Peak Oil is You

Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)

Page added on December 9, 2014

Population Growth: Does it Spell the End for Planet Earth?

There are more than seven billion people living on planet Earth and current population growth graphs estimate that the population will reach 10 billion by the end of this century.

But can the population continue to grow at such a rate and allow the planet and its vital resources to survive? We already live in a world deeply divided between the haves and the have-nots. Billions of people are living in grinding poverty, while only a relatively small percentage of people enjoy a good quality of life with decent living standards, healthcare and education.

In this Billionaires investigation, we’ll take a look at the world’s population explosion, some of the ideas to control it and how the super-wealthy could put some of their money to good use.

After all, if something isn’t done, and soon, it’s quite possible that the we’ll run out of the very basics, such as food and fuel, that humankind needs to survive.

The world’s population boom

From our vantage point here in the early 21st Century, it’s shocking to consider that in the middle of the 1700s, nearly three-quarters of children born in the UK capital London were dead before they reached their fifth birthday. The child mortality rate had plummeted to just over three in 10 by 1829, a pattern seen across much of Europe in the same period.

The West initially led the population boom in the 19th Century because better medicine and sanitation meant children were more likely to survive into adulthood and have children of their own. In the last 100 years, however, the highest birthrate growth has been in the developing world.

China and India lead the way and today Asia is the world’s most populous continent with an estimated 4.3 billion people – or around six in every 10 people – living there. Almost 40 per cent of the world’s population live in either China or India.

Africa, which has around one billion people or 15 per cent of the global population, is the second most populated continent. Sadly, these two continents are also amongst the poorest, and billions of people don’t enjoy the same quality of life taken for granted in Australia, Europe and North America.

Can we control the population?

Until relatively recently, poor healthcare and sanitation, plus wars that carried away generations of young men, all prevented the number of people on Earth growing too high. The number of humans never threatened finite natural resources such as fuel, or indeed food, although failing crops and famine also kept a lid on population growth.

Today, many of the major diseases which could spell death for even our great grandparents’ generation have either been eradicated or controlled by medicines or vaccinations. The Black Death, which wiped out millions between the 1300s and the 1600s has disappeared, and although the world is currently gripped by fear of the Ebola epidemic in Africa, the number of people it has killed is minuscule compared to the ravages of disease in days gone by.

We now, it seems, are masters of the natural killers that stopped our numbers growing too great for the planet to cope with. We are dealing with disease and we are finding new ways to produce energy from renewable sources such as wind, water and solar power. But we will also have to find new ways to produce sufficient food to continue feeding the expanding global population. Dire poverty means that millions, if not billions of people, go to bed hungry every night.

Now scientists in Australia are suggesting that a ‘one child per family’ policy may be the only way to control the population and prevent further damage to the Earth and its vital eco-systems. A team at the University of Adelaide looked at different computer-generated models of population growth and suggested the only real way to stop the population becoming too large for the planet’s resources to cope with was by reducing the number of children that families are permitted to have.

However, other scientists have pointed to the fact that education is the key to controlling the population boom – or at least helping to create a world able to cope with the larger number of people. The biggest growth in people is in the developing world, and the poorest nations’ resources are being put under greater and greater pressure. But rather than the situation spiralling out of control, this could pay what Michael Herrmann, from the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) population and economic development, called a ‘demographic dividend’.

He argues that better education for young people in developing countries could result in a generation equipped to improve life for everyone in these nations. It could create a scenario where there are more people working than those who are dependent on them, making wealth for their countries and contributing to their productivity.

Internationally, around a quarter of the world’s population is classed as young people – aged between 10 and 24. But in places such as Chad and Sudan, the proportion is as high as a third.

Mr Herrmann said: “We often hear that young people represent the future. Now we must invest in this future.”

Statistics also show that in areas where there is more education for women and girls, the birth rate is lower because in many cases, they have benefitted from effective sex education and have ambitions to do other things with their lives beyond being wives and mothers.

Putting their money where their mouth is

The super-wealthy have always been known for their philanthropy, whether in support of the arts, sciences or using their social conscience to create better living standards for those less fortunate than themselves.

Today’s billionaires could make a real difference to the future of the planet by using some of their fortune towards educating people in developing countries where the population is rising at its fastest rate.

Investing in research into increasing food production, better sex education and indeed, more and better schools and universities in countries which are lacking the ability to fund these essentials themselves could make the difference between the long-term survival of planet Earth, or the disappearance of life as we know it.

This is the type of philanthropy that the world now needs.

billionairesaustralia.com

26 Comments on "Population Growth: Does it Spell the End for Planet Earth?"

Davy on Tue, 9th Dec 2014 6:36 am