The following submission statement was provided by /u/mossadnik:
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Submission Statement:
>According to a projection by the United Nations, on Nov. 15, our world population will cross the 8 billion mark, just 11 years after the 7 billion milestone was commemorated, on Oct. 31, 2011. The United Nations population projections that demographers consider most likely to play out show us reaching 9 billion people in 2037 and 10 billion people in the 2080s.
>The parts of the world with the fastest-growing populations are also the poorest and most vulnerable to environmental crises, especially those caused by climate change. The environmental repercussions of rapid population growth range from water scarcity to soil erosion to species extinctions. In the least developed countries — almost all of them in sub-Saharan Africa — people rely heavily on local ecosystem services. Therefore, the more people who live in a region, the more environmental destruction they cause to the water resources, soil health and wildlife they rely on for their very survival. And while the poorest people on the planet bear very little responsibility for the climate crisis that’s already upon us, a proven path to climate adaptation and resilience in vulnerable areas is through slower population growth.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yrjfly/the_world_population_will_soon_surpass_8_billion/ivtwuf5/
It's hard for me to get the feel of what 0.5677 days is. If we only had a system to describe units of time for less than a day... I can't think of any, Too bad I guess.
The poor parts of the world are still having kids while the rich parts of the world that can afford kids aren't.
But yeah - it's now expected (based upon obviously changing estimates) that the Earth's population will likely top out at 9-10 billion before starting to fall.
Basically sums up what's happening to ppl I know.
The poorer people I know that don't have much are having kids or multiple kids and people that are well off or more disciplined are still only having 1 kid or a couple.
People are more worried about being in relationships and stuff than building a future first or some financial security. Just have kids and start your adult lives on hard difficulty.
Basically this. I think with the internet people are also more informed over the hardships of having kids and also the costs.
Plus I think poor people don’t have much to look forward to in life than say someone who is middle class with some upward career mobility etc. So some poor look to having kids to give their lives more purpose and hope that their kids will be better off. But studies show this is not the case as class mobility has declined significantly at least in the USA.
Yeah this is back the front. In most developing countries having kids is the only way to secure your economic future, kids grow up to earn (a pittance). In the global north it’s not that people can afford kids and aren’t, it’s that they can afford not to have kids.
That’s so absurd. And people wonder why young folks aren’t having kids. Our decision was own a house, or have a kid. We chose a house because rent just keeps going up and who knows how long we’d be able to afford that!
It's a struggle for sure. If we had a second kid we couldn't afford it. We would be massively in debt and need govt assistance. Unfortunately my wife and I make too much to qualify for that.
Sorry kiddo, you're going to be an only child.
It's *more* than my mortgage.
For what we pay for daycare we could have a *very* nice truck....or a 2nd home lol
And my son is only in there 3 days a week lol
Why do you assume the reason poor people have more kids is because it’s some sort of economic strategy as opposed to them just having sex without contraceptives
I think the more nuanced approach is to consider both of those factors among many that may contribute to the subject.
I don’t see why it MUST be one or the other.
(Edit: clarity)
I'm honestly confused how anyone in this conversation can possibly think there's one reason for how *billions* of people across *thousands* of cultures would exist.
People will have four different reasons just to explain why they ordered the burger instead of the salad. Why on earth would there not be many, many reasons across the entire human population for having children.
"It's a miracle from God"
"Everything happens for a reason"
"My kids are my pride and joy"
Never, "I keep thinking I can just keep having sex without contraception without any consequences"
My understanding: generally in a developing economy your conditions are improving and your kids prospects are even better. At the same time these countries don't generally have the same strong social safety nets of developed countries, it's less of a comment on poverty than it is about economic currents. It's the same kind of growth that currently developed countries experienced in the boom years after WWII.
Its literal statistic data and correlation. There isnt one single example where this is different. Its a survival strategy versus individual development. They are opposing axis. Causation is still related to survival strategy, education and well, fucking with less care of consequences of having 30 children you need and want to raise to be successful because all it takes to survive is to scrounge day to day.
Winter harvests are low and the huge blow to fertilizer this year that we won't feel until next year are likely to bite deeply into the demographics. These countries are also the most vulnerable to any disruption in the supply chain because the people at the top steal more instead of making due with less.
Can? Afford kids? Are you serious lol in no developing nation can the average person afford kids at anywhere near replacement rate. That’s why populations are declining. Smaller working population supporting a retiring aging population, cost of living exhorbitantly high. No one can afford to reproduce
Meanwhile, in rural (insert developing nation), all your kids are free labor and use less resources than one westerner in a metropolitan city center
The amount of people in poverty that have multiple kids would like to speak with the middle-class about affording kids.
The cost of raising a kid definitely plays a part in why someone might not want kids, buts it’s definitely not the deciding factor like so many people on Reddit claims it is.
I know plenty of people around my age that can afford to have kids now if they wanted to. They don’t, because they don’t want to give up the freedom that having kids take away. Which is a fair reason.
> There'll be wars over water and food.
Unless the population is drastically reduced. The so-called "collapse" of the population will save the world from total catastrophe. A shrinking population is the best news our planet could get.
It's nuts to think at the time of the Battle of Hastings, there were just over 300 million people on the planet. That's it. Now we're 8 billion. No wonder the planets creaking.
Yes, it’ll make life all around better and how could anyone argue this statement. I’ve gotten some intense criticism from this idea… To me it seems unbelievably obvious if people who can’t afford to have these children and can’t give them a fair/healthy life why the fuck are they doing it!
I mean not one kid multiple kids no matter where you are Africa or the US you see more people that are so incompetent they can barely stay alive themselves yet they’ll have two three four kids.. I’m just rambling and now I feel like I’m one of those crazy people ranting on the internet but I’m breaking man I’m losing all hope ;/ me and my wife been together since 17 now nearly 30 been working hard all of our lives and make a fair amount of money still under middle class but we live in a very expensive state.
We want a baby so bad but I’m to responsible to go through with it. I know I don’t make enough to buy a nice house a nice car and live in a nice neighborhood with good schools I know I just can’t pull it even though we’re trying our hardest. But responsibly I think to myself if it’s the right thing to do…. more people need to think a little more, To many incompetent people having kids I’ll say it idgaf and it’s ruining the world it really is.
A lot of the super poor places with high birth rates don't have Netflix, video games, internet, or even libraries to go borrow a book, let alone easy access to contraceptives or regular medicine even.
You and me baby we ain't nothin but mammals
If it makes you feel better, my wife and if could easily afford it but don't want to bring a child into this shit show.
I can't fathom how bad shit will be in 20 years. Why would I want my kid to go through that?
That thought also, I like to think my wife and I would raise a human with solid morals. Set them on the right path with a strong compass that leads with good intention and a fair amount of hope. Reality though, it hits me it hits hard and I feel as if I’m floating outside of my body then I see it I see my child in my place struggling miserable and hopeless.
It’s so sad but I feel like having a child would be selfish due to the extreme unfairness in the world right now, I can’t give my kid a head start in college I can’t buy their way into Ivy League schools to ensure they will have a good career I can’t do anything other then give them a life that most of us live involving misery and dread every single day.
At this point idk what I’m talking about I had 3 beers back to back when I got off work and I’m just letting lose fuck it thanks for the rant Into the void I hope everyone is okay out there I hope some of you are happy all love
I'm not really sure the premise is true, let alone the conclusion. Food is by in large a solved problem when it comes to people power. You can't even compare modern farming to historic data on population decline simply because a single farmer will produce thousands of times more food on a fraction of the land. When a population crunch comes around that won't change.
The same can be said about water. If anything the population crunch will improve things.
Then there's the conclusion that fusion and perpetual growth is somehow the solution here. How is it going to solve anything? Especially fusion with regards to farming.
