This started as a response to a comment by "lou" under the "Freedom to Breed" post, but has morphed into a post. Lou buys into the overpopulation myth, rejecting the possibility that it has anything to do with racism, and kindly suggests that I take an introductory Calculus course to learn the exponential function. I thank him for the suggestion, although the exponential function (which really doesn't require a Calculus course to understand) has little to do with the overpopulation myth.
World population is measurably declining. A few facts:
*The growth rate of the world's population peaked around 1970, when the annual rate of growth was 2.09 percent.
*By 1980, annual population growth was down to 1.73 percent.
*By 1995, the annual increase had slowed even more to 1.5 percent.
*Population has been declining since 1990 at a rate of about one million people per year.
The fact is, what some deem overpopulation is often no more than overcrowding (as in Bangladesh). Much of the world's land surface remains empty and uninhabited, and the world's food output continues to exceed demand.
A look at the following chart reveals that places usually thought to be grossly overcrowded (Brazil, Ethiopia, India) are far less crowded than healthy, thriving metropolises:
And many fear the
depopulation in industrialized countries will mean economic hardship in the near future, including a decrease in workforce and consumers. The European Union's fertility rate is only 70% of that needed to maintain a constant population, which means they do not have enough people to replace those who are dying. Italy in particular is facing a depopulation crisis (even
NPR, of all media outfits, has taken notice), with the number of people over 65 outnumbering the youth, and only about 1.1 babies being born per family (2.1 are needed to maintain a constant population). The United Nations recently scaled back its projected population growth of 9.5 billion by 2050 to 8.9 billion, and has conceded that the overpopulation explosion may be over.
For more resources, see the following:
Depopulation and Ageing in Europe and Japan:
The Hazardous Transition to a Labor Shortage Economy, by Paul Hewitt
The Population Implosion, by Nicholas Eberstadt
Overpopulation Turns Out to Be Overhyped, by Ben J. Wattenberg
