Posted on 02/25/2005 5:12:12 AM PST by Brilliant
UNITED NATIONS - The world's population will increase by 40 percent to 9.1 billion in 2050, but virtually all the growth will be in the developing world, especially in the 50 poorest countries, the U.N. Population Division said.
In a report Thursday, the division said the population in less developed countries is expected to swell from 5.3 billion today to 7.8 billion in 2050. By contrast, the population of richer developed countries will remain mostly unchanged, at 1.2 billion.
"It is going to be a strain on the world," said Hania Zlotnik, the division's new director. She said the expected growth will be concentrated in countries that already struggle to provide adequate shelter, health care and education.
The report reconfirmed many trends, including an increasingly aging population in developed countries. But it said immigration would prevent the overall population in richer countries from declining.
The United States is projected to be the major net recipient of international migrants, 1.1 million annually, with its population increasing from 298 million in 2005 to 394 million in 2050, the report said.
Between 2005 and 2050, population growth in eight countries — India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, the United States, Ethiopia and China — is likely to make up half the world's increase, the report said.
Median fertility is expected to decline from 2.6 children per woman today to slightly over 2 children per woman in 2050.
Zlotnik said India's population will surpass China's in the coming decades because its fertility, currently at 3 children per woman, is higher than China's, estimated at 1.7 children per woman.
In 2000-2005, fertility levels remained above 5 children per woman in 35 of the 148 developing countries, including 30 of the poorest nations. The pace of decline in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia was slower than anticipated.
In southern Africa, the region with the highest AIDS (news - web sites) prevalence, life expectancy has fallen from 62 years in 1995 to 48 years in 2000-2005, and is projected to decrease further to 43 years over the next decade before a slow recovery starts, it said.
Thoraya Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, said the new projections should spur more action to stop the spread of HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS and help couples freely determine the size of their families.
"We must take more urgent action to promote access to reproductive health, including family planning, and fight HIV/AIDS to save millions of lives from AIDS and maternal death, as well as to reduce poverty in developing countries," she said in a statement.
In 2002 the Population Division had estimated global population in 2050 of 8.9 billion.
In a story about swelling population in Developing countries, they sure emphasize the importance of fighting HIV/AIDS a lot. Helping people live longer and engage in promiscuous sex more easily seems an odd way to fight over-population -- but, hey, if the UN says that's what is required, I'm sure they are correct!
Instead of giving them AIDS drugs, we should be giving them birth control.
and the source of this info is......................
Is it the Martians?
What is not mentioned in the article is that this is the expected PEAK population. It will not increase after that.
If I could place a wager, I would say this will not happen. I fully expect some kind of cataclysmic plague to sweep the world. We use way too much medicine (antibiotics), no one knows how to fend for themselves and people travel the globe in a day.
I think all these factors and more I haven't mentioned or thought of will combine to wipe out a significant portion of the population in the next 50 years.
I highly doubt this to be true. What, with the continuous genocides the UN supports in Africa we know this can't be true, plus the innability of these places to feed the populatons they have now, show that a 10 fold increase of the population is simply unsustainable. Continued resistance by the Europeons toward GE agricultural foods, and thus preventing them from being used to feed these people ensures that those population numbers will never be seen. Not to mention natural disasters such as drought and crop failure world wide, and a world war or two. Those are very "liberal" figures to say the least.
And they are telling us this because it is the fault of the US, and we will have to account and provide for these people? Because naturally, if we don't, (but thruthfully, even if we do) they will hate us and want to cause us harm.
I say stop the gravy train and let them fend for themselves. Even animals are smarter than that. Animals reproduce at a rate that their environment can sustain.
The US can't be the cure all for the Worlds (and the UN's) continued stupidity.
I think you nailed it. If you think the liberals are bad now with confiscatory taxation, wait until the world has a hard time sustaining itself without US food production.
By liberals, I do not just mean US Democrats, but all those in world governing bodies that feel they have a right to the wealth created by Americans.
Um, this is below replacement rate. Translation, the world's population will start to decline in the not-too-distant future . . . everywhere.
Exactly!
We're #1! - We're #1! Let's cheer.
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