WEBVTT - How Zero Population Growth Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:12.600 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:15.800 Josh Clark, and there's Charles Stuff. Chuck Bryant is the 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:22.239 Stuff you Should Know podcast. Jerry's over there. Uh, it's 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:26.640 pretty much the norm. Yep, yep. How you doing man? 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.840 How you feeling? It is a little rough, sir? Are 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.520 you you'll make it through? What? Yeah? Yesterday we celebrated 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:38.639 the the the beginnings of Gin and Tonic season. It's 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:40.920 definitely that kind of weather for sure. Yeah, it's hard 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.599 to not sit on the deck and have a citrusy, 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.760 delightful drink. Nice going. So I'm just a little sleepy, 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:48.720 but I'm feeling good. I feel like this topic is 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.720 is all about being sort of down in the dumps 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.600 a little bill. It depends, it depends on where you land, 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.200 and you just place yourself pretty squarely in the gloom 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.000 and doom camp. My friend. No, I'm actually not in 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:03.920 the doom and gloom camp. I was about to say, which, 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:06.880 if I remember correctly, in our episode, was Malthus right 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:11.520 about carrying capacity? You overtly said that you are a 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:19.200 an optimist. That's right, not Mauthusian uh naysayer. You know, yeah, 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.080 I forgot about that one. We've touched on this a 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:23.920 few times. We talked about we did a whole profile 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.600 and Norman Borlog alone on our very short lived and 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.960 reasonably so UM live webcast. Do you remember we did 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:36.199 basically a book report on Norman Borlog. Yeah, he was, um, well, 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.320 I think he's even controversial. He is very much So 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.399 you know, you win a Nobel Prize but for saving 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.840 a billion lives. Yeah, but still people are gonna put you. 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:50.600 You get interesting stuff. So um, if you don't know 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:52.800 what we're talking about, should probably press pause, go listen 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:57.360 to the Malthus episode, Go to stuff you should know 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:02.320 dot com slash podcast, I think it's plural slash archive. 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.120 Make that your homepage and all seven hundred and change 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.280 episodes are there, and then do control f is everybody 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.760 doing this so far? And then type of mouths m 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:16.080 A L th h U S. It's gonna highlight that link, 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:20.440 click that and press play and then come back to us. 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:25.480 That's right, we'll wait boom. So so we're back an hour. 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.600 We we're talking about is carrying capacity in part, but 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.360 carrying capacity checkers is just kind of a it's a 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.239 reflection of a larger issue, and that larger issues population 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:41.359 specifically overpopulation, and is that a thing or not is 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.040 a big question, because I mean, at any given point 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.400 in time, you know, they have, like the the CIA 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.840 World back book has you know, a pretty good assessment 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.519 of how many people are alive. It's a total guess. 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.160 It's a total estimate. We could be at ten billion 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.120 right now, we could be at a hundred million, and 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.480 everybody just is really terrible accounting. The point is we 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:06.440 don't specifically know. It's it's probably pretty accurate, but it's 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.800 still a guess. The point isn't to shoot holes in 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.400 the estimates of how many people are alive on the planet. 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.120 It's to point out that, like, there's so many people 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.240 we don't know and we can't possibly know at any 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.680 given point in time. And that has led a lot 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.600 of people to say, well, wait a minute. There's this 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.960 thing called carrying capacity, which is the Earth's ability to 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.880 support and sustain us humans and really any any creatures. 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.520 But really we're just kind of concerned with us humans 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:42.680 at this moment um and right and sustainably those two 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.240 factors have to be met or else you're putting a 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.320 tremendous amount of stress on Earth, and you're eventually bringing 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:51.720 about your own demise. So a lot of people are 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.880 saying like, uh, we're probably past carrying capacity and we 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.080 just don't know it yet. Or other people are saying, 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.880 there's really no such thing as carrying capacity city. Thanks 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.040 to human ingenuity, anytime we come up against it, we'll 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.480 figure out a way around it. And Norman Borlog was 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.600 a way to go. But before Borlog really became famous, 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.680 there was a lot of people who were legitimately concerned 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.440 that we were all going to die. Yeah Borlog, Um, 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.480 I don't if you haven't listened to that one, if 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:23.760 you didn't follow Josh's instructions like a good little podcast listener. Uh. 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:26.560 He was the um, one of the leaders of the 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.919 Green Revolution in the sixties and seventies, in which we 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:35.760 made great advances in agricultural Uh than agriculture in yields. Yeah, 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.520 new new types of wheat in Mexico, new types of 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.440 rice in India that um yielded much much more than 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.680 they ever had. And and plus they were drought resistant, 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.320 flood resistant. They could stand up and and hold more grain. 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.640 They could stand up and say Hello. They basically they 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.920 could pick the day daily double at high Laia. So, uh, 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:02.360 Borlog was, you know, by all standards, a very smart guy. 