Overpopulation is a Meme Camino, Mhd MYTH: The world's population is increasing exponetially! FACT: The rate of population increase is actually decreasing. (fig. 1) It actually took longer to go from 6 to 7 billion than it did to go from 5 to 6 billion. Trends show that as a country becomes more developed, people tend to have less kids. [1] We are actually at risk of a population implosion. [2] China has already been forced to revoke it's One-Child policy due to shortages in the labor market. [3] At best, we will experience a great graying of humanity as the production of new babies isn't able to support the current society. MYTH: B-b-but the world is already overpopulated! Look at all the starving people! FACT: The 7 billion of us actually produce enough food for 10 billion. [4] How much food do you think 10 billion of us can produce? People's access to food is in no way limited by the large population. It is a problem of distribution. Since the population is increasing, you would expect malnutrition to be increasing if population was really the cause. But actually worldwide hunger is decreasing. [5] (fig. 2) In conclusion: 60s era theories about overpopulation have been shown to be false, and in fact we may have an underpopulation problem upon us. The overpopulation meme distracts us from the real problems of climate change, renewable energy, income inequality, and creating a sustainable society. Having less people does not make the world any more sustainable, we would be just as unsustainable as we were before, just with less people. A truly sustainable society can have any number of people in it. References
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255510/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP5Z14X-moM [3] http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nation/China-facing-labor-shortage-due-to-onechild-policy/shdaily.shtml [4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-holt-gimenez/world-hunger_b_1463429.html [5] https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment/
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>The 7 billion of us actually produce enough food for 10 billion
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