A study analyzes how the birth rate collapse will reduce the world’s population. Experts warn governments to prepare for the challenges of living in an emptier world
We built a system based on continuous growth and consumption. People freeze like deer in the headlights when it gets brought up that it isn’t sustainable and get offended that maybe we should try to make some changes to it.
Well, if you used the correct mathematical term, population decay, then you're gonna have a lot of rubes rioting about some conspiracy on how a population can't decompose or some shit.
Scientist had to change global warming to climate change when they realized some people can't look past the buzz words and learn something.
Current difficulties caring for elderly will continue to get worse, as the population of working age people continues to shrink faster than the population of elderly
Only bad for nations that are shrinking too fast, like some nordic nations and South Korea. But most other nations will benefit from the less population growth rate.
We can all agree the population can’t continue to grow. We can also agree it probably needs to shrink, especially by the time this starts making a difference.
However, if it shrinks too rapidly, there’s a lot of potential disruption of society and economy. If it continues to shrink, it could be a serious problem for all of humanity.
We should make changes now to encourage more people to have kids. The goal should be a slow, controlled decrease, to level off, without major disruption
Personally, I like 6B as a good place to plateau. We’re probably already beyond the planet’s carrying capacity so need to be less than today. However a lot of the advancements in society (technology, space, medicine, science, innovation) really require a fairly large population. Establishing a number ought to be someone’s thesis, but in the meantime: 6B
sonally, I like 6B as a good place to plateau. We’re probably already beyond the planet’s carrying capacity so nee
With the current food growing technologies, we can handle 10 billion comfortable well. We will obviously not reach that number anytime soon. But we are on track to shrinking rapidly in many nations. That will destroy these nations.
That's like saying perpetual war isn't sustainable and you have to make peace. Formally true, but in practice:
Your country (a developed one, with virtually universal literacy, functional school education, water and electricity everywhere, universities, internet, etc) stops growing in population.
Some another country (with basically nothing except for dirt and dirt-poor people who mostly can't read, sometimes burn witches and kill infidels) doesn't fscking stop.
It will be very tough economically as fewer people will need to work to support those in retirement. Economic problems, in turn tend to lead to social unrest and a turn to extremist political positions and solutions.
But it should at least take some pressure off the planet. Maybe AI can pick up the slack. Time will tell.
This is exactly why Japan is investing so much in robotics. They have a rapidly aging population without enough young people to replace them or care for them when they're too old to work.
They will probably eventually have to relax their immigration policies, but that will be a last resort for them.
In indeed is an economical and political issue. It seems like there is enough money and resources to support the elder people. It is just accumulated in the hands of corporations that are only valued by their growth.
I hope that the negative growth can rub off onto companies too, so that they are valued for their stable income instead of needing to grow
Yes. We have realized as a species that we are beyond max capacity and it just affects us negatively. It's one of the most amazing things that we realized just as nature does.
I agree with you, that ecologically, this will probably be a good thing. Economically, we will need a different system as i doubt that any increase in consumption per capita could outweigh the increase in people we currently see. And our economic system is dependent on growth.
kind of like ""Children of Men" but people just choosing not to have children. I see people my age in their 40's having only 1 or 2 children and people in their 30's just not deciding to have children at all.
The researcher points out that births “will increasingly be concentrated in the areas of the world that are most vulnerable to climate change, resource scarcity, political instability, poverty and infant mortality.”
Summary: The article from EL PAÍS discusses a study predicting a significant decline in the global population by 2100. Here's a summary:
Global Population Decline: The study, published in The Lancet by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, forecasts that by 2050, 155 out of 204 countries will have fertility rates too low to maintain their populations. By 2100, this will rise to 97% of countries.
Fertility Rate Drop: The fertility rate is plummeting worldwide. For instance, Spain's fertility rate decreased from 2.47 children per woman in 1950 to 1.26 in 2021, with projections of 1.23 in 2050 and 1.11 in 2100. This trend is mirrored globally, with France, Germany, and the European average also experiencing declines.
