View Single Post
  #56  
Old 07-31-2006, 12:02 AM
John Feeney John Feeney is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 1,101
Default Re: Fertility Rates: Is Western society self sustaining?

[ QUOTE ]
The aticle The Global Baby Bust by Phillp Longman from the May/June 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine is a must-read for anyone interested in fertility, birth rates, population size, and its implications for America and the world.


[/ QUOTE ]

From the article summary:

[ QUOTE ]
Falling birthrates might seem beneficial, but the economic and social price is too steep to pay.

[/ QUOTE ]

As far as I can see the author is a journalist (or perhaps has some economic background?) without scientific training. That might explain why he ignores some basic math.

His view ignores the irrefutable math of exponential growth:

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461

http://www.mnforsustain.org/bartlett...th_society.htm


The earth is finite. Why is it that otherwise intelligent people assume we can We can go on growing indefinitely? By all scientific accounts we've reached the limit.

In any event, population growth does not necessarily correlate with economic growth:

http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/pu...s/gottlieb.pdf
Reply With Quote