Einstein once said : "Overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet."
Man, in his eternal quest for wealth and control, created a world full of inequalities and hunger. And if you and I are both living in a developed country, we should be aware that hunger, poverty and disease cannot be addressed at a global level without considering population and reproductive health issues.
The fact is that this generation -- yours, my generation ...
we're the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean
to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this sort of
stupid extreme poverty, where in the world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it's belly.
(Bono)
A rich or developed country is defined by wikipedia as a sovereign state that has a highly developed economy and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Factors such as GDP/gross domestic product and per capita income are often used indices in determining the status of a country, poor,developing or developed
The following image presents the GDP situation in the world... Lilac color represents the developed countries in the world, including the ten richest countries : Kuwait, given the its oil production, more precious than gold, followed by Switzerland, home to the world richest bank, and a top of the range banking system. A desert land two decades ago, the next richest country in terms of GDP is United Arab Emirates. Today is taking full advantage from foreign investment due to rich oil reserves found on its territory.
United States of America is not only one of the richest countries, but also maybe the most influential when it comes to world politics and economics. Another country that owes it fortune to oil and gas reserves is Brunei Darussalam, so rich that had no public debt in 2011. Hong Kong is next,not a country, but a special administrative region of China, owes his wealth to ever growing finance, trade and commerce. The forth richest county in the world is Norway, with a commitment for healthy lifestyle to its people. Singapore, Luxembourg and Qatar are the three richest countries in the world, and their GDP far exceeds the one of USA.
But these rich economies are far from being able to deal with the ever increasing world population and the negative effects of this phenomenon The rich poor gap is strongly driving migration and greatly affects both the host country and the one left behind. The only way for migration to slow down is a better lifestyle at home. And certainly having more children will not help these families in the poor countries towards a better life. Add to this the fact that in majority, the people who choose to emigrate are rather ambitious and more educated, so they add to the brain drain suffered by these countries.
In a nutshell, the situation is this:
This week, our global population will grow by more than 1.5 million people.
That's like adding a city the size of Phoenix or Philadelphia. In just one week!
What's worse, around the world right now:
One in ten people lacks access to clean drinking water.
One in eight doesn't have enough food to eat.
One in five lives on less than $1 a day. ...
The richest 20 pc of humanity consumes 86 pc of all goods and services,
while the poorest fifth consumes just 1.3 pc.
"Of course I know our economic growth can't match our population growth [then 3.5%] so of course I know we'll all get poorer until we get that number down – don't tell me, tell the other idiots!"
Bernard Chidzero – economist and politician 1927 – 2002 (Economy Minister of Zimbabwe 1985) The rate of consumption seen by the United States (where its population tripled, while consumption of raw materials increased 17-fold, during the 20th century) its highly unlikely to be experienced by any other nation again in the future.
And the socio economic impacts of unsustainable population growth are likely to continue for many more years, and also get worse. worrying examples are Egypt, where the street children make up for almost 10pc of population, and India, who has 11 millions of them. On other hand, the the number of young unemployed people worldwide is nearly as big as the US population.
"There was a time when the countless tribes of men, though wide-dispersed,
oppressed the surface of the deep-bosomed Earth, and Zeus saw it and had pity and in his wise heart resolved to relieve the all-nurturing Earth of men by causing the
great struggle of the Ilian war, that the load of death might empty the world.
And so the heroes were slain in Troy, and the plan of Zeus came to pass."
(Stasinos, poet )
But today, 2000 years AC, the world population grows by two hundred thousands people every day!!! And only 17 pc of it lives in industrialized countries
Migrants make up 10 pc of developed country residents. The U.S. has the most migrants, than Russia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and France. These six countries included 40% of the total. They usually work for small wages, managing to send overall to their families sums higher than the official development aid, almost as much as foreign direct investment. But these money are still not enough to generate growth in their home countries.
Gulf oil exporters have the largest share of migrants, such as Qatar with over 85 pc of the population as migrants; the UAE and Kuwait have 70 pc migrants. And migration is only to increase, as communication is easier and transport is cheaper. (nothing like 200 years ago, when too little was known by the average person about, say, Australia)
As Jacques Cousteau said, : "Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today." The figures are undeniable : while every 20 minutes around 3000 people are born, each year one of 27000 either plants or animals becomes extinct ! Lets only hope that Sir Peter Scott – founder of WWF 1909 – 1989, believes will materialize in the near future: “If the human population of the world continues to increase at its current rate, there will soon be no room for either wild life or wild places…But I believe that sooner or later man will learn to limit his overpopulation. Then he will be much more concerned with optimum rather than maximum, quality rather than quantity, and will recover the need within himself for contact with wilderness and wild nature.”
The planet resources ARE limited, so anyone who believes in indefinite growth of anything physical on a physically finite planet is either a madman or an economist.
"The world is finite. For everybody in the world to have the same lifestyle that we [in the West] have now, at only six billion people, would take four additional Earths [in resources]."
(
Margaret Atwood - novelist b1939)
I may not be educated enough to discuss every problem arising from poverty and population growth. There are indeed too many things I m not aware of. But I do like to read and find out, and so should we all. Become aware of the world we live in and the world we leave to our children. This is a website I find so interesting that draws attention on world population and its many problems There are loads of info that's alarming to say the least: the future is dark and is here, and we re blind if we can't see it
And I ll finish with a final thought on philanthropy, as laudable as it may be (when not used to escape taxes) is also not the answer to world poverty. Because : "You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves." (Abe Lincoln)
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