Spur of the Moment Guide to FACTFULNESS: WEEK 14
p. 75-88
The topic of these pages is population growth. There's a nice explanation about the topic if you have no idea what’s expected to happen in the coming 80 years or so. There’s so much information in this chunk of the book, I’ll just mention the main idea which I found most interesting and one objection.
First, the objection.
Hans Rosling talks about the straight line instinct. How people are inclined to think everything increases in a straight line. I’m not sure that’s 100% true and the author mentions two examples that explain exactly that.
First, he talks about the Ebola outbreak in Liberia. Even he—an expert—was slow to realize at first how the infection was moving faster than most would expect. One person was on average infecting two others before dying instead of one.
Second, he mentions the fact that most people wouldn’t assume that the rate their child grows in inches will keep increasing the way it did when it was a baby. That is, because people know approximately what to expect in terms of height and age they avoid thinking their kid will keep growing in height in a straight line.
So based on lack of information most people assume the earth’s population is going to keep increasing in a straight line. Based on the data presented in the book this isn’t true.
The author has data to back up his claim that most are clueless about this. Well, I’ll agree with that. My objection is simply that while most people probably have no idea by how much the population is expected to grow they have a vague idea of it increasing and that’s it. The by- how-much-it-is-growing question isn’t even considered.
I have to admit though, if shown the graph then yes, just like the author proves in the book, I guess most people would fill in a straight line. So maybe I have no objection after all.
The UN future forecast mentioned in the book is 11 billion by 2100 by the way; up from the current 7.6 billion in 2017 (page 82).
Now, the most interesting idea.
The population on earth was considered to be in balance with nature say up until 1900 when it reached 1.5 billion. Then it went out of balance till say up to 2000 when it reached 6 billion (page 88).
The good news is that a new balance has already been achieved. And this balance is “better” than the old one. This is because, in the old days, people were having lots of children, but only a few survived until the age when they could have had children of their own. So the balance was achieved via death. These days, the balance is achieved via choice, since most people choose to have fewer children. The reasons behind this choice are the decrease in extreme poverty and the increase in education and contraception.
So as long as we keep improving on these three things the world population will be in balance with nature.
That is positive.
Even though I had stumbled upon articles and comments about the population growing to unsustainable levels I don’t think I had taken a pessimistic view on growth population for some reason. Nevertheless, having this view as presented in the book Factfulness is even better. Thank you, Hans Rosling and family. This is good to know. Now, all we have to worry about is natural destruction.
Here are two somewhat worrying thoughts coming to mind despite the positive population growth view.
First, the fact that women still do not have 100% access to contraceptive measures or the right to abortion in some parts of the world (and in other parts they may not be able to afford either).
Second, the issue of climate change. It seems we not only need to try to stop negatively influencing the environment, but to also start adapting to it. Adapting to it doesn’t just mean to prepare and find solutions for the damage that has already been done, but to start planning our cities and our lives based on the environment instead of solely what we need or want as humans.
That sounds wrong, doesn’t it? I mean, why wouldn’t humans want to live in a super friendly, awesome environment? Well, it seems like we do, but something seems to get in the way… Maybe it’s the economics of the world?
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