3052: Population
Throughout human history, the biological imperative to reproduce ones genes in the bodies of children has been the norm. During the first decade of the 21st century in the US, the fertility rate has been 2.1 children per woman. The birth rate is 18.14/1000 population and the death rate is 8.27/1000 population. That leaves 9.87 more births than deaths. Just on current population growth, we would add about 3 million people per year. Over a thousand years, that could add 3 billion people to the USA alone.
The concept of individual liberties and freedoms of choice is not likely to stand in the face of the realities of population growth even at the lowest levels. Today we support motherhood and childhood of millions of low or no wage households. This condition exists due to the lack of education that is linked with a job that pays enough to support the family. It is the result of indiscriminant sexual activity that results in a child that cannot be supported by the mother alone when the father is absent for any number of reasons. It is also the result of families that started out financially stable and were marginalized by a shift in the labor market that made local employers relocate elsewhere or completely evaporate as when the house building market slows down and construction workers have nothing to build, or when the automotive industry over builds its inventory with models that are no longer suited to the cost of liquid fuel. Many of the reasons for society having to support mothers and children are out of the hands of the mothers and fathers themselves. Out of the hands that is unless you consider the freedom to have sex and pleasure without considering the ramifications to society. Rarely does one put those considerations on the checklist of what to do to get ready for a hot date.
Failing to curtail births will result in more people whose labors are not needed yet who will need food, shelter, medical care, and entertainment.
China has tried the authoritarian approach to population control. It is the one family-one child rule. It is difficult enough to get people to follow such a rule, and even more difficult to implement a remedy when the law is violated. Forced abortions and forced adoptions have split the country along moral lines. In the western provinces of China along the border with Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan there is an ethnic group of Muslims who live in the controlled territory of China but more closely align with the Muslims across the official and disputed territory Arunachal Pradesh to the base of the Himalayas. They seek separation from the godless Beijing government and alignment with the Islamic government partly citing the curbs on population growth which include abortions.
The next thousand years will certainly bring with it some widespread culling of the population of the earth by either natural biological, geologic/climatic, or man-made vectors. The more desirable approach is to allow the natural processes to do their job of controlling populations. Even though in the US we are faced with the retirement of the Baby Boom generation, those born in the years 1946 to 1964, and who started reaching 60 years of age in 2006, that too will pass. By 2030 the vanguard will be in excess of 85 or will be dead. By 2050, the last of the Baby Boomers will be 85+ or dead, too. After that the population will be on a downward trend and we will have to have learned a lesson about what to do to maintain a sustainable environment. There is however, a new generation spawned of the Baby Boom Generations which is nearly as large as the boomer cohort. They are not as wealthy, not as independent and not as prolific as have been their parents. Until now in 2008, we have not had to consider that part of the equation. We could just keep expanding.
3052 will see a huge population of humans each requiring his and her share of the planet's resources and energy production. We shall need to revise our strategies in order to continue on this planet. The per capita contribution of CO2 and material wastes must be significantly lowered in order to not destroy the biosphere that we rely upon.
Everything being connected to everything else demonstrates that we cannot do one thing badly without negatively impacting other aspects of our lives. For example, we will not be able to all have personal automobiles and drive anywhere and everywhere we want to indiscriminately. Our daily routines will necessarily require far less travel to accomplish. Housing densities will be far greater due to the lack of new land to dedicate to dwellings as well as the limits on available resources for travel. Three billion people in the US cannot be allowed to operate 1.5 billion automobiles even if we could devise a non-polluting motive energy source. Even the tires we burn up on the pavement contributes to environmental pollution. Just to park those automobiles would require over 10,700 square miles of spaces. Then there would need to be another 10,700 sqmi to park them at a destination.
Although residential and work densities will need to be far greater, we will have learned over the 1,000 years that there is an upside limit to how dense that number ought to be. Too great a density foments stresses and anxieties that are destructive to human societies.
Population size and overall growth is dependent upon to
rates. One is the birth rate, the number of live births per 100,000 women. The
other is the death rate measured in the life expectancy of males and females.
Throughout the latter part of the 20th Century and into the 21st, is has been
the lowering of the death rate not the birth rate that had most driven
population size. With successive improvements in health care and the removal of
hazards in the environment, people are living longer. Fully 20 to 25% of the world's population is
composed of people who are 65 and older. Back in 1900 life expectancy was
measured at 35 to 40 years of age. That 20% number represents 1.4 billion
humans around the world.
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With relation to the Food 3052 chapter, the Millennials
(those born in the years ranging from the early 1980s to the
early 2000s) will be the first generation to have a shorter life expectancy
than their parents. This change will be in part due to eating choices, the
contamination of food and water by various industries, and the overall changes
in the climate.
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