Population crash?

It’s common knowledge that over population is a major problem. The world has only so many resources.

What most people don’t realize is that populations can crash and go into steep decline. If we think about that happening we think of possible causes like war or plague. Populations decline rapidly when people are actively being killed off.

It doesn’t have to be that dramatic or even all that noticeable to the casual observer. Numerous countries are dealing with the problems of a rapidly aging society. Japan, Russia, and most European countries are not growing. It’s expensive to have kids and people no longer rely on them in their old age. We also no longer need a dozen children to run the farm. The United States would be in population decline itself if it wasn’t for immigration.

There are countries that are still growing, but as women in those countries gain freedom and education, they have fewer children. Demographic shifts from increasing population to declining population can happen in a relatively few years.

Artificial chemicals in the environment have been reducing fertility rates. It’s possible we may just poison ourselves to death. In industrialized countries, male testosterone levels have been plummeting.

Changes in population have some serious political ramifications. We all know that China’s one child policy had unintended consequences. Due to cultural preferences, a majority of families decided to have a son instead of a daughter. Now there’s no enough marriage age women for all those young men.

Russia’s decline has military issues. As they years go by, they’ll have fewer and fewer young men available for service. They may be at the point where if they want to achieve military goals, they’d better do it soon. In ten or twenty years, they might not have enough men in uniform.

Immigration in the United States has kept our numbers up. The population is becoming browner and less Protestant Christian. That will only be a problem is they don’t feel like real Americans. In the past the country has been able to assimilate foreigners and they’ve adopted American values. As long as the country can continue to do that we’ll be fine.

Many animal populations go through boom and bust population cycles. We might not be as isolated from the rest of the natural world as we’d like to think. Creatures that exceed their environment’s carrying capacity often crash to extremely low levels. Something to think about.

-Sixbears