Newsgroups: sci.bio
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!mroussel
From: mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel)
Subject: Re: Human pop. stats.
Message-ID: <1991Apr19.150624.15861@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Organization: Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
References: <21531@crg5.UUCP> <1991Apr15.044039.7333@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> <21564@crg5.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1991 15:06:24 GMT

In article <21564@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:
>In article <1991Apr15.044039.7333@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
>mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) writes:
>
>>>[I write] beyond the ZPG point population growth will not "level 
>>>out", it will become negative, reaching an equilibrium of -50%/generation.
>
>>Who cares?  
>
>Anybody who cares about their culture, or the cultures of others, that
>would die out under negative population growth.  Anybody who cares about
>the long term for our species in general.

     It's really quite an unfair debating tactic to take one statement
out of context and ridicule it in public.
     Anyway, there's no doubt that some cultures will have a rougher go of
it than others and I'm quite aware of that, being a member of such a culture,
but sometimes you have to look at the global situation and forget about the
specific situations of cultures which have deliberately chosen a low
growth path.  Every year, thousands of acres of forest are cut down to
make way for farming.  Unless you can tell me how we can stop this and
still take the extra 5 billion people which you predict we'll be
seeing, I submit to you that worrying about negative population growth
which our species as a whole has never seen is a little premature.  We
have no idea what all of these people will do to the living environment
of this planet and I don't like the idea of experimenting with this sort
of average population density on the only planet we're ever likely to occupy.
     If you don't like this argument, forget about ecology.  Just the
political instability that will result from such crowding will cause far more
havoc with those locally declining populations you seem to be so worried about
than the birth rate problem.
     Finally, if you want an example of a population whose birth rate
declined for a long time but now seems to be on the increase again, look
at Quebec.  The predictions of long-term negative population growth in
industrialized countries may be premature...

				Marc R. Roussel
                                mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca