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from the On-a-Pale-Horse-vs-Being-a-Green-Mother dept.
The world population is growing because the birth rate exceeds the death rate, so to stabilize the world population either the birth rate needs to drop, or the death rate needs to increase. The most cited reference for population studies is the projections of future population (PDF) made by the Population Division of the United Nations. The UN report projects the world population to eventually stabilize as a result of countries settling in to a birth rate that falls around the replacement level.
A commentary by Stephen Warren in the open access journal Earth's Future takes the UN report to task for focusing on birth rate. He notes that all species generate offspring in numbers well above the replacement level of two, but you don't see historically the kind of population growth like you do with humans. He argues that despite all the negative feedback mechanisms on population (such as war and pestilence), it seems that Malthus (PDF) was correct that food supply is the driving factor, and wonders whether it is even possible to stabilize the world population until food production levels off.
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 27 2015, @09:22PM
I think I made it fairly obvious in the post you replied to that my policy positions include the following:
1 - increase the focus on the empowerment of women
2 - increase the focus on the availability of contraception
3 - promote small families as a virtue
4 - reduce child subsidies
And I think I've made it obvious that I disagree on this matter of obviousness. But that's not what is important here.
What is important is that you were trying to communicate your opinion on Rosling's actions and largely succeeded. Would you have succeeded as well, if you had spent most of your time talking about your opinions rather than Rosling's?
Now, I don't know Rosling's actions, motivations, or possible blind spots, but I can see a very rational reason for why he could be taciturn on policy positions. Namely, he is trying to educate people on a very controversial subject and is concerned that expressing his opinions on the matter may in turn cause them to shut out his primary message. By not expressing his opinions on public policy, more people will listen to him.
Successful communication especially of the sort that educates or influences other people, is inherently constrained by what the listener will accept.
And I am very concerned that Rosling, with his headlines like "Don't Panic - The Truth About Population", will have the effect of reducing the degree of political commitment around the world to policies like those. Of course, we shouldn't panic. But we should take urgent action. He rhetoric is simple but, sadly, effective.
And why should that be sad? Shouldn't rather you be happy that the problem is not quite as bad as you thought?
Sadly, the caveats of [Rosling and others like him] will be ignored, and the politicians and their hugely influential corporate and religious leaning advisors will jump on these dubious texts and lectures to play down any need to engage with population matters.
Why would "corporations" and "advisors" do this? Overpopulation is a destabilizer of global trade and the infrastructure that any influential business would depend on. I could see some religions benefiting from a regime of high growth population mixed in with the occasional apocalyptic die-off. But that sort isn't likely to see power often. The above phrase just strikes me as an unwarranted assumption that some group you don't like is going to automatically do what you perceive as the evil thing. For example, I think most businesses would love to get a piece of the action from turning Africa into a large part of the developed world.
I think a large portion of the disrespect for Rosling comes from his puncturing of various treasured myths and the fact that reality is choosing sides in the public policy debates. For example, we have this SN story about capitalism, titled "Is Capitalism Working?" [soylentnews.org]. It's basically a story about an economist who has wealth inequity opinions which run counter to the observations made by Rosling (and who can be largely deflated by noting that he ignores most of the world in his considerations and the effects of illiquidity, being unable to convert the on paper wealth of capital into spending money). But reality is indicating that capitalism combined with liberation of women is a key factor in making things better.
The same goes for the anti-colonialist implication you made in your original post that somehow a billion developed world people have been bad for the world. But that ignores two things. First, those developed world populations aren't the source of overpopulation, instead, they all experience population decline, even the US is declining in population once you exclude first and second generation immigrants. Second, the whole world is better off in knowledge, trade, and just general well-being due to the efforts and presence of the developed world. A billion wealthy westerners has been quite good for humanity. Now, imagine that we have ten billion wealthy humans by 2100 with the relative industry, freedom, peace, and environmental awareness of the current western world. I think it can get a lot better than it is now.