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By Frosty Wooldridge
Every night on TV, you hear Scott Pelley, Diane Sawyer, Wolf Blitzer and Brian Williams talking about how our leaders push for economic growth and expansion. In October, they announced that humanity had reached seven billion people without blinking an eye. They never addressed the consequences in our current world nor did they give viewers any idea of the ramifications of another three billion people by mid century.
In other words, the Main Stream Media as well as U.S. and world leaders fail to connect the consequences of continued population growth and economic growth. They cannot continue on a finite globe.
In this continuing series, director of Population Press, Marilyn Hempel, www.populationpress.org , brings readers solid research and understanding as to what humanity faces in the 21st century with its most pressing issue: human overpopulation.
David Poindexter is the past President of Population Communication International, now an associate with Population Media Center. For his entire adult life, he has tirelessly traveled the globe, assisting other nations in creating TV and radio dramas that address women’s rights, health and family issues.
What are we facing Mr. Poindexter?
“In the last hundred years, no nation on Earth has moved from the poor and less developed status to prosperous and developed status until it achieved a total fertility rate (tfr) of 2.3,” said Poindexter. “(A country’s total fertility rate is the number of children the average woman will have when she completed her childbearing.) Countries begin to pick up momentum on the way to development at a tfr of 2.5. They do not truly arrive until they reach a replacement rate of 2.1–or lower.
“A graphic illustration of this was published several years ago in the United Nations Population Fund annual State of the World report. It compared the economic histories of Brazil and Japan over a period of 22 years.
“From 1963 to 1985, the GNP of both countries grew at a very healthy rate of between 5 and 10 percent each year. By 1975, Brazil’s per capita GNP was $900 per person; Japan’s was $1,400. (Imagine, as recently as 1975, Japan was a less developed country!)
“Ten years later, Brazil’s per capita GNP had grown from $900 to $2,000 per person; Japan’s had increased from $1,400 to $16,000. The UN’s research report on the disparity between the two nations stated, “The population growth rate in Brazil swallowed the economic benefits that Japan, with its very low total fertility rate, had available to reinvest in its economic infrastructure.”
“It is increasingly clear that in contrast to Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th Centuries, in the post World War II 20th Century, no nation can first develop, and then have its population growth rate decline. The exact opposite is the case. Now nations must first reduce their fertility rates, and then they have the possibility of experiencing sustained economic development.
“Given the complexities of economic growth determiners, it is not realistic to maintain that a total fertility rate of 2.3–and preferably lower–will of itself guarantee economic growth within a nation. It appears, however, that even if all other determiners are positive, economic development of a magnitude to move a country into the ranks of developed prosperous nations, absent a 2.3 or lower tfr, will not take place.
“For sustainable development to happen, it appears that, in addition to a total fertility rate approaching 2.0 and lower (China’s is now 1.8; Japan’s 1.5), a nation needs also to be democratizing, opening its institutions to women, ratcheting corruption downward, adopting a market economy, and addressing to too frequent inequities between the minuscule group of the very rich and the massive group of the very poor.
“In Brazil, the owner of TV-Globo took seriously the Brazil/Japan realities, and , in collaboration with my organization, Population Communications International, launched a concerted mass media effort on behalf of family planning and the small family norm. The effort, in the planning stage for several years, was launched in 1989. At the point we began, Brazil’s total fertility rate was 3.4 children per woman. Inflation was at 2000% per year.
“As we began, democratization was underway in Brazil and corruption was increasingly being exposed to the media spotlight. The Economic Minister, now Brazil’s President, was overhauling the economy, making inflation manageable and moving to a market economy.
“Had the tfr remained stuck above 3.0, as for the last decade has been the case in Mexico, Brazil would still face an uncertain future. Instead, based on the universally recognized and relied upon Demographic and Health Survey, which released Brazil’s most recent data last December, Brazil’s tfr has come down from 3.4 in 1989 to 2.3 in 1996. A major research unit at the University of Sao Paulo studying TV-Globo’s “telenovelas” and their impact, states that they have been the principle force driving down Brazil’s fertility rate.
“What does this mean in the lives of everyday people? Brazilian parents now are feeding, clothing, educating, housing and keeping healthy, 1 fewer child in 1996 than was the case in 1989. Multiply that 1 child fewer times every household in Brazil and one can see how much cash for discretionary spending has become available to power the economy. Parents now know that they will have 1 fewer child to feed, clothe, educate, keep healthy–in a word, to provide for. For masses of Brazilians that means every speck of income is no longer required for subsistence. Now, once in awhile there is a little money available to buy things they have long wanted, but could never afford. As they do so, things start moving off the shelves of stores. Manufacturers have to operate overtime to restock those shelves. Their employees now have extra money for purchases. The magnitude of that in a nation of 160 million people is creating economic momentum. This fact is underscored by reports on the business pages of The New York Times in recent months.
“The automobile manufacturers of the world report that they are focused on South America as the great new region of opportunity. For example, General Motors states that whereas they plan to put $1.2 billion into new automobile plants in Southeast Asia, they are putting $4 billion into new plants in Brazil and Argentina.
“Economic wealth is the result of trading. The move toward population stabilization of major South American nations is the key to ever increasing trade, wealth and development. What lies ahead is a win-win situation for the economies of both North and South American nations.
“It would not have happened had not Brazil’s TV-Globo responded to PCI’s initiative, energizing an enormous entertainment/education effort that has driven Brazil’s total fertility rate down by more than 1 child per woman. All involved agree it will continue on down to a replacement rate and beyond.
“The researchers at the University of Sao Paulo report that the tfr of the families portrayed in TV-Globo’s telenovelas is 1.8–the small prosperous family. If the people of Brazil continue to emulate the role models in those soap operas, we can expect similar results in real families. That is very good news.”
America needs to address overpopulation as the first issue to bring this civilization into balance with the natural world. The sooner the better. The later will only bring horrific results on multiple levels.
You may visit many great writers and thinkers on this issue at www.PopulationPress.org
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Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com He is the author of: America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans. Copies available: 1 888 280 7715
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