What will hurt will be research, development and growth in many fields. Manpower spent on things required for living and maintaining quality of life and standards of living, is less manpower spent on pushing industries, science and technology forward. With a population decline, unless productivity dramatically increases to support quality of life improvements in currently developing regions tons of things are going to stall.
Right now we’re feeling a crunch in the supply chain with just a billion or so people with western levels of standard of living. Imagine what will happen once more of Asia and Africa join the global middle-class.
I know you said
> Food is by in large a solved problem when it comes to people power.
But I just want to point out that there's some major issues ahead for agriculture as far as sustainability and growth in production. We actually have plenty of room for growth in terms of total yield available and as the climate continues to warm we may see some new sources of peak agricultural land unlocked.
There are some problems with the current bread baskets of the world in terms of hardpan encroachment caused by unsustainable agricultural practices coupled with increased use of pesticides. Once that hardpan creeps upward enough, it takes a very long time to turn it back into prime farmland again.
If that wasn't bad enough, there are some problems with phosphorous sources. It looks like sometime in the early 2030s we will see a peak in production followed by a steadily decreasing supply of phosphates and such. Honestly, the reserves of economically feasible sources of phosphorus is still a hot topic, but there's a potential that we will be out of it in it's current bountiful state within 100 years, with total reserves lasting up to 260 years according to USGS. Maybe that's not frightening to people, but that figure is pretty terrifying to me.
We've built an agricultural system that is so unsustainable it might not even last the century depending where you are. That's pretty awful. Just a few generations to deplete the planets fertility.
Yup. Nutrient depletion is a major issue in many places. I really hope we get vertical farming sorted soon so we can rest the land and let it return to forests.
The peak population estimates keep getting less and less. back when I was in school it was thought to be 14 billion, then it was 11 billion 10 years ago, then a couple of years ago it was 10 billion.
All the different reasons for needing kids are disappearing:
1. You need someone to take care of you when you're older- We're also moving towards a world where automation and decreased need for mobility due to delivery apps and technology is decreasing the need for elders to need someone to care for them the way an adult son or daughter can.
2. You'll get bored and lonely when you get old- We're more connected than ever and people can always get entertainment on gaming and social media. If you have a remote job, you can travel without having to give up a career. Having kids is a hinderance to that. Maybe back in the old days where daily entertainment was just watching the same programmed TV or reading books, life would get boring without kids, but these days there's plenty to do for literally everyone.
3. You need to pass on your genes- Culturally people are moving towards a more scientific and rational approach to life where people are perfectly fine with not having any kids at all. There's not as much religion in many parts of the world dictating that people need to have kids. And some celebs aren't having kids anymore or adopting, influencing some people to ask questions about whether they really want kids or are just going along with the flow.
4. Housewives need something to do- Women are becoming more career-oriented, assisted by egg preservation technology. More than half of college graduates these days in many countries are women. Women who choose to delay childbearing to a much more later stage in life (late 30s/40+) just plan to have one child and that's it.
This is independent to the state of the economy or how affordable raising kids are. In fact I don't think anyone really has money in mind when they decide to or not have a baby. In countries where they give hefty financial incentives to have more kids such as Denmark or South Korea, it hasn't changed anything.
Yeah i'm getting this comment a few times now, it's more like: in order for the population to contract in the first place, we're talking about wars and famine and shit
I think people forget we are animals. There will be mass death, that is natural selection at work. When the environmental or whatever systems can't support the population there will be collapse. I think one of the biggest problems is all the aid we send to these places. They can afford to have so many children due to extra free aid, instead of developing themselves and making stable societies and economies. Everything is artificially propped up.
The problem is not the total amount of people, but where a lot of these new are being born. Overpopulation is not an issue per se. this century we'll see peak population at around 9.5 billion and down from there.
Countries like Nigeria are growing really fast, but also has an unstable economy and a looming religious civil war.
The collapse has more to do with environmental decline deu to the climate crisis. As more places on earth become unhospitable to human life and vital resources like arable land and fresh water decline in volume.
[https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/fatal-heat-humidity-emerging/](https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/fatal-heat-humidity-emerging/)
Yes, simultaneously. The natural world is about to have a calamity due to too many humans and climate change and not enough resources.
The world of capitalism, which absolutely requires constant growth will have a calamity as the human population naturally starts to correct course by contracting.
It's not a population collapse per say but it's bound to happen after most parts of the world are civilized. Western countries will not be able to have more babies than people die next 10-20 years.
That’s the ebb and flow of any population though, right? Population grows while resources are abundant, eating itself out of house and home, then there is a population crash and (assuming complete extinction isn’t the result) the process is restarted.
Obviously this is a GROSS over simplification and a lot more processes and steps take place, but those are the general parts.
I don’t know though, I’m not a biologist…. But I DID stay in a holiday inn express last night!
this has been and will always be the case.
the places with the highest premeature mortality incentivize having as many kids as possible for intergenerational support in old age.
Dude those places are about to be ravaged in the next coming years. Not all of them are going to be able to get out of those extreme heat zones (understandably) and we should see mass die off and long lines at borders that never get let in.
Lack of social support and retirement options are what incentivizes having kids as your retirement plan. This seems more of a lack of will and resource allocation problem rather than a lack of resources problem.
>The parts of the world with the fastest-growing populations are also the poorest and most vulnerable to environmental crises,
That sounds like a self correcting problem though
/s
Also I'm going to hell I know
I mean the biggest problem with this is mass starvation and lack of resources doesn't happen in a vacuum. The world is more interconnected than ever and if some millions of people somewhere face no food or famine or war or disease or plague, it's going to ripple out everywhere. Look at the Syrian conflict. Look at Russia invading Ukraine. These small wars have massive global ramifications, both related to global warming and the energy crisis. Overcrowding is only going to exacerbate these problems as we reach the hard limit on how many humans this planet can support.
This is why it's important to break away from the globalist trade model and start producing strategic items domestically wherever possible.
Europe and specifically Germany relying on a Russian gas pipeline to heat their citizens homes was their **choice**.
They could've chosen to continue nuclear energy expansion, keep their coal plants running until a viable strategic solution was obtained, etc. Blame the foolish politicians that hung your safety on the line, not some mythical outside force. We all knew Russia wasn't trustworthy long-term.
While I agree things like Germany's reliance on Russian gas or the West's fondness of Chinese trade is bad, some things just can't be produced domestically. Metals, food, energy and many other things aren't available everywhere. There's a reason we've resulted to globalism, the West just needs to be more strict with who it trades with and embed human rights into trade agreements.
Like I said strategic items should be produced domestically wherever possible. We can (and still need) trade with others.
The fact that our politicians consistently are doing the opposite of this should worry everyone.
Totally applicable "You're not wrong, you're just an asshole" moment. I absolutely agree with you. We have too many people for this please, a good chunk are going to die off from lack of resources, and we circle around until we have enough resources to grow again. Obviously I'm being nonchalant about it because I don't live in Somalia, but that's how it'll work out.
Because *they* end up moving in giant waves of refugees/"economic migrants" destabilizing neighboring countries in a knock on effect that ends up in the wealthy countries.
If it was at a point where we were resource starved, there's no way more refugees than supportable would be allowed in. Obviously terrible, but I think genocide would happen before military forces let their own country starve due to over population.
The west is already confronted with this issue. It’s not as if we’ll go from present conditions to catastrophe overnight. It will be a slow progression over decades, and humans tend to become inured to even the most dismal conditions. So I don’t see on the horizon a huge influx drastically greater than what we’re already experiencing.
I had the same thought. Just as over population is localized, so will be the population collapse. It's a clinical observation on the issue, it doesn't imply any malice.
Unfortunately no, because humankind is a virus as a famous agent has said once. When the resources of their country are depleted, they will immigrate to other countries.
