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Tag(s): Abortion; Abortion; Bangladesh; China; Economic; Economic Parity; Economics; Education; Education; Education; (more...) Global Warming; India; International Economics; Marriage; Overpopulation; People; Population Growth; Poverty; Women; World (less...)
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September 7, 2008 at 14:12:43

Headlined on 9/7/08:
The Challenge of Population Growth

by Mahfuz R. Chowdhury Page 1 of 2 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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The world's population reached six and a half billion in 2006, and is quickly approaching 7 billion. It appears to be increasing at a rate of about 6.5 million a month or 78 million a year. From a purely mathematical point of view, at the current growth rate of 1.16 per cent per year, the world's population will double in 60 years. However, it is being projected to grow to 9 billion by 2050 (as per the United Nations). If this projection holds, it would be an improvement over an earlier forty-year period (1960 to 2000) during which the population of the world practically doubled, from 3 to 6 billion.

The key point here is that the world's population keeps growing and will continue to grow unless there is a conscious effort by us to limit its growth, or nature imposes some kind of control (like the recent earthquake in China, or the cyclones and tsunami in South and Southeast Asia).

Social scientists from time to time have pondered over the problem of population growth, and rendered their individual opinions on it. Thomas Malthus, an English economist, gained fame by bringing the problem of population growth to the forefront in 1798. His central argument was that population grows at a geometric rate while food output grows at an arithmetic rate, and that makes food scarcity inevitable. His theory was later dismissed for promoting pessimism on the ground that it failed to consider technological advances in agriculture and food production.

To be sure, technology has achieved miracles and brought enormous successes in innumerable areas, especially in information technology. In terms of agriculture or food production, the result is also astounding. By applying modern technology with improved seeds, fertilizer, irrigation and machinery, it may now be conceivable that a country like the United States could produce enough food to feed the whole world. But the reality is not only different, it also is quite agonizing. As has been noted in the reports of the United Nations, World Bank and World Factbook, there are now over three billion people in the world who live in abject poverty, and a billion or about one third of them continue to suffer from severe starvation and malnutrition.

It should, therefore, be obvious that the burden of population growth basically lies with the poor countries. In developed countries, where the unemployment rate is low and future job opportunities are high, population levels aren't growing, and some countries even face shrinking populations. Some of these low growth countries are trying to encourage their citizens to become more family oriented and raise more children so that future labor shortages could be averted and their pay-as-you-go social security systems, in which pension supplements are financed by taxes on workers, could be sustained.

However, the situation in developing countries is quite the opposite. There the unemployment rates are extremely high-in some cases as high as 60 percent-and they don't have enough resources to provide their citizens with even the bare necessities of life such as food, clothing and shelter, let alone creating sufficient job opportunities. Since they can't take care of the people they already have, any increase in population simply brings an extra burden on them. But no matter what, more and more people keep filling up these countries every day, month, and year.

For a country like India, which has a population of 1.15 billion, this means preparing dinner for an extra 50,000 people every single night of the year. And for a poor country like Ethiopia, with a per capita GDP of only $800 a year and a population growth rate of 2.23 per cent, it means over 4,700 additional mouths to feed every day.

One important factor that plays a key role in population growth is the level of education. The higher the level of education of people, the less they tend to grow. The major reason is that an educated person is apt to delay marriage or having a child until a steady income has been secured. The education levels in the affluent societies being high, their growth rates have fallen. As both parents are often busy with their careers, they have little time or interest in nurturing too many kids. In this regard, education of girls is especially important, argues economist Jeffrey Sachs in his book - Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, 2008.

The growth rate among educated people in the developing countries has also come down to a considerable extent. But the growth rate among the underprivileged people who continue to constitute a huge majority remains high. Since the poor people have no steady income (some practically live hand to mouth), they customarily want more children as security and support in old age. They usually get married very early and produce children that they can't educate or even support. The great irony is that the children born in such a situation tend to breed more of the same year after year. So the reduction in population growth among educated people in the developing countries is being more than compensated by the increase among the underprivileged. Naturally, because of their lack of proper resources, population increase in poor countries is seen as a big curse and a serious hindrance to their economic expansion.

