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“According to the United Nations, the earth’s population will reach 8 billion around November 15, 2022. As we approach this milestone, a chorus of doom will arise from those who insist the earth is over-populated,” said Ruth Institute President Dr Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD. “But that is utter nonsense.”

“Misanthropists have warned of overpopulation for more than 200 years. In the late 18^th century, when Thomas Malthus predicted that overpopulation would lead to mass starvation, there were fewer than 1 billion of us on earth. Instead, the past two centuries have been the most prosperous in human history.

“His folly was repeated by Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, which forecast global catastrophe in the 1970s. Simply put, The Population Bomb bombed.”

“When Ehrlich wrote this, population was at 3.7 billion. Now we’re more than twice that number, and, by almost every measure, we are better off today than we were 54 years ago,” Morse said.

“More people lead to more production and innovation. A growing population results in more exploration and more efficient methods of extracting and utilising natural resources, which — absent the heavy hand of government — leads to lower prices.”

“Every advance in history, from the Age of Exploration to the Computer Age, has been spurred by population growth,” Morse added.

“Overcrowding? Every person on earth could fit in the state of Texas in a space the size of a house, so we’re not in danger of running out of living room anytime soon.

“As far as carbon footprints, man-made global warming is only a theory. Eco-cultists lament something that’s never been proven, but declining fertility is a fact.

“In 1950, the average woman had 4.7 children. Today, that number is 2.4 and falling. With 2.1 needed just to replace current population, sometime this century, possibly in the next 20 years, we’ll be in Demographic Winter. Productivity and prosperity will decline.”

Unlike neo-Malthusians and the carbon-footprint crowd, the Ruth Institute celebrates population growth and has created a birthday card to Baby 8 Billion that can be signed here.

For more information on the perils of rapidly falling fertility, visit the Institute’s Demographic Winter Resource Center.

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Originally published at The James Macpherson Report.

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Photo by Samer Daboul.