Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Thursday July 11 2019, @09:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the Thanos-snap dept.

CNN - The world's population is nearing 8 billion. That's not great news

It took thousands of years for the global population to hit 5 billion, which happened in 1987. Some 32 years later, we're closing in on 8 billion. This explosive growth concerns leaders at the United Nations, who created World Population Day in 1989 to raise awareness about the problems caused by overpopulation. The holiday is observed annually on July 11. Some areas are actually losing population According to the UN, 27 countries or areas have seen their populations shrink by 1 percent or more since 2010. This drop is caused by sustained lower levels of fertility, most notably in countries like China amd[sic] Japan. In fact the global fertility rate fell from 3.2 births per woman in 1990 to 2.5 in 2019 and is projected to decline further. But these shrinkages are dwarfed by population booms in other regions. The population of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is projected to double by 2050.

The Guardian - Global population of eight billion and growing: we can't go on like this

Crucially, the vast majority of the extra 3 billion human beings that could be added to Earth's population will be born in Africa. Today there are about 1.2 billion Africans. By 2100, there will be more than 4 billion. Our growing population crisis therefore needs to be tackled there as a priority: by boosting women's rights, by making contraception easily available and by improving education for all. The remarks of President Magufuli suggest that this is going to be a very hard task. Nor have the actions of Donald Trump's White House helped. By slashing funds to international birth control programmes, the US is now undermining hopes of limiting Africa's population growth.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @02:39AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @02:39AM (#866086)

    Start killing off people that don't some criteria?

    There it is: sign an LGBTQ oath, or take your chances in a lottery for the Antarctic colony, where we're sending every person over the 7.5 billion population mark as a brave new self sufficient colony, learning how to deal with the rigors of cold life, like we might find when trying to colonize Europa or Titan.

    Sure, some of them may die, but it's a sacrifice worth making.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday July 12 2019, @12:34PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 12 2019, @12:34PM (#866209) Journal
    Or we could bring the world up to developed world standards. After all, the developed world has already solved population growth. There's not much point to discussing the problems of the world, if existing solutions are roundly ignored.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @05:20PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @05:20PM (#866322)

      If we are going to use the same 'solution' we will need 4 Earths for resources. Try again.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 13 2019, @03:59AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 13 2019, @03:59AM (#866492) Journal

        If we are going to use the same 'solution' we will need 4 Earths for resources.

        We have one Earth with vastly more resources than your "4 Earths".