Fertility Rates: Is Western society self sustaining?

[FlFishOn]

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what happens when the immigrants stop comming?


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You end up with Zimbabwe.

[Darryl_P]

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Procreation rates in Asian cultures aren't that high either, though I give them a break for being a little overpopulated.

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Not to mention stiff penalties in China for having more than one child.

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It seems to be much more related to income.

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I suppose within western cultures that's true, but in Islamic cultures the correlation is reversed, ie. greater wealth = more children.

[TomCollins]

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I don't follow the French situation as closely as the American situation. Your fear is no different than the fear from 80 years ago when we were flooded with undesirables from Italy, Greece, Eastern Europe, and the Orient. But keep letting Michael Savage fearmonger you some more. It is NO different than then.


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Sorry but things are lining up quite differently today. An immigrant's culture is now a treasured artifact under the fraud of multi-culturalism. 100 years ago it was sink or swim and to swim you assimilated. Not so today.

You can vote in most any language. Can you study local politics in all of them? I'd be very surprised. THis was not true 100 years ago.

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This of course is untrue, as there have been "Little Italy"s and "Chinatowns" that helped accomodate immigrants. You say that immigrants of today do not assimilate like those of the past, but offer no proof other than "look around! Look at all the Muslims!"

What percentage of voters use the foreign language ballots? Any evidence?

[FlFishOn]

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What percentage of voters use the foreign language ballots?

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Since this was not possible 100 years ago the percentage increase is huge.

[TomCollins]

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What percentage of voters use the foreign language ballots?

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Since this was not possible 100 years ago the percentage increase is huge.

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Right so if it goes from 0% to .5%, PANIC!!!!!!! THE DARKEES ARE TAKING OVER!

[Arnfinn Madsen]

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I am more interested from the standpoint that failing to reproduce seems like a cultural failure. We've got billions of years of evolution driving us to procreate, and we can't seem to fulfill this one purpose. Any animal that doesn't procreate is ultimately a failure, isn't it? It lost the evolutionary game.

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I see, I guess that sustainable reproduction has disappeared as a goal for many western societies. It will theoretically lead to the decline of some cultures by time, however I think all cultures are doomed to collapse and get replaced by something else anyway. There is not really any culture that has stayed stabile during a long period in modern history, so I don't see why cultures should do that in the future, since they are under much more external influence etc. today.

[John Feeney]

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I am more interested from the standpoint that failing to reproduce seems like a cultural failure. We've got billions of years of evolution driving us to procreate, and we can't seem to fulfill this one purpose. Any animal that doesn't procreate is ultimately a failure, isn't it? It lost the evolutionary game.

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Well, I just happen to have collected a lot of info on this.

World population has grown exponentially, skyrocketing in the last century, doubling just since the early '60s, etc.:

http://www.sustainablescale.org/Area...uickFacts.aspx

We can't continue with exponential growth too much longer.

Many experts and environmental groups have warned of dire environmental consequences of this growth:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4584572.stm

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/297/5583/954

http://www.actionbioscience.org/envi...cientists.html

http://www.sierraclub.org/population/overview/

There is good evidence that we've overshot the planet's carying capacity:

http://www.ilea.org/leaf/richard2002.html

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-193149858x-0

While you're right that at some point population loss could be a problem, and I do think it's wise to understand what's going on (the comments about education, affluence, women's issues, etc. are all right on) and plan ahead, from the estimates I've seen an overall drop in world population to more sustainable levels should be a good thing. The hope is that we do it in a reasoned way and it isn't simply forced on us by nature. The stable to negative growth rates in Europe are, IMO, a sign of hope.

[Copernicus]

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I'm also convinced that an economy could adjust to more old people by having them work longer.

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Exactly. Yet the pending pension legislation on the hill does nothing to encourage phased retirements, which would also help the SS system.

[lehighguy]

But Europe and North America have plenty of land and resources. You comments are more geared to poorer and more overcrowded countries.

[John Feeney]

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But Europe and North America have plenty of land and resources. You comments are more geared to poorer and more overcrowded countries.

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Hmmm, I'm not clear on how you arrive at that. I don't think many scientists studying the matter feel the US has plenty of resources to allow comfortably for much more population growth. Those warnings, such as the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity do not exclude the US and Europe.

http://www.actionbioscience.org/envi...cientists.html

(Also, if you've been to Europe, you know many countries there really don't have much land left.)

We need to be clear that the population an area can sustain (~carrying capacity) has little to do with the amount of land available and much more to do with the resources that land contains. Large chunks of the US, for instance, are desert, and cannot realistically support many people.

The US has to import its oil, is running out of water in the West, may be maxing out on food production, etc.:

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-193149858x-0

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...8244&itm=1

(Sorry I'm just providing books with those two, but the basic points I made are detailed well there.)

Though carrying capacity estimates vary, there are certainly biologists and others studying the matter who believe we've exceeded the carrying capacity of the US:

http://www.ecofuture.org/pk/pkcapcty.html

http://www.ecologicalfootprint.org/result.php?cnt=USA

I believe we have to think both locally and globally. While the largest contributors to global population growth may be countries like India and China, the per-capita consumption rate of the world's resources is higher in the US than in nearly any other country. So one person added here stresses the earth much more than one person added in India. On the other hand, that's changing as standards of living rise in other countries.