AIBU The global fertility crisis is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced?

[plantsdieinmyhouse]

We’re in a ‘global fertility crisis’.

I’m astounded that global (even UK/European) fertility decline to below the replacement rate of 2.1 (thought to have happened now) isn’t in the forefront of most people’s radar. There are barely even any politicians acknowledging it let alone devising policies to tackle it.

Thee are even people who still think we’re in the 70s/80s/90s and ‘overpopulation’ is still an issue.

Once everyone who’s alone now is dead the human race will be in terminal decline.

Nothing else matters if there’s none of us left!

Even on a personal level a large proportion of women don’t have the number of DCs they expect to.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/43a9bd63-25c9-4941-bc99-fc9f7e42c12a?shareToken=29bf27cb9dafe9af7a006bc25355e411

Wouldn’t Sudan’s soils be in trouble before ours? Due to geographical location

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we've done it to ourselves by destroying the planet, not that we deserve it. What's happening to the ecosystem is very much biological, and that's my concern, not whether we deserve to die out or not. I don't care about that, it is what it is and we just need to A) do something to slow it down and B) accept that it's our fault instead of acting like victims of forces outside ourselves, because that may serve as motivation to do something to slow it down. That's my stance.
To your questions;
I think humanity is a mixed bag.
I don't know if you're bad as I don't know you. I don't think I am. But then nobody thinks they're bad, do they. It's hard to be objective about that.

Absolutely right.

Checking out the men on dating apps may be even better.

I’m not familiar with the state of their soils tbh. I am familiar with the eroded condition of ours and in the US, and how the nutrient content of food is falling due to massive overuse, in a way that no artificial fertiliser can put back. That’s why there’s talk of rewilding. We have one of the most natire-depleted countries, especially considering our population, on the globe. Much of the damage has been done in these last 20 years of mass immigration.

We need to cut our population to keep our ecology for our own survival, as many pp’s said upthread. We understand ecology - at least some of us do - thanks to our organised society with learning at its heart. There are peoples in Africa complaining about ‘western evils’ for the amount of plastic they throw in their rivers, or the coastal mangroves they chop down.

If you prefer, I’ll ask instead - where’s the aid convoys from Pakistan when our floods strike? When our people have no power and have to leave their homes and repair the sewage content for years after? Do they call their own people racist for not providing this aid?

There aren't really many countries that do have population growth that I think would qualify as "massive", any more.

The highest birth rates are in Sub Saharan Africa, but their rates are dropping rapidly too (and more rapidly than was forecasted only a few years ago).

The region's birthrate was already on a downward trend at the turn of the century (at about 6 births per woman) and has since dropped to a hair above 4. The region is also now expected to drop below the 2.1 replacement rate in about 50 years time.

Worth bearing in mind, too, that the region has the world's highest childhood mortality rate. If you adjusted the birth rate to show "births of children who survive into adulthood", that'd bring it down to about 3.

Still significantly higher than in most of the world but not by as much as would have been the case a couple of decades ago, and they are trending in the same direction.

And the main reasons why they and other countries do still have relatively high birth rates is due to reduced access to education (particularly for women) and contraception, not how society views the affordability of child-rearing.

I'm not sure about the last few questions but I agree on rewilding generally and stopping the incessant increase in population and depletion of nature.

I'm not sure I really follow how much of that relates to the topic of the thread, but wealthy countries don't generally give aid out of pure altruism, there's usually a significant degree of self interest involved.

I'm not sure how things look in the US now, after all the recent cuts, but pre-Trump, about 25% of foreign aid spending was domestic (e.g. subsidizing US business for produce to be shipped overseas). Tbf, that likely does contribute to soil erosion, in the same way that capitalism often comes at a resource cost.

When aide is spent in developing countries themselves, that's usually economically beneficial, too. The US (and the UK) essentially use aide money to invest in a developing country so that, as it becomes more stable and affluent, they have a new market to sell to. About 40% of US/UK export revenue comes from developing countries.

Its hard to put an exact number on it, but even lower estimates tend to say that the US doubles its money on foreign aid spending - its a profitable investment.

Obviously, poorer countries generally dont have the means to make similar investments in richer ones.

I'm not, by any means, suggesting that foreign aide is purely exploitative, but the economics of it largely explain why its a one-way street, and I don't think it should be viewed as an "unreturned favor".

(Obviously, national security interest, disease control, general soft power, etc, are all benefits of foreign aide too, which likely have economic value, albeit harder to calculate).

https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=900&type=Probabilistic%20Projections&category=Population

so many charts & stats on this page.

its eye opening!

Let it go into terminal decline. Humanity is the most destructive being ever to.evolve on this planet. Fertility is also in decline and affecting men and women in reproducing. We can't be so arrogant to expect humans to not possibly go extinct after the pollution, devestation and cruelty we have inflicted on this planet. My family have an incurable genetic illness. I never had children but my sibling had 3 and all at risk. People are choosing childfree lives for various reasons. The fact adults are struggling on once decent wages to support themselves let alone a child or 2 is also a factor. The universe will not even exist one day. You seem worried about a distant furture we will not be part of.

The UN projects world population to peak in 2080 at 10.3 billion.

https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population

We hit 8 billion in 2022.

I’m not sure we can do this well. There’ll be so much volatility. Better to start reversing sooner

I honestly couldn't give a toss. The rhetoric about the economy is valid, but it's not insurmountable with proper intervention. For example, the 5-day working week is a relic of the previous industrial era. Implementing a shorter working week could help maintain employment levels and keep economies moving, avoiding mass unemployment and keeping individuals engaged in the labor market. While this may lead to lower profit margins for business owners, who might need to pay more people for the same amount of work, these costs could be offset by gains in productivity. Government support through tax incentives or wage supplements could ease this transition to a more sustainable economic model.

We simply don't need to work as much as we do. Think about your own working day; I bet you could identify several tasks that just waste time. Take me, for example. I'm a lecturer at a university and today I'm participating in a 2-hour meeting, with at least 15 other people, in which each of us will summarise our individual written plans on a topic, which have been published for months, because one person near the top of the food chain won't read them. I will have approximately 15 minutes of participation in this meeting. This happens all the time, everywhere.

Money is just is concept to distribute (or not) wealth.

If voting had been from 16 in the idiot Brexit referendum, we wouldn't have left. Also there is only an illusion of democracy under the present system.

In a different topic I've just taken out a mortgage that I'll be repaying until 71 on a very low income.
Bring on the assisted dying! No need to force continuing life on those who no longer want it

This thread is like a doomsday cult!

I think the Earth will thrive if we die out

What do you think career development in care should be? I'm supposed to get a qualification that I neither want or need. We already do the mandatory training updated yearly. This enforcement of a qualification means I'll leave the sector and the workforce would be down a carer. Same as it will with carer progression.

I honestly doubt he cares? My sibling can't have children not of their choice. So it's the same for my sibling I presume. One of his sibling kids will do LPA like ds will do for my sibling.

Re no children to look after the last generation. There is no answer. But for my son that's not a good enough reason to have kids that he doesn't want. Every child deserves to be wanted. He shouldn't fight that as a duty to society. Passing on your DNA is normally a powerful instinct and motivator. That he doesn't have.

Maybe we go back to pre medicine/ victorian times and die younger