August 9, 2007

• Overpopulation??????

  What are your thoughts on Overpopulation? do you believe that overpopulation is a problem? I would love to hear your thoughts.

  I was shocked the other week to read of someone who believed in over population and that it is a major problem. I asked how that can be true when most families are not even having two children now days, which would mean breaking even. So I decided to do research. I will be listing some of the sites I read. I would love to hear your opinion.

  This one was interesting

  this one makes some good points and shows how the population is actually shrinking.

  http://www.nationalcoalition.org/culture/articles/ca050912.html

  “The
  world is NOT over-populated. More than 97% 
  of the land surface on Earth is empty…. Yes,
  certain cities are over-populated, of course. Yet
  the entire population of the world could fit inside
  the state of Arkansas. So, then, how is the world
  ‘over-populated’? Europe and Japan will be facing
  under-population crises in the coming decades, even
  according to UN studies on population.”
  – Anthony C. LoBaido

  MYTH
  1: The world is overcrowded and population growth is
  adding overwhelming numbers of humans to a small
  planet.

  In
  fact, people do live in crowded conditions, and
  always have. We cluster together in cities and
  villages in order to exchange goods and services
  with one another. But while we crowd together for
  economic reasons in our great metropolitan areas,
  most of the world is empty, as we can see when we
  fly over it. It has been estimated by Paul Ehrlich
  and others that human beings actually occupy no more
  than 1-3% of the earth’s land surface.

  If
  you allotted 1250 square feet to each person, all
  the people in the world would fit into the state of
  Texas. Try the math yourself: 7,438,152,268,800
  square feet in Texas, divided by the world
  population of 5,860,000,000, equals 1269 square feet
  per person. The population density of this giant
  city would be about 21,000 – somewhat more
  than San Francisco and less than the Bronx.

  Another
  fact: World population growth is rapidly declining.
  United Nations figures show that the 79 countries
  that comprise 40% of the world’s population now have
  fertility rates too low to prevent population
  decline. The rate in Asia fell from 2.4 in 1965-70
  to 1.5 in 1990-95. In Latin America and the
  Caribbean, the rate fell from 2.75 in 1960-65 to
  1.70 in 1990-95. In Europe, the rate fell to 0.16 –
  that is, effectively zero – in 1990-95.And the
  annual rate of change in world population fell from
  2% in 1965-70 to less than 1.5% in 1990-95.

  Worldwide,
  the number of children the typical woman had during
  her lifetime (total fertility) fell from 5 in
  1950-55 to less than 3 in 1990-95. (The number
  necessary just to “replace” the
  current generation is 2.1.) In the more developed
  regions, total fertility fell from 2.77 to 1.68
  over the same period. In the less developed regions
  it fell from more than 6 to 3.3. Total fertility in
  Mexico was 3.1 in 1990-95. In Spain it stood at 1.3,
  and in Italy, it was 1.2.

  Official
  forecasts of eventual world population size have
  been steadily falling. In 1992-93, the World Bank
  predicted world population would exceed 10 billion
  by the year 2050. In 1996, the UN predicted 9
  billion for 2050. If the trend continues, the next
  estimate will be lower still.

  MYTH 2: Overpopulation is threatening the world food
  supply.

  According
  to the Food and Agriculture Organization, world food
  supplies exceed requirements in all world areas,
  amounting to a surplus approaching 50% in 1990 in
  the developed countries, and 17% in the developing
  regions. “Globally, food supplies have more
  than doubled in the last 40 years … between 1962
  and 1991, average daily per caput food supplies
  increased more than 15% … at a global level, there
  is probably no obstacle to food production rising to
  meet demand,” according to FAO documents
  prepared for the 1996 World Food Summit. The FAO
  also reported that less than a third as many people
  had less than 2100 calories per person per day in
  1990-92 as had been the case in 1969-71.

  At
  present, farmers use less than half of the world’s
  arable land. The conversion of land to urban and
  built-up uses to accommodate a larger population
  will absorb less than 2% of the world’s land,
  and “is not likely to seriously diminish the
  supply of land for agricultural production,”
  according to Paul Waggoner, writing for the Council
  for Agricultural Science and Technology in 1994.

  MYTH 3: Overpopulation is the chief cause of poverty.

  In
  reality, problems commonly blamed on
  “overpopulation” are the result of bad
  economic policy. For example, Western journalists
  blamed the Ethiopian famine on
  “overpopulation,” but that was simply not
  true. The Ethiopian government caused it by
  confiscating the food stocks of traders and farmers
  and exporting them to buy arms. That country’s
  leftist regime, not its population, caused the
  tragedy. In fact, Africa, beset with problems often
  blamed on “overpopulation,” has only
  one-fifth the population density of Europe, and has
  an unexploited food-raising potential that could
  feed twice the present population of the world,
  according to estimates by Roger Revelle of Harvard
  and the University of San Diego. Economists writing
  for the International Monetary Fund in 1994 said
  that African economic problems result from excessive
  government spending, high taxes on farmers,
  inflation, restrictions on trade, too much
  government ownership, and overregulation of private
  economic activity. There was no mention of
  overpopulation.

