Why don't we hear many concerns about world population?

[HeadingNorth]

So long as UK Europe Aus/NZ and North America keep their doors tightly shut we needn't overly worry.

 

The rest of the world isn't likely to think much of a policy that basically amounts to "our population exploded while we were looting your countries of all their wealth to support us, so we're just going to put up the drawbridge while you lot suffer because you have no right to do what we already did."

[andygardener]

The rest of the world isn't likely to think much of a policy that basically amounts to "our population exploded while we were looting your countries of all their wealth to support us, so we're just going to put up the drawbridge while you lot suffer because you have no right to do what we already did."

 

I think we need to define wealth. A stone in the ground or slimy stuff is not wealth without the means to extraxt it, refine it and a demand for it.

 

Lets not pretend just because we created a value for things underneath third world nations that they are independantly "wealthy", they are not.

[llamatron]

I think the more we discuss it the more it seems like humanity really is heading up a certain creek without a paddle, and probably taking the planet with it if we keep on behaving as we are doing across the world.

 

Which leads me back to the original point, why does it seem this is not being addressed at all? Do we live in a society that always thinks of the situation RIGHT NOW, rather than thinking ahead to the future. Even if it's a future where were are more than likely gone, but our descendants have to deal with it?

 

people have a right to plasma tvs!

[mj.scuba]

In response to the OP title, in particular why don't we hear the world's political leaders raising it as a concern - is because it's a political hot potato.

 

Take a look at the UN fertility figures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate

 

Not a single European state in the top 100. In fact the fertility rates of almost all developed nations is below replacement level including the UK at 1.82. That means if there was no inward or outward migration, the population of the UK, and indeed most developed nations would be in decline.

 

If our own leaders started to tell the rest of the world they need to get to a fertility rate of less than 2.0 to reduce the population, it would look preachy. Also if our own PM raised it at somewhere like the UN, with a view that we should be aiming for decreasing the population, that would be pretty much admitting that our own population should be decreasing, yet it isn't because of a year on year net inward migration and that would be swiftly pointed out, so how could we tell other countries their populations should be decreasing when we can't control our own?

[HeadingNorth]

Also if our own PM raised it at somewhere like the UN, with a view that we should be aiming for decreasing the population, that would be pretty much admitting that our own population should be decreasing

 

No, it would not. It doesn't matter how much a given nation's population is changing due to migration - the only relevant factor is birth rates.

[mj.scuba]

No, it would not. It doesn't matter how much a given nation's population is changing due to migration - the only relevant factor is birth rates.

 

That is understandable, looking at it globally. However if the end aim is population reduction, it would be politically tricky to argue for that, whilst allowing your own population to grow and grow, even if by migration rather than birth rates.

 

Personally, I think we as a country should be trying to reduce our population, but how can that happen when year on year net migration surpasses a below replacement level birth rate?

 

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[Winder]

If things don't change, in 100 years there could well be over 30 billion on the planet ... I think they would be struggling then!

 

There was a documentary on the BBC a few months ago, during which David Attenborough interviewed a top NASA scientist that deals with nutrition and the number of calories a human being needs to survive.

 

He stated that people on the Indian sub continent had the optimum intake of calories, in the West and richer countries it could be over 33% higher.

 

If the entire population of the world could get their calorie intake to the optimum and agricultural land was exploited to yield its maximum capacity he calculated that the maximum population the world could carry was 12 billion.

[HeadingNorth]

That is understandable, looking at it globally. However if the end aim is population reduction, it would be politically tricky to argue for that, whilst allowing your own population to grow and grow, even if by migration rather than birth rates.

 

Frankly, I think it might make it easier. We can point to our own birthrate as evidence that we're tackling the problem, and we can further tackle the problem by absorbing excess population from other areas, via immigration.

 

Up to a point, anyway. This island is not all that big.

[le-joker]

Too busy populating the world !

[Alcoblog]

Here's an interesting thought, if the population of the earth continues to increase at its present rate, by 3530 the total mass of human flesh and blood would equal the mass of the earth!

By 6826 it would equal the mass of the known universe!