Global Population [On Topic]

[BIGUN 1,082]

Based on another thread -

Again, we need to reduce the number of us humans on this Earth of ours.

My interest was peaked a couple of years ago by this. According to Dean Spears PhD, "It will begin an unprecedented decline ... If the world’s fertility rate [after 2100] were the same as in the United States today, then the global population would fall from a peak of around 10 billion to [less than] 2 billion about 300 years later, over perhaps 10 generations. And if family sizes remained small, we would continue declining.” Dr. Spears is an economic demographer.

The author of the article posed - Will this decline come a century too late to avert the consequences of global warming? Thoughts?

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-10/global-population-collapse-isn-t-sci-fi-anymore-niall-ferguson

[billvon 2,442]

5 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

The author of the article posed - Will this decline come a century too late to avert the consequences of global warming? Thoughts?

Thoughts:

1) It will come too late to avert the worst consequences of climate change if that's the only mitigation.
2) The strongest predictor of number of births per woman is educational level.  (Also the strongest predictor of child outcomes.) So if we concentrate on female education worldwide, we can drive this to happen sooner.

[JerryBaumchen 1,068]

46 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

Based on another thread -

Again, we need to reduce the number of us humans on this Earth of ours.

My interest was peaked a couple of years ago by this. According to Dean Spears PhD, "It will begin an unprecedented decline ... If the world’s fertility rate [after 2100] were the same as in the United States today, then the global population would fall from a peak of around 10 billion to [less than] 2 billion about 300 years later, over perhaps 10 generations. And if family sizes remained small, we would continue declining.” Dr. Spears is an economic demographer.

The author of the article posed - Will this decline come a century too late to avert the consequences of global warming? Thoughts?

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-10/global-population-collapse-isn-t-sci-fi-anymore-niall-ferguson

Hi Keith,

In another thread some time ago, I posted that we need to get the world's population down to about 30% of current numbers.

I only hope that would be sufficient.

Have you seen this:  Life on Our Planet - Wikipedia

I thought it was great.

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  Thanks for starting this - all of us need to talk about it.

 

[BIGUN 1,082]

15 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Have you seen this:  Life on Our Planet - Wikipedia

I thought it was great.

I had not, Jerry. Thanks for sharing it. On the watch list now. You were the one to peak my interest on it. 

[wmw999 2,155]

I agree that educating women is key; right now the birth rate is still relatively high in the countries that are still building infrastructure (like supporting massive amounts of cars, power plants, etc). Having cheap and easy alternatives for transport is important; to me, the cell phone is a good example of a transformational tool: it doesn’t require wire strung everywhere, and it makes things like banking generally available without all of the physical infrastructure needed to support the traditional technologies. 
At the cost of human contact, however.

Wendy P. 

[Phil1111 918]

Italy has just declared a "national emergency" because of a falling population. No word yet about Japan and when asked about Russia's falling and ageing population. Putin replied its a good thing because it provides Lebensraum for remaining Russians

[wmw999 2,155]

2 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

Italy has just declared a "national emergency" because of a falling population. No word yet about Japan and when asked about Russia's falling and ageing population. Putin replied its a good thing because it provides Lebensraum for remaining Russians

Isn’t that why God invented immigrants? They come with change, but so does everything else.

Wendy P. 

[johnhking1 76]

Many of us on this forum are at an age that before things get really bad, we will be gone.  It appears that society is on a downward slope and it is logarithmic not linear.

[wmw999 2,155]

31 minutes ago, johnhking1 said:

Many of us on this forum are at an age that before things get really bad, we will be gone.  It appears that society is on a downward slope and it is logarithmic not linear.

Every generation thinks it’s the peak of society and evolution. But just as humans aren’t the peak of evolution, they’re only the current point, we’re the current point socially. We’re less connected than previous generations, and more fearful.

The next generations won’t be able to live just as we have, but neither do we live just as our parents did. That said, the environment we live in is a huge challenge, and we’re not really helping the next generations; that’ll be a massive problem. Cities and towns provided a massive problem in the past, so did empires, and so did the plague  

Wendy P. 

