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From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>
Subject: Experts Scale Back Estimates of World Population Growth
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Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 19:36:15 -0400

The demographic transition, where birthrates are lowered by increased life
expectancy, seems to be happening faster than the experts have anticipated.
I attribute this apparently precipitous decline in "sustainable"
development to the twin evils of increasing personal freedom and economic
globalization.

Somebody oughta pass a law to prevent those things, of course, before it's
too late. The People's way of life *must* be preserved in its natural,
pre-industrial state, or we'll lose it forever.

;-).

Cheers,
RAH


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/20/science/earth/20POPU.html?pagewanted=print&position=top

The New York Times
August 20, 2002
Experts Scale Back Estimates of World Population Growth
By BARBARA CROSSETTE

Demography has never been an exact science. Ever since social thinkers
began trying to predict the pace of population growth a century or two ago,
the people being counted have been surprising the experts and confounding
projections. Today, it is happening again as stunned demographers watch
birthrates plunge in ways they never expected.

Only a few years ago, some experts argued that economic development and
education for women were necessary precursors for declines in population
growth. Today, village women and slum families in some of the poorest
countries are beginning to prove them wrong, as fertility rates drop faster
than predicted toward the replacement level - 2.1 children for the average
mother, one baby to replace each parent, plus a fraction to compensate for
unexpected deaths in the overall population.

A few decades ago in certain countries like Brazil, Egypt, India and Mexico
fertility rates were as high as five or six.

As a result, United Nations demographers who once predicted the earth's
population would peak at 12 billion over the next century or two are
scaling back their estimates. Instead, they cautiously predict, the world's
population will peak at 10 billion before 2200, when it may begin declining.

Some experts are wary of too much optimism, however. At the Population
Council, an independent research organization in New York, Dr. John
Bongaarts has studied population declines in various countries over the
last half century. He questions the assumption that when fertility declines
begin they will continue to go down at the same pace, especially if good
family planning services are not widely available.

Sharp fertility declines in many industrialized and middle-income countries
had already challenged another old belief: that culture and religion would
thwart efforts to cut fertility. In Italy, a Roman Catholic country whose
big families were the stuff of cinema, family size is shrinking faster than
anywhere else in Europe, and the population is aging rapidly as fewer
children are born. Islamic Iran has also had great success with family
planning.

"Projections aren't terribly accurate over the long haul," said Dr.
Nicholas Eberstadt, a demography expert at the American Enterprise
Institute in Washington. "Demographers have been surprised by just about
every big fertility change in the modern period. Demographers didn't
anticipate the baby boom. They did not anticipate the subsequent decline in
fertility in industrialized Western democracies."

What's next? Demographers can agree generally on a few measurable facts and
some trends. The world's population, now 6.2 billion, quadrupled in the
20th century, and changed in drastic ways. In 1900, 86 percent of the
world's people lived in rural areas and about 14 percent in urban areas. By
2000, urban communities were home to 47 percent of the population, with 53
percent still in the countryside.

Between now and 2030, when the global population is expected to reach about
eight billion, almost all the growth will be in cities. But urbanization is
not necessarily a bad thing for the environment, said Dr. Joseph Chamie,
director of the United Nations' population division.

"Moving to cities frees up the land for forestry, agriculture and many
other activities," Dr. Chamie said. "You're getting people concentrated, so
you can probably recycle more easily. People change their lifestyles. The
Indian moving from the boonies of Uttar Pradesh to the city of Lucknow gets
educational opportunities, cultural opportunities, all sorts of political
participation. He can be influenced by advertising and public relations
campaigns. Immunization will be better, and family planning."

As births fall and lives are extended, the global population is getting
older. The over-80 age group is the fastest growing.

But not everywhere. For example, the United Nations calculates that life
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