sbishop@desire.wright.edu (04/07/91)
Someone asked what the World Population Data Sheet is. It is produced by the Population Reference Bureau in Washington DC as a classroom aid for educators. It is part of the curiculum in an upper level undergrad class I am taking on Population Demographics. It contains mid-1988 estimates, crude birth and death rates, Rate of natural increase, population doubling time (based on a constant rate of natural increase), population projections for 2000 and 2020, infant mortality rate, total fertility rate, pop. under 15/over 65, life expectancy at birth, urban population, data availability (approximate reliability of data), contraceptive use (current), government view of fertility lever (High, satisfactory, too low), and GNP. All this for the vast majority of countries in the world. Also totals for different regions such as the continents (approximately, anyway). As for the projection of pop. growth that was discussed earlier. There are three different scenarios in my sheet. All of them show very little difference until after the year 2000. At that point the high projects a total pop of 14.2 by 2100, the middle a total pop. of 10.2 in 2100 and the low a pop. of 7.5 in 2100. These are from United Nations projections. So I have a TON of information at my fingertips. Any questions? sue b
szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) (04/11/91)
In article <1991Apr6.205855.3131@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes: > >[Population Data Sheet] >It is part of the curiculum in an upper level undergrad class >I am taking on Population Demographics.... >As for the projection of pop. growth that was discussed earlier. There are >three different scenarios in my sheet. All of them show very little >difference until after the year 2000. At that point the high projects >a total pop of 14.2 by 2100, the middle a total pop. of 10.2 in 2100 >and the low a pop. of 7.5 in 2100. These are from United Nations >projections. What processes and variables are used to create the three scenarios? What are the _rates_ of growth predicted for 2100 and why? The World Bank figures show ZPG in 2050 at 10.5 billion +/- 500 million, by fitting the curve for changes in the rate of growth, not just projecting the latest rate of growth linearly. It did not project beyond this. My thesis is that beyond the ZPG point population growth will not "level out", it will become negative, reaching an equilibrium of -50%/generation. This is based on the statistics of populations with the best access to birth control -- 2.0 or less births per woman per lifetime, and c. 50% of pregnancies unplanned. The negative population growth will happen sooner for some cultures than others, and is indeed starting to occur in some societies today. So far, we have come up with _no_ solutions to this problem that are not politically or morally unacceptable. These problems need to be looked at more closely. I am soliciting ideas, especially from those who have the largest stakes in child bearing and raising. The Japanese baby dearth has been mentioned, and one solution proposed is encouraging immigration. This is politically anemetha to the Japanese, and over the long run it is morally questionable for reasons of cultural survival. In the U.S., where we mix and match several different cultures, it is perhaps easy to lose site of those cultures with unique sets of languages, traditions and values, and it may be that we forget the need to keep these traditions and values alive by perpetuating one's own culture instead of encouraging the growth and influx of others at the expense of one's own. Since we have lived in an expanding culture, with no need to concern ourselves about survival, our political instincts clash with the reality some cultures are starting to face. In the case of Japan, it may be a long time before the culture is threatened (depending on how much decline impact is considered acceptable -- a highly charged topic, I'm afraid). In the case of Hungary, dropping at 1%/year, it may not be so long. In the case of Amazonian tribes, unique sets of languages, traditions, and values are breathing their last gasp right now. All societies, sooner or later, will need to come to grips with the problems of population decline and cultural survival. -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with.
mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) (04/15/91)
In article <21531@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >The World Bank figures show ZPG in 2050 at 10.5 billion +/- 500 million, >by fitting the curve for changes in the rate of growth, not just projecting >the latest rate of growth linearly. It did not project beyond this. > >My thesis is that beyond the ZPG point population growth will not "level >out", it will become negative, reaching an equilibrium of -50%/generation. Who cares? 10.5 billion is an obscenely huge population that we won't be able to sustain anyway. The current 5 or so billion is too many. The only way we can currently feed all these people is by using large amounts of chemicals in our agriculture. We can't keep that up forever. Let's face it. The Earth is overpopulated now. Downward trends observed in the West are irrelevant. Marc R. Roussel mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) (04/17/91)
In article <1991Apr15.044039.7333@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) writes: >>[I write] beyond the ZPG point population growth will not "level >>out", it will become negative, reaching an equilibrium of -50%/generation. >Who cares? Anybody who cares about their culture, or the cultures of others, that would die out under negative population growth. Anybody who cares about the long term for our species in general. Alas, most of us are still so caught up in the old "overpopulation" paradigm that we can't see the other side of the coin. -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "The biscuits and the syrup never come out even" -- Robert A. Heinlein The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with.
mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) (04/19/91)
In article <21564@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: >In article <1991Apr15.044039.7333@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> >mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) writes: > >>>[I write] beyond the ZPG point population growth will not "level >>>out", it will become negative, reaching an equilibrium of -50%/generation. > >>Who cares? > >Anybody who cares about their culture, or the cultures of others, that >would die out under negative population growth. Anybody who cares about >the long term for our species in general. It's really quite an unfair debating tactic to take one statement out of context and ridicule it in public. Anyway, there's no doubt that some cultures will have a rougher go of it than others and I'm quite aware of that, being a member of such a culture, but sometimes you have to look at the global situation and forget about the specific situations of cultures which have deliberately chosen a low growth path. Every year, thousands of acres of forest are cut down to make way for farming. Unless you can tell me how we can stop this and still take the extra 5 billion people which you predict we'll be seeing, I submit to you that worrying about negative population growth which our species as a whole has never seen is a little premature. We have no idea what all of these people will do to the living environment of this planet and I don't like the idea of experimenting with this sort of average population density on the only planet we're ever likely to occupy. If you don't like this argument, forget about ecology. Just the political instability that will result from such crowding will cause far more havoc with those locally declining populations you seem to be so worried about than the birth rate problem. Finally, if you want an example of a population whose birth rate declined for a long time but now seems to be on the increase again, look at Quebec. The predictions of long-term negative population growth in industrialized countries may be premature... Marc R. Roussel mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca