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Whiff After Whiff

June 11, 2024

Whiff After Whiff

Image by Anne and Saturnino Miranda from Pixabay

The word “whiff” is used in baseball to describe when the batter swings and makes no contact with the pitched ball. The term presumably derives from the sound of hitting nothing but air.

This off-sequence post acts as a brief update that I wanted to present, without making a full-fledged blog post out of it (in hindsight, I may have failed). In the last two posts (here and here), I noted that recent rapid drops in child birth around the world could conceivably put us on track for an earlier population peak than previously anticipated—possibly as early as 2040 vs. the 2080–2090 timeframe.

That would be big news, and makes me continually ask myself: where is the disconnect? Is it possible that demography models are that wrong? I have discussed already (and will revisit in the next post) some of the potential blind spots for how this century develops. But here I look backwards to see if the recent drop in child births was itself a surprise to the demographers. If so, then it speaks to dynamics at play not captured in demography models, and that’s important.

I used the 2022 United Nations World Population Prospects (WPP) data (public) to build a list of countries that had the largest fractional declines in total fertility rate (TFR) from 2010 to 2019 (pre-COVID), and that also had projections in previous U.N. WPP products back to 2010. I show how (not) well the U.N. expectations match the actual story for these cases. I also throw in a few other countries of interest, including the three most populous ones.

The Top Drops

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.K. Population Collapse “Good for the Planet”, WEF Adviser Prof Sarah Harper Explains

August 21, 2023

U.K. Population Collapse “Good for the Planet”, WEF Adviser Prof Sarah Harper Explains

The Telegraph picked the perfect messenger to communicate the new way we should think about population declines. A high-level WEF adviser tells us:

Oxford Professor Sarah Harper is a very important person. The Telegraph article listing her credentials forgot to mention that she serves on the Global Agenda Council on Ageing Societies of the World Economic Forum.

Prof Harper is thrilled about recent declines in fertility:

Prof Harper told the Telegraph: “I think it’s a good thing that the high-income, high-consuming countries of the world are reducing the number of children that they’re having. I’m quite positive about that.”

The academic said declining fertility in rich countries would help to address the “general overconsumption that we have at the moment”, which has a negative impact on the planet.

Most importantly, declines in births will bring about reductions in CO2 emissions from wealthy nations, Prof Harper points out:

Research has found that wealthy nations tend to have much larger carbon footprints than poorer countries, as rich people can afford to buy more goods, travel more and do other activities that generate emissions.

Carbon emissions from high-income countries were 29 times larger than low-income countries on a per capita basis in 2020, World Bank figures show.

Population Declines or Population Replacement?

Here’s the strange part: If the leadership of the World Economic Forum wanted to reduce emissions from wealthy countries, I could understand how they would hope that population reductions would lead to a decline in economic output. Aside from moral implications, it is simple math that fewer people means fewer cars on the road, less food consumed and so on.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Declining sperm counts: Nature’s answer to overpopulation?

March 4, 2021

Declining sperm counts: Nature’s answer to overpopulation?

Epidemiologist Shanna Swan projects that on current trends sperm counts will reach zero by 2045. That shocking conclusion comes from a new book by Swan and her colleague Stacey Colino. Is this nature’s way of bringing human population under control? (More on that later.)

In a 2017 study Swan and colleagues looked at “244 estimates of SC [sperm concentration] and TSC [total sperm count] from 185 studies of 42,935 men who provided semen samples in 1973–2011” in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Men elsewhere may fare better, but the causes of this trend suggest that it is worldwide.

Swan told The Guardian that she blames so-called “‘everywhere chemicals’, found in plastics, cosmetics and pesticides, that affect endocrines such as phthalates and bisphenol-A.” She also pointed to unhealthy lifestyle choices including use of tobacco and marijuana and to rising obesity. Obesity itself has been linked to increasing human endocrine disruption from these same chemicals.

In fact, Swan’s warning is not new even though her study makes it more urgent. The issue of endocrine disruption from toxic chemicals burst into public view in 1996 with the publication of Our Stolen Future which detailed the research on endocrine disrupting chemicals for a lay audience.

There have been some minor victories. Bisphenol-A has been largely removed from food containers voluntarily by food processors. But it is still found in many products and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration still claims it is “safe.”

I asked at the beginning of this piece whether declining sperm counts is nature’s way of limiting human population. The current trend would not just reduce population, but lead to extinction within a century. It is as if the 2006 film Children of Men has been remade with a slightly different plot line.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Forecast What?

February 4, 2021

Forecast What?


Roy Lichtenstein Woman With Flowered Hat 1963
Well, Dr. D is back again. You might want to sit down for this one.
Dr. D: In my last article I wrote about cows and hay and unrealistic estimates of production of the land. But surely that is all academic. What could possibly force Americans to once again eat by the sweat of their brow?Insider military think tank Deagel.com. The think tank that in 2015 estimated the death of 200M Americans by 2025.

Deagel – Forecast 2025

The Great Reset; like the climate change, extinction rebellion, planetary crisis, green revolution, shale oil (…) hoaxes promoted by the system; is another attempt to slow down dramatically the consumption of natural resources and therefore extend the lifetime of the current system. It can be effective for awhile but finally won’t address the bottom-line problem and will only delay the inevitable. The core ruling elites hope to stay in power which is in effect the only thing that really worries them.