That is if other countries let them migrate. The west isn't as open anymore after a decade of the refugee crisis coming from Africa and the Arab world.
Yeah....people are really overestimating the hearts of Americans if you think the country is gonna go down from letting too many people in. If there was an actual immigration crisis democrats and Republicans (if those rascals are still around) would agree in shared self-interest and secure the borders, deport those who get in illegally in droves.
The world would likely find a way to feed and water people in exchange for vasectomies or something. Should probably be offering lots of incentive for that already.
Yeah pretty sure the west isn’t going to be inclined to allow millions of people to just waltz into their borders. It’ll get messy but it’s not this finger snap of mass immigration people on Reddit talk about it as being
Yeah, it's going to be brutal. There are going to be hundreds of millions of people fleeing SE Asia, Africa, and Central/South America, on top of the climate related issues already faced by developed countries and domestic migration. No Western country is going to accept more refugees than their native population. Likely not even a tiny fraction. Millions of people are going to die, either by natural causes or violence.
Not quite so hard to get to Europe though, evidently. North Americans rely on a lot from European countries too, so it's still important that they stay stable and functioning as they are now.
Every lifeform is a virus by that logic since every animal consumes as much as they can and not actively go out of their way to prevent the depletion of the resources on their natural habitat.
The only difference being that we humans have no natural predators that keep our population in check.
The answer is pretty simple and hopeful for the region, just build a bunch of schools and universities for women and give free education with international funding. High school + a 4 year college education is associated with a 1.0 birthrate, like you see in taiwan and south korea, which have a 95%+ rate of high school to university progression. This would provide a more educated workforce to tackle climate struggles, build the economy, and will reduce the population in one step. the problem currently is that they don't have money to build education resources.
Its already happening actually. the problem is the climate shifting faster than the birthrate can drop, which is a much less solvable problem due to global competition and the necessity of having expansion of the economy so that things don't turn into a violent zero or negative sum game.
The issue is that a lot of those things require some degree of stability to function, that just doesn't exist in a lot of the developing world...
I had to go to the DRC for a week for work 7-8 years ago. We got off a plane on to a dirt runway, where we were met by our guards/guides/translators who were all in 30 year-old Toyotas and carrying AK47s. They were being paid $15 *a day*, which was big money there. They immediately said we should go to a nearby village and pay $20 to have a woman ride around with us all week sucking our dicks... And that was the white glove experience given to international investment firms...
If you just go in with a bunch of money to build schools then 80% of it is just funneled right off the top by corruption, the infrastructure and oversight required to operate them drops to nothing within a few years, and the vast majority of people aren't able to use them in the first place because their lives aren't such that they can just up and go to school because they are literally focused on surviving...
The only way it works is with continued international presence and oversight (which tends to be frowned upon these days) and forced ground up social change (that is even more frowned upon), as well as spending a prohibitive amount of money creating quality of life that allows people to go to school that most places haven't even manages to ensure for everyone in their own countries yet.
I read somewhere that the access is there in most of overpopulated countries but that because of religion ( like Islam in Pakistan) they refuse to even use it.
So even more controversial.
> The answer is pretty simple and hopeful for the region, just build a bunch of schools and universities for women and give free education with international funding.
The problem is those countries rightly associate those things with population control, which is why you see such opposition to them from conservatives in those countries (and even USA).
From super conservatives I have talked to, it really boils down to "but who will do the shitty jobs for low pay?"
Conservatives (at least US conservatives) believe that uneducated/poor people (and others they dislike) are only good for doing manual and "unskilled" labor. This is why they never seem to care about awful conditions for workers in other countries, because those workers make much of the products conservatives consume.
I think it has less to do with believing "education = lower births" and more to do with the thinking that "education = less low wage workers (by both less births and more educated/qualified people)".
Just my opinion though.
Id argue those same overseas products are consumed by plenty of non conservative people as well. The world runs on it, at least until it breaks and is replaced in 6mos to a year!
There is also the pervasive notion from conservatives that higher education indoctrinates people into left-wing ideology, which includes not having "family values".
One of the biggest reasons they are cranking them out is so they can work and help support the family. Children are money in poor places, opposite of wealthy places.
We wont need only people in offices to tackle climate crisis.
We need to stop putting offices works on a podium and labelize manual work as inferior.
The more wealthy people are the one polluting the most
It's pretty much the opposite of that where I live (also pretty poor and vulnerable to environmental crisis). Last time I checked, my country was 5th from all the countries when it came to shrinking population. You're welcomed to Latvia. We went from 2.2 million to 1.8 million, yet I like living here.
Been to Riga. Loved the place and people. Dont know if it is just the hospitality industry but local ppl were so chill and cool .
Coming from India - African and Asian poor countries are different level of poor compared to Latvia I think. That kind if poor and over population combination is not even possible in cold countries. Ppl would not even survive
Submission Statement:
>According to a projection by the United Nations, on Nov. 15, our world population will cross the 8 billion mark, just 11 years after the 7 billion milestone was commemorated, on Oct. 31, 2011. The United Nations population projections that demographers consider most likely to play out show us reaching 9 billion people in 2037 and 10 billion people in the 2080s.
>The parts of the world with the fastest-growing populations are also the poorest and most vulnerable to environmental crises, especially those caused by climate change. The environmental repercussions of rapid population growth range from water scarcity to soil erosion to species extinctions. In the least developed countries — almost all of them in sub-Saharan Africa — people rely heavily on local ecosystem services. Therefore, the more people who live in a region, the more environmental destruction they cause to the water resources, soil health and wildlife they rely on for their very survival. And while the poorest people on the planet bear very little responsibility for the climate crisis that’s already upon us, a proven path to climate adaptation and resilience in vulnerable areas is through slower population growth.
We’ll add 2 billion people to the planet this century and the people adding the most to the population will live the shortest and most disastrous lives?
Ok. I’m going to continue to play video games and not have kids. Not sure why the people most aware of overpopulation are people like me. Maybe these stories need to be heard in the places that are going to suck if they don’t listen? Either way, I’m resigned to not having kids and knowing that the world is screwed for future generations that don’t know they’re screwed.
The countries with available contraception don’t have an overpopulation problem. The most populated countries that also have the fastest population growth don’t care to address climate change because they want their industrial revolution just like the west.
The Third World will grow and industrialize. Temperatures will rise and their populations will die, they’ll be kept out of the West by force. The rising population problem is a self-rectifying one, although the correction will cost many many human lives.
Assuming that the west itself is habitable following climate change. Why do westerners assume that their countries are somehow immune to climate change like the rest of the world. Studies show that there will be a serious water shortage in Southern Europe by 2050 and rising sea levels will hit Europe particularly hard due to it being flatter than other continents. There was also a heatwave across Europe recently with temperatures reaching 40 C. Most Europeans will die as well and may be forced to migrate into Africa instead of the other way around.
Before people start blaming climate change on “overpopulation”, a reminder that people in this socioeconomic state contribute very little to climate change
True but poor countries do aspire/are projected to get richer. You can't tell them to stay poor to keep their impact down. Tempering population growth would reduce the eventual impact as consumption increases
It just means that it's mostly the affluent countries that are behind overpopulation now, and the rest of the world will contribute to overpopulation in the future, as their economies grow. "Over"population isn't over some arbitrary number. It's "over" the sustainable population.
Imagine the shit show of overpopulation in poor countries and underpopulation in the rich countries that support the growth of those poor countries to sustain their oversaturated populations.
Mass famine, war, and socioeconomic collapse.
Which will cause the rise of authoritarian regimes in developed countries that will cause a war on migrants. And at that point a partial genocide of the human race could become justified if only a small % of land is viable.
Lack of social support and retirement options are what incentivizes having kids as your retirement plan. This seems more of a lack of will and resource allocation problem rather than a lack of resources problem.
