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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Population
  • Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:30:40 -0600


>He points out rightly that the world's population is a problem. The
>current level of 6.5 billion is totally unsustainable. Some projections
>have us at closer to 9 billion in 50 years.

A single, quick Googling shows that Europe and Russia populations are declining. Decline in fertility, costs of living, costs of higher education and many more reasons resist families beyond replacement size. The big bear is Asia. China and India are both aware of the issue.

This was written four years ago:


New global forecast: population decline in sight

"Two years ago, as the world's population surpassed the high mark of 6 billion, scientists were sounding alarm bells over unchecked population growth, especially in the developing world.

"But now there is a growing consensus among demographers over a new forecast: that women in nations with 80 percent of the world's population will begin to limit their families to two children or fewer.

"Before the century ends, the number of humans likely will start to shrink, reckons James Chamie, director of the United Nation's population division. That will be a "momentous" reversal in direction.

"A combination of international family-planning programs, growing prosperity, and better education of women is widely credited with reducing fertility rates worldwide."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0311/p07s02-wogi.html

Choose your source. Some sources cry danger at rising populations, other cry danger at falling populations. Economists and business people tend to want continued growth.

This is an old and occasionally hysterical subject. I read Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb, in about 1959 and wrote and gave a speech on the subject. It was a topic du jour of the time. Ehrlich predicted that the world as we knew it would cease to exist by the end of the century. Looks pretty good to me.

This issue is a non-starter. As populations grow, conditions are created that cause population decline. It will ever be so.

Sigh. We all want, need to be important. If writing is something we perceive as leading to that condition, then we write. The incredible growth of blogging is the latest proof of the condition. So there will be an increasingly expanding explosion of opinions, with "proof" cherry-picked off the Net, of every conceivable bad thing that might, just might happen.

Relax and focus on homesteading skills and practices. You control your focus. Focus on good stuff. Enjoy life. Smell the roses. Let the doomspouters spout to others.









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