The number of humans on earth just passed the 7 billion mark. To mark the occasion, there was a Planet Money podcast about countries whose populations are declining. Some of the countries experiencing declines in population are affluent, places like Japan and Germany, where every new baby is, in terms of resource consumption, equivalent to dozens of babies in poor countries. But the podcast was not about how great it is to see this decline in population. Oddly, in rich countries the lack of population growth is seen as a problem, and governments are actually giving many incentives to people to have more babies. It's a strange paradox that though the world cannot survive overrun with humans as it is, some countries feel they cannot survive without a continually growing population. The notion that rich countries need a continuously growing population is linked to the belief that we need a continuously growing economy. The problem with both of these concepts is that the earth can sustain neither.
I've often thought there was an integral connection between population growth and economic growth. Though I don't have a background in economics, my knowledge about environmental issues and my interest in the way they relate to other disciplines such as economics, have helped me understand this connection better. In this Planet Money podcast, they explain this connection that is obvious to many economists. Each new baby is not just another mouth to feed, it is another consumer, another worker. In an unsustainable capitalist economy like ours in the US, each new kid is an excuse to tap more resources from the planet. The extraction of more resources is required to grow the economy at such a rapid rate. So when populations slow, as is explained in this podcast, economies stagnate. There aren't as many people buying stuff, there aren't as many people to work the jobs that contribute to the wealth of the economy. As well, there are fewer taxpayers and less revenue to sustain government programs.
