Our planet's most serious and fundamental problem, which is causing so many other problems, is overpopulation and population explosion.

 The following article may be worth reading:

Shouldn't we try to reduce the number of people on our planet?

 Could we - and should we in this case - control the world's population to reduce poverty, suffering and the pressure on our ecosystems? The question of population control and family planning has been discussed at least since the 1700s but there is still no serious debate on the issue.

 Imagine the following news: "Lengthy negotiations in the UN have been successful in Paris. A binding agreement limiting growth of population has been signed by almost all countries. The agreement means that the growth of the planets population will most likely cease by 2050, reaching a target of 6 billion people. Scientists estimate that this Agreement is equally important for the environment as climate control agreements."

 Unattainable? Unnecessary? Several countries are already reducing their population and the global growth rate is reduced - it is now 1 percent/year. In 1975 for example it was 1.8 percent. True, but the amount of increase in 1975 led to 72 million more people per year; Today it leads to 73 million more per year. But people are better off today! Yes, the proportion who are better off is increasing in a number of countries, but around 1 billion live below the poverty line globally. Increased prosperity increases consumption leading to increasing pressure on the ecosystems that sustain us. The effects on the environment is largely determined by the number of people times their consumption of resources. Future climate change, war, disease, natural disasters and resource shortages hit harder, and means more suffering as we grow in numbers.

 UN population forecast was adjusted upwards in July. But it was barely noticed in the media. Today we are 7.4 billion. By 2050 we are expected to be 9,7 billion, and by 2100 - 11.2 billion. The heavviest population growth will be the in parts of Africa, India, Pakistan and Indonesia. But Central Europe generally has a higher population density than Africa. In several countries close to Europe, the population has increased considerably. In dry, arid countries like Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen from 8 -10 million in 1980 to 23-29 million per country in 2013. The current global fertility is 2.37 children per woman. A calculation shows that if it could be reduced to 2.0 children in 2020, we would feed 777 million fewer people in 2050, compared with an unchanged fertility.

 Media reported last summer that "Six million people are starving in Yemen". If one considers that less vulnerable and hungry people would be a humanitarian progress, it is not only the world's uneven distribution of resources tha is relevant, but also the population issue. The allocation of resources is often the focus, while the global population growth gets very little attention today.

 What suggestions have been forwarded on how to limit the population? The priest and economist Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) became famous through his "A Treatise on Population Act," in which he warned that world population is growing faster than the resources. He advocated education and that women bearing children at a higher age. This trail, family planning, has since been passed on to our moder times. Georg Borgström, Swedish naturalist (from 1956 Professor in the USA) studied famine and food security during the 50s and 60s  He  stressed the need to control population growth on our planet.

 Inventions and industrial revolution led in the 1800s and early 1900s to more efficient food production, something Malthus did not foresee. The global population rose at that time also quite slowly. We were around 2 billion in the early 1900's. From about 1950 the population curve rises steeply upwards, sometimes with an annual increase of over 2 percent as cheap oil lubricated the global economy. Most population increases were in non-industrialized countries, while per capita consumption increased markedly in industrialized countries. This contributes strongly to today's global environmental problems.

 Kenneth Boulding (1910-1993), a liberal professor of economics, presented in his book "The meaning of the Twentieth Century" (1964) the least original proposal which could give a future stable population. He started from birth, using the example of 2.2 children per woman. Every newborn woman should  get rights to "a number of births" (men could also be included) in a market where birthrights can be bought or sold. This means that those who want many children have to purchase additional units from the system, while those who want to have few or no children can earn extra money.

 David de la Croix and Axel Gosseries analyzed Bouldings suggestions in 2009 (including countries with both growing and shrinking population) seeking a global equilibrium. They found support for population control à la Boulding could work on a global scale - and would ,under certain circumstances, also benefit global economic justice and education. When Bouldings book was reprinted in 1988, he in a preface stuck to his ideas, but with a partially dark perspective. The light he saw was mainly the environmental movement, "whose essential message included the love for variety to this strange and beautiful planet."

 During the 60s population increase was debated intensely - different schools saw it as a big problem, a non-issue, or beneficial - by innovation and new technologies the planet would benefit. Most famous for advocating population control were Anne and Paul Ehrlich. In the book "population explosion" (1968). In their book they suggest that the United States, given its large consumption, should act as a model for other countries. Economic support, it was suggested should be reduced the more children a family had. They also proposed a special tax for cots, diapers etc., except for the poor.

 Making it costly to have many children should reduce the size of families. They further proposed abortion rights for women, that adoption would be supported financially, that men who were sterilized after they had two children, could get a reward, that contraception should be used more, education and additional things.

