According to your logic, population can continue to grow forever. Even to the point that individual humans have one square meter to live on? Yeah.... you make a lot of sense. Do the math.
So, imagine the world wizes up - condoms are the number one selling product, and the world's population stops growing. (after all, non procreation is the only peaceful method - the other options: war, pestilence, famine, are not exactly picnincs. Then what happens to the economy? Countries are terrified of shrinking populations - their economies collapse or they get invaded by another country with a growing, younger population for resources! And what happens with the massive elderly population in such a scenario of zero or leveling pop growth? THINK IT THRU. Wow... there is a TON OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE going on here.
I never said that. The type of economy a country is in depicts whether a countries population increases or decreases. There are around 5-6 stages of economic developement. Once a country reaches a certain stage of economic developement the population stagnates.
Rapidly growing population is not an economic asset in a modern economy it is a liability (unless you want to be the world's sweatshop). In fact, when you have a large number of people to give them a decent standard of living (school them feed them, give them medical care) you need to spend a lot of money. We have trouble giving medical care to everyone in the US as it is. And don't tell me to think it thorugh. China imposed 1 child policies PRECISELY because it understood that unless population growth is curbed China will always be a hopelessly poor nation. You are suggesting a die off, it won't happen. We will gradually adjust to sustainable levels. A die off would happen if the sun stopped shining. Humans are not bacteria they can see the writing on the wall.
Population growth goes hand in hand with resource depletion and subsequent pollution. In the third world, they consume a mere fraction of what an average American consumes. But the issue is not one of only pop growth, but consumption growth as well. China is consuming resources faster than any other country - even if they slow down their pop. They have a long way to grow - they are even buying farmland in Africa to feed themselves because their industries have destroyed many of their rivers with pollution. You say humans are not bacteria - they can see the writing on the wall. That was the whole point of that woman's speech in that video. Her audience were children, so she didn't get as graphic as I am. But she drove the point home. But I will still suggest that it is too late. Go to the youtube site where that video Peil posted. Look at the comments. Look at Peil's comments. Those are the views of the majority of people and even governments. WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO CONSUME AND HAVE KIDS DAMMIT!!!! THAT'S MY RIGHT! THAT'S CAPITALISM - I AM NOT A COMMIE. WE MUST GROW THE ECONOMY!! LOL.... So, do you really think we are that much smarter than bacteria?
When a population stagnates, it will not have enough manpower to support a growing elderly population. Social Security and Medicare rely on a growing workforce. How's that economic and population stagnation work again?
You still don't get it. We have way more farmland than necessary to "EXIST" we are living a luxury life style with infinite number of different wine varieties, same for champaigne, different varieties of apples, etc., etc. If our diet approached that of people in antiquity we would do just fine. Population growth is slowing not accelerating. Even in countries where people traditionally breed like rabbits population growth is slowing down. There is a lot of farmland that is inefficiently usedi n russian.
Wait a second. So your argument is that populations don't stagnate? How can you say that when populations in a very large amount of first world countries have been stagnating for years? Do you know what stagnate means?
Look at the world in total - not individual countries. The population is still growing. Did you not see that chart? It's frickin parabolic. And you think it will magically taper off without dieoff? The US, by the way, is proud that it has a growing population, unlike many European countries. That's a source for economic growth. Russia, on the other hand, is encouraging pop growth because of those same economic consequences. As for other individual countries that are stagnating, yes, that is happening. However, they will face crushing budgets to care for their elderly. Will they be able to? Those are the same countries that are going broke, by the way. Hence, dieoff, yet again.
India and China alone account for over 2 billion of the world's population - isn't it their right to live like us? And if they all live like Americans, where will they get their resources? Americans are 5% of the world's pop, yet consume 25% of the world's oil. What would happen to those numbers if/when more and more people in China and India start driving? Will we consume less? What does that mean to our economy? To our agriculture? China wants to bring 295 million more people into the modern world by 2025. That's HUGE. That's basically another US. China also has about 90+% of the world's rare metals that are used for electric car batteries. They are considering limiting exports. Just one of dozens of resource issues. I could write for hours on this topic because we are dealing with a complex global system that relies on finding places to dump pollution, finding energy sources, and finding food, and everything else - minerals, metals, clean water, and then, transporting all those things... It's not a pretty picture.