This year worldwide:-
The number of people who have died from corona virus = 3087
The number of people who have died from hunger = 1,899,621
The number of people who have died from HIV/Aids = 285,533
The number of people who have died from malaria = 166,607
The number of people who have died from smoking-related diseases = 849,110
How come people dying from hunger don't attract a fraction of the airtime and newspaper coverage that is being given to the corona virus? Comparatively the numbers speak for themselves. Starkly.
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Remember back on February 4th - 28 days ago, I mentioned that the world's population was 7,762,009,632.
Now it has grown to 7,768,246,725. That is 6,238,000 more people in just 28 days! More people have been added to the world's population than live in Denmark or Norway or Finland or the state of Missouri in the USA or Sydney in Australia.
How come the United Nations and climate change activists hardly ever focus upon Earth's galloping population increase and the impact of this growth upon the world's finite resources?
Nobody wants to bring up sex and birth control because of religion would be my guess. But yes, it is sad all the airplay COVID-19 gets when more people die of hunger. But the Western world doesn't usually die from hunger and COVID-19 has the potential to kill people in the developed world. Horrors!
ReplyDeleteHuman beings are a fucked up lot.
I think you are right to suggest that it is a nettle they do not want to grasp. They are simply passing the core issue on to future generations.
DeleteMy son who is deeply concerned about climate change plans no more than one child so yes, people do think about it.
ReplyDeleteI read something recently which suggested that population control lies in educating women. More educated women have less children and this would obviously have a greater impact in developing nations where women are generally treated as third class citizens and family sizes are large.
Empowering women, who would have thought it would be good for the earth?
I suspect that you are right. Educating women and making birth control easier to access would surely have a significant impact on the upward graph. More people should be following your son's example.
Deletethe possibilities for corona virus deaths is very high and not much can be done to treat the virus. Our population increase is completely out of control I think population control may get us before climate change.
ReplyDeleteCompared with deaths from hunger, coronavirus is almost irrelevant.
DeleteStunningly true.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers do not lie.
DeleteI believe it is fair to say that far more people would already be dead from COVID-19 if China had not locked down Wuhan, and it seems to spread so easily we have no idea what the final toll will be. That said, you make excellent points and so does Lilycedar. I think there is also the role of media in what gets to be "news" and what doesn't -- and the media isn't doing a great job in choosing, because their choices are based on what sells.
ReplyDeleteKylie's right, too - research shows that education of women and the resulting ability to provide for their families above a subsistence level (and hence not be dependent on husbands) is a huge driver for reproductive control and fewer babies.
Maybe the question is less "why don't WHO and others focus on overpopulation" but "what can the average person do to create change". I don't know the answer. Maybe get involved with one of the organizations like Planned Parenthood that DOES focus on it? Doing something, however localized, can help.
Thank you for your typically thoughtful response Jenny.
DeleteYou are comparing an apple (Virus) with pears (all the other "conditions" you list). Hunger, as terrible as it is, isn't infectious.
ReplyDeleteThat the virus is all over the news is because it's acute, recent, new. And we don't know where it's going; it could, potentially, affect all of us, directly or indirectly.
To put it another way, if your house had dry damp, a sagging roof, and was generally a wreck needing to be put right, you'd still attend to, say, a fire first.
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I doubt that this would be of much comfort to the millions affected by hunger each year. I am comparing a pea (coronavirus) with a hot air balloon (hunger).
DeleteRe population growth: What do you suggest? Forced sterilization? At birth? At least, humans aren't rabbits. Then we'd be in real trouble.
ReplyDeleteU
I am not suggesting anything really. I am just clarifying the issue. But better access to birth control might help - as well as educating people like Jacob Rees-Mogg and his wife about reproductive responsibility.
DeleteI knew I was right when the gynaecologist, while being interviewed about a possible sterilisation, asked me what about bringing the next generation into the world. I said there were already enough people doing that, one less won't make any difference. And it hasn't, but it was right for me.
ReplyDeleteHistorically, society has put a lot of pressure upon women to have babies - as if they would somehow be incomplete if they didn't become mothers. That pressure is wrong and reeks of prejudice.
DeleteWouldn't want to catch any of those things. But last time I had flu it was awful and I lost a stone and a half in weight. (Mrs D of course maintains it was only man-flu).
ReplyDeleteYah! Ye big girl's blouse - as B.Johnson might say. I had The Black Death and still went to work every day.
DeleteI know a very sincere, campaigning and almost crusading FOTE vegan couple who have had three children in the last three years. It's every human's inalienable right. PS please don't attack the messenger.
ReplyDeleteThe answer to your basic question is that those of us who have just are not willing to give up what we have to enable wealth to be spread around more. Those who have not want what we have hence the reason climate change will be so hard to stop and reverse. Those who are in power only want to stay in power.
However if you think about the numbers who would have died of AIDS and malaria would have been much higher but for the billions pumped into their treatment/control.
Lastly, obesity and smoking related diseases are, to a very large extent, the fault of those who eat too much/the 'wrong' things and those who smoke. Historically, of course, the tobacco companies were the people who caused the problem to a large extent but there is no one now who doesn't know that smoking is a killer.