Demographic Winter

[Megan Mozart]

Watch and tell me your thoughts.

[video=youtube;IG2IZEzUmA0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG2IZEzUmA0[/video]

 

[Montanablue]

I would really have to know more about where thet get their statistics and sources before I commented.

 

[Megan Mozart]

I'm waiting to get the DVD from a friend. After I watch it maybe I can be more helpful.

 

[Montanablue]

Yes, do tell us what you think. I've seen a lot of overblown hysteria about declining population- without appropriate statistics. I'm not saying its not happening, but I've yet to hear anything that convinces me that we're dying out.

 

[CatherineL]

I saw this a while back, but all I could find when I googled it was lots of uber-left wingers trashing it, also without reliable stats.

 

[Scynne]

Really? They're on about declining population now? *sigh* I thought the 'popular' world-is-soon-doomed theories were climate change and overpopulation. I have, over the last few years, been in several rather heated arguments about how in twenty to fifty years the earth will be overpopulated and we'll all starve, blah blah blah.
I just had a discussion about overpopulation with a coworker a couple weeks back.
I guess this is a breath of fresh air...or something.

 

[Brian Withnell]

Zero population growth happens at a particular level of births. From a very simplistic standpoint, if every person on average has exact 1 child then there is zero population growth. Of course that would mean that married families have to have more than 2 children in order to maintain zero growth (remember, zero growth does not mean negative growth). Some people do not have children either because of incapacity or choice. Even some that have children, the children do not survive to reproductive age themselves.

While zero growth clearly requires those couples that have children to have more than two, the exact level is somewhat fluid (based mainly on how many of those children have children). I personally like the fact that liberals tend to have smaller families than conservatives ... we replace them over time!

The startling news is that while the west has fewer children as a whole, the Muslim world has more children. Okay, Christian couples! Have more babies! (I tell my eldest that all the time! I want grandchildren!)

 

[Christusregnat]

An excellent book on the subject of population is The Myth of Overpopulation.

Cheers,

 

[JennyG]

According to some sources, it's not mankind that is dwindling in numbers, at least in the West - it's only the non-Muslim part of it.
I'm no demographics expert. Mark Steyn has a book called America Alone which I believe gives some business-like statistics.