Take the example of Bangladesh, the seventh largest country in the world in population. By every measure the country has made improvements in education, healthcare, and most importantly achieved a respectable economic growth rate of, on average, 5 per cent annually in recent years. Yet, the country's poverty level has not come down, and studies show that in real terms it has gone up. In addition to the massive corruption in the country, the main reason for this is the high growth rate among its underprivileged population. The country adds about 3 million to its population every year, where the density of population is already one of the highest in the world. At the current growth rate of 2.02 per cent, per the World Factbook (a lower growth rate is quoted in other reports) the country's population of 150 million is likely to double in 35 years. This will be very similar to the current U.S. population living within the confines of the state of Wisconsin - a state the size of Bangladesh.

Additionally, Bangladesh is a low lying country, and most of its land mass is close to the sea level. As the sea level rises because of the effect of global warming, it is expected that half of the country will be submerged under water in the next 50 or so years. In fact, not only Bangladesh, the fate of many other low lying but heavily populated areas or countries of the world like Bangladesh will be the same when the sea level rises. Now, imagine the inevitable crisis such a situation would create!

The adverse effect of climate change is no longer a theory. Clear evidence of it is being presented in various empirical studies including those of the United Nations. It is believed to have already affected us in one vital area – the world food supply. Lack of rainfall or drought condition in farmlands of Australia and elsewhere and excessive rainfall in other places of the world in recent years have significantly reduced food production. The latest massive flooding in the farmlands of the United States might also be attributed to the effect of climate change.

Rice is one of the staple foods of the world. The rice exporting countries have since curtailed or stopped exporting rice altogether. Not only rice, the shortage in other staples such as corn and soybean (many believe their increased diversion to the production of bio-fuel has made the already bad situation even worse) is being gravely felt globally. The massive food shortage in the world has created serious havoc everywhere, and many developing countries are now struggling to meet the challenge of food shortages. One government, namely Haiti's, fell because it failed to avert food shortages.

The World Bank's report on the supply of food suggests that massive starvation in developing countries cannot be averted unless developed countries make a concerted effort to increase food production.

Thus, the challenge of population growth is not imaginary but real for developing countries. In fact, the prospect of their achieving meaningful economic expansion seems to hinge in great part on their ability to limit population growth, especially among the underprivileged. Realizing this fact well, China has taken the most drastic measure – restricting the number of children per family to just one. China is in a unique situation to adopt such a policy. Even though it has embraced a capitalist economy, its Communist Party continues to exercise total control over government policy. On the other hand, China has effectively instituted a social security system for the elderly. As a result of China's population policy, the country is soon expected to slip down to the second place in population after India.

However, social scientists are worried that China's one child policy might also create a serious population imbalance between men and women since most parents prefer a male child over a female child, which, by the way, is still a common phenomenon in developing countries. Currently 119 boys are born in China for every 100 girls. Much of this is the result of the one-child policy and the availability of technology that enables the determination of the sex of the fetus and the availability of selective abortion. There are apparently 18 million more males of marriage age than females, and so the continual increase in the shortfall of women will only lead to increases in social unrest, sex crimes, prostitution, etc. Jeffrey Sachs in his aforementioned book emphasizes that state investment in the education of girls can reduce parental bias against female children.

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Mahfuz R. Chowdhury is a Professor of Economics at C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, New York. He has wide ranging experience in international business and commerce. He is a prolific writer, and has written on failure of communism, problem with developing countries and adverse effect of globalization. He was born in Chittagong, Bangladesh and has written extensively on the economic woes of his home country.

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7 comments

Nazim Rahman

Thanks OpEdNews!

