The population
explosionThe problem of the population
explosion has lost much of its urgency. Since it came to the fore in
the 1960's, population growth on the world level has consistently
decreased. In the developed countries, population growth is
practically zero, in the developing countries it is rapidly
decreasing. According to the most likely projections, world
population is expected to stabilize at less than the double of the
present level by the year 2100. The increase in population density
only causes major problems in very poor, agricultural countries,
such as Rwanda or Bangla Desh, where more land would be needed to
feed the population. In Rwanda, for instance, contrary to elsewhere,
the Malthusian apocalyptic predictions have been verified by the
1994 genocide, which literally decimated the population. The
introduction of vaccines and antibiotics broke the balance between
maximal fertility and high mortality, leading to extreme
overpopulation. In these circumstances, political conflict
degenerated into wholesale massacre. In Bangla Desh, on the other
hand, the education of women and spread of anticonception methods
has produced a spectacular drop in fertility, making the problem
much more manageable.
Countries such as the Netherlands, Singapore and Japan show how a
high population density can very well go together with high economic
and social development levels. Statistical studies of happiness or
life-satisfaction show that happiness= is independent of either
population density or population growth. Since productivity
increases in general more quickly than population, population growth
at the world level should not lead to the exhaustion of resources or
farmland. However, it is clear that for the densely populated
agricultural countries mentioned before, population control remains
a high priority.
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