Facing a demographic ‘timebomb’ this article says that China may change its 1980 one-child law. There is much to consider within this perceived need.
7 thoughts on “China contemplates ‘two-child policy’”
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We, humans, are very good in breaching laws of nature and made ourselves and our life independent from the majority of them.
Aging population is a trap situation caused by significantly developed medical science and health care system in many countries. Obviously longer life expectancy and increasing average lifetime pairing with the current economical and social system requires a growing working-age population to keep the ‘balance’ with the number of retired, non-working people.
Where is the limit? What is the way out from the spiral covering the Earth with careless, polluting, waste producing human species?
Another aspect of this story comes from the fact that China is the world’s larges food importer, being unable to feed its own population. From this viewpoint the question from the rest of the world could be whether it is tolerable to allocate huge portion of (the remains of) global natural resources outside of China to that single country? What remains for the rest of the world?
Not to mention that Africa on its own is just at the beginning of a population explosion.
Thanks Janos, good summary. Article below has heaps of numbers for you to get your teeth into 🙂
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jul/29/un-world-population-prospects-the-2015-revision-9-7-billion-2050-fertility
One thing did spring to mind: they talk yet again of Development Goals (Framework) for the next 15 years. What it seems we need more is a Reduction Framework: i.e. less of everything in measurable steps. I’d thought about ‘revelopment’ ~ but reducing things seems a better name for it. Thoughts? 🙂
Very important article. We keep coming back to the position that everything in modern life is out of balance and we really need to address this. 🙁
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/02/the-guardian-view-on-population-control-empowering-women-may-not-save-the-environment
Mike, what do you think important in this Guardian editorial article? And where do you see connection between its main message and the fact that “everything in modern life is out of balance”?
Sorry Janos, we were busy with 50th anniversary of Independence. In the article it struck me that we never seem to find the holistic solutions to global problems. So we know that educating our women leads to better lifestyle choices for them, and perhaps having fewer children. But as lifestyle improves, and probably health, then people live longer and want more stuff. More stuff means loss of natural resources, increased energy use and pollution ~ especially consumer discards. So it seems to me that we turn one way and get big problems, or turn another way and end up with a similar problem but for different reasons. This is what I’m implying by everything being out of balance. Also we are utterly incapable of working together as a global species ~ too many vested interests. It feels like we need a ‘restore factory settings default’ button for our planet. I wonder what things we might avoid knowing what we know now?
I completely agree with your observation Mike. Indeed it seems we can create huge (pile of) problems in many different ways, and the ways we do it sometimes decided by a small group of people sharing the same interest, picking all the fruits of our actions, and we – the rest of the societies – are left with the empty tree – often even cut down or uprooted.
Having seen the weight of the issue discussed by the Guardian article you were referring to, it seems to me quite strange that the editorial stuff found it important to take a stand in such a question in a way that they directly positioned ‘The Guardian’ against a charity organization patroned by Sir David Attenborough.
Yes Janos, I thought that too. Mostly the Guardian is good, but sometimes it goes adrift.
Now the article linked here is bizarre. All of the data show that falling populations in European countries is a very good thing ~ yet the authors say it’s bad. An aging demographic also reduces population pressure on global resources. They seem incapable or ignorant of the fact that we could change from things only being viewed from a financial perspective. They cannot imagine a reality where people do not go to work, or that money is even neccessary. They only talk in terms of perpetual economic growth saving the planet? Oops!!
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/23/baby-crisis-europe-brink-depopulation-disaster