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.880 He cared very much about the people. He wasn't doing 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:07.840 it for fame or riches or anything like that. Like 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.080 this guy felt like he was working against the clock. 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:12.520 And if he didn't and he wasn't the only one 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.480 doing this, yeah he's the most famous. Um, but if 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:18.480 he didn't do it, then yeah, a lot of people 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.880 were going to starve. Yeah. And I think, um, I 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.000 proposed to you before this that we do just one 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.920 on the Green Revolution. Uh and I think that would 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:30.320 be a one to three podcast, sweet one. I love 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.920 this stuff. Psychology population That was another one we did too, 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.119 was how population works. And it sounds so like eye 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.800 bleedingly boring, but it turned out to be really interesting stuff. 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:42.919 So go go read that too. Well we'll wait, go ahead, 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:49.800 and we're back and it's yeah, and everybody's a little nervous. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:55.479 Everyone is nervous. And uh Stanford biology professor Paul airlic Um, 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.400 there's another famous Paul air Like this is Paul are 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.400 airlic I believe, Oh it's a different one. Well, there's 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.599 two dudes, I did not realize that. What do you mean, 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.800 I mean, I'm familiar with the other Airic. Then I guess, well, 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.280 who was the other one? Again? He wrote, um, some 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.960 other famous books. He's a biologist. I think it's it's 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.800 not the same guy. Yeah, the other guy was a 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:23.520 German physician, uh who worked in chemotherapy immunology. Oh yeah, 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.520 that's not thinking of different guy. So this guy he 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.320 wrote other things besides the Population Bomb. Yeah. So in 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.680 nineteen six eight he writes, the population bomb goes on 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.320 the Tonight Show, it explodes, is huge hit. Apparently he 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:38.839 was on more than once. Yeah, and everyone got super 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.320 nervous because his book started with these words. The battle 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:44.960 that he had all the humanity is over in the 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.480 nineteen seventies, the world where under will undergo famines. Hundreds 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:50.400 of millions of people are going to starve to death 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.520 in spite of any crash programs embarked upon. Now that's 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:55.320 not so good. That's how he starts his book. He 0:06:55.400 --> 0:07:00.120 basically says there's gonna be a Malthusian collapse. Um. At 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:01.760 one point in the book, he said, if I was 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.000 a betting man, I would wager by the year two thousand, 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:08.960 England won't be around boom. He drops the mic um 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.320 and we should probably mention who mouth says Thomas. Malthus 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:17.720 was a very forward thinking, smart, mathematically inclined minister, I 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:23.200 believe in the early nineteenth century, late eighteenth century, an economist, 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:25.680 and he was the one who said, we have a 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:30.600 problem here everyone. I've just done the math. And population 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:35.760 grows exponentially, but our food supply grows linearly, and so 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.440 we are destined to outgrow our food supply. And that's 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.560 where the idea of carrying capacity came from. So Malthis 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.600 and Malthusians um are the people who think like we're 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:49.080 going to exceed the food supply eventually and die from famines. 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.360 And Erlic was one of the most vocal and alarmist 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.760 neo Malthusians around. Yes, absolutely, and he scared the pants 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.000 off of people back then. Uh in night, there were 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.640 about three and a half billion people. And the birth rate. 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:05.680 We're gonna talk a lot about birth rates and such, 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:08.400 has a lot to do with this buckle up. Um. 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.320 The American women had three and a half babies on average, 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.240 and the global birth rate was five babies for a woman. 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.240 It seems like a lot to me. It was a 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:25.200 lot kids. Supposedly, in the fifties we were at six 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.640 the global average fertility it was six babies per woman. 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.440 And that's not just per woman. That's you want to 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:38.280 talk about fertility rates. So fertility rate basically is the 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:43.000 number of live births that a population has assigned to 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.880 the population of women thought to reasonably be a reproductive age. 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:52.360 So fifteen to forty four times a thousand, So you 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.680 take all of those, figure out the the how many 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.760 women there are, and then you multiply it by a thousand, 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:03.080 so you have something like, um, fifty births per one 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.920 thousand women aged fifteen to forty four, and that's your 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.240 fertility right. Yeah, okay, that's you can figure out how 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.760 many actual births are taking place. Yeah, with reasonable detail. Um. 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:18.400 So like Mauthis Airlic did the math in the sixties 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.000 and said, you know what, our food production isn't keeping up. 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:25.000 Just like Mautha said, we're in big, big trouble, wrote 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:29.560 the population bomb and co founded Zero Population Growth, which 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.680 is an organization that is now called uh what are 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:37.000 they called now? Population Connection? Population Connection? A very uh, 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.679 a little sunnier sounds Electric company. It does, and you 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:42.319 should check out their website. It's good. They have a 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.320 lot of good information on it, just to help you, 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.959 you know, figure out what you might want to believe. UM. 