Large Families Could Save Economy

Yep, you read that title correctly. Despite the furor regarding the so-called overpopulation crisis, KCPW is reporting that economist Kelly Matthews believes Utah's population base will help it to weather the economic storms much easier than other locales:

"That natural population increase has been a very important factor that is attracting businesses to come to Utah and establish their manufacturing or economic facilities," Matthews says. "And furthermore, it will be one of the factors that, I think, will begin to lead us out of this housing situation, because we simply have to have more homes being built."

More Fun With Newspaper Story Comments

In the comments to this Senator Orrin Hatch editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune, comes this gem:

ImpeachBushNow: 8/23/2008 11:19:00 AM

Who cares anymore. With idiots reproducing up to eight kids and demanding that they are "right" because there are more of them gives little chance for rational humans to exist on this planet knowing that there are limited resources available.

Gone ahead with your god-given right to have large families and take your state deductions. I'll keep paying for your little monsters to go to school and I definitely feed them at lunch time.

Do you really think we can just continue to flood the world with more people, who will need more food, more water, more resources to survive, and oh yeah... more energy, which with the current trend, means more pollution (something Orrin doesn't mention in his letters).

I can tell that Utah in particular is proud of their education system, because we seem to be creating some incredible problems for them to solve. HINT: you could stop rubbing stamping liars like Hatch.

You want to take a realistic aproach to solving any of our resourse needs, you might want to address the fact that some families choose to tax our resources more than others.

I have noticed this sentiment expressed for some time now. For instance, there's this comment to my letter about biofuels printed in the Deseret News:

liberal larry | 7:34 a.m. Mar. 15, 2008
The writer is correct that the production of befouls is distorting the price of global food commodities. In fact, almost all commodities are increasing in price because of the increasing consumption of nations like China and India. This is a natural out growth of the planets over population, there will continue to be a competition for the worlds scarce resourses, you better get used to it because there are limited amounts of the earth's oil, water, precious metals, wilderness etc. and no glimpse of population control in sight.

No glimpse of population control in sight? Holy cow.

Orson Scott Card recently wrote about the energy issues we're facing, and how every alternative has been opposed at one time or another by environmental groups who proclaim that the only real alternative is to have fewer humans. He astutely pointed out that "I haven't noticed them volunteering to lessen the population starting with themselves; nor have I seen their heroes bicycling everywhere."

Which is only mostly correct. Well, the heroes not bicycling is completely true, but the other part about not volunteering to lessen the population themselves is only partially so. I haven't yet heard of any "save the planet" mass suicides, but last year the UK's Daily Mail reported how some men and women are sterilizing themselves so as not to harm the planet by reproducing. Some choice quotes from that story include,

"When I see a mother with a large family, I don't resent her, but I do hope she's thought through the implications."

"Sarah and I live as green a life a possible. We don't have a car, cycle everywhere instead, and we never fly. "We recycle, use low-energy light bulbs and eat only organic, locally produced food. "In short, we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child. "That's why I had a vasectomy. It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of Earth.

Sigh. We seem to be reaping the consequences of Al Gore's "it's a moral issue" global warming/environmentalist crusade.

But guess what? These moral crusaders are flat out wrong.

My inaugural post on this blog concerned the myth of overpopulation. Once again there had been a letter printed in the Deseret News that furthered the myth, claiming that "enlightened observers" knew that overpopulation was the real culprit behind all of the world's problems. So I responded with a letter of my own. In it I included the following information:

-Half the world lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility
-The population of 51 countries or areas is expected to be lower in 2050 than in 2005
-It is widely believed that there will be an underpopulation crisis in Japan by 2014
-The US Census Bureau predicts the level of fertility for the world as a whole will drop below replacement level before 2050
-Today, 20% of developed nations’ population is 60 years old or over. By 2050 the proportion will be 32%.

These are facts conveniently left out during the "overpopulation" section in school. We have been consistently bombarded with humankind-as-the-enemy messages, and those chickens are coming home to roost.

Save The Planet, One Baby At A Time

The Telegraph had an interesting analysis of the US economy vs the world economy the other day. It's basically a pep talk, or perhaps a warning to the rest of the world; the gist of which is that while the US economy is showing signs of slowing and the dollar continues to fall in value, the US is still and will continue to be the world's economic leader.

Which is all very well and good, but something else altogether jumped out at me. Read this:

"At the end of the day, the US remains the only major power still producing babies a rate high enough to survive through the 21st century as a dynamic society."

Babies? You mean, we need people? For thirty odd years, and perhaps longer, we have been taught that the world had too many people. I remember sitting in an Environmental Science class in college and having a class discussion on the overpopulation problem. Not surprisingly, much of the problem was blamed on religious people, specifically Mormons. Apparently, big families were dooming the planet. We had an entire section devoted to this crisis, and what must be done about it.

