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Yep. The population is clumped. Listener posted some good points about the hurdles the continent faces, but it's also has some good advantages: it's the least seismically active continent and basically least disaster prone overall, rigid coastline where they won't experience much land loss to sea level rise, and a lot of still undeveloped agricultural land. One of the effects of global warming is the Sahara should get much greener - which adds a vast quantity of agricultural land to a continent that already has a lot.
The average age is really young in the continent. I think with the hyper urbanization, people will shift behaviors more quickly in the next 20 years than the last 20, and with the overarching theme of not enough opportunity, I think people will put more emphasis on career - getting ahead and less on kids.
But things like the Sudan crisis are what hold the continent back, if these keep happening, the environment and people will both continue to suffer.
The Sudan crisis is well known. Less well known is the recent Tigray War fought in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Ghent University estimates 350-600,000 people died during the 2 year war fought in 2020 - 2022. Right under our noses and no one in our media said a word.
Also interesting is Ethiopia's attempt to dam up its half of the Nile with power producing dams. Egypt, dependent on the Nile water, has threatened violence against Ethiopia if the reservoirs are filled too quickly and too much water is held back. We're talking jet fighters - that kind of violence!
Africa is fascinating, no doubt about it. I wish more Africans with knowledge of the country would chime in. I'd like to hear their view on population growth and decline. Let's admit it, some countries are hopeless basket cases who could not possibly support a larger population, but we rarely hear from people in those countries.
Why do you say that?.... It's not that I disagree, I just wander what your thinking is where an ecological disaster is created.
Thanks.
Mostly loss of biodiversity. I'm not speaking to famine; there's enough arable land in Africa to support two billion people. But the cultivation and development of wilderness areas will be a huge blow for the extant species in Africa. Already many of the megafauna there we all know and love (rhinos, elephants, etc) are endangered or at risk.
Now I'm not saying Africans should be prevented from developing their continent. Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent the Americas already went through this process, especially the loss of megafauna. But it will still be a loss as yet more land is turned over to monocrop agriculture and concrete.
Originally Posted by Listener2307 Why do you say that?.... It's not that I disagree, I just wonder what your thinking is where an ecological disaster is created.
Thanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avondalist
Mostly loss of biodiversity. I'm not speaking to famine; there's enough arable land in Africa to support two billion people. But the cultivation and development of wilderness areas will be a huge blow for the extant species in Africa. Already many of the megafauna there we all know and love (rhinos, elephants, etc) are endangered or at risk.
Now I'm not saying Africans should be prevented from developing their continent. Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent the Americas already went through this process, especially the loss of megafauna. But it will still be a loss as yet more land is turned over to monocrop agriculture and concrete.
I think your observations are wonderfully prescient.
The rest of us are busy wondering if the continent can support enormous populations and you have gone a step further and seen the danger of arranging that support.
Yeah. You're right.
Mostly loss of biodiversity. I'm not speaking to famine; there's enough arable land in Africa to support two billion people. But the cultivation and development of wilderness areas will be a huge blow for the extant species in Africa. Already many of the megafauna there we all know and love (rhinos, elephants, etc) are endangered or at risk.
Now I'm not saying Africans should be prevented from developing their continent. Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent the Americas already went through this process, especially the loss of megafauna. But it will still be a loss as yet more land is turned over to monocrop agriculture and concrete.
Note that the world has already lost many mega-fauna since the end of the Pleistocene epoch, partly because of humans. North America alone was home to camels, sabre tooth cats, lions, woolly mammoths, native horses, and others.
Then of course there were the vast herds of bison.
Megafauna definitely contribute to biodiversity and for that reason alone, we should be preserving endangered species.
I would also like to see a revival of extinct species using preserved DNA. Even the Neanderthals might be possible to reproduce.
Jurassic Park is a fantasy, but it might turn into reality in 20-30 years if science progresses apace.
Fewer people, more forests and a restoration of many species would make the world more livable and pleasant for the billion or so people remaining.
