----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Tobis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 6:10 PM Subject: [Global Change: 1829] breaking the population bomb taboo
> > It sort of disappeared from the radar for a generation, but someone > has had the nerve to raise the population bomb issue again. That > someone would be Chris Rapley, who is William's boss, I reckon. > > http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2714840.ece > The population growth rate is slowing, as the article states: "UN figures foresee numbers leveling out at a point when we have between 8 and 10 billion humans by 2050." If the second derivative remains negative, a decline will follow. Should this be hurried up (and how)? I would suggest giving greater attention to demographer's understanding of the factors driving this slowdown - much greater attention than the author gives. He describes "two possible explanations", although the first explanation "an inherent tendency of societies to find an equilibrium between births and deaths" is bizarre, I've never seen anything like it advanced in the demography literature (citations please). The second explanation offered is "improvements in medical practice and technology", but this is a trivialization. If we wish to advocate population control policy we need to examine (as demographers have for decades) the forces impinging on reproductive decision-making by couples. Women's education and elevated economic status are widely regarded as the most important conditions for birth rate reductions. To get a better sense of what can be done to defuse "the population bomb" please consult http://www.popcouncil.org/ for a wide-ranging discussion of humane solutions. Just because some segments of the scientific community are unfamiliar with current topics in population science does not mean that it has been ignored for "a generation" by everyone. One should not go further in the "population v. environment" discussion without first reading the consensus statement of major social and environmental scientists on the subject: "Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment" K Arrow, et al. -dl --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
