<\/a>Last night, I attended a presentation looking at trends in world population since biologist Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb<\/em> in 1968, a best-selling work of non-fiction that scared everyone, and spurred the Zero Population Growth [ZPG]<\/a> movement. This morning, I learned that China is ending its decades-old, one-child policy<\/a>. What a juxtaposition!<\/p>\n

So, what happened? Why didn\u2019t the population bomb detonate? And how does China\u2019s policy reversal play into this story?<\/p>\n

I learned most of what I now know about the complicated aftermath of The Population Bomb<\/em> from Sara Weiser, a reporter for The Retro Report,<\/a> an innovative, documentary news organization. Retro Report, founded in 2013, looks back at some of the big news stories of recent years to see what has happened since, how things may have changed, or even to correct the record:<\/p>\n

From The Retro Report website<\/a>:<\/p>\n

How often does a great story dominate the headlines, only to be dropped from the news cycle? How often do journalists tell us of a looming danger or important discovery \u2013 only to move quickly to the next new thing? What really happened? How did these events change us? And what are the lingering consequences that may affect our society to this day?<\/p>\n

\u2026Complicating matters, the first draft of history can be wrong. When news organizations fail to invest the time and money required to correct the record or provide context around what really happened, myth can replace truth. The results are policy decisions and cultural trends built on error, misunderstanding or flat-out lies.<\/p>\n

Retro Report is there to pick up the story after everyone has moved on, connecting the dots from yesterday to today, correcting the record and providing a permanent living library where viewers can gain new insight into the events that shaped their lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Weiser applied these questions and principles to Ehrlich\u2019s predictions. Her reporting focused on India\u2014whose exploding population inspired Ehrlich\u2019s research and dire predictions. Ehrlich predicted that, if birth rates continued at their 1968 rate, by 2000 there would be so many people on Earth that there might not be enough food to sustain life.<\/p>\n

The result of Weiser\u2019s exploration of post-Population Bomb<\/em> India is a documentary report, which you can view here<\/a>. [Highly recommended.]<\/p>\n

In her report, Weiser includes archival clips from 1960s news reports sharing Erhlich\u2019s dire warnings, interviews with Ehrlich and some of his followers\u2014then and now\u2014an examination of India\u2019s governmental policies [for better and for worse] that have impacted the country\u2019s birth rate, and commentary on other factors that have played a role in defusing the predicted population bomb.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the answer? It\u2019s complicated. Weiser\u2019s report shows that, while India has instituted policies that have been effective in promoting sex education, birth control and voluntary sterilization, the results differ in rich and poor regions of the country. There\u2019s also measurable inequality between regions regarding the availability of education and healthcare services for women and children. One of the lessons of the report is that, as healthcare services improve, families\u2014who often rely on children as revenue-producers in agricultural areas\u2014feel more confident that their children will survive, so they don\u2019t feel compelled to have so many.<\/p>\n

And then, of course, there is the Green Revolution<\/a> factor. As the report reminds us, you don\u2019t need as many hands on the farm when you have modern machinery and better-yielding crops. Clearly, Ehrlich did not foresee the development of the genetically modified seeds that have revolutionized farming.<\/p>\n

Finally, there\u2019s the bottom line: It has been demonstrated many times that, as families\u2014particularly women\u2014become more educated and more economically secure, birth rates decline. And, in fact, as the documentary notes, we now have a situation in which economically developed countries\u2014Japan is a prime example\u2014are worrying that their birth rates are too low.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to China.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s decision to end the one-child-family rule, instituted in 1979, may offer the ultimate repudiation of Ehrlich\u2019s prognostications. China remains cautious about overpopulation–it\u2019s still limiting families, but now the limit is two children, not just one. But the lifting of the one-child restriction reflects China\u2019s worry that its population has begun to age out of the work force, with not enough younger replacements. Interestingly, although the one-child limit has been seen as onerous and inhumane by many, the rising economic status of many Chinese families has already spurred a trend toward voluntarily smaller families.<\/p>\n

So, was Ehrlich wrong? Yes and no. He didn\u2019t\u2014and couldn\u2019t– foresee some of the factors that drove lower birth rates. But he was prescient about the impact of having too many people on the planet. Today, while birth rates have diminished in many places, the same factors that spurred the slowdown\u2014primarily the improving economic status of families\u2014have created a new monster: We may not be growing in numbers as quickly as Ehrlich predicted, but each of us has access to and is using more of Earth\u2019s finite resources. Now what?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, I attended a presentation looking at trends in world population since biologist Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb in 1968, a best-selling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[384,2201,96],"tags":[282,2259,2564,2563],"yoast_head":"\n