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Here is the Hans Rosling video explaining why that's not a problem: https://www.gapminder.org/videos/will-saving-poor-children-lead-to-overpopulation/ https://w

• manicdee 10y ago
  That's Hans Rosling explaining why population growth is not as big a problem as some people think it will be. It is still a problem, make no mistake. edit: the problem comes from factors such as fresh water supplies, energy production, food production and transport. Once you start using more power to produce fresh water, you end up in a precarious highly industrialised future where the entire population becomes much more vulnerable to sabotage or incompetence. Even worse, most power production schemes of the scale required will also consume fresh water themselves. We need to find a way to maintain an acceptable quality of life with minimal energy expenditure, so that the entire population can live at that standard without destroying the planet in doing so.
• harshreality 10y ago
  Seems like he's assuming changing one of these changes all: child mortality == poverty == lack of education == large families High fertility rates, poverty, low education, lack of affordable birth control, child mortality... these and other things cluster together. What's causing what? If you found a genie and wished for an end to kids dying in Africa, with no intervention in any other parameters, how much do you really think that would change the fertility rate? They're not having lots of kids just to have lots of kids, right? There's some other underlying motivation or cause. Either the kids are accidents, or there's a reason — perhaps an economic motivation — to have lots of kids? What underlying reason for high fertility rates is going to be addressed by stopping kids from dying?
  • bluthru 10y ago
    To support your point: look at the fertility rate of Mexican-Americans.
  • kalleboo 10y ago
    Wikipedia has a lot of sources on the topic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_factor_(demography) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_factor_(demography) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
  • willvarfar 10y ago
    The harsh reality is that Hans spent his life trying to educate people and get them draw conclusions from data instead of repeating their prejudices.
    • chappi42 10y ago
      Sorry, but the harsh reality is that data (models) not always work. Especially for complex things. Remember 'The Limits to Growth'? His videos are certainly well made. Motion Charts let you visualize/see numbers nicely and help popularize certain insights. But don't be too hasty with conclusions. Much didn't work in the past. Or was know already but knowledge alone doesn't mean that it can be implemented.
• bluthru 10y ago
  I'm not convinced. If we took a Star Trek "Prime Directive" approach and didn't interfere with Africa, why wouldn't their population be at a naturally lower carrying capacity? Is it really wise to use all of that money in a part of the world where their carbon footprint is small, versus spending it on reducing the carbon footprint in the first world? Why are we exacerbating the problem by making Africa more developed and therefore worse for climate change? In the short term, we could be left with a greater number of Africans who leave Africa because of climate change issues way before 2100 when their population will supposedly level off.
  • pizza 10y ago
    Because humans are good at increasing Earth's human carrying capacity
    • bluthru 10y ago
      We're actually horrible at it, considering that we're producing CO2 at an unsustainable rate.