Expert: U.S. population to hit 1 billion by 2100

[sinkingfeeling]

Source: USAtoday.com

If the USA seems too crowded and its roads too congested now, imagine future generations: The nation's population could more than triple to 1 billion as early as 2100.

Nelson's projection assumes that current fertility rates remain constant but that longevity and immigration will continue to rise.

Robert Lang, Nelson's co-director at the Virginia Tech institute, says he expects immigration to decline, largely because birth rates in other countries are declining.

"People are not going to have as many children, and their children won't have as many children, and there'll be (fewer) people to immigrate to the U.S.," Lang says. "I would rather focus on the near certainty that we will gain 100 million people by 2043. … No one plans for 100 years from now except to preserve a national park."


Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2008-04-28-onebillion_N.htm

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Thank goodness I'll be dead by then. I can't even think about the beautiful places in this country that will be destroyed to provide for this ever growing population.

[saigon68]

1. Yes be sure to thank the idiots

Who oppose Birth Control

[Zynx]

2. I really don't think a lack of birth control has much to do with our population growth.

We have fairly significant immigration and a relatively modest birth rate. We aren't Iran or Bangladesh here.

[saigon68]

34. "We have fairly significant immigration " your words

Because the Morans who come here reproduce like rabbits

[Zynx]

38. That is so offensive I can't even really formulate a polite response.

[bean fidhleir]

57. Hispanics - 15% of the population - accounted for 50% of the US pop growth since 2000

Hispanics accounted for about half the growth in the U.S. population since 2000, according to a Census Bureau report to be released today that indicates the nation's largest minority group is increasing its presence even faster than in the previous decade.

In another contrast to the 1990s, births have overtaken immigration this decade as the largest source of Hispanic growth

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/08/AR2005060802381.html

[saigon68]

71. Sorry about that

Altered rabbits won't contribute to the problem of overpopulation of rabbits. Over 7 million adorable dogs, cats, and rabbits are killed in animal shelters in this country every year. In addition, unwanted rabbits are often abandoned in fields, parks, or on city streets to fend for themselves, where they suffer from starvation, sickness, and are easy prey to other animals or traffic accidents. Those rabbits who are sold to pet stores don't necessarily fare any better, as pet stores sell pets to anyone with the money to buy, and don't check on what kind of home they will go to. Many of these rabbits will be sold as snake food, or as a pet for a small child who will soon "outgrow" the rabbit.

[bean fidhleir]

72. What you point out here should be required reading for everyone

until they can explain it in their own words, so that we know it's sunk in.

[Hannah Bell]

49. You're wrong. The majority of immigrants come from Mexico.

The birthrate in Mexico is 2.1 children per woman, same as the US birthrate.

Perhaps fewer people would have come had the "international financial community" not precipitated the peso crisis & the free trade policies which made it impossible for many Mexicans to survive in the ways they previously had.

[Hannah Bell]

11. The US birthrate is 2.1. The forecaster bases his estimate on

an immigration rate which is even HIGHER than the present rate, which is already at turn-of-the-century levels, i.e. the highest in our history.

It's bogus science, designed to elicit fear & cries to "sterilize the brutes"!

The world birthrate is 2.54 & declining.

[Hannah Bell]

56. error

[endarkenment]

3. The planet cannot sustain that level of population growth.

We cannot sustain the current population as that population starts to demand energy resources at developed-world levels.

The religious and political nut cases getting in the way of a global rational approach to the development of a sustainable human society need to be arrested, tried, and jailed for crimes against humanity.

[Lorien]

6. We can't sustain our current population for another 50 years

our natural resources will have disappeared by then at CURRENT depletion rates.

Humanity needs to grow up and face reality on this issue.

[endarkenment]

15. I agree. Reduction is the goal.

And reduction will happen. It seems our leaders have decided ironically to 'let nature take its course', which means that reduction will happen by war disease famine etc. instead of by an enlightened human society consciously choosing to reduce its population through birth control. Our leaders rightly ought to be taken out and shot, but I oppose the death penalty.

[Zachstar]

42. So how do you do birth control?

Like China? Ya that worked REALLY well!

I much rather put my faith in new energy sources and land usage than rely on forcing people not to have kids.

