World Population Hits Another Milestone

Whenever I think of the term "population growth," my mind conjures an image of a starving child in Africa - one featured on one of those "Feed the Children" infomercials that attempt to guilt-trip you into making a pittance of a regular contribution. The reality is that as the world surpasses the 7 billion mark, the proportion of babies being born is tragically higher in areas in which resources are most lacking. Thoughts regarding population growth will naturally drift toward lingering economic inequalities worldwide.

The world hit the 6-billion mark in 1999. The next year, the United Nations met to mull a series of "Millennium Development Goals" aimed at alleviating major economic and social problem spots by 2015. The number one goal of this program was "Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger" and represents the most effective device we have toward making real progress on this on an international scale.

We should root for objectives within this goal to be reached, not only because will they improve the standard of living for billions across the world, but because they will indirectly slow rapid population growth at the same time. Evidence typically points to an inverse relationship between a country's economic strength and its rate of population growth.

Of course, more direct measures have been implemented in modern times to prevent unchecked growth. Perhaps most famous - or infamous - is China's self-explanatory "one-child policy," in effect since 1978. Other countries offer incentives to families and individuals choosing to have fewer kids: eligibility to hold certain government offices (India) and community eligibility for development loans dependent upon the community meeting family planning goals (Indonesia). Many countries that have struggled economically have been the most aggressive in developing population-stabilization policies.

Strategies that aim to curb growth abound. However, we must also consider strategies that immediately accommodate expanding populations. One of these is sustainability, or living with the well-being of future generations in mind.

Some of us in more privileged surroundings are inclined to think of sustainability as a trendy buzzword and something that imbues not much more than a sense of swollen pride. However, high population growth means that sustainability means much more than that to us. Protecting our environment and managing to reuse the resources we currently have are essentials in dealing with the population problems we face - all while we work toward refining more long-term fixes.

Those of us in the Portland area can consider ourselves fortunate in that there is plentiful positive reinforcement for going the "sustainable" route.

In a different time and place, Sir Thomas Malthus believed that unchecked population growth was the product of laziness and questionable morals. His fix was for us to mend wayward behavior and the world would right itself.

Today, we understand the situation to be borne more of sub-par economic conditions and, to a lesser extent, a lack of strong family planning policy. We should also understand how our behavior in a land of privilege affects those elsewhere who don't benefit from the same access to resources.

It probably seems to many as though we reached six billion not that long ago. One billion added souls in 12 years is quite a statistic, and interpreting exactly what it means requires some reading between the lines. What it means is that some areas of the world are still lagging in terms of economic and social development. Their high rate of growth is a product of poor conditions that necessitate larger family sizes for financial reasons, along with poor family planning education and services.

For their sake - and for our own - we should hope that struggling nations receive all the help they can toward improving the well-being of their citizens. Perhaps then will we find the need to lament those "Feed the Children" ads less often than once every 12 years.