[billvon 2,442]

1 hour ago, johnhking1 said:

Many of us on this forum are at an age that before things get really bad, we will be gone.  It appears that society is on a downward slope and it is logarithmic not linear.

Your great-grandparents said that, your grandparents said that, your parents said that, your great-grandkids will be saying that.

Reducing our population will help with a lot of things - resource usage, CO2 levels, pollution, real estate prices etc.  But that won't change the endless cycle of "things are going downhill, they're not great like they were when I was a kid."

[billvon 2,442]

As a reminder, this is an on topic post, and the topic is population control/reduction.  Posts about Trump, how things used to be, off topic jokes etc will be deleted.

[JerryBaumchen 1,068]

1 hour ago, wmw999 said:

Every generation thinks it’s the peak of society and evolution. But just as humans aren’t the peak of evolution, they’re only the current point, we’re the current point socially. We’re less connected than previous generations, and more fearful.

The next generations won’t be able to live just as we have, but neither do we live just as our parents did. That said, the environment we live in is a huge challenge, and we’re not really helping the next generations; that’ll be a massive problem. Cities and towns provided a massive problem in the past, so did empires, and so did the plague  

Wendy P. 

Hi Wendy,

Re:  Every generation thinks it’s the peak of society and evolution.

People today have a LOT more science to know where we are at.  And, what is going to happen.

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  The Long Emergency - Wikipedia

[GeorgiaDon 340]

I often hear that fertility rate decreases with education level of women, and no doubt that is true, but I sometimes wonder how much that is cause and effect and how much is correlation.  Fertility rate also declines as a society becomes more wealthy.  In advanced economies children are an expensive luxury.  They cost a lot to educate, to entertain, to house, and to feed and clothe.  Even the ability to transport a large family is quite costly.  On the other hand they don’t generate any financial benefits.  
In developing/third world economies children cost less, and they can work the farm/gardens or otherwise bring in some money.  Having a lot of children is also advantageous because they will take care of the parents when the parents are elderly.  Many kids won’t survive long enough to contribute, or they won’t have the extra wealth to be able to care for their parents. 
So, we have an interesting dichotomy :  poor economy, lots of kids are an advantage; rich economy, kids are a net expense.

Of course, there is also a relationship between the education level of women and how wealthy a society is.  More women educated is tied to more people overall working, which impacts the overall wealth of a society.

[billvon 2,442]

4 minutes ago, GeorgiaDon said:

I often hear that fertility rate decreases with education level of women, and no doubt that is true, but I sometimes wonder how much that is cause and effect and how much is correlation.  Fertility rate also declines as a society becomes more wealthy.  In advanced economies children are an expensive luxury.  They cost a lot to educate, to entertain, to house, and to feed and clothe.  Even the ability to transport a large family is quite costly.  On the other hand they don’t generate any financial benefits.  
In developing/third world economies children cost less, and they can work the farm/gardens or otherwise bring in some money.  Having a lot of children is also advantageous because they will take care of the parents when the parents are elderly.  Many kids won’t survive long enough to contribute, or they won’t have the extra wealth to be able to care for their parents. 
So, we have an interesting dichotomy :  poor economy, lots of kids are an advantage; rich economy, kids are a net expense.

Of course, there is also a relationship between the education level of women and how wealthy a society is.  More women educated is tied to more people overall working, which impacts the overall wealth of a society.

Definitely agreed there.  The correlation could be education -> higher income -> lower birthrate.  It could also be reverse causative - girls with the freedom to GET an education might also have the freedom to decline sex (or insist on birth control.)  However, at least two studies I've seen shows that a drop in birthrate follows an educational push by 2-3 years, suggesting that it's the education that (directly or indirectly) causes the decline in birth rate.

And in any case, I like the approach because it accomplishes several things at once - reducing population, improving child outcomes AND educating women.