If we die from that? Oh well it is better than converting .gov into .china

[endarkenment]

60. Actually OCPF has worked.

I disagree with implementation policies such as forced abortions, but in general this is the approach that needs to be taken. Instead of subsidizing reproduction, which is what we do, births outside an agreed policy limit should be taxed. There should be disincentives for having too many children. All of this needs to be done within democratic norms, what is most odious to me about the Chinese approach is that it is done within a totalitarian system.

"With the one child policy, the fertility rate in China has fallen from over five to 1.7 births per woman. <14> (The colloquial term "births per woman" is usually formalized as the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), a technical term in demographic analysis meaning the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates through her lifetime.)

In total, China estimates that it has three to four hundred million fewer people today with the one child policy than it would have had otherwise. <15><16> <17>. Chinese authorities thus consider one child policy as a great success to help implement the economic growth of China today <18>. The reduction in fertility rate and thus population size reduced the severity of problems that come with overpopulation, like epidemics, slums, overwhelmed social services (health, education, law enforcement, and more), and strain on the ecosystem from abuse of fertile land and production of high volumes of waste. However, even with the one-child policy in place, "China still has one million more births than deaths every five weeks". In addition, there are still six hundred million people in China living on less than two dollars a day <19>."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

[iwearshoesinky]

61. Education is quite effective

Parents with greater educational backgrounds and women who are allowed opportunities for equality tend to invest their resources in less children.

[bean fidhleir]

63. China's system didn't work well for two reasons

One: they didn't make sterilization mandatory after one kid
Two: they made exceptions for people outside of cities and people who had a girl.

In other words, they didn't really do what they claimed they were doing.

[The2ndWheel]

9. We can't sustain a global rational approach either

Talk about demand for energy. Just to make sure everyone everywhere is doing everything they need to do exactly the way they need to be doing it, would waste some of the energy needed in order to not get in the way of that approach.

[endarkenment]

14. yes we can

but that rational approach requires eliminating population growth while developing a sustainable energy infrastructure. The point isn't that we can't waste any energy, the point is that we are not even trying to solve the really serious and difficult crisis human civilization is in.

[The2ndWheel]

23. We don't solve problems

We create bigger and more complex problems.

Everyone still dies, just some people last longer today, which creates its own problems. Everyone still has to eat, and each time we give ourselves the ability to make more food, we impact the environment in numerous ways, which result in larger problems. Everyone still has to have access to water, and air, and land, and this, and that.

Then you throw population into it, and in order to get to that global rational approach, first everyone currently alive needs equal access to everything that any other person has. That total population will get bigger before it even starts to get smaller, and those addition few billion people are going to need equal access to everything that any other person has.

The reason that we're not even trying is that we can't try. We can't stop doing what we're doing, and we can't continue to do what we're doing.

Eliminating population growth will cause its own problems. It's not going to solve anything, it will just change the scale of the problem. Reducing consumption and population will cause their own set of problems. We're not going to escape physical reality, no matter what we do.

Am I saying don't try? No. Just expect the solution to create the new problem, most likely on a larger scale than the previous problem. And as you said, we need a global rational approach.

[endarkenment]

27. Of course trying creates new problems.

I mean seriously, other than defeatism, what is your point? You end up agreeing that we need a global rational approach. I never claimed such a thing would be perfect or easy or without problems or without risk of failure. The point is our elites have abdicated entirely. They intend to do nothing, to ride out the storm, protect their gene-pool, and let us peasants die out. Fuck them.

[The2ndWheel]

29. Exactly. Good last line.

People need to come up with their own way.

I don't agree that we need a global approach. I think that is the worst thing we could do. That will result in a single way of trying to fix things, and that won't give anyone any flexibility. We'll become even more dependent on the elite.

[The2ndWheel]

31. Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable

http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=97741

DOOMSDAY. The end of civilisation. Literature and film abound with tales of plague, famine and wars which ravage the planet, leaving a few survivors scratching out a primitive existence amid the ruins. Every civilisation in history has collapsed, after all. Why should ours be any different?

Doomsday scenarios typically feature a knockout blow: a massive asteroid, all-out nuclear war or a catastrophic pandemic (see "Will a pandemic bring down civilisation?"). Yet there is another chilling possibility: what if the very nature of civilisation means that ours, like all the others, is destined to collapse sooner or later?

A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down.

[Sabriel]

4. Is it just me, or does everything seem extra depressing today?

Seriously, it's just one thing after another like this story.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

7. The population won't increase that much ...

Global famine due to energy depletion will keep the population in check.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Depressing posts.

