The Myth of Overpopulation
January 20, 2012 at 6:31 pm 4 comments
We’re not experiencing overpopulation. We are at the pre-stages of an underpopulation that can last a couple of decades, if not centuries, that has started in the Western world and is starting to sweep the entire world (e.g. check the falling birthrates of Latin America and Asia). In modern liberal societies, one controls population through birth (e.g. contraception, abortions). In traditional conservative societies, one controls population through death (e.g. wars). It doesn’t seem like we are experiencing underpopulation because people live longer today than in the past and a lot of people that were born in the 1960′s are still living. This whole overpopulation myth is starting to get me exhausted and is starting to resemble bad science. I heard once that in the 1970′s, via school, government and the media, that the hysteria concerning overpopulation was wild. Sometimes these monsters can’t seem to die.
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1.
bgc | January 21, 2012 at 7:56 am
I really don’t understand – how is this a myth?
http://www.pewforum.org/The-Future-of-the-Global-Muslim-Population.aspx
A billion extra people in the past 20 years, another billion to come soon.
How in a media age of mid-late forties and rising a myth? How is the shrinking of the productive part of the population a myth? 7 billion people can’t be sustained except by modern food technology, transport and medicine. When these capabilities dwindle and disappear then there will be horrific death rates.
Of course a lot of these people (about half of them) are over 45 – can such societies function? who knows?
Surely people over 45 still count as people? A billion or three people dying in a short time is something the earth hasn’t seen before.
But in a sense I agree – the earth will probably not get to 8 billion people.
2.
alcestiseshtemoa | January 21, 2012 at 2:54 pm
It’s a myth in the sense that the world is not going to get more overpopulated and that, if anything, there will be a decrease coming in the next decades and centuries after all of the old 1-2 billion humans still living die off. People are living longer lives due to modern food technology, transport and medicine supporting them but modernity is decreasing birthrates worldwide and this is being overlooked because of the longer life span. When the effects of low birthrates kick in (decades? about a century from now?) there will be anywhere between 20 and 60% population reduction.
3.
alcestiseshtemoa | January 21, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Of course the devout religious population is still growing and will continue to grow but they will be replacing, and not adding more to, those humans which control their population rates through contraception and other means. The future may be more religious, but it will not be more overpopulated. Even after the seculars decrease there won’t be overpopulation because religious people control population through death (e.g. wars).
4.
alcestiseshtemoa | January 21, 2012 at 3:32 pm
Sorry if my replies are a bit confusing and aren’t up to par bgc.