population

Umbra on having kids, revisited

Dear Umbra, What do you feel is the one issue of personal responsibility regarding the environment that people ignore the most? VaughnJackson, Tenn. Dearest Vaughn, Reproduction. But what can you do? As I said the other time I touched this topic with a 10-foot pole, we don’t make childbearing choices based on politics. If we […]

Shrinkage

A couple weeks ago, Chip worried about worries about shrinking populations. Specifically, he worried that countries with shrinking populations -- or in China's case, shrinking proportions of males to females -- will try to stimulate procreation (hey, get your mind out of the gutter), which makes an enviro's spidey-sense tingle. He wished that someone would make the argument that a declining population is not necessarily a bad thing, economically speaking. Today in the Christian Science Monitor, David R. Francis gives it a brief shot.

Some random thoughts on population below the break.

The depopulation bomb, or, 40 million guys with no one to date

Not sure if anyone else noted this story in The New York Times early this week: "Fearing Future, China Starts to Give Girls Their Due." The piece says the powers that be in China just might be considering a shift from the controversial one-child policy (enacted in the 1970s to help control population growth) to a two-child policy. Why? Well, for one, there's a grave shortage of girls in the country, due to selective abortion (or worse):

In early January, the government announced that the nationwide ratio had reached 119 boys for every 100 girls. Studies show that the average rate for the rest of the world is about 105 boys for every 100 girls. Demographers predict that in a few decades China could have up to 40 million bachelors unable to find mates.

These figures may bring to mind some sort of hideous plot for a reality show. (Oh, wait, isn't that a tautologous statement? Someone throw me a bone.) But the dismal issues of selective abortion and female infanticide aside, the story also hints at a topic being discussed in other parts of the world, too, one that ought to concern environmentalists but hasn't received much attention thus far in the United States: Does there come a point at which declines in fertility rates advance too far? The Times piece alludes to a "looming baby bust" in China. Who will provide for the country's "rapidly aging population"?

How scary that the world's most populous country might be considering -- never mind enacting -- policies to encourage people to have more kids. While such a possibility may be a ways off in China, the discussion has been more fully joined in parts of Europe.  I just returned from a trip with three French citizens, progressives all, who voiced deep concern that their country's population was leveling off. They talked with passion about the need for France and Europe as a whole to find a way to fuel population growth, whether through immigration or E.U. expansion or whathaveyou. Rather than celebrating success at approaching zero population growth or, better yet, a decreasing population -- with all the imaginable pluses for resource consumption, CO2 emissions, and other forms of pollution -- they focused on the need for population growth.

I have greatly simplified the Times piece here (and also somewhat my friends' perspective) to call attention, however inarticulately, to this underreported debate. Seems to me that environmentalists should be working furiously to show that a country with a declining population can still be competitive economically and provide a high level of social services (Scandinavian or French style). It's beyond me at the moment to make this argument -- I confess I'm new to the topic, too -- but I wonder whether anyone out there can do so. Anyone? Anyone?

New low for global birth rate

Our friends who like to butt heads over population might be interested to know that the global birth rate has fallen to its lowest point. The average woman in a developing country now gives birth 3.9 times over the course of her lifetime, compared with 5.9 in the 1970s, according to the U.N.

That's not down to the replacement level of 2.1, of course, but consider it in conjunction with the far-below-replacement levels in some (over)developed countries like Spain (1.15), Italy (1.19), a handful of other European nations, and Japan, and it marks progress.  

Still, in total we're at 6,416,395,969 and counting ...

Immigration controversy engulfs Sierra Club board election

If the Democratic primaries have proven a little prim and polite for your taste, there’s another upcoming election that may pique your interest. This one is loaded with bitter controversy, nasty accusations, and emotional appeals to democracy and fairness. Its major players have even taken their grievances to court — all before the nearly three-quarters […]

Does it make sense for environmentalists to want to limit immigration?

The Sierra Club, most venerable of environmental organizations, is awash in charges, countercharges, suits, countersuits, invective, counter-invective, and double counter-invective bounces-off-me-and-sticks-to-you. At issue, depending on whom you talk to, is whether single-issue racists will take over the organization’s board or whether club democracy will be squelched by blatant interference from the group’s old guard. What’s […]

A new injection for men could shake up the world of contraceptives

If you plan to have sex anytime soon, let’s hope it’s not in Niger, Africa. According to the nonprofit organization Save the Children, just 4 percent of couples in Niger have access to birth control. Although the situation in this West African country is extreme, more than 125 million couples worldwide — most of them […]

An Aboriginal elder battles construction of a radioactive-waste dump in Australia

In the 1950s and ’60s, the British military conducted a dozen full-scale nuclear tests in the desert of southern Australia. To the military, the region was a wasteland, the best possible place for such a project; to the Aboriginal people who had lived in the desert for millennia, the land was their home. Eileen Kampakuta […]

Umbra on having kids

Dear Wonderful Umbra, I truly love your column. You should give humor lessons to the rest of the Grist staff. My question concerns the environmental consequences of the decision to reproduce or not to reproduce. Your answer to Genevieve pointed out that the two biggest actions we can take to support a healthy environment relate […]