Condoms: the most effective weapon against world poverty and global warming
23rd July 2008
by gordo
Pope Benedict prepares to sacrifice yet another child on the Altar of Chastity
Poverty and environmental degradation have many causes, but one of the primary causes is population growth. If world population continues to grow exponentially, no amount of redistribution, conservation, or technological development will halt an eventual, inevitable decline in living standards.
Right now, the total world fertility rate is 2.58 births per woman. A 20% reduction in that fertility rate would bring it below the replacement level of 2.1, allowing us to achieve a stable world population for the first time in history.
Right now, 41% of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended. So it’s clear that we have a historic opportunity.
Unfortunately, we’re not taking advantage of that opportunity. One institution that’s frequently blamed is the Roman Catholic Church. We’re told that Pope Benedict knows that his pronouncements on the subject are mostly ignored in countries like Canada and France, but are taken very seriously in places like Haiti and Burundi. So Ireland has managed to achieve a zero growth rate in its native population (all of Ireland’s population growth now comes through immigration), while the population of the Philippines has ballooned to 90 million.
But Church policy appears to have far less impact than government policy.
During the 1990s, population growth rates fell considerably in Latin America, despite the influence of the Catholic church. Today, nearly all of the countries experiencing high fertility rates are in either Africa or South Asia, suggesting that the problem is not any stigma that might be attached to birth control, but unavailability of birth control.
And so, naturally, President Stupid has has refused to provide congressionally approved aid to the United Nations Population Fund. This is especially ironic when you look at a list of the nations currently experiencing the highest fertility rates, and you realize that many of them are the very nations which produce the most dangerous anti-Western terrorists. Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen are among the 6 most fertile countries, and D.R. Congo, Angola, Western Sahara, Oman, Chad, and the Gaza Strip are all among the top 20 most fertile. Bush’s refusal to provide birth control is helping to destabilize the some of the most violent regions of the world.
I’m not a population alarmist, and I don’t think that limiting population growth is a panacea. I think that with better technology and more equitable distribution of resources, the people of the world can enjoy rising living standards even if the population grows to 10 billion. And if we were to achieve zero world population growth, that would leave wealthy nations with declining populations, and African countries with rising populations. So zero population growth wouldn’t lead to stable national populations unless countries like Germany and Japan start taking more immigrants. From Africa. That’s going to take a very profound cultural shift.
But while stepping up efforts to make birth control more available won’t solve all of our problems, it is a necessary precondition to overcoming many of our most serious challenges. Hopefully, our next president will end Bush’s policy of obstructionism on this issue.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:18 am
hi,
thanks for sharing above valuable information ..
Even Im serving a cause on Endpoverty by 2015 in India.
Im voluntarily working with the United Nations on its Millennium Development Goals.
For the latest discussion on Poverty Line join-
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9103630908
July 24th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Considering all that, maybe the gays and the Chinese are on to something-not to mention the “just say noes”
Now if only all liberals and atheists (redundant) were gay, Chinese or just say noes…
July 27th, 2008 at 6:10 am
Increasing human population is a definite cause of political and economic instability through out the world. We are already past the point where the planet can indefinitely support our numbers. The Chinese are proving that extreme population control works. IMO the current booming Chinese economy would have been impossible without their one-child policy which is now entering its second generation. India on the other hand is in a bubble that requires continuing growth, but is facing its own problems, as the current generation that is heavily selected prenatally for sons, matures and finds itself with too few women.
FWIW many liberals, progressives and atheists are “converts”. We will always be with you, gay or otherwise. lol
July 27th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Dutch, China is having that problem too, with a growing lopsided gender ratio. There’s going to be a lot of frustrated bachelors. One more reason to speed up reunification with Taiwan! They need more women!
July 27th, 2008 at 9:41 am
What we’ve seen in Europe, Japan, and Latin America is that birthrates drop considerably when women are educated and given access to birth control. That’s because educated women with access to birth control tend to have their first child much later, and fertility rates climb quickly when women get pregnant late in life. I think that as women are given more opportunity in China, they’ll find that their birth rates and gender ratio will quickly fall in line with countries like Taiwan and Japan. We’ll see the same thing with India.
Today, the countries with the highest fertility rates are mostly in Africa and the Middle East. In other words, the countries where women are least educated, have the least opportunity, and have the least control over family planning.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Tommykey,
I was aware that the Indian prenatal gender selection was also present in China, but it is not as wide spread. The one-child policy in China pretty much prohibits its repetition in any given family as well, which is not the case in India, where limiting family size has failed to such an extent that India is poised to replace China as the most populous country in the world in the very near future.