  The
  government of the Philippines relies on foreign aid
  to control population growth, but protects
  monopolies which buy farmers’ outputs at
  artificially low prices, and sell them inputs at
  artificially high prices, causing widespread
  poverty. Advocates of population control blame
  “overpopulation” for poverty in
  Bangladesh. But the government dominates the buying
  and processing of jute, the major cash crop, so that
  farmers receive less for their efforts than they
  would in a free market. Impoverished farmers flee to
  the city, but the government owns 40% of industry
  and regulates the rest with price controls, high
  taxes and unpublished rules administered by a huge,
  corrupt, foreign-aid dependent bureaucracy. Jobs are
  hard to find and poverty is rampant. This crowding
  leads to problems such as sporadic or inefficient
  food distribution, but this problem is caused –
  as in Ethiopia – by that country’s flawed
  domestic policies.

  It
  is often claimed that poverty in China is the result
  of “overpopulation.” But Taiwan, with a
  population density five times as great as mainland
  China’s, produces many times as much per capita. The
  Republic of Korea, with a population density 3.6
  times as great as China’s, has a per capita output
  almost 16 times as great. The Malaysian government
  abandoned population control in 1984, ushering in
  remarkable economic growth under free market
  reforms, while Ecuador, Uruguay, Bulgaria and other
  countries complained at the International Conference
  on Population and Development in Cairo that though
  they had reduced their population growth, they still
  had deteriorating economies.

  MYTH 4: Women and men throughout the world are begging
  for the means to control their fertility.

  Not
  so, according to reports from such places as
  Bangladesh, Africa and the Philippines. The fact is,
  surplus condoms and birth control pills fill
  warehouses in the less developed world and women
  flee the birth control workers and beg to have their
  implants and IUDs removed.

  US foreign
  assistance law requires countries receiving American
  foreign aid to take steps to reduce population
  growth [you can find this in 22 US Code, sec.
  2151-1; 22 US Code, sec. 2151(b)]. Far from
  meeting an “unmet need” for birth control,
  foreign-supported family planners in India,
  Bangladesh and other countries must pay, or force,
  their clients to accept it, according to reports
  from these countries. Foreign-supported population
  control is so unpopular in Bangladesh that riots
  over this issue prevented the prime minister from
  attending the International Conference on Population
  and Development in Cairo in 1994.

  Dr.
  Margaret Ogola, a Kenyan pediatrician, disputed the
  claim of “unmet need” for family planning
  at the International Conference on Population and
  Develop-ment in Cairo in 1994. She said that foreign
  aid givers have lavished pills, condoms and IUDs on
  hospitals and clinics in Kenya, but that simple
  medicines for common diseases remain unavailable. A
  United Nations survey of abortion and birth control
  policies throughout the world found that high
  proportions of women were familiar with and were
  using “traditional” methods (NFP) of
  limiting births.

  In
  1981, the typical Bangladeshi woman was having seven
  children during her lifetime; since then the number
  has fallen to 3.4. According to Bangladesh press
  reports in 1994, the secretary of health
  acknowledged that “coercion, blackmail [and]
  abuse of payment provisions” were problems in
  the population control program. Alarmed by extremely
  low fertility, South Korea reported to the
  International Conference in Cairo that it has
  slashed its government expenditures on birth
  control. Singapore, faced with below-replacement
  fertility, reported that it now offers tax rebates
  to couples with more than two children.
  Government-supported “family planning”
  agencies in the United States, such as Planned
  Parenthood, claim their services save public
  assistance costs. In fact, published research has
  shown that states which spend large amounts on birth
  control subsequently have higher costs of public
  assistance. Research also shows that states which
  require parental consent for a minor to have an
  abortion have lower rates of adolescent pregnancy.

  MYTH 5: Overpopulation causes war and revolution.

  The
  most war-torn continent on earth – Africa –
  is also one of the least densely populated, with
  about half as many people per square mile as in the
  world as a whole. Bad governments, propped up by
  ineptly and unjustly managed foreign aid, are more
  probably the root of strife.

  The
  worldwide movement which promotes population control
  is not small or weak. It is a powerful alliance of
  United Nations agencies, national governments,
  foundations and “nongovernmental
  organizations.” It commands many billions of
  dollars in resources. Its members include family
  planning agencies, radical leftist environmental
  organizations such as the Sierra Club and the World
  Wildlife Fund, development planners, international
  financial institutions such as the World Bank,
  foreign relations agencies such as the US
  Agency for International Development, and
  “research” organizations such as
  Worldwatch Institute. Its ideology increasingly
  dominates school and college instructional programs
  and textbook publishing.

  Ultimately,
  however, its power rests on public ignorance in
  countries such as the United States. For the
  billions of people who inhabit God’s creation, and
  for the billions more He intends it for, it’s up to
  us to find out the truth about
  “overpopulation,” and to share it with as
  many people as will listen.

  http://www.juntosociety.com/guest/sperlazzo/bs_opm1010903.html

  http://www.boundless.org/2000/departments/your_turn/a0000228.html

  And here is the Population Research Institute

  Let me know what you think? Are we on the road to overpopulation? or Underpopulation?

  Thoughts?

  • 10:52 am
  • 12 Comments