The population of planet Earth was estimated to have reached 7 billion on the 31st October 2011. That was 5 weeks ago today. The population is estimated to have grown since then by over 7.2 million. By 2027, the UN predicts that there will be 8 billion humans living on the Earth and by 2050, there will be 9 billion. This, I believe, is completely unsustainable.
Every one of these people needs food, clean water, shelter and energy, but how much more of this can we provide? If we look at the current situation, we can see that the answer is: not much. The United Nations estimated in 2009 that there were roughly 1 billion people in the world who were chronically malnourished and about the same amount do not have access to safe drinking water.
As more people join the planet, more shelter is going to be needed. This means more land is going to be covered, and so there will be less suitable land to grow crops, and rear cattle etc. There is another reason why there is going to be less land to grow food though: global warming. Not only do increasing temperature adversely affect crops in regions where summer heat already limits production, but as the ice caps melt and the seas rise, potential food-growing land is being lost to the ocean.
This brings us nicely onto energy. It's estimated that over 80% of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels - this is problematic for two major reasons. Firstly, fossil fuels appear to be running out. With oil and natural gas both expected to effectively run out within 50 years, coal will be the only fossil fuel left for us. Coal provides us with about 27% of the world's energy at the moment and you would have to assume that once the natural gas and oil have gone, the use of coal will shoot up. Unfortunately, coal is (usually) the least clean to burn and so this will surely send the world over the edge in terms of global warming. This is problem 2. With more people on the planet, more energy is going to be used, meaning more fossil fuels burnt, meaning the global warming process is sped up, meaning even less food is available to the world's increasing population.
It's a vicious cycle and one that needs to be stopped before it's too late. However, at the moment, governments are doing very little to stop the population growth that's getting massively out of hand. In fact, the only government that's had any success in slowing their population growth is China with their one child policy. Official figures say that they've stopped 400 million births in the 33 years it's been running. Although their policy has caused problems mainly due to their culture having a son preference, the policy has succeeded in its primary purpose - to slow population growth.
Now, I'm not suggesting the whole world needs to adopt a one child policy, this would in fact be just as unhealthy for the global society as the current levels of population growth - see the problems that China has had with their 'Little Emperors'. However I am suggesting the whole world adopts a two child policy. This would slow down growth as the current fertility rate for women in the world is 2.34, so this would be reduced and logically, the population would have to eventually peak. Although it would continue to increase whilst the current trend of increasing life expectancy remained, this can surely not continue forever.
The policy could be put in place in a number of ways. In China, each couple (for whom the rule applies) can only have one child. However, I have to question whether this would work in a society where people can have children outside of marriage or formal partnership and where divorce and remarriage is common. The alternative therefore is to limit each woman to two children.
This does not only have the benefit of slowing population growth, there could be financial benefits involved for the government and other side effects. Firstly, I propose that women who have not used their quota, could receive a cash reward from the government for being castrated. The government could then sell this quota to couples wanting extra children for an increased fee. This policy would also not only reduce the number of children being put up for adoption, but it would increase the levels of adoption as couples who want more children but who could not afford to pay for the extra quota would have to turn to adoption. Obviously, there would be an exception for the rule in the case of a woman having multiple babies simultaneously.
The benefits of this policy would be global as it would help prevent the problems with food, water and energy shortages I discussed earlier from getting worse as well as providing an economic benefit to world governments. Now, we just need to get it implemented as soon as possible, before it's too late.
The Opinionated Genius
Thinking like an economist and saving the world since 2nd December 2011.
Every one of these people needs food, clean water, shelter and energy, but how much more of this can we provide? If we look at the current situation, we can see that the answer is: not much. The United Nations estimated in 2009 that there were roughly 1 billion people in the world who were chronically malnourished and about the same amount do not have access to safe drinking water.
As more people join the planet, more shelter is going to be needed. This means more land is going to be covered, and so there will be less suitable land to grow crops, and rear cattle etc. There is another reason why there is going to be less land to grow food though: global warming. Not only do increasing temperature adversely affect crops in regions where summer heat already limits production, but as the ice caps melt and the seas rise, potential food-growing land is being lost to the ocean.
This brings us nicely onto energy. It's estimated that over 80% of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels - this is problematic for two major reasons. Firstly, fossil fuels appear to be running out. With oil and natural gas both expected to effectively run out within 50 years, coal will be the only fossil fuel left for us. Coal provides us with about 27% of the world's energy at the moment and you would have to assume that once the natural gas and oil have gone, the use of coal will shoot up. Unfortunately, coal is (usually) the least clean to burn and so this will surely send the world over the edge in terms of global warming. This is problem 2. With more people on the planet, more energy is going to be used, meaning more fossil fuels burnt, meaning the global warming process is sped up, meaning even less food is available to the world's increasing population.
It's a vicious cycle and one that needs to be stopped before it's too late. However, at the moment, governments are doing very little to stop the population growth that's getting massively out of hand. In fact, the only government that's had any success in slowing their population growth is China with their one child policy. Official figures say that they've stopped 400 million births in the 33 years it's been running. Although their policy has caused problems mainly due to their culture having a son preference, the policy has succeeded in its primary purpose - to slow population growth.
Now, I'm not suggesting the whole world needs to adopt a one child policy, this would in fact be just as unhealthy for the global society as the current levels of population growth - see the problems that China has had with their 'Little Emperors'. However I am suggesting the whole world adopts a two child policy. This would slow down growth as the current fertility rate for women in the world is 2.34, so this would be reduced and logically, the population would have to eventually peak. Although it would continue to increase whilst the current trend of increasing life expectancy remained, this can surely not continue forever.
The policy could be put in place in a number of ways. In China, each couple (for whom the rule applies) can only have one child. However, I have to question whether this would work in a society where people can have children outside of marriage or formal partnership and where divorce and remarriage is common. The alternative therefore is to limit each woman to two children.
This does not only have the benefit of slowing population growth, there could be financial benefits involved for the government and other side effects. Firstly, I propose that women who have not used their quota, could receive a cash reward from the government for being castrated. The government could then sell this quota to couples wanting extra children for an increased fee. This policy would also not only reduce the number of children being put up for adoption, but it would increase the levels of adoption as couples who want more children but who could not afford to pay for the extra quota would have to turn to adoption. Obviously, there would be an exception for the rule in the case of a woman having multiple babies simultaneously.
The benefits of this policy would be global as it would help prevent the problems with food, water and energy shortages I discussed earlier from getting worse as well as providing an economic benefit to world governments. Now, we just need to get it implemented as soon as possible, before it's too late.
The Opinionated Genius
Thinking like an economist and saving the world since 2nd December 2011.
Firstly, a two child policy will be almost impossible to implement globally, with similar problems to the one chil policy.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, as Demographer Ester Boserup said- "Necessity is the mother of Invention". With all the brains out there, someone somewhere will have a viable solution. Look up hydroponics and aeroponics??
lol fag! mass culling out of the question?
ReplyDeleteObviously, it won't be easy to implement a global policy, but if some of the more powerful western countries like the US and UK bring it in then pressure may build on the others.
ReplyDeleteMass culling is out of the question. For now.
Well considering the populations of most developed countries are actually stagnant, and mostly grow because of immigration, the result of your suggestion would essentially use western powers to impose child-bearing laws on 3rd world countries. If you think that's a reasonable approach, good on ya, but it sounds pretty fucked up to me.
ReplyDeleteMy face throughout this whole post
ReplyDeletehttp://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/original/000/185/168/misc-jackie-chan-l.png?1318992465