"THE WORLD IS GETTING WORSE"
Guess what? You're wrong.
When you have a good look, beyond the media narrative, the world is not getting worse.
In a 2016 survey, 58 percent of people in 17 countries surveyed thought the world is getting worse (rather than getting better or staying the same). I’m hoping that this little article will persuade you that this downward spiral in humanity and the natural world is very good news. News that, for some reason unknown to me, is being hidden from the masses.
Because negative news often impacts us more than positive stories, the legacy media often push the thought that ‘progress’ is not news. Because many of us follow the news, and the news tends to concentrate on events that shock and outrage the audience, we often think that the world is far worse than what it actually is.
It seems that as the world gets better, we become harsher critics of it, and this can cause us to mistakenly conclude that it hasn’t actually gotten better at all. Progress, it seems, tends to mask itself.
I’ve written about climate change a couple of months back, and have outlined why I think there is no Climate Emergency. Climate is one of our more minor problems.
So let’s look at the looming disaster of Global Overpopulation. This narrative was being taught in schools way back when I (begrudgingly) attended school. World population was exploding, and would continue to do so. The thinking for this is quite reasonable. It took two million years for the population to reach one billion, and just 200 years to reach 7 billion! The demand for food, water and shelter would soon outstrip supply of these three basic needs. Predictions of famine, disease and mass suffering was (and to a certain extent, still are) perceived as being inevitable.
SO what has actually happened? Global overpopulation now seems unlikely, with more families in more countries around the world now having access to better education and technology leading to better family planning. The rate of childbirth per woman has fallen from 6 in 1960 to 2.4 today. It looks like the global population will max out at 9 billion and then decline and settle somewhere at the 8 billion mark.
And just like the Climate Alarmists, Population Alarmists didn’t (don’t) take into account the ingenuity of humans and their capacity to adapt. We are always finding ways of doing more with less, while maintaining, and improving our care for the planet. It’s something that doomsday alarmists always seem to forget. We’re really good at adapting.
Education, technology and adaptation will continue to improve as more and more countries lift themselves out of poverty. More than half of the world’s poorest people have done just that, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, by adopting democracy and free markets. (But that’s a whole other story for another day.)
We shouldn’t live by the mantra that humans are a scourge or even a cancer on the planet. This ideology is narcissistic, defeatist and flat-out dangerous. Historically there have been many people that have had the conviction that people (or certain sections of the population) should not be walking around, and that their elimination would be for the greater good. And we all know where that lead.
I also don’t like the thought that people are simply consumers. Sure, there may be more consumers than producers, but our producers are amazing at providing. Again, free markets and stable governance leading the way.
Now that doesn’t mean that we are managing things perfectly. Our oceans and rivers in particular are suffering. But keep in mind the evidence shows that the more wealthy a nation becomes, the more environmentally aware and responsible they become. By learning to do more with less, by creating and applying technology, the planet will benefit as will its people.
So, no, we are not facing destruction brought on by overpopulation. Pessimism and a lack of imagination are far more dangerous.
On a personal note can I say that it’s been interesting since last month’s edition. Thank you to the many people that have taken me aside and supported my thoughts, and encouraged me to continue writing. While I have found it virtually impossible to avoid political statements, the above I feel is a good start.
And just to clarify one point from last month’s Coolamon correspondent. I do not get my information from Social Media. Anything I print has been checked by myself using several sources that include news publications from both sides of the political spectrum. H
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