Comment from Ratings: This is an excellent article on an issue that confronts all the poor countries of the world today. Every concerned citizen must read it. I sincerely hope that the United Nations' agencies will read this article with care and draw appropriate lessons from it.

by Nazim Rahman (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 5:01:53 PM

Jeff Rock is an economist of thirty-two years. He has spent his entire career in the building industry working in a capacity that allows him to witness daily the inner workings of the so-called 'free' market. Jeff studied at US and French universties earning his Economics degree in 1976. He is bi-lingual. He supports and promotes green building and tries to incorporate green principles in every project on which he is assigned. He has built high rises in the US and Africa. He is a committed...

to see more of bio, click on member name
jeff rockJeff Rock is an economist of thirty-two years. He has spent his entire career in the building industry working in a capacity that allows him to witness daily the inner workings of the so-called 'free' market. Jeff studied at US and French universties earning his Economics degree in 1976. He is bi-lingual. He supports and promotes green building and tries to incorporate green principles in every project on which he is assigned. He has built high rises in the US and Africa. He is a committed...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Malthus and the level of misery

Excellent article! This is the type of discussion we must start to have. Malthus also stated that poverty is an inevitable result of procreation in a scarce market. His attitude is nothing short of 'survival of the fittest' in its rawest form. Even Darwin, upon reading Malthus population theory in 1926 remarked that Malthus' theory supported Darwin's own. The Bilderberg group and other similar groups believe in reducing the population through 'natural' causes, such as war, famine and sickness. However, these are all most UNnatural and all preventable. Perhaps we need to use our resources better in combination with restraining population growth???

by jeff rock (5 articles, 1 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 92 comments) on Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 5:14:41 PM

An 84-year-old, self-styled 'social engineer' who has studied the impact of poor food quality on behavior, poor teaching methods on performance, and poor legal systems on all of society. Now writing a fantasy-fiction story, The UltrAwareness of Zolakhan to show that both physical immortality and a golden age peaceful Earth are desireable and possible.
billmanningAn 84-year-old, self-styled 'social engineer' who has studied the impact of poor food quality on behavior, poor teaching methods on performance, and poor legal systems on all of society. Now writing a fantasy-fiction story, The UltrAwareness of Zolakhan to show that both physical immortality and a golden age peaceful Earth are desireable and possible.

Common Sense Scarcer than Food

Since about 30 years ago, when a wealthy Texan told me she wouldn't support a simple program of natural soil enrichment and the planting of food-producing trees on hillsides that can't be plowed, I've read many articles and books about population growth.

I've even moved to Costa Rica, a country that once had the world's fastest rate of population growth (until its Catholic women told their priests they would no longer stay barefoot and pregnant just to boost their men's 'machismo' needs. And I lived nearly a year with the Kunas in their 'comarca' on the northeast coast of Panama, where no child goes hungry more than a few minutes and there isn't one plow in the entire comarca. The only family I knew there with six children was one in which the husband had gone to school in the U. S. controlled Canal Zone because he was the grandson of the elderly chief who kicked out the Panamanians who wee trying to enslave the Kunas and clear their hillsides for cattle grazing. The Kunas would have none of that idea.

But that husband had caught the fever of proving his worth by his sexual prowess, so he had more children than he needed, in a tribe where the males don't work untill they get married.

Anyone reading these comments who is seriously interested in learning the answer to over-population can prove to her of his self what a big part of that answer is by findding a small spot of very poor land, plant some corn without fertilizing it properly, and watch the plants try to reproduce when they're not more than six inches above a grown man's knees. Or find a heifer that is grazing a severely mineral-deficient soil and watch that heifer get pregnant and require calf delivery by Caesarian because she can't deliver naturally.

Threatened life forms will unconsciously try to reproduce, even soldiers who are likely to die in war will do it against all of their social and religious background.

This planet can feed 20 billion people easily, without using one of the 'better' seeds, an ounce of concentrated agricultural chemicals, or a plow or any other cultivating tool. They can automatically stop the rising sea level without doing anything directly for that purpose. That rising sea may cover vast areas of flat coastal land that can be used for other purposes than to grow tree-foods. And the tragedy is that fair and equitable profits could be earned by doing the sensible thngs we ought to do instead of the nonsense we are doing all over the world because it's the established way.

