“On the face of things, better conditions should lead to larger families, not smaller ones. However, it is impossible to argue with the facts, and the facts are that the rate of population increase is dropping, and that the drop is correlated with increases in personal economic well-being.”
Geoffrey Carr, Science editor of the Economist, discussing a forecast world population of c. 10billion. He thinks it will be difficult to cope with, but quite possible. “particularly as it is also the case that economic growth in rich countries is less demanding of natural resources for each additional unit of output than is the case for growth in poor countries.”
The Economist would say this, wouldn’t it? It’s typical of that arrogant magazine that all they can think of the “demand for natural resources.” There are many other troublesome issues connected with such a huge world population, and the vailablity of natural resouces is only one of them. His attitude is: can you feed them? Good. Is there enough cement and iron ore? Good. The thought pattern of a conventional economist.
hat I fear is the over-crowding, among other things. Like the lemmings, which are alleged to self-destruct when overcrowded, I fear the implosion d degradation of decent, civilized human behaviour brought about by facelessness and anonimity. An overlarge population acts like inflation. Inflation is caused by money in such abundance that people value it less and less. If there are too many faceless humans, you value and respect them less. Who cares? You diss someone and will never see them again, whereas in a small village you dare adopt no such attitude. Large populations breed indifference and lack of care for fellow humans. And yet the main world religions persist in banning family planning, requiring the maximization of population (for their own agenda). This is perverse.