Japanese Edition
Global Warming and Population
Global Warming
For a long time I had been vaguely afraid of the air pollution in Japan that will be caused by the popularization of cars in China, because China has ten times as many population as Japan has and the west wind blows always from China to Japan.When I watched the program of NHK "Greatly Unusual Weather," I realized that the environmental problem in the world was much more serious than I had thought. Mass consumption of fossil fuel of all over the world is causing the global warming; the global warming is melting the ice of the poles and glaciers; the melted ice is reducing land; the global warming is increasing strong typhoons, hurricanes, and tornadoes. And tropical infectious diseases will move northwards.
The Nikkei Newspaper on February 25, 2006 said that the population of the world was rapidly increasing. It counted 6,500,000,000 in 2006, and will count 7,400,000,000 in 2026. I guess that people in the world are wanting to become more convenient and richer. Their desire has no upper limit. Even if we succeed in reducing a few percentage of today's consumption of fossil fuel, maybe increased people will consume more fuel than the reduced fuel. So I think the global warming will not stop and will be accelerated. When we cannot stop the global warming, the human race must perish.
Standard of Living and Population
I think that all people, who live in the world, cannot enjoy today's standard of living of the people who live in developed countries with today's technology. The upper limit of the population in the world is maybe settled mainly with our standard of living. Though the reduction of the energy consumption will raise the upper limit a little, reduction of our population is an urgent matter.When we think about the global warming and population problems at the same time, the falling birthrate in the developed countries including Japan is favorable. The energy consumption of developing countries is low now but will rapidly increase. So the developing countries also has to reduce their birthrate from now. From the global viewpoint, the authorities of all countries should determine the desirable population and the decreasing speed of population using accurate data. Because population does not change when the total fertility rate is about 2.08, it is obvious that the total fertility rate in any country has to return to 2.08 someday in order to keep the desirable population.
Birthrate in Japan
Until early 1970's, the population of Japan continued to increase with increasing speed for a long time. But the population peaked in 2005 and then began to decrease.Although the total fertility rate in Japan has been lower than 2 for about 30 years, the population has continued to increase because the average life expectancy of the Japanese has been extended.
Recently the number of dead persons and the number of newborn babies began to compete by the increase of the old people and the decrease of the birthrate. In 2005 the number of the dead persons overcame the number of the newborn babies, and the population of Japan began to decrease. The sales of all kinds of goods will decrease with the decrease of the population. So the necessity of the increase of birthrate is being emphasized.
But the past examples of the decrease of population by famine, the Black Death, and falling birthrate in Europe and Japan showed the increase of the per capita GDP(gross domestic product.) Not only consumers but also suppliers will decrease with the decrease of population, though the decreasing speed of the population is problem. So to increase birthrate is not urgent matter. I, who grew up in the era of the food shortage, think instinctively that the suitable population of Japan is a half of today's population (from 50,000,000 to 60,000,000.)
If we need to slow down the population decrease, the aid of the expense of bringing up children is one of alternatives. But the limited budget for the aid of the expense must not be equally distributed to every couple because a small money cannot be incentive to bringing up children and the increase of the only children is undesirable. I think that the aid should be stressed on the couples who are bringing up two or three children.
Uploaded
October 1, 2007