But who is willing to help prove it? I haven't found that person or group in 52 years of serching for him or it since 1956, when I was shown how, at 34 years of age, to answer all of these interlocking problems. But as long as there are a few million people left alive, it won't ever be too late to act.

Bill Manning, lsgift@gmail.com

by billmanning (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 21 comments) on Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 7:06:23 PM

American Expat in Asia
pftAmerican Expat in Asia

Interlocking Issues

I read many articles on issues that are interlocked with others, such as this one. The push to get people to eat less meat, reduction in living standards proposed as a solution to sustainability by reducing energy consumption, overpopulation, man made global warming requiring us to consume less and lower living standards.

They are all tools of the neo-malthusians. Man is the biggest threat to the oligarchs, our elect. They consider themselves as Gods and convince their flock that man is a sinner against Gaia to control us. The congregation (non-elite) is conditioned to sacrifice for Mother Earth and threatened with global warming, famine, disease and eventual extinction (hell) if they do not obey their Gods.

It started of course with Malthus. His blaming poverty on overpopulation was to protect the capitalists and financial oligarchs of the elite class who were exploiting the lower classes, much as they do today, and to divert attention from the fact that the British Free Trade polices were crippling the local economy. He noted misery (war, plague, famine) and vice (murder, infacticide) as ways of controlling population. He also recognized that deaths from natural causes could be facilitated by removing social security and repealing the poor laws. Sound familiar?

Darwins theory of Evolution, a theory which has yet to be proved although slightly more credible than the AGW theory, fit perfectly with the Eugenics movement to come. Darwins son was quoted as saying:

"At the present day, civilized nations are everywhere supplanting barbarous nations, excepting, where the climate opposes a deadly barrier; and they succeed mainly, though exclusively, through their arts, which are the products of the intellect..... Whether the extinction of inferior races before the advancing Anglo-Saxon seems to the reader sad or otherwise, it certainly appears probable...Is there room for reasonable doubt that this race, unless devitalized by alcohol and tobacco, is destined to dispossess many weaker races, assimilate others, and mold the remainder, until, in a very true and important sense, it has Anglo-Saxonized mankind?."

Darwins son was vice-president of both the 1912 and 1921 International Eugenics Congresses. The first of these two meetings was the outgrowth of a 1911 gathering of the International Society for Racial Hygiene, a predominantly German organization. That Germany would see the full enactment of eugenical policies is hardly a coincidence.

The eugenics movement post WW II resurfaced under the banner of population control and radical environmentalism.

Tarpley and Chaitkin wrote: "The population control or zero population growth movement, which grew rapidly in the late 1960s thanks to free media exposure and foundation grants for a stream of pseudoscientific propaganda about the alleged 'population bomb' and the 'limits to growth,' was a continuation of the old prewar, protofascist eugenics movement, which had been forced to go into temporary eclipse when the world recoiled in horror at the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the name of eugenics. By mid-1960s, the same old crackpot eugenicists had resurrected themselves as the population-control and environmentalist movement. Planned Parenthood was a perfect example of the transmogrification. Now, instead of demanding the sterilization of the inferior races, the newly packaged eugenicists talked about the population bomb, giving the poor 'equal access' to birth control, and 'freedom of choice'."

Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, a racist whose slogan was: "Birth Control: to create a race of thoroughbreds."

Sanger expressed dismal hopes for a vast segment of the population, declaring that: "only 13,500,000 show superior intelligence" . Thus, only a meager 13.5% of the population should be permitted to procreate. The rest would be segregated for orderly disposal.

Planned Parenthood retains an active role in the scientific dictatorship's project of eugenical regimentation today.

Today this as evolved to a Transhumanist movement, ala Huxley's Brave New World, where the new class distinction is genetic. Thats one of the reasons for the push to conduct DNA testing on the entire population (a larger push will come, likely over some security issue).

What happens then? Dr. Richard Lynn, professor at the University of Ulster, who supports human genetic modification said: 'What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such peoples....Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent'."

