Global Warming and Demographic Aging: its Effects on …integraldevelopment.cua.edu/res/docs/Aguirre/Global... · · 2014-11-12Global Warming and Demographic Aging: its Effects
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• The Limited Resource Perspective: takes the classic Malthusian argument and applies it to all natural resources
• The Socio-Biological Perspective: almost acting as a
sub-set of the former, treats the environment as a limited resource and regards people as a threat to the biodiversity and ecological balance of that resource.
• First: rapid growth in population means the spread of poverty and aggravates conditions such as as poor health, malnutrition, illiteracy, and unemployment (Bucharest, 1974)
• Second: population threatens government stability in developing countries, and encourages confrontation between developed and developing countries (Memorandum 200)
• Third: it pushes future generations to scarcity, and an unsustainable environment carrying capacity (Rio, 1992)
• Fourth: it sees population growth to be symptomatic of the larger problem of women's oppression—the more children a woman has, the less opportunity she has for her own self-actualization and development (Cairo, 1994 and Beijing, 1995)
• No debate over if or when an aging population will manifest itself: by 2015 the labor supply will begin to shrink and by 2035 China will have a reversed age pyramid.
• From 2000 to 2025, people above 65 will triple while youngsters under 15 will increase by only 6%.
• The dependency ratio (defined as the percentage of the population aged 65+ over the percentage of the population aged 15-64) will increase from an average of 50% in 1995, to an average of 85%-90% by the year 2050.
• Today in China only 44.9 % of the urban employees and 85.4 % of the retirees covered.
• Neo-Malthusian application to global warming is seriously flawed according to data on emissions and pollution rates.
• Policy reactions based in neo-Malthusian theory will be equally
compromising and possibly damaging. • Pollution is not a matter of preventing but regulating efficiently through
the free-market. • On Population, the Neo-Malthusian approach is also seriously flawed on
many levels and policy actions based on such assumptions are inefficient and damage real sustainable development. They lead to the again population trap of a one child policy.
• The misplaced focus on population size instead of real economic needs of the population have come at the sacrifice of human capital, particularly in developing nations.
Ø Millions of people lack access to safe water, sanitation,
education, medical care and infrastructure to meet needs.
Ø Results in an inefficient use of resources.
• This is both inefficient and damaging to real long-term economic growth – thus rendering this process fruitless.