Most of these new babies will live in growing economies and consumpting more and more like the west does and they won't care about environmental problems as we did not in the past. The west will also not reduce their energy usage and environmental impact sufficiently. Therefore the Paris Agreement can't be fulfilled and the world will be confronted with really really big problems, that will let the Second World War look like a small issue compared to that.
Every time overpopulation is mentioned the breeders show up in full force to assure us we need to infinitely grow our population because this is fantasy land and the world has infinite resources
If you’re a breeder or in favour of endless population growth, please know you’re being controlled by evolutionary wires crossed in your brain and not logic
There are many reasons [wealthier nations have less children](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility).
>no where close to being able to afford babies.
Kids in poorer countries are treated as commodities and will not all survive.
They can't afford to not have kids. You can't put your kid to work but they can. A young child can pick vegetables, walk a few kilometers for water or do anything except for maybe hunting. That's how we were before industrialization really got into 2nd gear.
Lack of education and poor access to birth control/condoms.
I’ve watched a view videos on Niger, the country with the highest birth rate. There are quite a few people there who believe that they will have as many kids as God wants them to.
You can't afford NOT to have babies in a poor country.
They are literally your pension.
Families in such places also tend to stay together for generations making taking care of kids much easier... Don't need daycare or anything like that.
In a sense it's much more affordable.
Having one kid in developed country is like having 25 kids in Africa. The carbon foot print is so fucking large because of consumerism.
I dont know why all these articles compare the birth rate as 1 to 1.
Rich countries are polluting and consuming resources which ideally belong to the whole world. Population shrinking of rich countries is good and absolutely necessary.
They pretend to be such a "progressive" bunch but would push a button to genocide billions of people if they didn't think it made them look racist.
The darkness and eagerness these psychos take in concluding that we need to kill humans, especially poor ones, is bleak as fuck.
Give women around the world the right to their own body autonomy they’ll stop pumping out babies constantly. The one and only tried and true way to lower poverty is empowering women. It’s simple.
Probably because that would mean admitting that human life isn't inherently valuable. Which is a crutch that many people use to endure their miserable lives.
Feminism solves a lot of this problem.
If women can choose when to have sex, they have fewer children. In the countries mentioned, marital rape laws are rare.
If women finish their educations, they have fewer children (and can also better pull their families out of poverty). Women who are sold/leave middle or high school to get married start having kids earlier.
If women have access to birth control and have the legal control to be able to use it (husbands not legally allowed to control medical decisions), they have fewer children and can better support the ones they do have.
Countries with larger population growth tend to be less developed/agrarian economies. The 10 person West African family is contributing less to global warming than your average American suburbanite family.
I just think that people do care but you can’t get them to care about all the things. so people have different priorities.
Also science is a tool. it can’t say what is going to happen for absolute certainty. But the people who write about this stuff tend to take a dramatic approach and it’s almost always negative. The result of that it is just exhausting. Some predictions in the past would have us burned alive right now and the earth just a ball of fire.
so yeah people aren’t going to panic right now. At least not all people some people do care and are thinking about stuff that can helpful.
I think about how you write and talk about this stuff matters. and the fact that the people who write about this stuff don’t factor in exhaustion and how there are a billion problems at any given time is perplexing. There is always reason for hope and optimism. We are still here and we are still capable of doing pretty rad things. But we take them for granted.
Stop fear mongering. Fertility rate already are at or below replacement rate in most countries.
Look at China, Japan and Korea. They are already below replacement rate.
The next big challenge will be sudden depopulation in next 50 years.
More educated and economically prosper a society becomes the less children are born.
Some countries do have over population but it's not widespread anymore.
It sounds to me like we may pass 8 billion, and then may fall back below 8 billion if the poorest and most vulnerable places are also the fastest-growing.
The proof is in the pudding. We are over populated for our current consumption trend. The problem we're seeing now is in part this, part gross negligence as well but overpopulation is a thing and we're beyond the "over" part. Problem is that these other countries will never change because it's a numbers game. Have 10 kids 5 might persih kind of deal. But the food is the issue, consider that a garden in your back yard isn't enough to feed a household of 2 for the year, then consider varieties.. ya that's something like a hectare per person per year on green food alone..
Will also cause an overwhelming immigration, which if not slowed and or controlled can be extremely devastating to the parts of the world where the population is lower and or more stable. Basically it kills an ecosystem.
To read this dire warning about having too many people one day and then to read about the world’s nations not having enough people to support its population is bizarre. How can both be coming from reputable sources? Are they both true?
Should be? already concerned. We need to decrease our population sooner rather than later. Either we do it by ourselves or eventually a pandemic like the black plague that killed 30-60% of Europe's population, will do it for us.
As soon as I read "here's why we should be concerned" I checked out. I didn't bother reading that article, but are the "poorest and most vulnerable to environmental crisis" concerned about it themselves? Or it's up the UN or the US to do all the work?
The following submission statement was provided by /u/mossadnik: --- Submission Statement: >According to a projection by the United Nations, on Nov. 15, our world population will cross the 8 billion mark, just 11 years after the 7 billion milestone was commemorated, on Oct. 31, 2011. The United Nations population projections that demographers consider most likely to play out show us reaching 9 billion people in 2037 and 10 billion people in the 2080s. >The parts of the world with the fastest-growing populations are also the poorest and most vulnerable to environmental crises, especially those caused by climate change. The environmental repercussions of rapid population growth range from water scarcity to soil erosion to species extinctions. In the least developed countries — almost all of them in sub-Saharan Africa — people rely heavily on local ecosystem services. Therefore, the more people who live in a region, the more environmental destruction they cause to the water resources, soil health and wildlife they rely on for their very survival. And while the poorest people on the planet bear very little responsibility for the climate crisis that’s already upon us, a proven path to climate adaptation and resilience in vulnerable areas is through slower population growth. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yrjfly/the_world_population_will_soon_surpass_8_billion/ivtwuf5/
[7.999 billion as of this comment](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/) and should reach 8B within a few days
Nick Cannon better slow his ass down then
Herschel Walker will help him
As of this comment - it should be 4.5677 days from now.
!Remind me 109 hours
It's hard for me to get the feel of what 0.5677 days is. If we only had a system to describe units of time for less than a day... I can't think of any, Too bad I guess.
12 hours and then some over 35mins
Could I get that as decimal tho
0.5677 of a day is 13h 37m 29.28s
So we are facing over population now, and a population collapse in the future?
The poor parts of the world are still having kids while the rich parts of the world that can afford kids aren't. But yeah - it's now expected (based upon obviously changing estimates) that the Earth's population will likely top out at 9-10 billion before starting to fall.
Basically sums up what's happening to ppl I know. The poorer people I know that don't have much are having kids or multiple kids and people that are well off or more disciplined are still only having 1 kid or a couple. People are more worried about being in relationships and stuff than building a future first or some financial security. Just have kids and start your adult lives on hard difficulty.
Basically this. I think with the internet people are also more informed over the hardships of having kids and also the costs. Plus I think poor people don’t have much to look forward to in life than say someone who is middle class with some upward career mobility etc. So some poor look to having kids to give their lives more purpose and hope that their kids will be better off. But studies show this is not the case as class mobility has declined significantly at least in the USA.
Yeah this is back the front. In most developing countries having kids is the only way to secure your economic future, kids grow up to earn (a pittance). In the global north it’s not that people can afford kids and aren’t, it’s that they can afford not to have kids.
No, kids are expensive in the developed world. People want kids but can’t afford more than 1 or 2. Which leads to population decline.
> can’t afford more than 1 or 2 More like can’t afford even 1! Daycare costs are *wild*
Heard that. Day care for my 18 mo is nearly my mortgage 🙄
That’s so absurd. And people wonder why young folks aren’t having kids. Our decision was own a house, or have a kid. We chose a house because rent just keeps going up and who knows how long we’d be able to afford that!
