Maybe Dr. Scholls never said this but I bet he wished he had. For the better part of a century Dr. Scholls arch supports were about the only relief people with flat feet and other foot and leg alignment problems could find. Then came the Baby Boomers. As this balloon in the population demographic got older things like custom orthotics became all the rage. Boomers had money and didn't bat an eyelash at spending 10 times what Dr. Scholls arch supports cost. Boomers ruled the world and that brings me to the point of this article.
On Nov. 29 I had a posting entitled Species Dwindling Except the One that Needs It where I linked the demise of thousands of species on the planet to the increase in human population. That part of my essay is accurate. It was the reason I gave for why the population was swelling that was wrong or at least outdated.
I said the Boomers -- my generation -- weren't able to control our birthrate. Turns out we actually did.
The authors of Empty Planet --The Shock of Global Population Decline use statistics from every region and country to prove that the world population is going to plummet. The reason is humans are not having enough babies to sustain the status quo. And yet, as I pointed out in my blog, the world population went from three billion to eight billion in just 50 years! How can these two things be true?
Well, it turns out that while the fertility rate around the world was decreasing, the longevity rate was increasing. People are living longer. New additions to the population outnumber the people leaving the planet. Thank modern medicine, including vaccines, and the Green Revolution in agriculture for that.
The message that Canadian authors John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker are conveying is earth-shattering. The leaders of every level of our government need to understand the implications of what they are saying. We all do.
Everything in our modern society is based on perpetual growth in population. When a municipality, for example, figures out what some new piece of infrastructure is going to cost, be it a sewer plant or a street, it assumes there will be more people to pay for it as time goes on, not fewer. Ditto for bigger things like old age pensions and national security. Everything.
The first thing we need to realize is the downsize in fertility rates is not something predicted for the future. It is happening now and in fact has been happening for a hundred years. My parents came from families of 7-10 kids. My generation had two. You need 2.1 just to keep the population stable. The .1 comes from the fact that not all women live long enough to reproduce.
With the exception of countries in Africa, almost every nation has a fertility rate less than 2.1. And even in Africa where disease, famine and political instability are the worst, the rate is plummeting and will be below 2.1 in just decades. It already is in some countries.
Just last month it was reported that China's population has started to decline for the first time ever.
The key to understanding why this is happening is the urbanization of human society, say Ibbitson and Bricker. I think many of us have heard that education, especially of women, was integral to lower birth rates. That is not wrong, say the authors, but before education becomes widespread, urbanization takes place and the whole world is rapidly becoming urban.
In cities, children are an expense, not an asset the way they might have been on the farm. Everybody has access to education and better access to medicine. Family -- clan -- tribe -- religion -- connections are not as important. Couples do what makes sense for them rather than being pressured into things.
A future with fewer people is obviously good news for the planet but it spells big trouble for how we run our societies. In the near term, like for the next 50-100 years, the countries that are going to fare the best will be the ones who take in the most immigrants.
But don't think immigrants are going to boost the fertility rate. They don't have any more kids than the natives. However, they do add to the population, the tax base, the need for consumer goods. They keep things running. And contrary to naysayers, they become the employers, not the opposite -- taking jobs from the domestic workers. Six out of 10 business start-ups in the U.S. are made by immigrants.
To hinder, or prohibit immigration -- the way Japan has done, for instance -- is economic suicide. What was the last great invention that came from Japan? The Sony Walkman. That was 50 years ago. The population is declining there and so is the economy. It's the same for lots of countries.
Guess what country is the best at bringing in immigrants? Canada! As a percentage of population Canada welcomes three times more immigrants than the U.S. which by shear numbers is still the largest.
Empty Planet notes that both the right and left misunderstand immigration. The right thinks that immigrants are taking "all the jobs" and the left thinks it is the charitable thing to do. Neither of these things is correct. It is good for business.
After I finished reading Empty Planet, I read it again, and then again. I dog-eared the pages that had important facts. The book is almost totally dog-eared. I have practically worn it out and I didn't even get it until mid-December.
I would say it is one of the three most important books I have ever read. It explains what is happening in the world and what is going to happen in the future.
Here's something to think about: since the 1950s the Boomers have done everything in record numbers. Now they are leaving the planet in the same way.
