Swedish statistician Hans Rosling coined the term "peak child" to indicate the time when the highest number of children would be born in a given time period. And when will that happen? It already did, in the early 2000's.
The late Hans thought the population would "fill out" and stabilize at around 10 billion in 2050, but for a number of reasons I don't think it's going to work out that way. As far as peak child, though, he was absolutely certain and I would not doubt it.
Peak child is useful as an illustrative argument against the myth of overpopulation, but I find it far more poignant than that. The way to imagine it is that each year, on your birthday or New Year's or whatever, realize that fewer children had been born into the world that year past than the year before, and that next year at the same time fewer still will come in to the world.
You could even do the calculations for how many fewer children there would be and how many fewer schools they would need, and then imagine going around the world bulldozing or burning down that many schools. But it wouldn't be a crime because no children would ever come back to them. Quite sad, really.
You can see some of Rosling's fascinating and entertaining presentations here:
Swedish statistician Hans Rosling coined the term "peak child" to indicate the time when the highest number of children would be born in a given time period. And when will that happen? It already did, in the early 2000's.
The late Hans thought the population would "fill out" and stabilize at around 10 billion in 2050, but for a number of reasons I don't think it's going to work out that way. As far as peak child, though, he was absolutely certain and I would not doubt it.
Peak child is useful as an illustrative argument against the myth of overpopulation, but I find it far more poignant than that. The way to imagine it is that each year, on your birthday or New Year's or whatever, realize that fewer children had been born into the world that year past than the year before, and that next year at the same time fewer still will come in to the world.
You could even do the calculations for how many fewer children there would be and how many fewer schools they would need, and then imagine going around the world bulldozing or burning down that many schools. But it wouldn't be a crime because no children would ever come back to them. Quite sad, really.
You can see some of Rosling's fascinating and entertaining presentations here:
The best Hans Rosling talks you’ve ever seen