The population explosion

The world's greatest environmental problem

 Hans Rosling is an incurable optimist who sorts out all warning signals and thus concludes that the problems will solve by themselves. Thereby he constitutes a danger to civilization. Ignoring problems is not a good way to deal with them.
 Hans Rosling is not listening to experts in the area. Instead he accuses them of being WRONG, while he himself is RIGHT. That is nothing but bigotry and arrogance.
 As he earns a lot of money by lecturing (often in excess of SEK 200,000: - for an hour or two) you may understand what he is trying to defend.
 It may be pleasant to believe in him, because when you do you don't have to personally contribute to taking responsibility for changing our civilization towords ecology.
 A much more difficult problem to solve is "How can we prevent the planet's population from growing in an uncontrolled manner?" - Hans Rosling does not want to even look at that problem.
 An article in Svenska Dagbladet illustrating the problems (without giving any solution to the problem of population explosion.

 SvD article available (in Swedish - a brief summary of the basic ideas in English will follow) at:

http://www.svd.se/rosling-har-fel-om-jordens-befolkning 

 In addition there is an older Svenska Dagbladet article (from 2011) which highlights the problem of population explosion (also in Swedish - the most basic ideas will be included in my brief translation below):

 http://www.svd.se/vi-maste-forsoka-begransa-befolkningsokningen 

 Yet the UN has done new calculations based on more recent facts and concluded that the population explosion will probably continue towards 12 or 13 billion. However the planet's limited ability to support that many human beings will most likely ensure that the level will never be reached.
 Which factor that will limit population growth I leave unsaid.

 Mark Twain: It's not what you don't know that gives you trouble. What gives you problems, it is what you are absolutely convinced you know, although it is not so.

Todde

 Free translation of the articles:

Rosling is wrong about the world's population

 Hans Rosling has achieved a rare degree of stardom which makes it difficult to come up with criticism. But it is necessary to critizise Rosling on his tendency to downplay the importance of population trends. Roslings most serious error is his idea that our planet can feed 10 billion people, with reasonable prosperity.

 Many experts, especially those with knowledge of global sustainability, development policy and population development are warning against his ignorance. Much space has been given to Roslings positive messages. But very few comments against his blue-eyed opinions get pblished. He avoids tackling the difficult but in every sense vital issue of the world - particularly in Africa - population development. We speak out against his tendency to play down population growth, not least in relation to the availability of arable land, water and energy.

 In national media, public seminars, in the TV sofas and entertainment programs Hans Rosling presents an idea that an increase in global population from 7 billion today to 10 by the end of this century is not a problem. He does it in such an entertaining way and with such zeal that not only ordinary people but also many policymakers believe he is right. Thus Rosling fails to contribute to the interest and efforts towards sustainable development, population and family planning.

Deficiencies in Rosling's message:

1. "World population will level out 'automatically' at 10 billion around 2100!" - It is far from certain! The "demographic transition" (reduced fertility together with increased prosperity) that he bases his reasoning on occurs not at the rate previously assumed. The UN rewrites it's forecasts every year. The annual growth is still over 80 million world citizens per year and the "turning point" is now set at 12.5 billion residents. "The transition" has thus not been automatic. As statistics enthusiast Rosling should see this and recognize the risks of  giving the efforts to reduce fertility lower priority.

2. "It is not possible to do something about reaching 10 billion!" - Of course it is! In many countries fertility is still very high and the use and availability of contraception low. The positive development has been stalled due to reduced efforts. This has happened in a majority of African countries, but also in other countries (India for example). Altogether more than a billion people live under these conditions - a number that will at least double by 2050 with current trends. Why does Rosling not devote his star status to advocate for the rights of all women to determine their own childbearing? Obviously this should be done together with other services, but it should not - as is now happening - be downplayed.

3. People in the poorest countries with the greatest increase in population are especially vulnerable to the lack of resources that our world faces! - World poverty and hunger is concentrated to developing countries. They also suffer from the adverse effects of climate change with resource and food shortages, political unrest, war and refugee flows as a result. Should not Rosling, professor of public health realize that a reduced population growth is the most effective way to help a poor country give welfare to it's people? Why doesn't he mention anything about this in his television shows?

