https://archive.md/RvM5l
"The shoe has dropped. The big one. China, the most populous country on the
planet for centuries, this month reported its first population decline in six
decades, a trend that is almost certainly irreversible. By the end of the
century China may have only around half of the 1.41 billion people it has now,
according to U.N. projections, and may already have been overtaken by India.
The news has been met with gloom and doom, often framed as the start of China’s
inexorable decline and, more broadly, the harbinger of a demographic and
economic “time bomb” that will strain the world’s capacity to support aging
populations.
There is no doubt that a shrinking global population — a trend expected to set
in by the end of this century — poses unprecedented challenges for humanity.
China is only the latest and largest major country to join a club that already
includes Japan, South Korea, Russia, Italy and others. Germany would likely be
in decline too if not for immigration, and many others could begin shrinking in
the years ahead. (The United States is expected to grow moderately in coming
decades, largely because of immigration.) Median U.N. projections point to
global population peaking in the mid-2080s at more than 10 billion, but if
fertility rates continue to drop the decline could begin decades earlier.
But the alarmist warnings are often simplistic and premature. The glass is at
least half full. Shrinking populations are usually part of a natural,
inevitable process, and rather than focus excessively on concerns like labor
shortages and pension support, we need to look at the brighter spots for our
world.
There is no need for panic; we’ve made that mistake before."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-tropical-diseases-womens-china-miyawaki-amazon/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