[Demeter]

16. I've Noticed the Miasma in the Air, Too

The Dementors must be breeding.

But seriously, it's the after-effects of all the public and corporate lying. No good ever comes of it.

[Ilsa]

30. For me, it started with Bush*'s press conference this morning.

He's a big downer. Excuse me, but I am going to stick my head in the sand for awhile so I'll feel better.

[harun]

68. No, you are not alone (n/t)

[katty]

5. luckily i won't be around for this

[Orrex]

8. Are these the same 1 billion who'll be forced from their homes?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3288810

[hokies4ever]

10. Does this include the number of Americans McCain wants to kill

with a 100-year war in Iraq? This story smells like a core GOP fear-mongering on immigration.

[Hannah Bell]

12. The "expert" bases his forecast on increasing immigration, not birthrate.

Legal immigration is already at historically high levels, & this is a matter of public policy, not accident. If we wanted to lower legal immigration, we could.

Illegal immigration, mainly from Mexico, took off after the Mexican peso crisis & trade agreements which drove farmers off their land & the price of corn up. Again, this is POLICY.

The US birthrate is 2.1 per woman, essentially replacement rate. Mexico recently achieved the same birthrate: 2.1 per woman.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0404nobabies.html

The global birthrate is 2.54/woman & declining.

Surprisingly, though this "expert" is scaring you with stories of overpopulation, the Social Security "experts" are scaring you by telling you there won't be enough people working to support the elderly! In their forecasts, they predict DECLINING immigration.

Do you get it? They tell you whatever the fuck they want to get you to buy into their policy prescriptions - which will almost always result in you having less $ & less power.

[NickB79]

13. Not very likely

Between Peak Oil and global warming, I'd be surprised if the GLOBAL population is over 1 billion by 2100.

[Javaman]

70. exactly right.

Global warming alone will account for a very large portion of the deaths. The predicted 2 degree rise in temps and the 3 foot rise in sea levels alone will cause massive migration and various deaths due to disease.

And unless some brainiac comes up with some massive fix all energy gewgaw, peak oil will slow down food production and food distribution to nearly a halt. Those who don't grow their own food and maintain community connections will be caught on the short end of the stick.

[Flagg]

17. Plenty of bodies for future oil wars.

[Traction311]

18. Doubtful

I'm sure by then there will either be a nuclear war, disease, or we'll elect an anti-immigration president to cut off growth. Maybe even an asteroid.

[Crooked Moon]

65. this nation is not ready to elect an asteroid.

[ryanmuegge]

19. LOL. Don't count on even living until 2015

[Zookeeper]

20. For what it's worth....

I have my doubts that longevity rates for Americans will keep increasing. With environmental toxins that have "appeared" in the last few decades, with increasing obesity-related illnesses and the crazy-high cost of health care, we may have hit a plateau, if we don't start seeing longevity drop.

[aquart]

21. Polygamy sure helps.

[CubicleGuy]

22. Basic faulty assumption #1 here....

... is that there will still be anything remotely resembling "The United States of America" at that point in time.

[darue]

24. yeah, most likely you're quite right about that n/t

[greiner3]

25. The story is a hit piece of anti-immigration talking points;

The current thinking is for the world's population to top off at around 2050 with just over 9 billion humans. With a constant increase of wages and human conditions in Latin America, coupled with xenophobia, the population of the US is projected to be about 400 million in 2100. I do not have sources as I remember these figures from my text books of a few quarters ago. Bad thing about this forecast is that lately experts have been calling for food shortages worldwide in the next couple of years. Lou Dobbs may yet smile; Latinos may soon be too hungry to make a dash for the US border.

[barnel]

26. watch this short video from numbersusa

i dont know if we'll hit 1 billion (numbersusa doesnt claim that), but there's no doubt we're rising fast

watch this - it was made about 10 years ago, and it's coming true

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=numbersusa&hl=en&sitesearch=

our immigration is way, way higher than anywhere else, and they want to jam it MUCH HIGHER

is it really 'xenophobic' to consider the consequences of such serious actions?

i just remember years ago them saying 'more H-1b's wont hurt American tech workers' well, 10 years later, tech is DESTROYED as a field for Americans

[Ilsa]

28. We can start discouraging rampant reproduction with our tax policy.

It is time to grandfather in reductions in exemptions and credits for children as dependents. Every two or three years, we could reduce the number of exemptions and credits parents can claim for their children. Eventually, it should only be two or three at the most.