4. Ther most serious error of Rosling is to say that our planet can feed 10 billion people, with reasonable prosperity. - He forgets that the world's arable land is shrinking, the land yields only a marginal increase, the oceans are virtually depleted, the dry belts are spreading, the sea level will rise above high-producing agricultural areas, Asia's water source - Himalayan glaciers - are decreasing. That population growth is exploding in unsustainable big cities, and so on? The list of challenges continues. All these threats could be handled if we manage to level out the population increase at an earlier stage, and at a lower level.

• Globally, familly planning efforts have been marginalized and are in current values less than 15 years ago. The resources have gone to fight HIV/AIDS. That is not wrong, but it should not have happened at the expense of family planning and access to and knowledge about contraception´.

• Sweden has for a long time marginalized it's family planning assistance. During the last decade the area of sexual and reproductive health constituted 5-7 per cent of the total Swedish aid. Only a small and declining part is devoted to family planning.

Why does Rosling not mention these facts?

We must try to limit population growth

 Today we are more than seven billion people on Earth. The world's population has increased dramatically. Over the last hundred years the number of people almost quadrupled.

 Continued population growth will increase tensions between different ethnic groups and countries, as the struggle for scarce resources increases.

 Industrialization has led to significantly more resources and waste producing ways of life, especially in the richer countries. This, combined with population growth, has led to over exploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation.

 Hans Rosling notes that the invrease of population does no longer happen because we give birth to more children. Since 1990 the number of children born each year has not increased. The global birth rate does not increase despite high birth rates in poor countries. They are now compensated by the fact that billions of people in Asia and Europe give birth to less than two children per woman.

 The continuing population growth depends instead on more and more children surviving, with increasing length of life. According to Rosling, it is therefore unavoidable that the world population will increase to ten billion people already long before the end of this century.

 But the basic problem remains: The number of people on Earth is expected to rise from seven billion to between ten and thirteen billion during this century.

 Today's major climate and environmental problems have been created over the last hundred years, when world population increased from less than two billion to over seven billion. A population growth of a further three billion to six billion will increase the problems dramatically and drastically reduce our chances of solving them.

 Continued population growth will increase tensions between ethnic groups and countries, as the struggle for scarce resources increases. Moreover, population growth is in many countries a major reason for difficulties in fighting poverty.

 Optimistic commentators (i.e. Rosling and others) believe that all these problems will be solved with new technology and inventions, sensible policy decisions and changes in values and life habits. It sounds more like wishful thinking than realism.

 Judging by how the international community so far has handled the most important global problems - climate change, degradation of ecosystems, political violence and poverty - it seems unlikely that they will be able to take the actions needed to make Earth's current population of seven billion people live in balance with nature.

 Almost one out of two Swedes (47 percent) believe that it should be a human right to bring as many children into the world as you wish. The inconsistency in this suggests that these 47 % are reacting with their spinal cord based on the rights that they have grown up with - in this case, how many children they want.

 Because population growth, coupled with a rapidly growing economy and environmentally destructive technologies, have caused climate change and other environmental problems, it should be obvious that we promptly and with all reasonable means need to try to limit further increases.

 Therefore, it is remarkable that international assistance to population-related programs has declined in recent decades. That is a betrayal of the promises made at the Population Conference in Cairo in 1994. It is particularly worrying that Swedish foreign aid now gives lower priority to measures designed to reduce birth rates (by educating young girls and offering family planning and contraceptive advice). This loss has contributed to the United Nations being forced to write up the population projections in several of the world's poorest countries. All countries in the crisis-hit Horn of Africa, where poverty is widespread and the lack of energy, water and firtile land is steadily worsening. These countries are expected to increase their population two to three times until 2050.

 One argument against reduced fertility is that it will result in fewer young people who can support the growing number of old people. But if China can manage this, despite its drastic one-child system, the much richer industrial countries also should be able to tackle the problem.

 The international community faces enormous challenges, bigger than ever before. The risks are greatly underestimated because of poor or non-existent risk analysis. Also missing is neutral political organizations at a global level, with knowledge and authority to address the problems.

 Radical improvements in the international decision-making procedures on global issues should be a high priority, issues in public debate and on the world political agenda. One of the most burning issues, is the largely silenced problem of continuing population growth. There is a big difference if the population will level off at the level of eight billion - which could be possible - or ten or thirteen billion according to the latest UN projections.

Also check: http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2019/03/modern-times-growth-was-result-from-one.html

and: https://populationmatters.org/

Todde