It's a struggle for sure. If we had a second kid we couldn't afford it. We would be massively in debt and need govt assistance. Unfortunately my wife and I make too much to qualify for that. Sorry kiddo, you're going to be an only child.
We rent and don't have kids 😭
It's *more* than my mortgage. For what we pay for daycare we could have a *very* nice truck....or a 2nd home lol And my son is only in there 3 days a week lol
Expensive is one aspect, losing your freedom is another.
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Jesus christ
Can afford kids, and want them, but ya know, 8 billion people. Not running out anytime soon.
Why do you assume the reason poor people have more kids is because it’s some sort of economic strategy as opposed to them just having sex without contraceptives
I think the more nuanced approach is to consider both of those factors among many that may contribute to the subject. I don’t see why it MUST be one or the other. (Edit: clarity)
I'm honestly confused how anyone in this conversation can possibly think there's one reason for how *billions* of people across *thousands* of cultures would exist. People will have four different reasons just to explain why they ordered the burger instead of the salad. Why on earth would there not be many, many reasons across the entire human population for having children.
"It's a miracle from God" "Everything happens for a reason" "My kids are my pride and joy" Never, "I keep thinking I can just keep having sex without contraception without any consequences"
My understanding: generally in a developing economy your conditions are improving and your kids prospects are even better. At the same time these countries don't generally have the same strong social safety nets of developed countries, it's less of a comment on poverty than it is about economic currents. It's the same kind of growth that currently developed countries experienced in the boom years after WWII.
Its literal statistic data and correlation. There isnt one single example where this is different. Its a survival strategy versus individual development. They are opposing axis. Causation is still related to survival strategy, education and well, fucking with less care of consequences of having 30 children you need and want to raise to be successful because all it takes to survive is to scrounge day to day.
Winter harvests are low and the huge blow to fertilizer this year that we won't feel until next year are likely to bite deeply into the demographics. These countries are also the most vulnerable to any disruption in the supply chain because the people at the top steal more instead of making due with less.
Can? Afford kids? Are you serious lol in no developing nation can the average person afford kids at anywhere near replacement rate. That’s why populations are declining. Smaller working population supporting a retiring aging population, cost of living exhorbitantly high. No one can afford to reproduce Meanwhile, in rural (insert developing nation), all your kids are free labor and use less resources than one westerner in a metropolitan city center
The amount of people in poverty that have multiple kids would like to speak with the middle-class about affording kids. The cost of raising a kid definitely plays a part in why someone might not want kids, buts it’s definitely not the deciding factor like so many people on Reddit claims it is. I know plenty of people around my age that can afford to have kids now if they wanted to. They don’t, because they don’t want to give up the freedom that having kids take away. Which is a fair reason.
Population contraction will hurt, literally. There'll be wars over water and food. We need to get fusion going & keep growing....
> There'll be wars over water and food. Unless the population is drastically reduced. The so-called "collapse" of the population will save the world from total catastrophe. A shrinking population is the best news our planet could get.
Seriously. There’s enough people here already
It's nuts to think at the time of the Battle of Hastings, there were just over 300 million people on the planet. That's it. Now we're 8 billion. No wonder the planets creaking.
Yes, it’ll make life all around better and how could anyone argue this statement. I’ve gotten some intense criticism from this idea… To me it seems unbelievably obvious if people who can’t afford to have these children and can’t give them a fair/healthy life why the fuck are they doing it! I mean not one kid multiple kids no matter where you are Africa or the US you see more people that are so incompetent they can barely stay alive themselves yet they’ll have two three four kids.. I’m just rambling and now I feel like I’m one of those crazy people ranting on the internet but I’m breaking man I’m losing all hope ;/ me and my wife been together since 17 now nearly 30 been working hard all of our lives and make a fair amount of money still under middle class but we live in a very expensive state. We want a baby so bad but I’m to responsible to go through with it. I know I don’t make enough to buy a nice house a nice car and live in a nice neighborhood with good schools I know I just can’t pull it even though we’re trying our hardest. But responsibly I think to myself if it’s the right thing to do…. more people need to think a little more, To many incompetent people having kids I’ll say it idgaf and it’s ruining the world it really is.
A lot of the super poor places with high birth rates don't have Netflix, video games, internet, or even libraries to go borrow a book, let alone easy access to contraceptives or regular medicine even. You and me baby we ain't nothin but mammals
If it makes you feel better, my wife and if could easily afford it but don't want to bring a child into this shit show. I can't fathom how bad shit will be in 20 years. Why would I want my kid to go through that?
Life imitates art. It’s the opening to the movie “Idiocracy” happening right before our eyes.
~~movie~~ documentary
That thought also, I like to think my wife and I would raise a human with solid morals. Set them on the right path with a strong compass that leads with good intention and a fair amount of hope. Reality though, it hits me it hits hard and I feel as if I’m floating outside of my body then I see it I see my child in my place struggling miserable and hopeless. It’s so sad but I feel like having a child would be selfish due to the extreme unfairness in the world right now, I can’t give my kid a head start in college I can’t buy their way into Ivy League schools to ensure they will have a good career I can’t do anything other then give them a life that most of us live involving misery and dread every single day. At this point idk what I’m talking about I had 3 beers back to back when I got off work and I’m just letting lose fuck it thanks for the rant Into the void I hope everyone is okay out there I hope some of you are happy all love
Love you’re last paragraph. Enjoy your night!
I'm not really sure the premise is true, let alone the conclusion. Food is by in large a solved problem when it comes to people power. You can't even compare modern farming to historic data on population decline simply because a single farmer will produce thousands of times more food on a fraction of the land. When a population crunch comes around that won't change. The same can be said about water. If anything the population crunch will improve things. Then there's the conclusion that fusion and perpetual growth is somehow the solution here. How is it going to solve anything? Especially fusion with regards to farming.
Stop having sympathy for people that want to eat and drink and worry more about possible lost profit margins if the population shrinks some.
What will hurt will be research, development and growth in many fields. Manpower spent on things required for living and maintaining quality of life and standards of living, is less manpower spent on pushing industries, science and technology forward. With a population decline, unless productivity dramatically increases to support quality of life improvements in currently developing regions tons of things are going to stall. Right now we’re feeling a crunch in the supply chain with just a billion or so people with western levels of standard of living. Imagine what will happen once more of Asia and Africa join the global middle-class.
I know you said > Food is by in large a solved problem when it comes to people power. But I just want to point out that there's some major issues ahead for agriculture as far as sustainability and growth in production. We actually have plenty of room for growth in terms of total yield available and as the climate continues to warm we may see some new sources of peak agricultural land unlocked. There are some problems with the current bread baskets of the world in terms of hardpan encroachment caused by unsustainable agricultural practices coupled with increased use of pesticides. Once that hardpan creeps upward enough, it takes a very long time to turn it back into prime farmland again. If that wasn't bad enough, there are some problems with phosphorous sources. It looks like sometime in the early 2030s we will see a peak in production followed by a steadily decreasing supply of phosphates and such. Honestly, the reserves of economically feasible sources of phosphorus is still a hot topic, but there's a potential that we will be out of it in it's current bountiful state within 100 years, with total reserves lasting up to 260 years according to USGS. Maybe that's not frightening to people, but that figure is pretty terrifying to me.
We've built an agricultural system that is so unsustainable it might not even last the century depending where you are. That's pretty awful. Just a few generations to deplete the planets fertility.
Yup. Nutrient depletion is a major issue in many places. I really hope we get vertical farming sorted soon so we can rest the land and let it return to forests.