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:53.920 So people are scared the zero population growth group. Their 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.600 aim is to uh, They're big thing is is contraception 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:04.000 and giving women um control of their reproduction basically in 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.800 their fertility right. That's that you decide how many kids 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.240 you want exactly they have that many. They've identified that 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:15.360 that there's an issue that could easily address overpopulation, and 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:20.720 that is cutting out unwanted pregnancies or pregnancies or having 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:25.840 unwanted kids. They've identified that, you know, plenty of people. 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.000 There are two different fertility rates. There's the wanted fertility 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.040 rate and then there's the unwanted fertility rate, and pretty 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.040 much across the board in any country in the world, 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:39.320 the unwanted fertility rate is higher, whether slightly or largely, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.040 than the wanted fertility rate. So they're saying, like, if 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:46.679 the unwanted fertility rates like three point eight babies per 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.079 woman in a given country and the wanted fertility rate 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.440 is like two point five, well, if we can just 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.280 figure out a way to only have the wanted pregnancies, 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:00.679 then you are doing a lot to control of a population. 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:03.680 And the way that they figured out how to address 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:09.480 this is to just basically spread awareness and access to contraception. Right, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.640 the two pronged approach. UM what their goal is is 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.880 they aren't saying that people should not have babies like 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:17.760 you said, They're saying people should only have the babies 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.160 that they want to have, and their their ultimate goal 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.439 is to um to have a sustainable global birth rate 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.480 below the replacement level, which means there's a lot of 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:33.199 different factors, but it basically means that the world is 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.880 not growing. When it's like, uh, working a club at 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.720 at a door, being a doorman, one person goes out, 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:41.920 one person comes in. Yeah, you got a little quicker. 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.000 That's basically what that means is, you know, someone dies, 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.040 someone can be born, and of course it's not that 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.080 one to one, but you know, well, if you're a 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.559 big picture away, if you're a bouncer and you're tasked 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:53.960 with keeping it in even ratio, you just have to 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.800 remember that you can't keep people inside until a new 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:02.040 person comes along, because that's called kidnapping. You still they 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:03.800 still have to leave and you have to deal with 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.719 an imbalance for a little while. Right now, the replacement 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.240 level of fertility rate in the US is two point 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.680 one babies for a woman and three point zero and 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.040 other developing countries because they have higher death rates and 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:22.120 shorter lifespans, which makes sense. So we were onto the 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.920 replacement rate basically, right. The replacement rate is the number 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:30.040 of kids a woman of reproductive age would have to 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:34.080 have to replace herself. And she's not just replacing herself, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:40.559 she's replacing herself and her male mate who she's reproducing with. Yes, 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:42.520 and it's kind of gross to think that a woman 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.040 is giving birth to a boy and a girl who 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.800 can mate and reproduce her. That's not the point he 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.080 want them to go mingle with other people's babies. But 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.360 the replacement rate, you would think then is to right 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.320 for every woman, two point zero kids is what you 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.120 need to have to have an even replacement rate. That 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.120 means that people die, new people are born, and the 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.680 population never grows or declines, it stays the same. The 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.760 replacement rate is never actually two point oh though most 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.080 two point one right now, and the reason why is 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.959 because we humans um tend to have more male offspring 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.880 than female. Apparently, for every one hundred girls that are born, 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:24.960 one hundred and seven boys are born. So the actual 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.720 replacement rate is two point zero seven and then they 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.200 round up to two point one plus there's I mean, 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:32.720 there's a lot of other factors too, for sure. So 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.640 those other factors include things like you said, like, um, 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:42.199 infomortality rates, lifespan, immigration into a certain area, And the 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:46.880 thing is of birth rates or fertility rates and replacement rates. 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.640 The replacement rate tends to be a little more stable. Um. 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.920 The the birth rate. The fertility rate has a lot 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:58.000 more to do with social attitudes, access to healthcare, education, 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.960 and it's a it can change, uh dramatically from place 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.880 to place, whereas say, anywhere in the western world, the 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:10.360 developed world, the replacement rates about two point one exactly. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.080 That's in the yeah, the three point oh for the 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.960 developing countries. All the monographers just stood up and we're clapping. 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:22.920 So clearly Aerlic was not correct in his dire predictions. 