China’s Current Serious Population Age Imbalance Confirms Long Held Expert Predictions On Coming Disaster

By Donald A. Collins | 10 March 2023
Church and State

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From Fairfield Osborn’s 1948 classic “Our Plundered Planet” warning about our growing population’s impact on our earth to the 1968 Ehrlich’s poo pooed book “The Population Bomb” but now greatly updated by his latest book, “LIFE, A Journey Through Politics and Science” and the 1972 report “Limits to Growth” by the Club of Rome, their messages were and are now too often largely ignored by world leaders. Those credible scientists predictions are now confirmed by the highly observable worsening of earth’s climate and environment which provide the majority of us homo sapiens with sustainable lives, not enough in many people around the world now, but certainly for many more in the near future.

In short, the chances of our moving deeper by the end of this century into the 6th Extinction are now seem very certain.

You can read here and here the scientific citations which support the above conclusion.

Now the world faces the stark consequences of not acting before the world’s 2 billion population in 1930 which grew to 8 billion now with 3 billion more predicted by 2100.

Nicholas Eberstadt, an economist and Ashton Verdery, a sociologist, neither author is a qualified biologist or ecology scientist, just published a book entitled “China’s Revolution in Family Structure” summarized in a March 10th Wall Street Journal article which you can read here.

It names many upsets in the age imbalance of various groups in China now, but in mentioning population the authors bemoan their main worry about rapidly aging of the population effecting too few relatives in the future. No overall reductions needed?

Here are a couple examples of getting details right but missing that key overall main point:

China’s working-age manpower is in steep decline. The country is rapidly graying, and the largely dependent 65-plus population is soaring. In January Beijing announced that the country’s total population shrank in 2022—a decade earlier than Western demographers had been forecasting as recently as 2019.

Some of our findings weren’t only unexpected but counterintuitive. It seems, for example, that we are only now living through the era of “peak kin” in China. In terms of sheer numbers, Chinese networks of blood relatives were never nearly as thick as at the start of the 21st century.

In this latter quote, the authors appear to worry about a population decline, when our planet according the above experts say our planet can maybe sustainably support 3 billion not 8 billion or the three more projected by 2100.

Eberstadt has long missed the main point of what population growth 4 times in 90 years will mean to all aspects of the world’s future for all flora and fauna.

In his “Tyranny of the Numbers” as in his other books and the above article he delves into how the growth upsets specific people without confronting the obvious overall impact of endless growth on our finite planet.

Many others from Greta Thunberg to highly credible scientists make the population and environmental growth case as do the many at the several UN COP meetings, but meaningful action has not ensued in our pervasive “growth is good” business theology augmented by some religions against limiting their numbers, just to name two powerful pushes for ignoring meaningful action!

Immigration to democratic places such as the USA will increase but the absence of no permanent legislation to reasonably regulate those numbers seems likely.

Our fragile democracy barely eluded a lurch into Trump’s attempted coup but his control of fanatical MAGA voters make the GOP a flawed helper in governance while Biden’s agenda if reelected may be better but not strong enough to right the listing ship of world population disaster.

Putin’s war on Ukraine and China’s looming presence in augmenting conflict add to the growth scenario being unaddressed as war doesn’t lessen numbers much and the possibility of a nuclear war increases.

Solutions sadly seem unlikely and inadequate and which makes the 6th Extinction more and more probable.

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?” and “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us”.

What China’s Shrinking Population Means For The Global Economy

Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Minutes

Sir David Attenborough on overpopulation

Wildlife in decline by almost 70% since 1970, says report – BBC News

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