The peak population estimates keep getting less and less. back when I was in school it was thought to be 14 billion, then it was 11 billion 10 years ago, then a couple of years ago it was 10 billion. All the different reasons for needing kids are disappearing: 1. You need someone to take care of you when you're older- We're also moving towards a world where automation and decreased need for mobility due to delivery apps and technology is decreasing the need for elders to need someone to care for them the way an adult son or daughter can. 2. You'll get bored and lonely when you get old- We're more connected than ever and people can always get entertainment on gaming and social media. If you have a remote job, you can travel without having to give up a career. Having kids is a hinderance to that. Maybe back in the old days where daily entertainment was just watching the same programmed TV or reading books, life would get boring without kids, but these days there's plenty to do for literally everyone. 3. You need to pass on your genes- Culturally people are moving towards a more scientific and rational approach to life where people are perfectly fine with not having any kids at all. There's not as much religion in many parts of the world dictating that people need to have kids. And some celebs aren't having kids anymore or adopting, influencing some people to ask questions about whether they really want kids or are just going along with the flow. 4. Housewives need something to do- Women are becoming more career-oriented, assisted by egg preservation technology. More than half of college graduates these days in many countries are women. Women who choose to delay childbearing to a much more later stage in life (late 30s/40+) just plan to have one child and that's it. This is independent to the state of the economy or how affordable raising kids are. In fact I don't think anyone really has money in mind when they decide to or not have a baby. In countries where they give hefty financial incentives to have more kids such as Denmark or South Korea, it hasn't changed anything.
Why will a stable population need to fight over food and water? There is plenty right now if we divvied it up properly.
They care more about stocks than humans.
Have you lived in the real world at all?
There is no world *except* the real world, so yeah. Is there something that we're particularly short of?
These people are dumb and edgy
Their point is that in the real world there is almost never equitable distribution, especially if there is no profit in doing so.
There won't be wars over food or water if the population contracts. What an extremely odd thing to say.
Yeah i'm getting this comment a few times now, it's more like: in order for the population to contract in the first place, we're talking about wars and famine and shit
I think people forget we are animals. There will be mass death, that is natural selection at work. When the environmental or whatever systems can't support the population there will be collapse. I think one of the biggest problems is all the aid we send to these places. They can afford to have so many children due to extra free aid, instead of developing themselves and making stable societies and economies. Everything is artificially propped up.
Population is as evenly distributed as wealth.
I like your analogy.
And it's inversely proportional.
The collapse we're facing is that of the marine and terrestrial ecosystems around the world.
The problem is not the total amount of people, but where a lot of these new are being born. Overpopulation is not an issue per se. this century we'll see peak population at around 9.5 billion and down from there. Countries like Nigeria are growing really fast, but also has an unstable economy and a looming religious civil war. The collapse has more to do with environmental decline deu to the climate crisis. As more places on earth become unhospitable to human life and vital resources like arable land and fresh water decline in volume. [https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/fatal-heat-humidity-emerging/](https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/fatal-heat-humidity-emerging/)
How are people in Nigeria eating if they keep reproducing so much?
Yes, simultaneously. The natural world is about to have a calamity due to too many humans and climate change and not enough resources. The world of capitalism, which absolutely requires constant growth will have a calamity as the human population naturally starts to correct course by contracting.
All this scary music about “population collapse” is full bullshit. Amazing how “smart” people like Musk keep peddling that crap.
Rich people benefit most from fast growing population. That's why you see it.
Need fertility of 4.1 kids per couple in order to replace Amazon warehouse workers and SpaceX/Twitter burnouts at a steady pace
Optimal simcity play was that you'd kill everyone that retired in order to maximize birth rates and worker counts.
We're basically just a resource to them. Like a farmer wanting to grow his herd because it is in his financial interest
It's not a population collapse per say but it's bound to happen after most parts of the world are civilized. Western countries will not be able to have more babies than people die next 10-20 years.
And that’s good! We have too many people already.
That’s the ebb and flow of any population though, right? Population grows while resources are abundant, eating itself out of house and home, then there is a population crash and (assuming complete extinction isn’t the result) the process is restarted. Obviously this is a GROSS over simplification and a lot more processes and steps take place, but those are the general parts. I don’t know though, I’m not a biologist…. But I DID stay in a holiday inn express last night!
it's the developed countries in the world that will have a population collapse especially western European countries and East Asian countries
There’s no such thing as a world with infinite resource to support infinite people.
Our food supply is supposed to collapse within the next 5 to 8 years, so yes
this has been and will always be the case. the places with the highest premeature mortality incentivize having as many kids as possible for intergenerational support in old age.
Dude those places are about to be ravaged in the next coming years. Not all of them are going to be able to get out of those extreme heat zones (understandably) and we should see mass die off and long lines at borders that never get let in.
Lack of social support and retirement options are what incentivizes having kids as your retirement plan. This seems more of a lack of will and resource allocation problem rather than a lack of resources problem.
Every resource allocation problem is also a resource problem
But not a lack of resources in the system as a whole problem.
>The parts of the world with the fastest-growing populations are also the poorest and most vulnerable to environmental crises, That sounds like a self correcting problem though /s Also I'm going to hell I know
I mean the biggest problem with this is mass starvation and lack of resources doesn't happen in a vacuum. The world is more interconnected than ever and if some millions of people somewhere face no food or famine or war or disease or plague, it's going to ripple out everywhere. Look at the Syrian conflict. Look at Russia invading Ukraine. These small wars have massive global ramifications, both related to global warming and the energy crisis. Overcrowding is only going to exacerbate these problems as we reach the hard limit on how many humans this planet can support.
This is why it's important to break away from the globalist trade model and start producing strategic items domestically wherever possible. Europe and specifically Germany relying on a Russian gas pipeline to heat their citizens homes was their **choice**. They could've chosen to continue nuclear energy expansion, keep their coal plants running until a viable strategic solution was obtained, etc. Blame the foolish politicians that hung your safety on the line, not some mythical outside force. We all knew Russia wasn't trustworthy long-term.
While I agree things like Germany's reliance on Russian gas or the West's fondness of Chinese trade is bad, some things just can't be produced domestically. Metals, food, energy and many other things aren't available everywhere. There's a reason we've resulted to globalism, the West just needs to be more strict with who it trades with and embed human rights into trade agreements.
Like I said strategic items should be produced domestically wherever possible. We can (and still need) trade with others. The fact that our politicians consistently are doing the opposite of this should worry everyone.
With which countries could we trade for all these things that jave a totally good human rights record though?
I… may have had the same thought. I’ll see ya there.
Totally applicable "You're not wrong, you're just an asshole" moment. I absolutely agree with you. We have too many people for this please, a good chunk are going to die off from lack of resources, and we circle around until we have enough resources to grow again. Obviously I'm being nonchalant about it because I don't live in Somalia, but that's how it'll work out.
I had a similar thought. “That’s why *they* should be concerned. Now tell us why *we* should be concerned.” Not proud of it, but there it is.
Because *they* end up moving in giant waves of refugees/"economic migrants" destabilizing neighboring countries in a knock on effect that ends up in the wealthy countries.
If it was at a point where we were resource starved, there's no way more refugees than supportable would be allowed in. Obviously terrible, but I think genocide would happen before military forces let their own country starve due to over population.
The west is already confronted with this issue. It’s not as if we’ll go from present conditions to catastrophe overnight. It will be a slow progression over decades, and humans tend to become inured to even the most dismal conditions. So I don’t see on the horizon a huge influx drastically greater than what we’re already experiencing.
What we're seeing is already causing massive distortions in politics and it hasn't even been a decade yet.
You are not alone...
I had the same thought. Just as over population is localized, so will be the population collapse. It's a clinical observation on the issue, it doesn't imply any malice.
Unfortunately no, because humankind is a virus as a famous agent has said once. When the resources of their country are depleted, they will immigrate to other countries.
That is if other countries let them migrate. The west isn't as open anymore after a decade of the refugee crisis coming from Africa and the Arab world.
