How necessary is birthcontrol?

With a worldpopulation that has risen so fast the last century to now approximately 6.7 billion people, one might easily hold that accountable for many of the world problems. And indeed a lot of bad things like environmentol pollution, exhausting of natural resources, shortage of clean water etcetera are related to the growing numbers of people on this earth.

However, this is not the only cause. The most polluting parts of the world and also the users of most of the energy and resources, are the developed countries. And these countries are also the parts of the world where the growth of the population is slowing, because birth control has become a normal issue and most families are small compared to those in the less developed countries.

Ironically, in the developed countries, where the personal wealth has grown so much, the consumption that goes with that is lying a more heavily strain upon natural resources and the environment than the less developed countries do, even though the latter have a more rapidly growing population, since birth control is not yet common there.

If the less developed countries will become richer in the future, what probably will happen- see China, India, Brasil, etcetera - is is likely that the grow of there population will also slow down, as has happened in the developed countries, because of a better availibility of birth control, better education and emancipation of women. However, if the consumption in those countries will rise because they are then more wealthy, it is very well possible that their impact on the environment will go up instead of down, despite the lessened growth of their population.

more later... Haje 16:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)