The collapse of the Western financial system – and ultimately the Western civilization – has been the major driver in the forecast along with a confluence of crisis with a devastating outcome. As COVID has proven Western societies embracing multiculturalism and extreme liberalism are unable to deal with any real hardship. The Spanish flu one century ago represented the death of 40-50 million people.

Today the world’s population is four times greater with air travel in full swing which is by definition a super spreader. The death casualties in today’s World would represent 160 to 200 million in relative terms but more likely 300-400 million taking into consideration the air travel factor that did not exist one century ago. So far, COVID death toll is roughly 1 million people. It is quite likely that the economic crisis due to the lockdowns will cause more deaths than the virus worldwide.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

End of Growth Among “Haves” Dooms Growth Among “Haves” & “Have Nots” Alike

September 12, 2018

End of Growth Among “Haves” Dooms Growth Among “Haves” & “Have Nots” Alike

The global economic system is premised on growth, not just any growth, but growth where it matters (economically).  However, population growth (the foundation of economic growth) among the high and upper middle income nations of the world is rapidly winding down.  As I have outlined previously, total births have been declining among the combined high/upper middle income nations since 1988 and now births are declining everywhere but among the low income nations of the world (HERE).  Without growth among the importers of the world with the income, savings, and/or access to credit…there is no growth for exporters.
The high and upper middle income nations represent 49% of the worlds population but 91% of global GNI (gross national income) and 89% of total global energy consumption (as well as gross commodity consumption).  The decades, or more properly, centuries of growth among these wealthier under 65 year old populations (that drove economic activity) will cease around 2022.  All subsequent population growth will be among the 65+ year olds of the wealthier nations, particularly among the 75+yr/old population and the masses of the poor nations.  The end of population growth and subsequent reversals in these wealthier nations is ushering in an era of economic and consumptive decline unlike the contemporary world has ever seen.

FYR – The national income groupings are based on the World Bank Atlas method (detailed HERE) and listed in full at the articles end.  High income nations have per capita incomes over $12k/yr (and as high as $80k/yr) and upper middle nations have income per capita ranging from $12k/yr to $4k/yr.  This is compared with lower middle income nations with per capita income ranging from $4k/yr to $1k/yr and low income nations below $1k/yr.  All population data is based on UN data and medium variant forward looking estimates.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Population Decline Catastrophic?

October 7, 2017

Is Population Decline Catastrophic?

population.PNG

In the 1970’s we heard the earth was going to get so crowded we’d be falling off. Now the panickers have flipped to population decline. They were wrong in the 70’s, so are they wrong again? Is a declining population catastrophic?

Countries from Germany to Japan are investing in mass immigration or pro-birth policies on the assumption that they must import enough warm bodies to stave off economic collapse. I think this is mistaken. Falling population on a country level is certainly no catastrophe and, indeed, may be positive. I’ll outline some reasons here.

Historically, the first question is why population declined. If it’s the Mongols invading again then, yes, the economy will suffer. Not because of the death alone, but because wholesale slaughter tends to destroy productive capital as well.

On the other hand, if the population is declining from non-war, we have a well-studied natural experiment in the Black Plague. Which is generally credited with the “take-off” of the West. Because if the population declines by a third while capital including arable land stays the same, you get a surplus. Same resources divided by fewer people.

Think of zombie movies where dude’s running around with unlimited resources at his disposal — free cars, riverfront penthouses. That, in diluted form, is what a declining population gives us — more land, more highways or buildings, more resources per person.

Now, if the population’s declining not because of a terrible disaster like the Plague, rather because people simply want fewer children, then you don’t even get the massive hit from losing productive people. A worker dying at 40 takes a lot of productivity with him, while a child unborn isn’t actually destroying anything but hopes and dreams.

So if the Plague was a per capita economic bonanza to Europe, having fewer children should be an even larger per capita bonanza.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The “Limits to Growth” was right: Italy’s population starts declining.

March 2, 2016

The “Limits to Growth” was right: Italy’s population starts declining.

The “base case” scenario described in the 2004 edition of “The Limits to Growth”, an update of the original study sponsored by the Club of Rome and published in 1972. Note how the world’s population is supposed to start declining some years after the peaking of the world’s economy. We are not yet seeing this decline at the global level, but we may be seeing it in some specific regions of the world; in particular in Italy.

More and more data are accumulating to disprove the legend of the “mistakes” that has been accompanying the study titled “The Limits to Growth” (LTG). For instance, Graham Turner has shown how the historical data for the world’s economy have been following rather closely the curves of the “base case” scenario presented in 1972. But the fact that this scenario has been working well up to the beginning of the 21st century doesn’t mean it will keep working in the same way in the future. The base case scenario describes a worldwide economic collapse that should start at some moment during the first two-three decades of the century. Clearly, the world’s economy has not collapsed, so far, even though it may be argued that it is giving out ominous signs that it is starting to do just that. But, we can’t yet prove that the base case scenario was right.

Yet, the LTG collapse scenario is an average over the whole world and we may imagine that some sections of the world’s economy should collapse earlier, and some later. And, indeed, it appears that some local economies are collapsing right now. It may be that a country like Italy is already well advanced in this process, so that we shouldn’t be not just seeing the decline of its GdP, but also the start of an irreversible population decline.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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