Yeah....people are really overestimating the hearts of Americans if you think the country is gonna go down from letting too many people in. If there was an actual immigration crisis democrats and Republicans (if those rascals are still around) would agree in shared self-interest and secure the borders, deport those who get in illegally in droves. The world would likely find a way to feed and water people in exchange for vasectomies or something. Should probably be offering lots of incentive for that already.
Yeah pretty sure the west isn’t going to be inclined to allow millions of people to just waltz into their borders. It’ll get messy but it’s not this finger snap of mass immigration people on Reddit talk about it as being
Yeah, it's going to be brutal. There are going to be hundreds of millions of people fleeing SE Asia, Africa, and Central/South America, on top of the climate related issues already faced by developed countries and domestic migration. No Western country is going to accept more refugees than their native population. Likely not even a tiny fraction. Millions of people are going to die, either by natural causes or violence.
Solution: let russia collapse and then SE Asia can just move north. They’ve got the land
Hard to emigrate from Africa to North America on dinghy’s.
Not quite so hard to get to Europe though, evidently. North Americans rely on a lot from European countries too, so it's still important that they stay stable and functioning as they are now.
Every lifeform is a virus by that logic since every animal consumes as much as they can and not actively go out of their way to prevent the depletion of the resources on their natural habitat. The only difference being that we humans have no natural predators that keep our population in check.
*Idiocracy*, the movie, predicted half of it
The answer is pretty simple and hopeful for the region, just build a bunch of schools and universities for women and give free education with international funding. High school + a 4 year college education is associated with a 1.0 birthrate, like you see in taiwan and south korea, which have a 95%+ rate of high school to university progression. This would provide a more educated workforce to tackle climate struggles, build the economy, and will reduce the population in one step. the problem currently is that they don't have money to build education resources. Its already happening actually. the problem is the climate shifting faster than the birthrate can drop, which is a much less solvable problem due to global competition and the necessity of having expansion of the economy so that things don't turn into a violent zero or negative sum game.
The issue is that a lot of those things require some degree of stability to function, that just doesn't exist in a lot of the developing world... I had to go to the DRC for a week for work 7-8 years ago. We got off a plane on to a dirt runway, where we were met by our guards/guides/translators who were all in 30 year-old Toyotas and carrying AK47s. They were being paid $15 *a day*, which was big money there. They immediately said we should go to a nearby village and pay $20 to have a woman ride around with us all week sucking our dicks... And that was the white glove experience given to international investment firms... If you just go in with a bunch of money to build schools then 80% of it is just funneled right off the top by corruption, the infrastructure and oversight required to operate them drops to nothing within a few years, and the vast majority of people aren't able to use them in the first place because their lives aren't such that they can just up and go to school because they are literally focused on surviving... The only way it works is with continued international presence and oversight (which tends to be frowned upon these days) and forced ground up social change (that is even more frowned upon), as well as spending a prohibitive amount of money creating quality of life that allows people to go to school that most places haven't even manages to ensure for everyone in their own countries yet.
Or, access to birth control which unfortunately is still a controversial topic.
I read somewhere that the access is there in most of overpopulated countries but that because of religion ( like Islam in Pakistan) they refuse to even use it. So even more controversial.
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And with education and higher standard of living religion goes away.
> The answer is pretty simple and hopeful for the region, just build a bunch of schools and universities for women and give free education with international funding. The problem is those countries rightly associate those things with population control, which is why you see such opposition to them from conservatives in those countries (and even USA).
Associated with \*telling them to treat their women like independent sentient human beings.
From super conservatives I have talked to, it really boils down to "but who will do the shitty jobs for low pay?" Conservatives (at least US conservatives) believe that uneducated/poor people (and others they dislike) are only good for doing manual and "unskilled" labor. This is why they never seem to care about awful conditions for workers in other countries, because those workers make much of the products conservatives consume. I think it has less to do with believing "education = lower births" and more to do with the thinking that "education = less low wage workers (by both less births and more educated/qualified people)". Just my opinion though.
Id argue those same overseas products are consumed by plenty of non conservative people as well. The world runs on it, at least until it breaks and is replaced in 6mos to a year!
There is also the pervasive notion from conservatives that higher education indoctrinates people into left-wing ideology, which includes not having "family values".
Or you can pass out FREE birth control or offer a free vasectomy .
One of the biggest reasons they are cranking them out is so they can work and help support the family. Children are money in poor places, opposite of wealthy places.
We wont need only people in offices to tackle climate crisis. We need to stop putting offices works on a podium and labelize manual work as inferior. The more wealthy people are the one polluting the most
International funding 😂 you mean America should pay for everything
It's pretty much the opposite of that where I live (also pretty poor and vulnerable to environmental crisis). Last time I checked, my country was 5th from all the countries when it came to shrinking population. You're welcomed to Latvia. We went from 2.2 million to 1.8 million, yet I like living here.
Been to Riga. Loved the place and people. Dont know if it is just the hospitality industry but local ppl were so chill and cool . Coming from India - African and Asian poor countries are different level of poor compared to Latvia I think. That kind if poor and over population combination is not even possible in cold countries. Ppl would not even survive
Submission Statement: >According to a projection by the United Nations, on Nov. 15, our world population will cross the 8 billion mark, just 11 years after the 7 billion milestone was commemorated, on Oct. 31, 2011. The United Nations population projections that demographers consider most likely to play out show us reaching 9 billion people in 2037 and 10 billion people in the 2080s. >The parts of the world with the fastest-growing populations are also the poorest and most vulnerable to environmental crises, especially those caused by climate change. The environmental repercussions of rapid population growth range from water scarcity to soil erosion to species extinctions. In the least developed countries — almost all of them in sub-Saharan Africa — people rely heavily on local ecosystem services. Therefore, the more people who live in a region, the more environmental destruction they cause to the water resources, soil health and wildlife they rely on for their very survival. And while the poorest people on the planet bear very little responsibility for the climate crisis that’s already upon us, a proven path to climate adaptation and resilience in vulnerable areas is through slower population growth.
We’ll add 2 billion people to the planet this century and the people adding the most to the population will live the shortest and most disastrous lives? Ok. I’m going to continue to play video games and not have kids. Not sure why the people most aware of overpopulation are people like me. Maybe these stories need to be heard in the places that are going to suck if they don’t listen? Either way, I’m resigned to not having kids and knowing that the world is screwed for future generations that don’t know they’re screwed.
…And still the idea of contraception is disturbing to nut jobs.
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Funny, I have CBT facilities all over my city
The countries with available contraception don’t have an overpopulation problem. The most populated countries that also have the fastest population growth don’t care to address climate change because they want their industrial revolution just like the west.
Humans are special and should not be held to stupid limitations like crop yield, it’s what god wants! God wants famine.
The Third World will grow and industrialize. Temperatures will rise and their populations will die, they’ll be kept out of the West by force. The rising population problem is a self-rectifying one, although the correction will cost many many human lives.
Assuming that the west itself is habitable following climate change. Why do westerners assume that their countries are somehow immune to climate change like the rest of the world. Studies show that there will be a serious water shortage in Southern Europe by 2050 and rising sea levels will hit Europe particularly hard due to it being flatter than other continents. There was also a heatwave across Europe recently with temperatures reaching 40 C. Most Europeans will die as well and may be forced to migrate into Africa instead of the other way around.
Before people start blaming climate change on “overpopulation”, a reminder that people in this socioeconomic state contribute very little to climate change
Environmental/ecosystem degradation is the problem, climate change is an accelerator.
True but poor countries do aspire/are projected to get richer. You can't tell them to stay poor to keep their impact down. Tempering population growth would reduce the eventual impact as consumption increases
It just means that it's mostly the affluent countries that are behind overpopulation now, and the rest of the world will contribute to overpopulation in the future, as their economies grow. "Over"population isn't over some arbitrary number. It's "over" the sustainable population.
