8704 Yates Dr., Suite 205

Westminster, CO 80031

rmfc.org

303-292-1800

Population Panic?

In 2000, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan marked the arrival of the 6 billionth person, not with celebration, but as a day of mourning and atonement. Population-control groups like Planned Parenthood used it as an occasion to champion family planning and to request still more funds for abortions and contraceptives to reduce the birth rate. They would have preferred that Baby Six Billion had never been born.

But population analysts such as Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, say we should celebrate the birth of Baby Six Billion. According to Mosher, the worlds population has doubled since 1960, but global food and resource production has never been higher. Life spans are lengthening, poverty is down and political freedom is growing, added Mosher. The human race has never been so well off. In fact, according to the Population Research Institute, underpopulation, not overpopulation, is the threat facing the world. By next year, over seventy countries representing over half the worlds population will have below replacement fertility, which is defined as 2.1 children per woman.

Driving the so-called population explosion has been a real explosion in health and longevity. As late as the 19th century, four out of every 10 children died before reaching age five. Today, less than 7 percent of the world's children don't reach their fifth birthday.

Historian Angus Maddison reported in his 1995 survey of the world's output that by nearly every measure of well-being, from infant mortality and life expectancy to educational level, per capita income and caloric intake, life in Africa, Asia and Latin America has been getting dramatically better. Maddison's report also stated that grain production has almost doubled from over 100 million tons to 200 million tons since 1970. Not only can India feed itself, it has also become a grain exporter. In fact, enough grain is produced for every person on earth to consume 3,500 calories daily.

Population control supporters like the United Nations and Planned Parenthood believe that curbing the population numbers is the answer to the world's problems. Poverty, hunger and lack of health care are political issues, however, not population issues. Repeatedly evidenced by history, famines are not causes by lack of food, but by politics and oppressive governments. In an interview with the Washington Times, Harvard economist Amartya Sen said that there has never been a famine in any country that's been a democracy with a free press.

For most of history, and even today in many parts of the world, the major limit on food production is the number of farmers available to work the land. As the population grows, so does the number of farmers. In her book, The War Against Population, Dr. Jacqueline Kasun reports that less than 11 percent of the earth's ice-free land area is used for agriculture and no more than three percent is occupied by humans.

The increased use of irrigation and improvements in crops has enabled farmers to exceed the world's need for the crops they produce. In fact, many people would be surprised to know that the Information Please Almanac lists Saudi Arabia as the tenth leading exporter of crops in the world. Although Saudi Arabia is a very arid region, they export in excess of $200 million worth of wheat each year.

One number that is shocking is the number of dollars being invested by some of the world's richest people to reduce population growth through abortion, sterilization and contraception in developing countries. The William Gates Foundation, which recently received $2.2 billion in Microsoft stock from Bill Gates, plans to give the majority of funds to Planned Parenthood and other population control agencies, including a $1.7 million dollar pledge over the next three years to the U.N. Population Fund.

Cable TV mogul Ted Turner pledged $1 billion two years ago for U.N. population control efforts and actually established the U.N. Foundation to administer it. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation pledged $9 billion to so-called safe sex education and abortion clinics and when investor Warren Buffett dies, his foundation will give $100 million annually to population control programs. Buffett's foundation has also been very active during his lifetime.

Overpopulation became a trendy cause of the rich after World War II, when wealthy philanthropists like John D. Rockefeller III and Clarence Gamble took up the cause. As population projections have become lower and lower, it has been and continues to be in the best interest of these foundations and the abortion clinics around the world to continue the overpopulation myth.

Over the past several years, some of the world's best demographers have begun a dramatic reassessment of the worlds population future. According to Nicholas Eberstadt, a researcher with the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, trends are showing that the world's population will peak in our lifetimes and then commence an indefinite decline.

A 1996 United Nations publication titled, World Population Prospects, projected that between the years 2040 and 2050, the world's population would fall by about 85 million. From then on, world population would shrink by roughly 25 percent with each successive generation.

Humanities long-term problem is not too many people, but too few according to Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute. He stated it best when he said, "People are our greatest resource. Baby Six Billion, boy or girl, red or yellow, black or white, is not a liability, but an asset. Not a curse, but a blessing. For all of us."

Rocky Mountain Family Council

8704 Yates Drive, Suite 205

Westminster, CO 80031

(303) 292-1800

This resource may be reprinted without change and in its entirely for non-commercial purposes

without prior permission from the Rocky Mountain Family Council.