25 March 2021

Growth


Long time visitors to "Yorkshire Pudding" may recall that last year I drew special attention to our planet's relentless population growth. It was on February 4th of 2020 that I noted the world's population was 7,762,009,632 and increasing day by day.

Since then we have all been cowering in the shadow of COVID19. Death stalks us like an escaped beast, waiting to take us in moments of weakness. Surely with what COVID has done, the planet's population must have been in freefall but that is far from the truth. Today, almost fourteen months after my initial blogpost, Earth's population is 7,854, 418, t43

In fourteen months our population has risen by 92 million. Only 2,755,000 have died from coronavirus in that same period of time. 92 million extra earthlings. That's  a much bigger number of people  than the current population of Great Britain, bigger than Germany or Turkey and  more than the Democratic Republic of Congo, bigger than the populations of California, Texas and Florida put together. It makes you think.

I find this rampant growth extremely concerning. In the last year I have seen miles of TV footage connected with this damned pandemic  and I have read thousands of words about it. I don't know about you but in the main media outlets I have seen and read almost nothing about population growth in the past year. 

Every extra human being puts extra strain on this planet's limited resources. All 92million  need to eat and keep warm when it is cold. I am not offering any solutions - just highlighting the issue.

Surely, if all this attention, this money, this sacrifice, this worry is being devoted to COVID and its effects we should be saving some of that stuff up for population growth. If it goes on this way we will implode as even Prince Philip recognised.

27 comments:

  1. Implosion is the right word. The population implosion is happening slow enough so that we don't really notice anything.

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  2. Perhaps the Catholic church should stop telling impoverished nations that birth control is a sin. Making birth control available to every human being would change this situation.

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  3. The coronavirus had its chance - and took it, as we all know - to make the transition from animal to human exactly because there are too many of us. Almost everything else that worries or at least bothers me can be boiled down to the fact that there are too many of us. And yet, people keep having babies left, right and center - not all of them by choice, but many see it as the fulfillment of their life's dreams to have children. And who can blame them? It is in our nature to procreate, like all other species on this planet strife to procreate. I have decided not to participate in that a long time ago, and so far have not had reason to regret my choice. But then I HAD a choice, unlike millions of women who are never asked what they want their lives to be like.

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    1. The liberation of women across the globe is surely the main means by which population growth can be suppressed.

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  4. We're already on a path to destruction and it daily becomes harder, nigh impossible, to turn that around.

    Who do you think should stop having babies?

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    1. We should begin by understanding better what makes some countries' population growths rampant - e.g. Niger, Bahrain, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda while other countries' populations are actually falling e.g. Japan, Puerto Rico, Croatia. We should also understand better the impacts of religion, poverty and the life experience of women upon population growth.

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  5. Anonymous8:40 am

    I didn't realise Phil the Greek spoke such wise words. In my city we have proscribed green wedges. We also have an area of native grassland that has never been used for agriculture. Air pollution not withstanding, it has never been touched and is home to all kinds of creatures. What do we do with our green wedges and native grasslands? We build cheap and nasty housing on them. Because immigration is not happening, the Ponzi scheme of immigration is on hold, but it will return.

    How can you stop people breeding? Give them a good education and a decent job. Make sure they don't need half a dozen children to support them in their old age. Make sure their children live and they don't need so many extra children in case one or two die.

    It is hard and I don't really have answers either, but things cannot continue as they are. If we don't stop expanding, Mother Earth will kill us. She had a good go with COVID. It was but a warning.

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    1. Your middle paragraph contains some of the vital signposts to addressing this huge and hugely important issue. Thank you for your thoughtful response Andrew.

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  6. Wow, the stats are staggering and Prince Philip's quote seems like a prediction that has happened. Many said that the Covid-19 was a natural purge but looking at your figures, there were more births than deaths. I agree that how can earth keep feeding this growing population.

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    1. Many, many more births than deaths in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

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  7. Child birth rates in the West are dropping.

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    1. Yes. In a good number of western countries - but not all.

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  8. As you know, I agree with you completely, although I'm amused at Prince Philip spotlighting this issue (he of four children and god-knows-how-many grandchildren and great-grands). As you mentioned in response to Meike's comment, the key is liberating women, educating them, giving them opportunities. Of course some cultures are dead-set against this, but it's the only way out of this mess. (Plus it's the right thing to do.)

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    1. Yes. Empowering women - it won't solve the issue entirely but it would be a vital factor.

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  9. Poverty, procreation and population go hand in hand - as sadly, do disease, disadvantage and despair. Solutions are beyond my ability to sensibly provide, but it does seem to me that a recognition that our futures are are all interconnected is a vital component. The cutting of our aid budget from 0.7% GDP to 0.5% (a 30% reduction) was one of the politically more regrettable aspects of this last year

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    1. Also regrettable was the spin that our government put on this - even suggesting that cutting an aid budget can make it more effective. Such weasel words!

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  10. Is Covid really finished with us yet?
    It's likened to the Spanish Flu, which took 50 million lives in two or three years, so perhaps we have another couple of years to go? I realise that medicine has advanced over the hundred years since the flu epidemic, but the speed with which this virus hit us is still frightening. So, yes, it could be said that it's "nature's way" of indiscriminately culling our numbers. It's frightening to think that worldwide war and famine should also rear their ugly heads too.
    Giving women the right to education, and to control their own lives, and more importantly their own bodies, will go a very long way to eventually slowing down the suicidal rush mankind is making to the cliff edge. It may take a generation or two but hopefully it will be in time.

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    1. Thank you for your honest reflections CG.

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  11. I have no words today. I agree with Prince Phillip, with you. And yet, there is so much more to it than simply curbing population growth.

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    1. I agree but population growth is at the forefront of so many of the world's problems.

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  12. Reduce fertiliy by spreading lots of plastic in the environment.

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    1. That has already been done but it did not work.

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    2. ... says he in a high squeaky voice as he drinks from his Army and Navy surplus plastic water bottle.

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  13. Perhaps the prince should have practiced what he preaches and kept his offspring to an heir and a spare.

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    1. Quite possibly Curly Club but when his kids were born there was far less awareness of the implications of overpopulation. On the other hand B.Johnson, Ursula von der Leyen and Jacob Rees Mogg should certainly have known better.

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