Yep. The population is clumped. Listener posted some good points about the hurdles the continent faces, but it's also has some good advantages: it's the least seismically active continent and basically least disaster prone overall, rigid coastline where they won't experience much land loss to sea level rise, and a lot of still undeveloped agricultural land. One of the effects of global warming is the Sahara should get much greener - which adds a vast quantity of agricultural land to a continent that already has a lot.
The average age is really young in the continent. I think with the hyper urbanization, people will shift behaviors more quickly in the next 20 years than the last 20, and with the overarching theme of not enough opportunity, I think people will put more emphasis on career - getting ahead and less on kids.
But things like the Sudan crisis are what hold the continent back, if these keep happening, the environment and people will both continue to suffer.
We must stop thinking of Africa as country. It's the 2nd largest continent on the plant. I do not see how a crisis in the Sudan can or will hold the continent back. It's like saying cartel violence in Mexico will hold Canada back.
The Sudan crisis is well known. Less well known is the recent Tigray War fought in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Ghent University estimates 350-600,000 people died during the 2 year war fought in 2020 - 2022. Right under our noses and no one in our media said a word.
Also interesting is Ethiopia's attempt to dam up its half of the Nile with power producing dams. Egypt, dependent on the Nile water, has threatened violence against Ethiopia if the reservoirs are filled too quickly and too much water is held back. We're talking jet fighters - that kind of violence!
Africa is fascinating, no doubt about it. I wish more Africans with knowledge of the country would chime in. I'd like to hear their view on population growth and decline. Let's admit it, some countries are hopeless basket cases who could not possibly support a larger population, but we rarely hear from people in those countries.
Yes, the Egyptian - Ethiopian tension is going underreported. It's an interesting conflict and I can understand and see the merits of both sides stance. Unfortunately, Egypt is a downstream nation. It has no right to tell another country what to do with its water resources. They tried to get the U.S. to assert pressure on the Ethiopian government, but the U.S. doesn't appear interested. Military intervention wouldn't accomplish much. That's a big dam. It would take some heavy grade explosives to take it the dam out (fighter jets are sufficient). With that said Egypt has historically been on very good terms with its sub-Saharan neighbors, and I believe a gentleman agreement will eventually be reached. More can be had from cooperation than conflict.
We've spent a lot of time discussing this from the perspective of an economist, demographer, and policy maker. Something happened to me today that made the situation much more real.
Our daycare had to shutter a classroom because they cannot hire anyone to save their life. Some of the families in this classroom were lucky and can continue to attend. The rest were not so lucky and are now scrambling for daycare coverage. This is hugely disruptive and may lead to some parents dropping out of the workforce.
Things like this - labor shortages and service disruptions, rising prices and shortages of goods on shelves - are going to be the new normal.
There's been much painful bleating in the press in recent years about a "birth dearth" and lower TFRs, etc., while pointing out how dire this is or unpatriotic or unholy or a dereliction of duty to avoid motherhood. I've provided a number of links to such articles in my critiques.
"...we tend to talk about not having children as a late-20th-century phenomenon..."
"...you’d think being childless was invented by millennials as another way of shirking our duty to society."
"“Today, we see a form of selfishness,” Pope Francis said last year. “We see that some people do not want to have a child.”
"To Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, it is an alarming development, possibly even a sign of America’s impending collapse, “for the leaders of our country to be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring.” (He blamed the "childless left" for this. Politicians like Vance always run the fear game on gullible voters, the old game of 'bad things will happen if you don't vote for me...because only I can fix it.')
"History is full of women without children: Among white women born in the last third of the 19th century in the United States, the norm was for one in five to have no children; among Black women that number was closer to one in three." (Why would women risk the dismal state of medicine by dying in childbirth or having infant after infant die of diseases prevalent in that era? Why would black women want to have children only to have them subjected to Jim Crow and other racism?)