[CygnusX-1 42]

21 hours ago, GeorgiaDon said:

In advanced economies children are an expensive luxury.

That is not quite true. In advanced economies, we CHOOSE to make them expensive. We could also choose to make our offspring live like they do in poorer countries. We could build mud huts for them to live in. Give them only 1 pair of good clothes that they wear to school. The rest of the time they would only be shirtless & barefoot working out in the field to help the family. There is no reason for them to have that expensive IPhone, toys, computers, or a college education. These are all choices we make, not the fact that we live in 'advanced economies'.

[gowlerk 1,936]

40 minutes ago, CygnusX-1 said:

That is not quite true. In advanced economies, we CHOOSE to make them expensive. We could also choose to make our offspring live like they do in poorer countries. We could build mud huts for them to live in. Give them only 1 pair of good clothes that they wear to school. The rest of the time they would only be shirtless & barefoot working out in the field to help the family. There is no reason for them to have that expensive IPhone, toys, computers, or a college education. These are all choices we make, not the fact that we live in 'advanced economies'.

Where I live if you made those choices for your children you would most likely attract a lot of attention from certain social agencies. Or perhaps you would be Amish. For sure you would be doing a poor job of equipping them for life in the modern world.

Edited May 9 by gowlerk

[BIGUN 1,082]

4 hours ago, gowlerk said:

Where I live if you made those choices for your children you would most likely attract a lot of attention from certain social agencies

Huh? You got no poor folks in Canada?

[gowlerk 1,936]

43 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

Huh? You got no poor folks in Canada?

None in mud huts. There are some close to third world conditions on reserves though.

[SkyDekker 1,150]

1 hour ago, gowlerk said:

None in mud huts. There are some close to third world conditions on reserves though.

mud huts maybe not, plywood and plastic sheets and no running water, absolutely:

 

 

 

 

 

[tkhayes 140]

On 5/6/2024 at 5:04 PM, billvon said:

Thoughts:

1) It will come too late to avert the worst consequences of climate change if that's the only mitigation.
2) The strongest predictor of number of births per woman is educational level.  (Also the strongest predictor of child outcomes.) So if we concentrate on female education worldwide, we can drive this to happen sooner.

well I expect women's education to become illegal at some point..... It's the godly way.....

[JerryBaumchen 1,068]

Hi Keith,

This is going the wrong way:  Mario was born in Wichita, Kan., to Jose and Petra Ayala. He had 19 siblings and was the second-youngest of the family.

Mario Ayala Obituary (03/14/1955 - 06/03/2023) - Troutdale, OR - The Oregonian (oregonlive.com)

Jerry Baumchen

 

[BartsDaddy 4]

49 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Keith,

This is going the wrong way:  Mario was born in Wichita, Kan., to Jose and Petra Ayala. He had 19 siblings and was the second-youngest of the family.

Mario Ayala Obituary (03/14/1955 - 06/03/2023) - Troutdale, OR - The Oregonian (oregonlive.com)

Jerry Baumchen

 

Hows it going the wrong way? with his passing thats one less person on earth 

[billvon 2,442]

13 minutes ago, BartsDaddy said:

Hows it going the wrong way? with his passing thats one less person on earth 

And 19 more.  So the net is +18.

[BartsDaddy 4]

3 hours ago, billvon said:

And 19 more.  So the net is +18.

Yes and he was the saecond youngest born 69 years ago. most of those +18 are allready dead most likely. Why confuse the birth rate of 70 years ago with todays. I admit theres still The effect of how many kids those 19 had. But since he was with his partner Dave for 35 years I doubt he contributed nearly that many more kids to the population.

[billvon 2,442]

1 hour ago, BartsDaddy said:

 But since he was with his partner Dave for 35 years I doubt he contributed nearly that many more kids to the population.

Population declines when women have fewer than about 2.2 kids each.  (Some die due to accidents, some do not reproduce due to being gay, celibate, nerds etc - thus the threshold is 2.2 and not 2.)  

19 kids per woman does not come close to that.