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:28.400 Here we are in and um, there are problems, but 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:36.120 England is still around four billion people haven't starved to death. Um. 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.680 But does that mean that he was wrong altogether? Not 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.680 necessarily because right now, uh, and This was a pretty 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.520 startling stat to me. Over the past hundred and ten years, 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.840 we have grown from one point six billion people to 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:53.800 seven point to billion people in a hundred and ten years. Well, 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.160 we're expected to get up to nine point two and 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:01.120 another uh thirty five years by twenty and so one 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.000 of the reasons we have this many people, uh, most 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.600 of the reasons are positive because of like advances in healthcare. 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.400 The lifespan in nineteen hundred was thirty one years old 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.240 and now it's seventy or maybe even little bit higher 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.480 because that was two thousand, twelve UM, so imagine it's 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.080 a little bit higher. And the infant mortality rate globally 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.280 in nineteen hundred was a hundred and sixty five deaths 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.480 per one thousand live births was down to thirty four. 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.040 So that's why there's more people, because we're doing better 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.400 at taking care of ourselves. Yeah, and that those are 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.240 two huge factors when it comes to um demographics and 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:41.480 population because though the longer you live, the more old 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.360 people you have, so therefore the less babies you need 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:49.040 to replace those people, and the fewer babies that die 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:54.040 or that survive infancy UM will be adults one day exactly. 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.600 But these are the really if you're a demographer, the 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.400 sweet spot is that working age. So when you're a demographer, 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:06.680 especially one that's um economics minded, chuck that sweet spot 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:11.560 the reproductive working age people. That's a good sizeable population 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:13.720 you want to have. If you have a lot of babies, 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.040 well then you have a lot of people who are 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.000 raising those babies, so those babies are dependent on So 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.480 say you have a lot fewer women in the workforce, 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:23.960 so your workforce is depleted. If you have a lot 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.720 of like an aging population, you have a lot of 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.680 older people who have already aged out of the workforce 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:33.120 and are now dependent on the taxes paid by that workforce. 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.600 So a large population of either babies or old people, 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.480 and god forbid both at the same time. It puts 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.880 a lot of strain on the middle you know what 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.560 I'm saying. Sure, So when you have a longer life 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:51.240 expectancy and a lower infant mortality rate like we have 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.000 now in the developed world, you want to have something 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:58.800 closer to the replacement rate, you know, which makes sense. Um, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.720 I got some more stats that would uh seem to 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.439 back up air likes. Predictions are not predictions. But at 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:09.920 least his gloomy outlook currently. You know, I couldn't find 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.840 much on what he felt today. Yeah, I'm curious that 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:16.040 he's still around. I'm curious about there's some good interviews. 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.320 I'm gonna check that out. You know what, We'll post 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:23.639 it on uh the website because now we're posting links, yeah, 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.119 to like the research that we do stuff. You should know, 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.880 great links on that on the podcast page for this episode. Guys. 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.800 So currently, as of last year and estimated eight hundred 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.960 and five million people go to bed Hungary every night, 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.040 more than half of which are in Asia. One in 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:46.200 four people in Sub Saharan Africa was chronically malnourished UM 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.359 seven hundred fifty million people worldwide like access to clean 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:53.920 water UM, contributing to about eight hundred and fifty thousand 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:58.480 deaths per year. And UM, here's the thing, though, is 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.359 we're living in cities out more than ever. UM. People 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:04.320 are moving into cities, which is a good thing and 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.320 one way because it provides a lot of opportunity, economic 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.760 economic opportunity for people, especially in developing countries. But when 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:14.880 you look at these cities, a lot of them are 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:20.160 full of slums and sweatshops. In these developing nations, something 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.679 like um half of the population and a lot of 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:27.959 cities live in slum conditions in Africa, that's right. So 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.479 you think sub Saharan Africa, I think rural in a 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.040 lot of ways. So yes, I'm aware that they they 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.200 lack access to clean drinking water, and that's an issue 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.240 that Sub Saharan Africa faces. You don't think about that 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.119 being an issue in a city. But the problem with 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.720 slums is they very rarely have access to clean drinking 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.439 water in the exact same way that places like rural 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.239 Africa have the same problem. Yeah, and and we're not 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.679 even I mean that's that's clean drinking water and like 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.240 sanitation and shelter. We're not even talking about education and 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.840 healthcare and like all the things that people need to 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:07.600 live a fruitful life. You know. So cities are a problem. 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.800 Even if air look was wrong, there are clearly issues. Um. 