> We need to reduce the number of humans on Earth.
I'm happy to point out that this is not the case.
We're already peak child and the next two billion will not come from population growth but from population replacement[0] (Thanks, Hans. RIP, I loved you), where children replace the people in previous cohorts that never made it to reproductive age.
The number of humans will reduce rather drastically in the next fifty years. Many countries on earth already and most countries on earth in about twenty years will have problems maintaining their population as it is. Fertility has been dropping all over the globe, with a few exceptions in sub-Saharan Africa.
No, really. There's nothing we can do about the people we already have and there are barely any new babies arriving.
What we do need to worry about is population migrations. We need to make it easier for people to migrate. We need to set up political and social infrastructure to welcome people from places that climate change has made inhospitable.
Since most of the world will be suffering from over aging and from a lack of births, these migrants will be dearly needed.
So, no need to talk about birth control, let's talk about immigration reform instead!
> The number of humans will reduce rather drastically in the next fifty years.
It doesn't look like it. The UN predicts the population will be ~10.5 billion in 2070. Of course, there is a large range of uncertainty. [1]
Given sustainability limits, the cost to the environment (and to humans) of going from 10 to 11 billion is a lot worse than the cost of going from 5 to 6 billion, say. (For example, there's only so many fish in the sea.)
> The number of humans will reduce rather drastically in the next fifty years.
Sorry, I should have been more exact in my choice of words with this regard, mea culpa.
Yes, total human population is expected to grow. But this growth is limited to very few places, especially found in sub-Saharan Africa (and strangely: the USA). If you look at places like West Asia, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, the more-developed-group of countries or the middle-income group of countries you will see that all across the board population is expected to fall within 50 years.
This groups of countries will have a desperate worker shortage in the given time frame and we should start thinking how we can accommodate the needs of both immigrants and residents alike.
Fertility is already falling, rapidly. There's not much that we can do in that regard (some countries are even trying to raise total fertility). We will not get rid of the people we already have. (Well, not in any way, shape or form that is ethically and worth further discussion).
I agree that we need to have a good and hard think about our resource management. We need to reduce waste. We need to reduce our footprint. We need to stop the predatory ecosystem exploitation we're currently practicing. We're moving very fast towards a cliff.
>> The number of humans will reduce rather drastically in the next fifty years.
I really should be more careful how to phrase my argument. Thanks for pointing it out.
> We need to reduce the number of humans on Earth.
I'm happy to point out that this is not the case.
We're already peak child and the next two billion will not come from population growth but from population replacement[0] (Thanks, Hans. RIP, I loved you), where children replace the people in previous cohorts that never made it to reproductive age.
The number of humans will reduce rather drastically in the next fifty years. Many countries on earth already and most countries on earth in about twenty years will have problems maintaining their population as it is. Fertility has been dropping all over the globe, with a few exceptions in sub-Saharan Africa.
No, really. There's nothing we can do about the people we already have and there are barely any new babies arriving.
What we do need to worry about is population migrations. We need to make it easier for people to migrate. We need to set up political and social infrastructure to welcome people from places that climate change has made inhospitable.
Since most of the world will be suffering from over aging and from a lack of births, these migrants will be dearly needed.
So, no need to talk about birth control, let's talk about immigration reform instead!
[0] https://www.gapminder.org/