Sunday, May 6, 2007

Global Depopulation?

Folks who still worry about overpopulation of the planet are so 20th Century. They're a little like those sophisticated academic elites who used to worry about things like global cooling and a new ice age.

In support of this view, let me share with you an excerpt from a recent Christianity Today Q&A with Philip Longman titled "Fertility, Faith, & the Future of the West:"

World population is still increasing by some 77 million annually. That's equivalent to adding a whole new country the size of Egypt every year. Yet here is a curious fact few people know: the number of children under 5 in the world is actually smaller than in 1990.

How can this be? Mostly it is because of the massive global decline in birthrates. Now, in literally every region outside of sub-Saharan Africa, the average woman no longer bears enough children to replace the population. For now, world population continues to grow, though at a slower and slower rate, primarily because of the enormous increase in the numbers of elderly people. But many countries, such as Russia and Japan, are already shrinking in absolute size, and on current trends, global depopulation will occur within the lifetime of today's young adults.

No comments: