Overpopulation Myth

I believe they are called New Yorkers.

And you know, I hate to say it but any information from here on the topic of overpopulation has to be carefully evaluated since the website is very biased (being Catholic and all). Please try to look at things from the other perspective too. I myself researched extensively on the issue and found that most overpopulation deniers were either Catholic, or had shallow arguments easily combated by scientific data.

Oh, and I do want to add that population control does not have to involve forced abortions/sterilizations…

Plus you have a limited supply of resources like water and fossil fuels, which are nonrenewable.

Um, I’m pretty sure that water is a renewable resource. I mean, it literally falls from the sky.

Still haven’t done that reading have you Azelais? Fertility rates are plunging around the globe. For example Iran’s fertility rate is currently 1.7. Keep trying Azelais.

Azelais,

1. No, the reason why the population is expected to continue rising is not because “For every country with a dropping fertility rate, there is a country with an even faster rising rate.” It’s because the fertility rate is a measure of how fast people are being born — it doesn’t take into account how long they live. Given that the world population has been rising for the last 100 years, even if every country on earth instantly went to a 2.0 fertility rate, the population would continue rising for another 50 years or so before leveling off. Further, the fact that the countries you listed has fertility rates over 6 in 2009 does not mean that their rates are rising, it just means they are high. The total fertility rate for the world as a whole has fallen from 5 to 2.5 over the last 50 years:

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=total+fertility+rate+world

2. You can theorize that countries are “too crowded” and would thus do better if they had fewer people, but that doesn’t change the fact that having far more old people than workers is generally very unhealthy for a society.

Also, your math on the claim that the world can only support 1-2 billion people with an American lifestyle rests on the assumption that the amount of wealth/resources in the world is fixed. This is, however, generally false.

@DarwinCatholic: You’re right that I shouldn’t have said “rising” fertility rate. What I meant was that for every country with a replacement rate below 2.1, there is a country with a rate above it, sometimes way above it. Like you stated yourself, the population is supposed to continue rising for another 50 years.

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_totl&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world+population+chart

This is a problem because who’s to say that we can sustain 9 billion people? Yes, natural resources are not necessarily fixed, but that doesn’t guarantee that there will be enough for the future. We can’t count on technology to create resources out of thin air- food production is increasing, but not as fast as the population is increasing. Even if we could take a technological optimist point of view, we have to face the very real possibility that a large expansion of agriculture would have a terrible effect on the environment. Further deforestation, species extinction, and pollution from pesticides as farming intensifies are just a few consequences. Additionally, fresh water supplies, on which agriculture depends, are running low worldwide. This water crisis is only expected to worsen as population increases. Finally, fossil fuels simply aren’t renewable at all.

As for the comment regarding a disproportionate number of old people to workers, we actually see low life expectancy in countries with the fastest population growth. Bottom line is that when a country’s population reaches its limit, natural controls are triggered. They will be the usual- epidemics, wars, famines, etc. – but do we really want to wait for that fate?

@Donald R. McClarey: It goes without saying that China is “immense”, both in land mass and population. The fact that you claim that they are “definitely not too crowded” causes me to ask whether you have ever visited the country personally. I have been there a few times, and my mother was born and raised in that country. She agrees that it is a very crowded place!

You point out Taiwan, Singapore, and the Netherlands as countries with a high population density but good economic performance. However, those are all small countries whose cases are the exception, not the norm. They are able to provide for a high standard of living because they “borrow” resources from other countries. In other words, they import massive amounts of resources from other countries because they are not able to produce those amounts in their own country. So in reality, they have a “borrowed” standard of living.

Concerning the demographic imbalance, enforcing a ban against sex-selective abortions could normalize the sex ratio in the future. This is an option that should be considered, in light of the various benefits of the one-child policy.

Of course those countries don’t literally borrow their standard of living. They buy the products, like you said. But again, the fact that they are all small countries further proves that not everyone in the world could model after them. So while I agree that they do have excellent economic policies and political systems that allow them to buy what they need (and more, to be honest), it would be unfair to claim that those are the ONLY factors in human prosperity. When I replied to DarwinCatholic’s comment, I pointed out that the Earth has a very limited supply of certain resources. That amount is not enough for every country to prosper like Taiwan, Singapore, and the Netherlands, even if they all had the same economic and political systems. So if we cut down to the bare necessities for living- food, water, and shelter- we inevitably conclude that the world’s population cannot continue to multiply.

As to China, there are definitely not “huge areas for population expansion”. Half of China’s territory is considered uninhabitable, and desertification is on the rise. The government-implemented one-child policy contributed greatly to the country’s economic growth and reduced unemployment caused from surplus labor. It also benefited the individual by causing improved health care, among other things.

Projections are NOT scientific Azelias! This is the problem with pseudo-scientific lay people, they assume they can project numbers (which were only gathered during a tiny time fram and therefore are not a suitably large sample to be reliable in the real world) out infinitely and view the speculation as fact. The real world is not a controlled laboratory experiment. You are assuming the only varaible is rate of reproduction. This is ludicrous. Besides–human behavior changes based on circumstances! This is why condoms can lead to increased pregnancy and STD’s. People who use birth control have usually begin to have more sex…ALOT more! If a condom protects you 99% of the 100 times you have sex thats 1 pregnancy (still not good odds-especially with AIDS!) But if the user has sex 1,000,000 times that is 10,000 pregnancies or STD’s. The projections are virtually IRRELEVANT because behavior changes. Then again Progressives tend to deny free will and self-control, but the truth is the truth even if nobody believes it!