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World Population Expected To Hit 7 Billion In Late October
kkleiner writes "A new report documents the prodigious rate at which the world's population is growing. It was just 1999 when we reached 6 billion. And now within the next month or two we will have surpassed 7 billion. What does the continued increase in world population mean for humanity and for the the planet?"
Our consumption of their resources is *why* they consume less. You are the cause of their resource scarcity.
No.
This is one of the most retrograde ways of thinking available to the third world. A good deal of the Left in Latin America adopt this thesis (read Eduardo Galeano, an Uruguayan author, for an example). But the third world is sucks because it's own failings. I'm a citizen of Brazil so I'll take the examples from here since I know it's history better.
Back when Brazil was a Portuguese colony it showed an amazing period of growth when gold as discovered in the current Minas Gerais state (indeed, Minas Gerais means General Mines). Since the gold industry created a small middle class, a small number of industries (textiles) and trade (food, from southern Brazil and leather from northeastern Brazil) was developed internally. This could be the seed for Brazil starting it's own industry early on it's history. By 1785 the Portuguese taxed us to hell (the "derrama", a full fifth of all gold profits besides normal taxes) and then prohibited the industry at all to be developed in the colony. Besides a few angry manifestos, the Brazilians did nothing. It should be noted that Brazilians had no representation in the Portuguese Cortes.
Ten years before the Americans fought their independence war. It was the time for Brazil to do the same. We didn't. We never did, actually. Brazil stopped being a colony after Portugal was invaded by Napoleon and the royal family fled to Rio de Janeiro. Brazil was then elevated to the status of United Kingdom of Brazil, Portugal and Algarves. By 1822 a royal prince "gave" the Brazilian independence and took the crown to himself. As part of "reparations" Brazil gave (a lot of) money to Portugal and promised not to conquest the other Portuguese colonies. Instead of kicking their asses back to Europe, like the Americans did to the English.
My country own history is similar to much of the history of Hispanic America and Africa. The third world is shitty because of it's own failing and nothing else. Of course, the first world did nothing to help but it's not it's responsibility. It's a dog eat dog world and countries should look for themselves.
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
Unlikely. Nearly all population growth is occurring in developing countries. They would handily lose any war with the industrialized countries where most of the food is grown and consumption takes place. Most industrialized countries are at or near zero growth, with some experiencing negative growth (they are shrinking in population).
For whatever reasons, industrialization leads to lower population growth. What's needed to arrest global population growth is to provide education, engineering expertise, contraception, and economic assistance to developing nations so they can modernize their economies ASAP. Providing food, water, and medicinal aid actually exacerbates the problem. They increase survival rates in developing countries without doing anything to stem their high population growth rates, making it that much harder to modernize those countries and increasing their future reliance on foreign aid.
In other words, as contradictory as it may seem, modernization towards self-sufficiency and economic globalization combat global population growth. Anti-globalization and reliance solely on humanitarianism allow it to continue or even exacerbate it.
You realize leveling 1st world countries would just reboot things back into the same right? It's not a solution, just delaying everything.