the root letters (shóresh) for the idea "fruit", also means "fruit of", and is pronounced p'ri.
Your problem is that you are looking at some dictionary or computer program and relying on what it spits out to you without comprehending what any Hebrew speaker must comprehend - that the whole language is based on three letter roots which give the basic sense of what is being written, even though the alef-beit of Hebrew is all consonants. What I've been giving you is a brief tour round a tiny part of that root system.
You are blind to all this. And, like any blind man, you feel your way round the horse, and assume it is an elephant - or the other way round.
Don't argue with a Hebrew speaker who knows - p'rú urevú means "be fruitful and multiply" - full stop.
20 - Kevin
Cindy-You're not very much into science, are you?
21 - zingzing
ha! that's good stuff there, kevin.
22 - Kevin
Ruvy--It was nice enough of you to admit your faults concerning the last column,and your inadequacies with Catholicism, but your insistence that your translation is right over everyone who has translated a Bible is a little over the top.
You might be Jewish, but I'm afraid that's it.
23 - Ruvy
aní m'dabér ivrít. k'sh'aní koré et hatorá, aní hayíti m'targém otá b'roshí. 'akhsháv, aní lo m'targ'ém bikhlál. aní mevín. ma sh'aní koré m'qulát bi.
When you can translate what I've just written above, then you can begin to argue over Hebrew with me, Kevin.
Till then, stick with the Vulgate, and the purposeful Catholic mistranslations of the Revelation my people brought to the world.
And an additional Hebrew lesson for you (the one after this one you pay for - Israel is the "land of the fee"). ein li éretz aHéret! Pay attention, Kevin. Who knows? Maybe you'll even learn something.
24 - Dr Dreadful
Cindy: Personally, I don't believe anyone any more.
Kevin: Cindy-You're not very much into science, are you?
On the contrary, I think not believing anyone is one of the hallmarks of a good scientist.
25 - Kevin
Ruvy--When you say that your translation of the Bible is more accurate than the thousands of scholars that have translated it thoughout the years, then you've gone beyond the pinnacle of believability.
What it the mindset of someone who says thousands have mistranslated the Bible (on purpose!), but my translation is correct????
I'm not sure if I'd ever want you to translate anything.
Oh, by the way. I'm still tring to figure out why you emphasized a translation, and missed the entire gist of the initial column.
Go figure...