Population decline, not climate change, is an existential threat to the West | Paul Morland

As new census data shows Britain’s demographics changing at historic rates, what does a future Britain look like? Is the world over or underpopulated? And how does fertility impact global power struggles? To answer these questions Steven Edginton is joined by the leading demographer Paul Morland.
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[hhdude]

"Young people have so many more opportunities."
Unless that's owning a home, being paid well, starting a family, etc... all things previous generations enjoyed at much higher proportions.

[wesley]

Even when the birth rate was enough to keep a growing population we still didn't take care of the retirees

[thevindictive]

Population decline but yet we see cost of housing rising, umeployment, homelessness etc etc. It needs to decline more.

[wasakawakawaka]

When I was born, we were at about 4 billion people. Now doubled in less than 50 years. Housing pricing and the low availability of it is out of control which is contributing to homelessness, drug addiction, mental health issues on a scale that I’ve never seen before until now and I live in a very small town in the middle of nowhere. Animal species are disappearing at an alarming rate. Garbage is everywhere now. I’ve been to places in the world which had beautiful beaches and forests which are now covered in a mass of garbage. I understand that the lowering of our population is going to be tough going forward, but the alternative is that we wipe out the bottom of our food chain and the whole pyramid collapses if we continue doubling our population every 50 years?

[DarthMalikify]

Why don't we just improve the lives of our current populations? Instead of producing more corporate slaves that need to live paycheck to paycheck.

[neilsilke]

WRONG! The birth rate for stable population is around 1.2, not 2.1. I can prove it 4 ways, but simply put, parents go on living after giving birth. Do a closed system model or computer model as I did.

[RussellFineArt]

Declining population is NOT a threat, it’s an opportunity and huge benefit to humanity and earth. It’s inevitable and I look forward to it.

[nikkidee]

We have more than enough food but people still starve in the third world and there are food banks in the first world. Young people can't afford housing, childcare is scarce, and health care is being sucked up by the elderly. I love how this isn't touched on at all.

[benthornhill]

Maybe the bankers could come up with a solution for how expensive they have made life before banging on about population decline being an Existential threat.

[Silvercyn]

Correction, BOTH of those are existental threat to the entire world.

[amraceway]

Less people is better. Less traffic, less environmental damage, less air pollution, the list goes on.

[Abraham_Tsfaye]

When I was in UK. I saw empty boarded up streets under a constant grey sky, litter everywhere.
Homeless people sleeping in doorways. Opioid addicts out of their mind and women so drunk they urinated on the streets. It's a sad declined country

[garysarela]

If everyone lived like an average American, we would need 4.1 times more land than we currently have. Source: BBC, 16 Jun 2015, "How many Earths do we need?"

[Boujading]

The world is so overpopulated from a standard of living & environmental perspective but completely underpopulated from a capitalist market perspective.

[chriswatson]

The world is still overpopulated. The fertility of arable land is declining. The fish stocks of the oceans are declining.
We are losing other species of animals, and we are still losing our forests. So all those extra brains aren't helping.
Paul Erlich was right. If the population didn't explode, it was because his warnings were heeded.

[petersteenkamp]

There is a fundamental flaw in the statement that immigration is necessary to solve worker shortages. It only describes immigrants as producers of labor and not consumers of labor. Immigrants want housing, transportation, food, garbage collection, medical care, etc., too. These products and services cost labor to produce, and if immigrants consume more labor that way than they produce, with welfare programs supplying the money difference, then immigration will worsen labor shortages instead of solving them.

[Pyasa.shaitan]

All I know is, I wasn’t supposed to be here.
This world is not built for the poor.

[catiapb]

Fertility rates although higher in 3rd world countries they have been declining as well. It is a world wide phenomena.

[reginafisher]

Human beings are sick and tired of the earth going down the same negative destructive path, we are sick of Injustice we are sick of war and we want peace, or we will stop having babies, and that is what is happening we are sick and tired of being sick and tired, either things change or we will change it by not continuing on.

[noinfofoyou]

It’s hilarious to me how little intelligent, free thinking, older people fail to see the overwhelmingly deleterious effects that technology has had on my generation.