You see, with Industrialization, productivity increases due to technological breakthroughs, and outsourcing of labour intensive industries, 85% of you are simply not needed.

Darwinism teaches that all species will eventually become extinct, unless they evolve.

"Katherine Hayles, a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, says in How We Became Posthuman (1999) "Humans can either go gently into that good night, joining the dinosaurs as a species that once ruled the earth but is now obsolete, or hang on for a while longer by becoming machines themselves. In either case … the age of the human is drawing to a close."

According to the Darwinian doctrine of the Transhumanist movement, mankind is the next species slated for extinction. How do they plan the extinction of the bottom 85% so the species can evolve?.

Former Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation's Division of Information and Intelligent Systems William Sims Bainbridge had an answer:

"Techniques such as genetic engineering, psychoactive drugs and electronic control of the brain (via EMF waves) make possible a transformation of the species into docile, fully-obedient, 'safe' organisms." Whom presumably will accept their fate which is dictated by the elite

In other words, the drug induced totalitarianism of Huxley's Brave New World. Chemically numbed and anesthetized, the bottom 85% will (are) resign themselves to extinction in the posthuman era. Meanwhile, the elite are writing the final chapter of the evolutionary script, and they have left no room for humanity in the last pages. The last pages are reserved for those who have evolved to become Gods and a number of intelligent or hardworking slaves (hispanic, asians, definitely not dumb white or black Americans, unless they are good looking and can be slaves of "entertainment"). Then comes the End of History of Humanity

I reject the fallacy we are facing an overpopulation problem today. In Europe and the US fertility rates are below replacement level. Population growth in the developed world is due to immigration which they allow to mask the declining living standrds with economic growth that is population driven in conjunction with fictitous capital creation that a fiat currency and a fractional reserve banking monopoly creates out of thin air.

The population growth in the poor countries is not an issue globally, since life expectancy is so low and poverty is so pervasive, they simply do not consume very much over their lifetime. Our policies under NSSM 200 where food and poverty is used as a genocidal weapon have served to reduce consumption and economic development, in these selected countries. Locally, population growth keeps these nations poor and prevents development which would allow them to live longer and consume more resources. The IMF , not to mention our funding of civil wars and sanctions does it's part to prevent development of local economies in countries who try to be independent.

Technology today could solve many environmental and food production issues, instead it is being used to sustain the new economic order where the neo-malthusians seek to restrain economic growth and reduce living standards in the developed countries so we can be merged with the developing nations under a One World Government. Then the culling of the herd may commense, and the beasts who use the planet as a feedlot and prevent man from evolving into God can be eliminated.

by pft (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 499 comments) on Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 8:38:44 PM

Born in New York, March 14, 1949. Staff writer for the New York City Tribune, Economic Growth Report, Register-Star. Presently publish on the websites "Peter's New York," 911blogger, and OpEd News.
Peter DuveenBorn in New York, March 14, 1949. Staff writer for the New York City Tribune, Economic Growth Report, Register-Star. Presently publish on the websites "Peter's New York," 911blogger, and OpEd News.

Population control

Population control is a central doctrine of the globalistikas and their fellow travelers in the corporate, media and political spheres. It is akin to a religious belief, much as say, born again is associated with particular strains of Christianity.

Population growth has been taken out of public discourse as being too sensitive an issue, and instead has been promulgated under any number of agendas, such as "family planning," "global warming," and any number of other topics through which it can be snuck in.

Interestingly, the overpopulation of other countries is considered a security threat by the United States, as it puts a strain on the supply of important natural resources that the United States needs. This is not lost on the people of other countries. It was first brought to my attention in a column by a Philippine journalist in one of the major papers out of Manila.

We don't buy into your long-winded diatribe, which is, as other posters here have commented, is basically eugenics driven and basically anti-people. This shoud be treated in public discourse, but instead is hidden in the agendas of the flotilla of nonprofits that adress these issues, and craft public policies outside the purview of the democratic process, all with a tax exempt boost in the bottom line.

by Peter Duveen (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 27 comments) on Monday, September 8, 2008 at 1:33:08 PM