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A weekly column on current issues by John A Burton of the World Land Trust. The views expressed are personal, and do not necessarily reflect those of the WLT. Feedback and comments are welcomed.

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People in third world countries have too many babies

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

People in third world countries have too many babies
I was surprised to find this response put on the Oxfam website as a common myth.


And the paragraph below given as their response:

Rubbish! It really is time to get shot of this. First of all, in lots of poor countries, families are getting smaller, not bigger. This is because people have fewer children when they begin to prosper ? which is good news, all round. And the bad news? Millions of kids are still born into poverty, and don't even make it past their fifth birthday

The problem with this claim is that it cannot be substantiated, and is actually contradicted by virtually all the published statistics. And not only do people in third world countries definitely have too many babies, so do many people in the developed world. The world population is growing at an alarming rate, and to deny it is on a par with denying climate change. And there is a strong linkage between the two. The fact that families are getting smaller, hides the more significant fact that the birth rate is still outstripping the death rate, and that the human populations of most parts of the world (including Britain) are not sustainable.

Making poverty history in these circumstances may be an admirable objective, but it is fundamentally completely unachievable -- which is probably why no one has ever shown a plan as to how it will be achieved. Apply crude animal population dynamic theories to any human populations and it is immediately obvious that the present rate of increase cannot be sustained. It therefore follows that there will be catastrophic declines from time to time, either from disease, natural disaster or warfare, or all three. I have yet to see any models that can demonstrate an alternative. And certainly none of the Aid agencies have any on their websites; it's an issue they conveniently ignore -- or as shown above are misleading. Interestingly the Charity Commission in the UK has recently revised definitions of poverty. In the developing countries it can mean "lacking basic essentials such as clean water, food and shelter", but in the UK "it could refer to those living on less than 60% of the average income". Now to me this certainly seems like one rule for the rich and another for the poor, helping the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Which definition do aid agencies use?

Labels: Human Population Crisis, International Aid

Posted by John Wednesday, March 26, 2008
 
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1 Comments:

I was interested to read a piece in the local paper which extensively quoted Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth. Among his "95 ways of saving the Earth" is "Achieve universal primary and secondary education so as to help curtail human population growth." He has three children, so what level of education did he achieve?

By  Robert, at 19 April, 2008 10:17  

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