Earth's population to reach a staggering 7bn this month

[rov1100]

http://www.dailymail....en-billion-month.html

What should nations and politicians do about this runaway trend?

[scotman]

Politicians can do nothing about this. The only things that will limit human population are famine and disease.

[jno]

China's done its best, but I don't know if anyone else has. But China's attempts to restrict couples to one child means they all abort girls because they want sons.

[anotheoldgit]

Dish out free condoms.

[Messi_Ten]

7bn is not a lot in the grand scheme of things. People are just less inhibited about having sex.

[anotheoldgit]

ansteyg

/// Some sort of Cull perhaps? ///

Where would you start, the elderly, the disabled, the mentally sick, where?

[emmie]

China's policy of one child and that has not applied to all chinese couples, has backfired, it's not just that the women abort the females, but there is now a complete imbalance of male to female, so they are having a rethink on that, but perhaps they could get the Pope to change his stance on abortion, and the use of condoms, and if people don't think that 7bn is having an impact, then i would have a think again, food, water, and habitat are all in short supply, perhaps not so much in the west as yet, but drought can put paid to harvests across the globe. Education, free birth control, and if you want to do it in Britain, stop paying endless benefits for having more children than you can afford.

[notasyoungasiwas]

I think maybe ansteyg was tounge in cheek, but if there was a cull how about starting with murderers, rapists, child abusers and fans of Jordan !!!!!

[steg]

and Fifers

[Anngel123]

I don't think the Catholic stance on contraception is purely to blame....there are plenty of Non-catholics having loads of children...

[steg]

countries are already buying up large areas of Africa, like parts of Ethiopia( a country that relies on aid to feed its own people) to feed their citizens cause their countries are over populated

[New Judge]

Yes, the earth’s ever increasing is the “elephant in the room” that no government seems to want to mention.

It is somewhat surprising to say the least that when shortages of food, water and energy are discussed, nobody suggests that the crises may not be quite so severe if people did not knock out so many children. The world’s population is growing alarmingly. It is currently increasing by a million about every four days. It took well over 100 years for the population to double from one to two billion. It has taken less than forty years to double from three and a half to seven billion.

It is clearly unsustainable, especially bearing in mind that the areas least able to cope with increasing population are those where population growth is greatest. In particular people in many African nations have fallen into the trap of believing they must bear increasing numbers of children because they have a high infant mortality rate. Rather like saying that cats must have increasing numbers of kittens because many of them end up in sacks at the bottom of the canal.

Governments prattle on about climate change, global warming, and other catastrophes which they warn will see the end of mankind. But the biggest threat of all scarcely gets a mention.

[modeller]

Reverse benefits ! The less children you have the higher the benefit. Starting in Ireland.

[New Judge]

Good idea modeller.

It is preposterous that a nation such as the UK with a growing population and one which is struggling to cope with the numbers already here is giving taxpayers' cash to people which increases as the number of children they have increases.

Child benefit should be withdrawn immediately and PAYE codes adjusted so that the more children you have the more tax you pay. Similarly benefits which increase as the family size increases should be replaced with a system which is frozen at the level which fits the claimants' circumstances when they first claim. This means that, in the same way as employed people have to live within a fixed income, those unemployed will have to do the same.

[rojash]

"Child benefit should be withdrawn immediately and PAYE codes adjusted so that the more children you have the more tax you pay. "

Great idea - that'll teach the little tykes not to get born.

[DTCwordfan]

"A condom a day keeps the babies away"

[New Judge]

No it won't do that, rojash.

What my measures may achieve is to discourage a few couples from indiscrimately having children by making them realise that the sole responsibility for their upkeep rests with them and them alone and not with the wider population.

[rojash]

"What my measures may achieve is to discourage a few couples from indiscrimately having children"

...and where the couples are not discouraged, or unplanned children arrive, it will help to increase child poverty, which is already predicted to rise as a result of the recession.

http://www.publicfina...r-by-600000-says-ifs/

[New Judge]

There is no reason why the economy should continually grow. In fact there is every reason to believe it must at some time reach a limit. So long as the economy is virtually flat and the population continues to increase then “child poverty” (and indeed everybody else’s poverty) will continue to increase. The amount of money available per head will shrink in just the same way that the amount of fresh water per head will. It’s simple arithmetic: same amount of money divided by more people equals less money per person.

At present in the UK money is feted upon families with children, and that largesse increases with the number of children they have. This is absolute madness. The country is struggling to provide services in many areas and yet it continues to pay people to increase the population.

Mark Smulian’s article that you cite talks of “relative poverty”. And that’s exactly the point. I know a number of people who are in relative poverty as defined by the 2010 Act. (That is, with a household income less than 60% of the median average). Most of them drive nice cars, almost all of them have large flat-screen TVs (with satellite service and recording facilities, natch) , many of them are able to afford to smoke and drink and most of them spend large sums on expensive (but usually unhealthy) prepared food. Poverty stricken by most people’s definition they most definitely are not not.

The people responsible for raising children in so-called poverty are the parents, nobody else. Very few people find that they move from relative affluence to relative poverty with the coming of their children. Many people suffering financial distress were in that state before they had children and obviously will continue to be so after their children are born.

The government cannot “magic” money into the economy (though it would like you to think so with its ludicrous “quantitative easing” folly). One of the planks of its economic policy should be a steady, or preferably a declining population strategy. We cannot do much about the dangerous over-population that is arising in other countries but we can do something about it here.

[VHG]

>>> that a nation such as the UK with a growing population

Yes but it is an AGEING population as well.

Older people are generally paid for by younger people working. So you need a population pyramid of ages (widest at the bottom) to pay for the older population.

The problem in the west that our population pyramid is narrowing at the bottom, which is a big problem.

See here for Wikipedia on population pyramid. Compare stage 1 (expanding) to stage 4 (contracting - which is us, and much of the "west")

http://en.wikipedia.o...ki/Population_pyramid