As pointed out in email

[james_davis_nicoll]

India’s declining fertility rate, now only slightly higher than that of the United States, is part of a global trend of lower population growth. Yet the media and many educated Americans have entirely missed this major development, instead sticking to erroneous perceptions about inexorable global population growth that continue to fuel panicked rhetoric about everything from environmental degradation and immigration to food and resource scarcity.

In a recent exercise, most of my students believed that India’s total fertility rate (TFR) was twice that of the United States. Many of my colleagues believed the same. In actuality, it is only 2.5, barely above the estimated U.S. rate of 2.1 in 2011, and essentially the replacement level.

Comments

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Graydon is kind of a nut. This is not as well known as it should be. I treat him like one. He doesn't like it. Too bad, so sad.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

So there's no reason to worry about possible widescale heat or drought events causing crop failures that markets can't compensate for, combining with a lack of Egyptian scale granaries that could have given us a few years of buffer?

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Right, Damien. "No reason to worry" is almost exactly the opposite of "worry like an Internet crank like Graydon Saunders".