I know a family with 7-8 kids, all under 18. They don't pay federal taxes, and he makes a big income. Why should they get to use our infrastructure for free when they use it more heavily than the rest of us?

I am beginning to think we should require limits on the number of kids a parent can place on medicaid and food programs. Maybe that would encourage parents to be more responsible if they were on the verge of poverty. I think it is in the public's interest to offer incentives not to keep having kids. Something needs to be done to counter the religious breeding philosophy.

[Hannah Bell]

32. Do you think poor people (that's who you're mostly talking about) have children

because it gives them a tax break, or Medicaid, or food programs?

If you want to return to workhouses & poorhouses, continue to advocate for your solutions.

The US birthrate is 2.1 per woman. It would be lower if not for immigration. The birthrate in Mexico fell to 2.1 per woman in 2006. That's where most immigrants to the US come from.

Legal immigration is high, has been high since the 80s, because our leaders raised caps deliberately, to drive down wages.

Illegal immigrantion took off in the 90s, after the debt trap & peso crisis - courtesy of the "world investment community".

1 family with 87 children does not a trend make.

[Ilsa]

33. The people I know having alot of kids are not poor. They are

middle class and above. Seriously, $75,000 in salary in a smaller city in TX. A good income, enough for one wage earner and one breeder and 8-10 kids. They pay nothing in federal income taxes, but they are large consumers of our infrastructure.

Still, I think it should be considered. I don't think we need to be paying people to have more than a couple of kids through the tax policy.

As for the rest of the programs that are offered to the poor, I think free sterilization should also be offered after giving birth. They can decline it, but I think it should be offered.

I don't care what the income level is... we shouldn't go on breeding ourselves out of existence.

[Hannah Bell]

35. as i said, the us birthrate per woman = 2.1 children.

the richer you are, the fewer kids you have.

the tax deduction for kids goes nowhere near covering the cost.

75K is slightly over median income.

you may be sincere, but the policies you're advocating are right-wing.

as is the term "breeder" & the phrase "breeding ourselves out of existence".

[Ilsa]

39. Oh please! I've heard plenty of DUers use those terms

to describe the GOP family in arkansas and other RW religious families. I see it all the time here on DU. If you think RWers are the only ones using the terms "Breeder" then you haven't looked at many DU threads on the subject. By your post count, it looks as though you haven't been here that long.

You don't think controlling population growth is a Democratic issue? Why not promote limiting the size of families? Unless you are looking to outpopulate GOP by breeding, which is what many of them propose doing.

"the tax deduction for kids goes nowhere near covering the cost." Why is it even suppose to cover ANY of the cost of mega families? We don't need that kind of population growth or to pay people to do it. I don't think having super large families should be supported by tax policy.

$75,000 a year where I live is better than median income, whatever difference that makes. This was not an attack on poor people or minorities. It is an attempt to ask govt to get tax policy in line with what the US (and world) needs: controlled and reasonable population levels, preferably no growth.

BTW, 2.1 children per woman in the US means there are plenty of women having 3+ kids. There are alot of women sho choose not to have families. Two kids or "replacements", fine. But not the 4+, 5+ .

[Hannah Bell]

47. Just because someone's a DU'er doesn't mean they're on the left.

"Breeder" is a disgusting, derogatory term.

"Why is it even suppose to cover ANY of the cost of mega families?"

It's not supposed to. My point is, people don't have children in order to get a tax break.

For the third time, the US birth rate is 2.1 children per woman. That's replacement rate. Where is this "population explosion" you see?

It's immigration, & has been for more than a decade. That's a POLICY choice, not a personal one.

And as for Mexico, where most of our immigration comes from: they've had a 2.1 birthrate since 2006. The flood of illegal immigration began with the 1990's peso crisis, a little gift from the international "financial community," with the US in the lead.

As for the world: the world birthrate is 2.54 children per woman.

The US, Europe, & Japan, all with birthrates 2.1 or less, use 75% of the world's resources.

Economic justice is THE Democratic issue. I'll happily preach birth control to the poor when that little issue is dealt with.

Until then, I'll continue to regard people who focus on birth control without justice as misguided, or worse.