Problem is, they got it wrong. Hard to believe, I know.

According to the UN, the developed world is facing an underpopulation crisis. Seems all those "too many people" lessons in college really hit home and we all stopped having babies. Japan's running out of people, Europe's running out too, and Russia recently had a "Conception Day" designed to remind people to, you know, reproduce when they have sex.

A major part of the Telegraph's reasoning for US economic optimism is based on the underpopulation crisis:

"China's workforce will peak in 2015. The country will then tip over into the steepest demographic decline ever recorded. It will be old before it becomes rich, doomed to second-tier status.

Japan began to shrink in 2005. Russia will shrivel to 104m by 2050, on UN data. Germany, Italy and Spain are all going grey, succumbing to that status quo outlook that comes with age. Their economies may even start to contract. Yes, birth rates can rise, but only by cultural revolution, and with long lags."

It sure would have been nice to have had this data handy in that class discussion a fews years back. As one of the few "Big Family" Mormons in the group, I could have been hailed as a planet saving hero.

The Overpopluation Myth

A couple of weeks ago there was a letter to the editor in the Deseret News (Salt Lake City) that really bugged me. So I wrote a reply.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635202055,00.html

Here's the letter that really bugged me:

Overpopulation affects all

Though enlightened observers are increasingly drawing the conclusion that global climate change really is a moral issue — which it is — a larger moral issue remains sacrosanct. At the heart of this problem is the issue of overpopulation. Directly or indirectly, this touchy subject affects everything we do. The capacity of Earth is rapidly hitting the full-tilt, boogie stage of the game. Global warming, pollution, pandemic disease, endangered species, illegal immigration and war are all by-products of too many humans chasing limited and dwindling natural resources. With our proclivity toward developing every square inch and consuming goods, we have lost sight of our larger problem: man's ego and his desire to spread his seed far and wide.

Horst Holstein
Salt Lake City

What a load of bunk! Incidentally, the D News didn't print everything I wrote, so here is the letter in its entirety:

With apologies to “enlightened observers” like Horst Holstein, overpopulation is an insidious myth. According to a United Nations press release from February 2005, about half the world lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility. The population of 51 countries or areas, including Germany, Italy, Japan and most of the successor states of the former Soviet Union, is expected to be lower in 2050 than in 2005.

Is this good?

Not according to research. It is widely believed that there will be an underpopulation crisis in Japan by 2014. Underpopulation is also believed to be the root cause of the possible future failure of the United States Social Security system. Population levels of the US and Europe have only sustained themselves because of immigration, which Horst lists as an evil by-product of overpopulation. However, the US Census Bureau predicts the level of fertility for the world as a whole will drop below replacement level before 2050. A major consequence of fertility decline is population ageing. Our world is and will continue to become older. Today, 20% of developed nations’ population is 60 years old or over. By 2050 the proportion will be 32%. Who will be at work? Who will keep the world’s economies growing and vibrant? Who will take care of you Horst, when you can no longer take care of yourself? You see Horst, according to all empirical evidence, there is no such thing as overpopulation”.

Therefore, the world’s problems cannot be attributed to there being too many people, as the “enlightened observers” suggest. In fact, according to research, the world’s problems will only get worse as a direct result of “enlightened” people refusing to have children.

The original is a bit more long winded, but I think it's better.

I have not see any rebuttal to my letter since then, but I did find a letter similar to Horst's in the Salt Lake Tribune:

Breeding poverty

In 1986 the “last ever” amnesty made citizens of about 3 million illegal immigrants. The 2006 amnesty will do that for about 11 million illegal immigrants. The next amnesty in about 20 more years will probably include 40 million-50 million new illegal immigrants. Neither proponents nor opponents of these amnesties seem to be concerned about the size of the U.S. population. If we grant the 2006 amnesty, with the promise to stop illegal immigration, that promise will probably be about as effective as the 1986 promise to stop illegal immigration. In 1986 the world population was about 4 billion. Now it is about 6 billion. In 20 years it will be about 8 billion. The number of poor people in the world is large enough and growing fast enough that if we allow them all to come and live in the U.S. then our population will double every few decades. That will hasten the day when our government will have to institute the same stringent birth control measures on our sons and daughters that China does now, recognizing that unlimited population growth is the road to a much worse disaster than government-imposed birth control. Fortunately free immigration is self-limiting. Free markets work. When the billions of new immigrants have made the USA as poor a country as the countries they come from, they will stop coming.

Noel de Nevers
Salt Lake City

I agree that the current immigration debate has its foundations in population levels. However, the crisis is not that illegal immigration will over-populate the US. In fact, the current illegal immigration "crisis" was in fact caused by the overpopulation myth. If Americans had not heeded the "enlightened observers" call to limit family size, there simply would not have been work for the immigrants to take. It is simply supply and demand.