 A controversial issue in the discussion was about rich countries' giving aid to poor countries hit by famine. If the countries received support in the form of food and other resources, it was argued that the population could increase which, with increasing starvation as a result, unless demands were made on Family Planning (assistance with related requirements). By the time food production was increased ("The Green Revolution") and population problems were disregarded. Today the situation is different, with strained food production and climate change.

 During the following decades the status of women was improved in many countries. They had fewer children in rich countries with higher female empowerment. But now attention became increasingly focused on multiculturalism.

 Hardin, a scientist studing human ecology, stressed severely limited migration between countries as an important factor to check the growth of worldpopulation. Countries would be able to compete in setting good examples in population control and the environment, much as they compete in sports, research and more. Tightly controlled borders require international assistance in disasters and war, but Hardin argued that population control should be included in the assistance.

 Today it is often argued that countries with aging population and low birth rate need to get addition of younger folks, and that this could be solved by immigration. Demographers downplay the problems of aging population. They note that the phenomenon already existed a longtime ago and was handled in England.

 In "Population: Introduction to concepts and issues" (2012), John Weeks writes that immigration today does not work as a general solution to the problem of aging population. Sometimes it may instead cause social problems.

 Climate agreements may be based on contributions to emit carbon dioxide. This may strike against poor countries, on their road to progress. Climate change is hitting the poor countries with growing populations the hardest while increasing inequalities. In climate models it is assumed that population will increase, according to UN forecasts. But sociologist Monica Das Gupta reported a positive effect of population control in a model UN forecast for 2005-2055. Food production there would need to increase 64 percent by 2055. But if the population had remained at the 2005 level, production would only have to increase 25 percent (due to the increasing global consumption per capita). With climate degradation included, food production must increase substantially more. Monica Das Gupta reports a series of studies that suggest that family planning can effectively reduce fertility in developing countries.

 Coercive family planning has occurred in dictatorships like China (since 1970) and Iran (for about 15 years, until 2006). In India it was conducted in the 70's by widespread forced sterilization of men - now a criminal offense. What conditions, and what kinds of policy is required to be acceptable in controling population growth in democracies? And could proposed international agreements be possible? Malthus and his followers insisted that measures to limit population would aim at reducing extensive human suffering, while protecting ecosystems. A quote from Bouldings book of 1964 seems to still be valid : "There is a need to devote substantial mental activity for this problem. For some reason we do not do that?"

 This article was written by Frank Götmark, a professor of ecology at the University of Gothenburg. The article was published in Svenska Dagbladet on 16 november 2015.

Also check:

http://axiom1b.blogspot.se/2015/12/circular-economy-needs-to-be-measured.html

To be wrong, be right, discover you are wrong - How does it feel?

 How does to discover you have been wrong all along be something good to be proud of? 

 Check this TED talk and find out:

https://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong

At the same time - check this:

http://axiom1b.blogspot.se/2015/12/decadence-word-decadence-wikipedia.html

Hatred Violence Islam Christians Serbs Croats Muslims Ottoman Empire

 Behind Hatred there is always a history

 Behind hatred and violence there is always a story that expains some of it. But in multicultural Sweden there is no room for all nationalities to inform of their history, writes Lidija Praizović.

 Islamic extremism is explained by oppressive colonization, while Serb nationalism and Islamophobia is presented as an incomprehensible evil.

 Another thing that is never taught in Swedish schools is that the Balkans were occupied and colonized by the Ottoman Empire from the 1400s until the 1900s.

 There is a tendency among some cultural commentators that the violence perpetrated by Muslim extremists is explained, and even justified, while violence and hatred in other cases is never qualified this way.

 One who makes such a difference is the acclaimed and award-winning author John Anyuru. Anyuru explains the Islamic extremism that is now sweeping across our planet "as a conservativ and politicized form of Islam born out of colonial oppression". He continues: "Islam became under colonialism more than a religion. It turned into an effort to preserve an identity. There were fatwas forbidding colonial habits, such as eating with a knife and fork. It defined itself against the oppressor who tried to obliterate one's culture. There was a reaction.  Even today groups like IS are characterized that way. Their only idea is to fight the Western world ".

 Anyuru presents some good points, though one wonders how, for example, attempts to force yezidiska women to become sex slaves is associated with fighting Western powers.

 It is interesting to compare Anyurus analysis of IS with his poem "Ramadan 2015", published in Aftonbladet. In the poem Srebrenica is mentioned several times, but there is no explanations for the violence. Anyuru often claims to be an expert at explaining what colonial domination does to people. So one wonders why he makes not the slightest attempt to explain how the centuries under Ottoman rule may have contributed to Orthodox Serb violence against bosnia muslims.

