honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, March 17, 2002

OUR HONOLULU
Small story is worth noticing

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

A small story that ran Wednesday may be the most important news of the century. The story is about a United Nations report that suggests global population trends are heading for decline, not growth.

To wit: "The past few decades have witnessed dramatic declines in birth rates in the large, developing nations that were driving the growth."

Those nations include Bangladesh, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico and the Philippines and account for about 43 percent of the world's population, according to the story.

The study suggests that those nations are heading toward a fertility rate of 1.85 children for each woman by 2050. Today the rate, depending on the country, is between 2.1 and 5 children each, a reason for global population growth. With less than two children per family, the global population would begin to decline sometime after this century.

According to the story, demographers from around the world will meet at the United Nations tomorrow to consider lowering the global population estimate for the end of this century from 10 billion (it's 6 billion now) to between 8 billion and 9 billion.

I have to admit that I was surprised. For as long as I can remember, it's been politically correct to predict population growth, the road to our extinction, as certain as hell and damnation to preachers of original sin.

Not that 8 billion to 9 billion is much less daunting than 10 billion. One of Hawai'i's population gurus, Eleanor Nordyke, reminded me that 2.5 billion people will be added to the global population in 50 years: "People think we don't have a population problem. We still have a long way to go. But I'm trying to be optimistic about the last 50 years of the century."

Futurist Jim Dator is also reluctant to be optimistic. He added a new worry; increased prosperity tends to bring an upswing in fertility rates. It's happening in the United States. If Third World countries prosper, fertility trends could swing back up again.

Retired state statistician Robert Schmitt said, "Long-term trends make me nervous. One thing I've learned is that the future is unfathomable." But he also said, "If the down-trend in fertility continues, it will markedly decrease the figures for a century or two in the future."

That's the point. If the trend continues, there's some hope for a sustainable future. It means that people are rational beings able to respond to a threat to their survival, not robots programmed to reproduce.

It means the efforts in Third World countries to gain control of family planning are worthwhile. Control of population growth is the bottom line for the survival of our species. Now if Congress would increase the gasoline mileage of Detroit automobiles, we might even make a dent in global warming.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073 or bkrauss@honoluluadvertiser.com.