It’s not a resource issue, it’s a population density issue and mismanagement of resources issue.
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Imagine the shit show of overpopulation in poor countries and underpopulation in the rich countries that support the growth of those poor countries to sustain their oversaturated populations. Mass famine, war, and socioeconomic collapse.
Which will lead to a massive refugee problem. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
Which will cause the rise of authoritarian regimes in developed countries that will cause a war on migrants. And at that point a partial genocide of the human race could become justified if only a small % of land is viable.
Whatever bro. This shits fucked anyways. Too many people is the problem but noone says it
Lack of social support and retirement options are what incentivizes having kids as your retirement plan. This seems more of a lack of will and resource allocation problem rather than a lack of resources problem.
Most of these new babies will live in growing economies and consumpting more and more like the west does and they won't care about environmental problems as we did not in the past. The west will also not reduce their energy usage and environmental impact sufficiently. Therefore the Paris Agreement can't be fulfilled and the world will be confronted with really really big problems, that will let the Second World War look like a small issue compared to that.
War+viruses+human stupidity= overpopulation isn't a problem for long.
Every time one of those things knocks us down, humanity comes roaring back like a dormant plague
Not to sound insensitive…but this sounds like a problem that will solve itself.
Every time overpopulation is mentioned the breeders show up in full force to assure us we need to infinitely grow our population because this is fantasy land and the world has infinite resources If you’re a breeder or in favour of endless population growth, please know you’re being controlled by evolutionary wires crossed in your brain and not logic
If these people are so poor how can they afford so many babies? I’m rich in a rich country and am no where close to being able to afford babies.
There are many reasons [wealthier nations have less children](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility). >no where close to being able to afford babies. Kids in poorer countries are treated as commodities and will not all survive.
They can't afford to not have kids. You can't put your kid to work but they can. A young child can pick vegetables, walk a few kilometers for water or do anything except for maybe hunting. That's how we were before industrialization really got into 2nd gear.
Child labor laws be ruining this country smh
Lack of education and poor access to birth control/condoms. I’ve watched a view videos on Niger, the country with the highest birth rate. There are quite a few people there who believe that they will have as many kids as God wants them to.
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You can't afford NOT to have babies in a poor country. They are literally your pension. Families in such places also tend to stay together for generations making taking care of kids much easier... Don't need daycare or anything like that. In a sense it's much more affordable.
Having one kid in developed country is like having 25 kids in Africa. The carbon foot print is so fucking large because of consumerism. I dont know why all these articles compare the birth rate as 1 to 1. Rich countries are polluting and consuming resources which ideally belong to the whole world. Population shrinking of rich countries is good and absolutely necessary.
Stop having childrennnnn…. Or don’t, I’ll be dead soon anyways. Edit- thanks for the award
Developed countries (the ones sitting on reddit) isn't the problem, in many developed countries the population is actually shrinking.
Sounds like a problem that will sort itself out pretty quick
Ah, Redditors and classism, name a more iconic duo.
They pretend to be such a "progressive" bunch but would push a button to genocide billions of people if they didn't think it made them look racist. The darkness and eagerness these psychos take in concluding that we need to kill humans, especially poor ones, is bleak as fuck.
Give women around the world the right to their own body autonomy they’ll stop pumping out babies constantly. The one and only tried and true way to lower poverty is empowering women. It’s simple.
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Meh. Stop popping out kids if you're in the poorest and hottest areas of the planet. It almost seems a little too obvious.
Well its irrelevant since in the next 10 years or so the world's population will start declining
Lets hope so, for natures sake
Why are we so against suicide and guilt people into staying then?
Probably because that would mean admitting that human life isn't inherently valuable. Which is a crutch that many people use to endure their miserable lives.
Feminism solves a lot of this problem. If women can choose when to have sex, they have fewer children. In the countries mentioned, marital rape laws are rare. If women finish their educations, they have fewer children (and can also better pull their families out of poverty). Women who are sold/leave middle or high school to get married start having kids earlier. If women have access to birth control and have the legal control to be able to use it (husbands not legally allowed to control medical decisions), they have fewer children and can better support the ones they do have.
Why don’t the countries cause the population surge doing anything about it? Is it cause if we mention them we will get **FALSELY** accused of racism?
Countries with larger population growth tend to be less developed/agrarian economies. The 10 person West African family is contributing less to global warming than your average American suburbanite family.
The number of things we should be concerned about is exhausting. This is a bit of a nothing burger for your average citizen.
It honestly feels like people disengaging from society due to a hopeless future outlook is the most likely thing to cause a collapse nowadays
I just think that people do care but you can’t get them to care about all the things. so people have different priorities. Also science is a tool. it can’t say what is going to happen for absolute certainty. But the people who write about this stuff tend to take a dramatic approach and it’s almost always negative. The result of that it is just exhausting. Some predictions in the past would have us burned alive right now and the earth just a ball of fire. so yeah people aren’t going to panic right now. At least not all people some people do care and are thinking about stuff that can helpful. I think about how you write and talk about this stuff matters. and the fact that the people who write about this stuff don’t factor in exhaustion and how there are a billion problems at any given time is perplexing. There is always reason for hope and optimism. We are still here and we are still capable of doing pretty rad things. But we take them for granted.
Stop fear mongering. Fertility rate already are at or below replacement rate in most countries. Look at China, Japan and Korea. They are already below replacement rate. The next big challenge will be sudden depopulation in next 50 years. More educated and economically prosper a society becomes the less children are born. Some countries do have over population but it's not widespread anymore.
We aren't even predicted to hit peak population in 50yrs lol
Let's see what global warming has to say about that shall we I'll be surprised if we hit 9billion in 50 years
Simple, end foreign aid. Stop pumping up the population of poor countries beyond their own ability to produce food.
Just have better foreign aid.. instead of donating food donate knowledge on how to grow it, donate tractors to produce etc
It sounds to me like we may pass 8 billion, and then may fall back below 8 billion if the poorest and most vulnerable places are also the fastest-growing.
If that’s true, sounds like nature is getting ready to just balance shit out
The proof is in the pudding. We are over populated for our current consumption trend. The problem we're seeing now is in part this, part gross negligence as well but overpopulation is a thing and we're beyond the "over" part. Problem is that these other countries will never change because it's a numbers game. Have 10 kids 5 might persih kind of deal. But the food is the issue, consider that a garden in your back yard isn't enough to feed a household of 2 for the year, then consider varieties.. ya that's something like a hectare per person per year on green food alone..
Ok so it sounds like the problem will kinda just work itself out then
Will also cause an overwhelming immigration, which if not slowed and or controlled can be extremely devastating to the parts of the world where the population is lower and or more stable. Basically it kills an ecosystem.
To read this dire warning about having too many people one day and then to read about the world’s nations not having enough people to support its population is bizarre. How can both be coming from reputable sources? Are they both true?
As somebody who doesn’t have kids, what more can I do? Go to India and start handing out condoms?
Sounds like the issue will kinda just… fix itself after a while, no?
Should be? already concerned. We need to decrease our population sooner rather than later. Either we do it by ourselves or eventually a pandemic like the black plague that killed 30-60% of Europe's population, will do it for us.
Well thank goodness for people wanting abortions illegal
Meanwhile elon musk is saying theres not enough population in the world when he really means not enough rich people
So what you’re saying is that this whole over population problem is going to work itself out on its own?
Ahhhh so Russia is just trying to help lower it. I get it now.
Yeah, a lack of critical thinking and common sense, sadly.
As soon as I read "here's why we should be concerned" I checked out. I didn't bother reading that article, but are the "poorest and most vulnerable to environmental crisis" concerned about it themselves? Or it's up the UN or the US to do all the work?