"Matt Schlapp, the head of the influential Conservative Political Action Coalition, reportedly suggested last May that he supported abortion restrictions not just on moral grounds but also out of concern for America’s population numbers." (I'm rather certain his concern is for America's WHITE population numbers as this has been a fear of white nationalists for decades.)
"When studies ask women today why they’re not having children, their answers are pretty consistent: They don’t have the support networks, money or jobs that would make children possible; they worry about the effects of climate change on the next generation; and some of them simply want lives that prioritize other experiences."
There we have it. There's always been a lot of women who did not want to become mothers, and didn't. Senator Vance, the Pope, and many others are telling us what they'd have us do, and trying to force women to do by overturning Roe and denying birth control products.
As the old saying goes, there's nothing new under the sun.
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There's been much painful bleating in the press in recent years about a "birth dearth" and lower TFRs, etc., while pointing out how dire this is or unpatriotic or unholy or a dereliction of duty to avoid motherhood. I've provided a number of links to such articles in my critiques.
"...we tend to talk about not having children as a late-20th-century phenomenon..."
"...you’d think being childless was invented by millennials as another way of shirking our duty to society."
"“Today, we see a form of selfishness,” Pope Francis said last year. “We see that some people do not want to have a child.”
"To Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, it is an alarming development, possibly even a sign of America’s impending collapse, “for the leaders of our country to be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring.” (He blamed the "childless left" for this. Politicians like Vance always run the fear game on gullible voters, the old game of 'bad things will happen if you don't vote for me...because only I can fix it.')
"History is full of women without children: Among white women born in the last third of the 19th century in the United States, the norm was for one in five to have no children; among Black women that number was closer to one in three." (Why would women risk the dismal state of medicine by dying in childbirth or having infant after infant die of diseases prevalent in that era? Why would black women want to have children only to have them subjected to Jim Crow and other racism?)
"Matt Schlapp, the head of the influential Conservative Political Action Coalition, reportedly suggested last May that he supported abortion restrictions not just on moral grounds but also out of concern for America’s population numbers." (I'm rather certain his concern is for America's WHITE population numbers as this has been a fear of white nationalists for decades.)
"When studies ask women today why they’re not having children, their answers are pretty consistent: They don’t have the support networks, money or jobs that would make children possible; they worry about the effects of climate change on the next generation; and some of them simply want lives that prioritize other experiences."
There we have it. There's always been a lot of women who did not want to become mothers, and didn't. Senator Vance, the Pope, and many others are telling us what they'd have us do, and trying to force women to do by overturning Roe and denying birth control products.
As the old saying goes, there's nothing new under the sun.
And still populations increased throughout ancient to modern history to the point of making it to a bullet point, in the Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilizations of this person's research.
V. Common Themes; Cause: 2. "rising populations required conquest and trade for needed resources"
Countries were formed from several kingdoms (England being one) coming together after much bloodshed. The u.s. was formed from people migrating from their lands to here and after much bloodshed a nation was born. However, in the u.s. TFR of its citizens would not matter as to sustaining a nation as long as people want to make it their new home and through innovation and discoveries, keep the country on the map.
In 100 years, though the u.s. sustaining its population numbers through immigration, may be the first time since its inception, that it becomes an issue. Maybe also, the first time, 'decline in population' becomes a bullet point in someone else's research, in how nations die. Achieving a good economic outcome through migration (for any country) will only last for so long when eventually it may not be enough.
I speculate countries will join alliances one with another (after much bloodshed) and liken to business networking in order to stay economically viable; they'll look at that the u.s. (and other examples) and tear that page from the playbook. What else is there when all the people of the world can fit onto one Continent?
But no, childless women is not a new phenomenon. The new phenomenon, is the shrinking global population.
......................
There we have it. There's always been a lot of women who did not want to become mothers, and didn't....
As the old saying goes, there's nothing new under the sun.
Oh, but there IS some new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes would be stunned to find that that world will soon reach a TFR of less than 2.1, and that is new. Never before in history has that happened. He would probably then be stunned again to find that once world population begins to decline later this century, it will never rise again to today's levels.
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