Fertility Rates: Is Western society self sustaining?

[pvn]

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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.

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If you believe this, and it looks like you've bought it wholesale, then you owe it to yourself to research the historic price trends for important commodities.

What you'll find is that damn near everything, food, metal, fiber, energy, are all in long-term declining trends. Now how can you square that with your gloom and doom population hysteria?

Technology provides. It done it's magic since fire and flint were discovered.

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See the Simon-Elrich wager:

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The year 1980 was a time when many people thought that the earth was running out of its precious natural resources. Simon, an economist who died in 1998, contended that human ingenuity would always come up with substitutes if needed. Thus humanity would never run out of key materials. In contrast, Ehrlich, a neo-Malthusian biologist, contended that overpopulation and excessive consumption were already forcing shortages of key materials and that this trend would continue.

Simon and Ehrlich agreed that rising prices would be a sign that raw materials had become scarce. Simon offered to bet that any raw materials selected in one year would be lower in price ten years hence. Convinced that prices would go up over the next decade, Ehrlich and two colleagues responded to Simon's offer.

So, in October 1980 Ehrlich and his colleagues picked five different metals (chrome, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten), spending $200 on each metal. The total investment was worth $1,000 in 1980 prices. If, in October 1990, the value of the five metals at their original 1980 quantities, adjusted for inflation, turned out to be greater than $1,000, then Ehrlich would win the bet. If the value were less, Simon would win the bet. Whoever lost would be required to send a check to the winner equal to the difference in value.

In October 1990, the price of the basket of metals had fallen substantially below its 1980 level. All the metals had experienced a drop in value. Moreover, the drop was so substantial that Simon would have won even if the values hadn’t been adjusted for inflation. Ehrlich and his associates sent Simon a check for $576.07.

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http://www.perc.org/perc.php?id=588

Note that oil is one exception to this rule. But, if you look at the long-term inflation-adjusted price of oil, you'll notice that the prices only began reversing this trend after OPEC (a cartel maintained by government coercion) was formed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:O..._1861_2006.jpg

[nicky g]

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Western society has chosen slow cultural suicide. The reasons are many and few. The many include birth control, selfishness, high taxes forcing women to work and some others. The few is simply the growth of secularism. Godless people tend to have a lot less kids.

If you ask the 'enlightened' European about the imminent death of his 2500 year old culture you get a shrug. They don't see a problem. An Islamic Europe is but a couple generations away. I don't see that as a positive move forward. Really, if you were asked to list the ten greatest contributions to the species from Islamic culture in the past 200 years it's not much of a list.

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It is really ironic that in your first paragraph you express opinions and fears that are the favourite themes of the most reactionary Islamist thinkers (birth control, materialism, Godlessness/secularity, women working), and in the second one worry about Muslims taking over the world. You should investigate reactionary Islam a bit more, there's plenty you'd find there to your taste.

[nicky g]

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How do you like France's chances with it's muslim immigrants? You see them all speaking French in one generation

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France's Muslim immigrants largely come from its ex-colonies in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), where French is widely spoken. Most of them spoke French before they even got to France. Pretty much all of France's Muslim immigrants speak French within one generation, especially given its aggressive integration model (unlike England's mulitcultural model for example where immigrants are more often left alone, form non-English speaking ghettos etc - although this is pretty rare outside of old people).

[FlFishOn]

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How do you like France's chances with it's muslim immigrants? You see them all speaking French in one generation

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France's Muslim immigrants largely come from its ex-colonies in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), where French is widely spoken. Most of them spoke French before they even got to France. Pretty much all of France's Muslim immigrants speak French within one generation, especially given its aggressive integration model (unlike England's mulitcultural model for example where immigrants are more often left alone, form non-English speaking ghettos etc - although this is pretty rare outside of old people).

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Good news indeed. They will properly pronounce the Renaults that they burn.

[EricOF]

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How do you like France's chances with it's muslim immigrants? You see them all speaking French in one generation

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France's Muslim immigrants largely come from its ex-colonies in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), where French is widely spoken. Most of them spoke French before they even got to France. Pretty much all of France's Muslim immigrants speak French within one generation, especially given its aggressive integration model (unlike England's mulitcultural model for example where immigrants are more often left alone, form non-English speaking ghettos etc - although this is pretty rare outside of old people).

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Good news indeed. They will properly pronounce the Renaults that they burn.

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[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[John Feeney]

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See the Simon-Elrich wager

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Yeah, I've seen it before. Partly for reasons I mentioned in another post, and partly because Ehrlich basically fell for a prop bet, it means almost nothing. Ehrlich subsequently offered a more meaningful bet, btw, which Simon declined.

http://www.mnforsustain.org/ehrlich_...g_erickson.htm

Simon is truly a laughing stock among scientists who've studies this matter. He actually said something to the effect that though we rely on the sun for energy, even if it were not so vast we would need not worry because there are other suns out there. There's more on him here:

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/bartlett/flatearth.htm

At any rate, economists and their notions of infinite ingenuity providing infinite resources notwithstanding, the earth and its resources really are finite.

[John Feeney]

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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.[ QUOTE ]
If you believe this, and it looks like you've bought it wholesale, then you owe it to yourself to research the historic price trends for important commodities.

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So you don't believe the earth is finite? I suppose maybe you don't. After all Julian Simon's cornucopian message that the earth's resources are infinite (He really asserted that!) is comforting. But you have to admit it makes no sense!

Relatively short term price fluctuations and cycles in commodities don't mean much. (Some argue, for instance that physical depletion doesn't affect commodity proces until very far along in that depletion.) Those commodities are finite. Exponential population growth and per-capita resource consumption cannot help but deplete them over time. Sure, we'll find alternatives and various stop-gap measures, but as long as we keep using them, nonrenewable resources will eventually be depleted.

[FlFishOn]

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So you don't believe the earth is finite?

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Since sunlight falls upon the earth at some number of watts per square meter, most everything is infinite until the energy fails. Technology has the ability to provide everything at a price. The price of goods HAVE ALWAYS FALLEN, ALWAYS, throughout all of history, increasing population demand be damned!

Why is this so hard for you? Is impending apocalypse your prefered future?

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...nonrenewable resources...

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No such thing. You lack vision.

[John Feeney]

This is one of those times when no rebuttle is needed. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]