[Name removed]

52. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bean fidhleir]

64. The birthrate SHOULD be 1.0 per woman worldwide for maybe 5 generations

We cannot keep going as we are. Either we fix the problem in a painless way that doesn't kill off anyone now living, or we let natural and unnatural forces do it in an uncontrolled way with big dollops of hell dished out to everyone.

That's the bottom line!

[Zynx]

40. Be careful. We don't want to end up like Japan.

In 60 years they will only have 2/3 their current population and there will be severe economic consequences.

[bemildred]

43. That doesn't sound that bad to me.

Less traffic. Less pollution. Cheaper gas. A sellers market for US workers. It could be great.

[Zynx]

44. Also collapsing asset prices in real estate and financial markets.

Shrinking tax base, inverted population curve, etc

[bemildred]

45. You mean cheap land and a chastened government?

A renewed government commitment to the welfare of every single child and every willing worker?
Bring it on!

[Zynx]

46. Ummm...Not exactly.

More like a government that will have revenue dropping more rapidly than it can react to it and severe losses to existing property holders.

[bemildred]

48. That's what it sounds like to me.

Having government revenue drop does not bother me, they don't do shit for me anyway. It is true that the fake value of my real estate would drop, but that's a small price to pay for moving to an economy that isn't based on bullshit.

[Hannah Bell]

50. Naturally reduced population = bad for capital, good for labor.

Artificially reduced population (by fake wars, fake diseases, general chaos) = good for capital (crisis = power), bad for most labor.

[Art_from_Ark]

54. "Severe losses to existing property holders"

For heirs, that might not be so bad, because the inheritance tax rates in Japan virtually assure that the surviving family members have to sell off a large chunk of their estate just to pay the taxman.

[Art_from_Ark]

55. Japan already has 4 times the population of California

occupying roughly the same amount of inhabitable land. It can be quite crowded here as it is.

[bean fidhleir]

66. The "severe economic consequences" are the effects of feudo-capitalist greed

If the necessities of life are stripped of the profit motive, everyone will be fine.

[CANDO]

36. Not so fast!

The end of the age of oil without a viable alternative will take care of this "problem".

[FarCenter]

37. I would expect that there would be another great war before then

Not small stuff like Iraq or Afghanistan, but a real, all-out, total war like the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic Wars, or WW I & II.

I doubt that nuclear weapons or poison gas will figure prominently, but the pace of biological science should result in vastly improved targeting of bioweapons at specific gene pools.

One billion for the total world population by 2100 is probably too optimistic, following a total genodical war.

[harun]

69. and at least one great plague, probably more (n/t)

[bemildred]

41. We won't get that far.

We cannot even maintain what we have now.

[lakeguy]

51. 0% chance. nt

[DrDebug]

58. Indeed. Fear mongering and flawed statistics

The United States has a current growth rate of 1% which is very low. Germany currently has a negative growth rate despite immigration. Italy is after a decade of negative growth back in the positive despite immigration and a pope (nobody listens to him)

The plausible scenario for the United States is minimum growth for a number of years followed by stability unless there are major changes. So expect an eventual population of about 400 million, maybe 500, but that's it...

[Triana]

53. humans are parasites. that is all n/t

[GliderGuider]

59. Try a WORLD population of 1 billion by 2100

Hitting the global Limits to Growth in the next decade or two is going to put a crimp in a lot of peoples' plans for expansion.

Here's why.

[iwearshoesinky]

62. This is plain alarmist propaganda

As much as many of us detest globalization, when practiced fairly, it has contributed to the economic growth abroad. Coupled with increasing educational opportunities, there has been a global baby bust. Even in countries that had huge birth rates a few years ago (take Iran), birth rates are leveling off or turning into negative net population growth. This piece is xenophobic in many ways. The assumption that immigration rates will increase ignores economic development and increased education under leftist democracies in Latin America. People who can find jobs and receive free or subsidized education like to stay in their home countries. Lastly, I do not like the alarmism about us loosing our national parks. We have the resources to accommodate a larger population looking at agricultural surplus. By other markers, a younger population is good for universal health care and social security payment schemes, however I am in agreement that population should not surpass what is environmentally conscious. On the other hand, this article and too many in this thread are blaming immigrants.

[bean fidhleir]

67. 50% of our population increase since 2000 is due to Hispanic birthrate + immigration

with birthrate accounting for the larger part. This is from the Census Bureau; I posted a cite earlier in the thread.