Monday, February 8, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
How Can We Approach the Issue of Human Population Growth?
Is a question I have pondered for a long time. But first some background:
In 1992, the global population was ~5.5 billion. In 1952 the population was about 2.75 billion. The global population had about doubled in a mere 40 years. By comparison it had taken all human history for the species to reach the 1 billion mark in about 1800. In another 100 years (1900), the population reached about 2 billion. By the 1990’s, about 1 billion people are added to the population every 11 or 12 years. The rate of population growth was at a historical high of 2.0% in 1970. It had fallen to 1.7% in 1992. In 1992, the population was increasing by approximately 88 million people/year. Average fertility rates at ~3.0 birth/woman were still above the replacement rate of 2.1. Even if the fertility rates dropped to 2.0, the world population would still increase 8 billion around 2050 before stabilizing. To make matters worse much of this rapid growth was occurring in very ecologically impoverished places least able to absorb it.
China realized the detrimental effects of having such a large number of people and therefore implemented the 1 child policy in 1979. Today, 1 in every 4 people is Chinese
Most recently, man power in China was evident by becoming the number one exporter of good in the planet, surpassing Germany. But everything ha s a price; China has one of the most environmentally polluted environments in the world and its one of the main contributors of CO2. China was also one of the great producers of CFCs which contributed to the depletion of the Ozone Layer.
I’m not trying to make China seem like the big monster who wants to destroy the world and take away our clean air, the U.S. is a big contributor of CO2 that is increasing the temperature of the planet and wiping out species at a very depressing rate. But the U.S. shows more care about their environment, that’s why they send their waste to China and some countries in Africa. Let someone else deal with it.
At this point, would decreasing the population (either by awareness, religious cooperation, and prevention) really help? And how can we approach this problem? Today, the poorest countries are the most populated, why? Do they not realize that having more children will make them poorer? Religion also plays a major role in the amount of children families have, or if they should have (once they are pregnant).
How can we begin to tell people that they should not have children because they are poor? And that having children or more children will destroy the environment? Which is more important? A poor country with a high population can not progress if the environment is not able to sustain them. Be by not having clean water, food, or other resources. Today around the world unemployment is very high, and the economy is on a coma. Guess who suffers the most.
In countries in which children are venerated, and most people are pro-life (because of religion majority) the problem of population will persist unless there are waves of change, culturally. In other places in which the majority of citizens are highly educated (and prefer to wait longer to have children) their economic success will likely persist. Having said that, the population problem is not happening simultaneously on a global scale; several countries are actually struggling to replace the older generation (i.e. Japan).
To address the concern of overpopulation in their countries, individual governments have –to certain extent-the responsibility to educate and help those who would like to prevent having more children by distributing birth control to those who want it and promoting the use of condoms and eliminating cultural barriers and taboos. Promoting logical thinking wouldn’t hurt either…
references: UMUCENV644CASE1
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100110/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_trade
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