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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Overpopulation
- Thread starter Ian4
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Japans population is declining, at about 127 million now, expected to drop to 80 million by 2050. Aging population plus low birth rates due to lack of interest in sex, particularly the younger generation are major contributing factors
Population growth or decline depends on FERTILITY, not MORTALITY. Mortality will affect how long people will live - I know this is kind of your point because you are worried about the cost of caring for old people.
As I've mentioned before, nearly all developed countries are experiencing a decline in fertility and we will see a bubble in the ratio of old to younger people over the next 50 years. This bubble will also shrink as we get to more straight line on the age distribution chart. Fertility in developing countries is also declining over time.
Overpopulation is not the problem - resource usage and distribution is.
As I've mentioned before, nearly all developed countries are experiencing a decline in fertility and we will see a bubble in the ratio of old to younger people over the next 50 years. This bubble will also shrink as we get to more straight line on the age distribution chart. Fertility in developing countries is also declining over time.
Overpopulation is not the problem - resource usage and distribution is.
Soda said:
Yes. We buried a dear friend last month who died from a melanoma. It was awful. My grandmother died of breast cancer also. It's an awful disease, please don't construe my post another way. I just wonder the ramifications of what happens if we were to cure it. Would the population baloon to an inhabitable amount? Is this just supposed to be the way life is?
Tigertool said:
My supposition would be that most people who get sick and die from cancer are usually beyond child bearing age anyway - not always true I know, but as a general rule. If that's correct, cancer would not affect population growth. It would affect total population in a small way as there would be more people living to an older age so population size would be greater, but population growth would be the same.
So, cut a long story short, curing disease and illness will not overtly affect population growth. In some ways high rates of mortality due to disease increases population growth as people in developing countries with high mortality rates have MORE children to ensure they have offspring who will care for them in old age and work to support the family in the interim. The number of children exceeds the infant mortality rate, leading to rapid growth. (There are other factors too of course).
antman said:
I was going to post something similar.
Back to the initial question, I know that some prominent academics think that the population will plateau when it reaches about 10 billion in thirty or so years. Their main argument is that birth rates in places like India and parts of South America dropped over the last couple of decades when their middle classes started to grow and other indicators in Africa countries have started following the same trend (albeit a long way behind). I suspect they are right and therefore I don't think the world's population growth is a big problem, as long as
the standard of living in poor African counties heads in the right direction.
As for Melbourne, I do think that its population is growing too fast and this is a big problem. Again, a discussion for another thread.
Here is a good video that summarises the theory I badly paraphrased. There are a few others...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg
Interesting read here. I agree with most of it.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/is-melbourne-too-big-for-its-own-good-20131018-2vsd8.html?#comments
FWIW I don't think overpopulation is a big issue for the world, nor much of an issue for Australia but it IS a big issue for Melbourne.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/is-melbourne-too-big-for-its-own-good-20131018-2vsd8.html?#comments
FWIW I don't think overpopulation is a big issue for the world, nor much of an issue for Australia but it IS a big issue for Melbourne.
martyshire said:
Yes, Hans Rosling has certainly been on this track for some time.
This is an earlier TED that he did in 2010 that I saw a couple of years ago called Global population growth, box by box.
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html
I don't believe it is growing exponentially. In most of the world, birth rates are around 2 and a bit and population is stable. Birth rates are only high in poor countries. The rest of the recent population growth can be attributed mainly to increased life expectancy, but the effect of that phenomenon on overall population is limited because women do not increase the number of children they have due to the fact they live older.bullus_hit said:
I might back-peddle slightly though and say 'overpopulation is only a big issue for the world if we do not address poverty (esp in Africa) and continue to become a more environmentally-friendly species'; but I'm hopeful that we will.
I won't try to paraphrase everything Hans Rosling says because I won't do it justice, but I highly recommend checking out his vids (thanks Phantom, I hadn't seen that one).
martyshire said:
I just checked it out and it was very well articulated. One thing he did omit was the need to have more women educated and in employment, easier said than done in some of the more conservative countries.