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:13.919 Some people will argue and we'll get to the critics 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.320 and stuff later, but a lot of people argued that 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:18.560 it's distribution of food and stuff like that, Like we 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.840 have the resources, we're just not dividing it out properly. Right, 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:28.080 And apparently if I read that if everyone lived like 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:32.800 an American and consumed like an American does, the caring 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:35.480 capacity would be something like two billion, So we would 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:38.680 have already far exceeded it. But if everybody lived with 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.199 just the minimal amount that they need to live, the 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.399 caring capacity would be something like forty billion. We've been 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.439 able to sustain the caring capacity as it is right 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.600 now because not everybody lives like an American. But if 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.119 you're an American, that means that a lot of the 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.880 other world, especially developing world, thinks that you are over 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.880 consuming by a lot. And that's really evident. And um 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.240 there's a graph that went around recently that shows water 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.600 use in agriculture by type of product, so everything from 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.680 like soy to beef. It showed how much water? Did 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:13.400 you see that? I didn't see that, but I've seen 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:17.240 stuff like that. Beef is like a huge consumer water, right, 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.040 A hundred and six point to eight gallons of water 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:24.000 used to produce one ounce of beef. That's a lot. 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.680 That's a lot of water. And so that's that's part 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.200 of the point. Whereas if everybody's and apparently in China 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:35.280 and India and these ascending countries with ascending economies. Um. 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.280 One of the one of the great benefits of being 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.720 part of the developed worlds. You can get steak anytime 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:43.480 you want, baby, and uh, I want a big one 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:45.280 right now, put it in front of me. I'll give 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.000 you some money here. Here, just take this and and 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:50.199 put in your pocket. There's some money for you. Give 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:52.840 me my steak, and you don't care how much water 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:57.200 it took. And they're these people who are saying they 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.720 don't necessarily agree with their like, but they're saying, he 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:04.600 was totally off here, he was alarmed. They're saying, this 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:06.800 is one of the problems. You know, this is one 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.239 of the problems with too many people. Yeah, and so 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.639 getting back to to uh, contraception and zero population growth 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:18.040 or now the population connection they're big goal. They say 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.879 there are two two million women in the developing world 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:24.680 who have an unmet need for family planning. So they're 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.880 not saying, you know, we want to put our ideals 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:30.000 on you and you shouldn't be having kids. They're saying 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:32.240 they're that many women that are like, I don't want 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.119 these five kids. I would have wanted to and I 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:40.199 either don't know about contraception, don't have contraception or I 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:44.960 have literally no idea how conception works for a lot 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.960 of them. Well, I shouldn't say a lot. The first 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:52.119 idea that women just need access to contraception and they 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.880 will use it. Yeah, and they're they're they're working on that, right, 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:58.840 But they found in studies it's something like ten percent 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:01.760 or less of the women who are defined as having 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:07.400 unmet contraceptive needs. Um site a lack of access as 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:11.080 to why they're having unwanted kids. Instead, they're saying it's 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.159 things like family pressure or societal pressure to have a 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.719 bunch of kids. Um Like you're saying, like not understanding 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:20.960 contraception or how conception works. Yeah, they say they don't 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.119 believe that they need contraception. If you have sex infrequently 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:27.720 or after birth, after I've had one kid, we don't 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:31.480 need to use contraception anymore. Like literally not knowing how 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:37.520 conception works. So that's a big educational hurdle that Population 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:40.560 Connection is trying to overcome. Right, So they're saying it's 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:44.159 not just getting contraception to women, is educating them on 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.480 how to use it and changing their social outlook. Yeah, 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:53.359 changing the culture. Yeah, largely men, you know, saying you know, 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:58.240 like revolutionary road or something. You know. Alright, So, uh, 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:00.399 we're gonna talk a little bit after the break about 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:24.560 what the critics of zero population growth have to say. 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:33.320 So we're back. We're talking about solutions to overpopulation. But 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:36.320 not everybody thinks it's a problem. Some people say over 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.320 population is a myth. They say that are like in 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:45.080 and of it himself damaged his own argument. Yeah, he 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:47.800 got a lot of personal heat. Yeah, still does because 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:50.320 of the language he used. It was so alarmed as 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:52.959 starting his book off with, you know that we've already 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:55.320 lost and no matter what we do, billions of people 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:58.240 are going to die. Um and then it not panning 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:00.960 out saying that England is going to be around in 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:03.840 thirty years. I mean that was putting a lot on 0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:07.720 the line. And so a lot of people said, you're 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:13.560