Fertility rates

[peter_speckhard]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/18/toxic-chemicals-health-humanity-erin-brokovich

Here is another take on plummeting global fertility rates. This one pins the blame on environmental factors. The statistics it presents are startling.

[Randy Bosch]

The ZPG folks must be celebrating.   Paul Ehrlich and his wife wrote "The Population Bomb" in 1968 and overpopulation concerns have, unlike sperm counts, never really receded.  Studies prior to that had shown a reduction in reproduction rates in countries that industrialized and implemented significant economic and health improvements.  A major swath of the world is in that coterie today.  Other studies indicate that a major chunk of the obesity rate increase in the USA may be due not to overeating per se, but to chemicals used in food production and packaging over the past decades. 

In nature, changes in particular species reproduction rates (up or down) apparently often relate to the upcoming rates of food species or climate cycles.  If you have a lot of owls this season, look forward to a lot of rodents in their next season - the owls take longer to propagate and reach effective hunting size.  How do they know and humans don't comprehend impacts on their own species?  Many agricultural specialists are well aware of changing crop sizes, often in annual cycles, even without the influence of weather, pestilence or bulldozers.

The good news is The Good News -- there are a more than a few billion people in need of Christ's saving grace and mercy.

[Dan Fienen]

Those concerned about population growth in the United States, and there has been increased US population each year should be concerned with limiting immigration. The population growth in the US has not come from US women having too many babies. The American fertility rate (the average number of live births per female over her lifetime) is actually below what is needed for replacement, that is a steady population. Without immigration, the population of the US would be shrinking. So if overpopulation in America is a problem, it is immigration that is driving that problem.

[peter_speckhard]

Those concerned about population growth in the United States, and there has been increased US population each year should be concerned with limiting immigration. The population growth in the US has not come from US women having too many babies. The American fertility rate (the average number of live births per female over her lifetime) is actually below what is needed for replacement, that is a steady population. Without immigration, the population of the US would be shrinking. So if overpopulation in America is a problem, it is immigration that is driving that problem.

Agreed. When it comes to immigration in general I am a "more the merrier" kind of guy. I'm on record as saying in the future generations the U.S. will be accused of having pillaged other countries of their populations as it becomes more and more clear that people really are the most precious resource and they become a little more scarce.

However, immigration needs to be done legally and with controls. Open borders will always be a disaster and just makes us a pawn for drug cartels. People who apply to get in and can support themselves should get in. Legit asylum seekers should find asylum (at the nearest country where they can escape whatever the injustice against them persists in their own country). People who smuggle themselves in should be shown the door. Just as with a house, the door should be open to guests. Those who come in through the windows should be escorted out. 

[peter_speckhard]

https://americanmind.org/salvo/baby-bust/

An excellent read.

[peter_speckhard]

https://www.steynonline.com/11314/the-coming-of-age-fifteen-years-late

Demographic collapse is a concern almost everywhere, not just the developed, post-Christian West. Tough to say what all is driving it. Some of it appears to be biological changes. But I think the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of individualism. If in the past people were too closely entwined to their families to experience life and be seen as individuals, now that is the only way many people experience life— no married parents to pattern after, no security of a permanent relationship to alleviate the risk of having children, and certainly an economy and other social structures designed without homemakers in mind.