 Probably due to ignorance. I have passed the Swedish elementary school, highschool, and university, without having had a single minute of teaching about the Osman empire and it's violence. No mention of the fact that a hundred years ago there was a genocide of 1.3 million Christian (Armenians, Assyrians / Syriacs, Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks) women, men and children in the heart of the Ottoman Empire. This has never been mentioned with a word. The Swedish government has not yet recognized this as genocide, despite the fact that the Swedish parliament in 2010 voted that it should be done.

 Compare that with the talks about the genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, where 8,000 men and boys were murdered. This bestial deeds were recognized immediately as genocide by the Swedish government and has frequently been exposed and narrated by media, educational and cultural. Parallels are drawn between the Holocaust of Jews and genocide in Srebrenica. The multicultural librarian Amina with bosnia muslim background, was not fooled by the viewpoints of her authoritarian teachers, because her family had been subjected to the same thing from the vicious nationalist Serbs. The Serbian extremist violence is made inexplicable and incomprehensible. Serbs are thoroughbred racists.

 The story of the tolerance and suffering by muslims of Bosnia and the Orthodox Serb aggression and guilt is an established story that has dominated most of the western media for 25 years.  Would not it be more radical and honest to also nuance the matter slightly?

 The author Erik Wijk has in his books "Bundle up and kill them," "Heart of the matter", "Bad blood" and "Peace Bomber over the Balkans" written a more complex picture of the wars in former Yugoslavia. But he and his peers did this at the cost of being portrayed as fascists (see, for example, reactions to appeal against the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, as well as Ordfront Feud 2003).

 Another thing we never learned in Swedish schools is that the Balkans were occupied and colonized by the Ottoman Empire from the 1400s until the 1900s. The cultural development and nation formation process that started in the medieval states were halted when the Christian peoples of Balkan lost their political independence. Although muslims allowed Christians to practice their religion, cristians lived as second class citizens. They had to pay high taxes. Thier sons were conscripted as janitsjars into the Ottoman army. Periodically there was serious violence, especially during the fight for liberation during the 1800s, in Bosnia and Kosovo/Macedonia.

 Nor should we forget that 16-20 per cent of Serbs (about 320,000 to 340,000) were killed by Croats and Bosnian Muslims by the fascist German allies of Croatia (which included Bosnia) during World War II. This is virtually unknown in Sweden.

 How was this history of fear and repression reported in 1992? When the Muslim leader Alija Izetbegović wanted to break away from the Yugoslav Bosnia federation and create a state dominated by muslims, the Bosnian Serbs (31 percent of the inhabitants) said no. "If they want to break away from Yugoslavia, we want to break free from Bosnia" was their viewpoint. It was the start of the bloody Bosnian war, when the Western powers led by the USA stood up at the side of the muslims of Bosnia in the conflict.

 In Farnaz Arbabis critically acclaimed play "X" from last spring a primitive colonizer runs around with a large cross dangling around his neck and shoots at everything that moves. But all Christians are not Americans and westerners.

 When will we ever see a piece that is about Middle Eastern Christians - among the oldest Christian nations in the world - and how they will soon be completely exterminated and removed from their original areas?

 Besides the poetic images of the Srebrenica massacre painted by Anyuru he, also gives an analysis: "The same language is now used again in Sweden as there and then."

 This is simply wrong. When Mladic's forces entered Srebrenica on July 11, 1995 to perform their barbaric deeds he said: "Finally, after the revolt against Dahije [Janisaries] our time has come to take revenge on the Turks in this area". It does not make the attack less horrible. But it is a fact about the Serbian Islamophobia that flared up when the Jugoslavian state fell apart, that makes it easier to understand - oversimplified yes - but that is what happened. The reasoning went: "We were subjugated by the Turks for 500 years and you became Muslims ('Turks') to gain privileges, therefore we avenge." It's something completely different from the Islamophobic and xenophobic rhetoric that we see in Sweden today.

 If militant Islamism can partly be seen as a consequence of colonial history and the intervention of Western powers', the same principle applies to Serbian nationalism. If we accept that Sweden now is a multicultural country, we need to have the histories of all the different communities included in the schools, media and cultural debate. It is untenable to suppress or distort the stories that do not fit with routine explanations.

LIDIJA PRAIZOVIĆ

Lidija Praizović is a critic, author, and playwright.

Also Check

http://axiom1b.blogspot.se/2015/12/christianity-religion-holy-scriptures.html 

and

http://axiom1b.blogspot.se/2016/02/religion-secularism-islamfundamentalism.html