I have a nephew who has a girlfriend who is pregnant. The baby is due in February.
They are financially doing great, so they will have no serious problems. But this got me thinking about the population situation of humankind, in general. I have posted on that topic here before.
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Just for fun, I want to look at the top ten countries in population, and compare their size, in land area.
I will do this for
1950:
Rank of population |
rank in land area |
China 1 |
3 |
India 2 |
7 |
USA 3 |
4 |
Russia 4 |
1 |
Japan 5 |
62 |
Germany 6 |
63 |
Indonesia 7 |
15 |
Brazil 8 |
5 |
United Kingdom 9 |
80 |
I am new at using the Daily Kos tables, so I ended up with only the top nine. Good enough.
You notice that Japan and Germany and the UK are all way out of whack, in matching land area and population. But the total number of mouths to feed was not so big in 1950, less than 3 billion for the whole planet. And those three countries had a robust system of trade, so they could import most of their food, if needed, as far as I know.
2023:
rank of population |
rank in land area |
India 1 |
7 |
China 2 |
3 |
USA 3 |
4 |
Indonesia 4 |
15 |
Pakistan 5 |
34 |
Nigeria 6 |
32 |
Brazil 7 |
5
|
Bangladesh 8 |
94 |
Russia 9 |
1 |
Okay, nowadays, with 8 billion mouths to feed, we have such great numbers of those mouths in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Bangladesh, ranked 34, 32, and 94, in land area.
Bangladesh, at 94, in land area, and at 8, in population. Seems to me, that might be less stable, more alarming, than Japan and Germany and the UK, in 1950.
2050:
rank of population |
rank in land area |
India 1 |
7 |
China 2 |
3 |
Nigeria 3 |
32 |
USA 4 |
4 |
Pakistan 5 |
34 |
Indonesia 6 |
15 |
Brazil 7 |
5 |
Democratic Republic of the Congo 8 |
11 |
Ethiopia 9 |
27 |
Bangladesh will be number 10, with over 200 million mouths to feed.
And still with a land area ranked at 94.
Nigeria will have 377 million mouths to feed, with land area ranked at 32.
Pakistan will have 367 million mouths to feed, with land area ranked at 34.
For all of my life, if I recall correctly, there has been news, on and off, about famine, or near famine, in Somalia and Ethiopia. Chronic famine.
I suppose my main point is, while India, China, and the USA need to use more contraception, and set an example, and lead the way, at least these three countries have big pieces of real estate to work with.
Some of these other countries, on the other hand, have a lot less to work with, seems to me.
I have zero children, so I feel I did my part, as far as direct action, when I got my vasectomy, while I was still a virgin, in 1977.
The only other thing I can do, is spread the word, on the internet, as I am doing here.
Hey, my influence might actually reach far and wide. I just saw, on Mark Narrations, a YouTube channel in which a man named Mark (like me) reads Reddit stories about relationship conflicts.
One of the stories he read, had my “Ha!” in it. Maybe I have actually started changing the internet, from “LOL” to “Ha!”
Here are the links to my sources:
www.worldometers.info/…
www.worldometers.info/…
Take care of yourselves, and each other. And eat tasty olives and cheese. And watermelon. With salt.
Hugs!