Economic and Social Impact: The study urges governments to prepare for the economic, health, environmental, and geopolitical challenges posed by an aging and shrinking population.
Regional Differences: While rich countries already face very low fertility rates, low-income regions start from higher rates. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, will see a significant increase in its share of global births, from 18% in 2021 to 35% in 2100.
Migration as a Temporary Solution: The authors suggest that international migration could temporarily address demographic imbalances, but as fertility decline is a universal phenomenon, it's not a long-term solution.
The article highlights the need for strategic planning to address the impending demographic shifts and their associated challenges¹.
Yet another issue that I’d too long-term for anyone to understand or focus on. If we address it now, changes can be small and simple. However history shows we’ll wait until it’s a crisis, then panic.
Governments, along with the corporations who will struggle to find employees when this happens have all brought this upon themselves. Treating people like dogshit all the time doesn't pay off in the long run.
Isn't that a temporary thing though, eventually that hump will pass and we'd be down to more sustainable population levels. I'd rather it happens naturally because of birth rates than because half the planet becomes unsurvivable.
I love how they blame this on a declining birth rate instead of on climate change leading to loss of habitable land to sea level rise and loss of farmland to changing temperatures. And pests. Don’t forget warmer temperatures lead to more pests.
I will be shocked if civilization hasn’t collapsed before 2100 based on our current trajectory.
Technology is not going to save us - escaping to space is a pipe dream: hugely expensive and frought with technical challenges and harsh realities like cosmic radiation that will kill anyone outside of Earth's ionosphere for too long. And even if, somehow, we solve all of that, what makes you think that we can make Mars habitable when we can't even keep the planet we've already got habitable?
realistically, living in space doesnt mean making mars habitable, it means getting good enough at life support and indoor farming and building bigger structures in space to just live inside artificial habitats, be that on mars or some other planet, or in space itself, forever. Its not a solution to climate change or such though, even if simply because being able to do it at scale means that the climate changing is no longer an existential threat anyway.
Cosmic radiation is pretty easy to stop. 100 miles of atmosphere, about 10 feet of water, or a few feet of rock will do just fine. There is a lot of rock on the moon.
Nothing in space will really help with the climate crisis, imo. It will help humanity a lot if we get past it, tho.
Technology is the only option besides euthanasia or actually killing people in a regular basis - and I doubt very much we'd like any of the latter options. Cosmic radiation is solvable and I never said it's Mars we need.
Apart from that: The planet is and will be habitable for quite some time - but we're going back to square one and the question will be: Euthanasia or outright killing those that have no say.
One if the problems for declining births is cost of living and raising children. Adding expensive launches and equipment in space is not going to help with that, especially of the gains of the space race are not going to the general population but only to the few owners of the orbital infrastructure.
Lol space will NOT make any difference at all. That technology is not progressing at a rate where we could have millions, let alone billions of people inhabiting space in the near future. We'd also pretty much be completely limited to our solar system, meaning planet-wise we have maybe Mars and Europa and Titan at best... but there's absolutely no chance of any meaningful colonial activity on those planets, Mars would probably have something similar to Antarctic research facilities on it but that's about it.
One of the reasons setting up a base on the moon is critical. Microgravity is not conducive to long term health, so what is? Do we need planetary levels of gravity? Are we ok with moon levels or higher? We don’t even know how many solar system bodies even can conceivably support longer term living
Technology is the only option besides euthanasia or actually killing people in a regular basis - and I doubt very much we'd like any of the latter options.
Technology doesn't have to progress at any rate - we already have the technology to build self sufficient stations. It's just very expensive.
Being limited to the solar system isn't an issue, because the issue is fundamentally that the planet can't sustain this many people without a lot of help. Meaning, a few 100k is enough to use the technology on planet earth as well.
If we can't make life work on the planet we were literally designed for, we won't make it work on any of the completely uninhabitable other planets we have access to.