Brian Tung wrote:
Michael McCulloch wrote:

Overpopulation in educated western societies is a myth. Go preach to
the Asians please:

http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/.../pop/pop_6.htm


Sampling every 50 to 100 years can be pretty misleading, huh?

China is the right country to look at, because it is very populous, and
a small percentage increase there is worth a sizable percentage increase
elsewhere. According to the 2006 CIA World Fact Book, China ranks 200th
(out of 235) in 2006 population percentage growth, at 0.02 percent.
That works out to about 200,000 to 250,000 extra Chinese in 2006. By
comparison, the United States is 132nd, at 0.91 percent, which was worth
an extra 2.5 million Americans, give or take.



I await your devastating "Whatever" riposte with trepidation.


I'll give you one, Brian. The US population is increasing only because
of, and I repeat this, *only* because of immigration, and part of that
is from East Asia, including China. Native born US citizens have not
been reproducing at the replacement rate in two or three decades. So
sampling only at the moment and not looking at underlying factors is
pretty misleading, too, huh?

China has a special problem with population because its culture
encourages large families. (So does Catholicism, for that matter, but
Catholics in developed countries tend to ignore the religious
restrictions placed on contraception.) The Chinese population explosion
of the 1960s and 70s was not simply Maoism at work.

Population growth seems inversely proportional to host of factors,
including education (especially among women), economic growth, and
political liberalization. If we want to discourage population growth
overseas, we should be fostering regulated but market-driven economies,
education, and women's suffrage. Which means that China is probably on
the right path, but it's not there yet.

If we want to ease population growth in this country we should adopt
sane immigration targets, roughly 10% of the million or so legal
immigrants into the US each year, and develop a reasonable guest-worker
program.

-Chris