As an MP I got to attend meetings of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, visiting Africa three times. I spent several weeks in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa looking around the countries, talking with people, especially politicians, as I tried to get a handle on their problems. Understanding South Africa wasn’t difficult: the small white minority had seemingly perfected a system for keeping themselves on top while the black and coloured majority was forced by the apartheid laws to accept a system of permanent poverty and inferiority. It couldn’t last, and finally the whites’ leadership released the African National Congress’ Nelson Mandela from captivity. An election involving all South Africans was held in 1994, and apartheid was officially abolished.
In retrospect, that seems to have been the relatively easy part. South Africa’s population continues to rise rapidly and the ANC has gradually become a corrupt organisation desperately in need of new leadership. There is still plenty of poverty. But elsewhere in Africa the population accelerates much more rapidly. The continent had 481 million people in 1980. Today it has 1.36 billion, and that figure is projected almost to double by 2050. The fertility rate for women (the number of births per woman) in New Zealand is 1.7. For most African countries the fertility rate exceeds 4, and in parts it reaches 6 births per woman. While parts of Africa possess productive land and grow food in abundance, many other places lack the capacity to feed their burgeoning population and are reliant on aid from other parts of the world.
Why do so many agencies feel an obligation to support runaway birth rates? Starting well over a century ago, a majority in the western world worked out that controlling the number of children we produce made for much happier lives both for the children and for their parents. We know, too, that when parents are separated from a responsibility to look after the children they produce they tend to lose interest in their well-being, leading to educational problems and often to crime in later life. What makes anyone think that incentivising people anywhere else in the world to go on producing surplus children on an industrial scale will do other than produce these same outcomes? Crime and civil wars raged in Africa forty years ago; they plague the continent today.
We now know something that we didn’t half a century ago. Scientists tell us that climate warming is a man-made problem. If that is so, surely it makes sense to try to contain, preferably to reduce the number of people on earth? At the same time as international efforts are made to feed those who are starving, surely there ought also to be family planning schemes being promoted on a similar scale? It’s gone sixty years ago since the pill was first available. We endlessly debate the problems of methane produced by the animals we farm. What about the effects on climate produced by a couple of billion surplus people? Why does no international agency give this issue any publicity?
Surely, we owe it to our grandchildren to try seriously to reduce soaring temperatures which threaten their livelihoods, as well as those who live in currently over-populated parts of the world.
In retrospect, that seems to have been the relatively easy part. South Africa’s population continues to rise rapidly and the ANC has gradually become a corrupt organisation desperately in need of new leadership. There is still plenty of poverty. But elsewhere in Africa the population accelerates much more rapidly. The continent had 481 million people in 1980. Today it has 1.36 billion, and that figure is projected almost to double by 2050. The fertility rate for women (the number of births per woman) in New Zealand is 1.7. For most African countries the fertility rate exceeds 4, and in parts it reaches 6 births per woman. While parts of Africa possess productive land and grow food in abundance, many other places lack the capacity to feed their burgeoning population and are reliant on aid from other parts of the world.
Why do so many agencies feel an obligation to support runaway birth rates? Starting well over a century ago, a majority in the western world worked out that controlling the number of children we produce made for much happier lives both for the children and for their parents. We know, too, that when parents are separated from a responsibility to look after the children they produce they tend to lose interest in their well-being, leading to educational problems and often to crime in later life. What makes anyone think that incentivising people anywhere else in the world to go on producing surplus children on an industrial scale will do other than produce these same outcomes? Crime and civil wars raged in Africa forty years ago; they plague the continent today.
We now know something that we didn’t half a century ago. Scientists tell us that climate warming is a man-made problem. If that is so, surely it makes sense to try to contain, preferably to reduce the number of people on earth? At the same time as international efforts are made to feed those who are starving, surely there ought also to be family planning schemes being promoted on a similar scale? It’s gone sixty years ago since the pill was first available. We endlessly debate the problems of methane produced by the animals we farm. What about the effects on climate produced by a couple of billion surplus people? Why does no international agency give this issue any publicity?
Surely, we owe it to our grandchildren to try seriously to reduce soaring temperatures which threaten their livelihoods, as well as those who live in currently over-populated parts of the world.
Historian Dr Michael Bassett, a Minister in the Fourth Labour Government. This article was first published HERE
10 comments:
I guess for the same reason the poor providers are not discouraged here. Most countries are democracies of a sort and increased population of your supporters is beneficial.
This is a problem in our own pacific communities. People that can't afford 2 children are having up to 10.
But "the state will pay" is the catch cry.
Basset showing his true globalist colors now.
"First we overlook evil, then we permit evil, then we legalize evil, then we promote evil, then we celebrate evil, then we persecute those who still call it evil."- Fr. Dwight Longenecker
“The world is a dangerous place to live — not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”- Albert Einstein
Dr Bassett, I relish the opportunity to enlighten you. Global warming - Climate change or whatever name you choose is a natural phenomenon . Man made assistance is minimal - inconsequential almost zilch. CO2 is required to feed the African population. Cold kills more people the world over than warmth. All is NOT bad and none of the alarmist predictions have been fulfilled . Take Care. ..
Population control and climate change. Let me guess, you also support mass eugenics programmes disguised as public health programmes/emergencies.
'Climate scientists tell us climate warming is a man made problem'
Which scientists?
Those without an agenda tell us climate change is natural. Has been forever.
Why worry, nature will sort it out - nature does not negotiate!
Very rapid permanent climate change, degrees in a century or few, instead of hundreds of thousandsaor millions are not natural. Some caused by cataclysmic events (giant eruptions or meteroite collisons) but some natural recovery .from those.
What a strange column. Population control? Declining fertility rates are inversely correlated to rising wealth. Those who want a declining population (and suggesting that to control global temperatures is crazy anyway) should focus on ways to increase economic activity - and that is done by having smaller less interventionist governments.
They're already onto it Dr. Michael Basset. Where have you been for the past five years. It's called the Covid Scam and mass vaccination is being used ss the instrument. A lot of people commenting here also point out the glaringly obvious.
Your pseudo charities never provided any real relief. It was all fake. An illusion or deception.
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