A World of 29 Billion People? Really??

Abu Daoud is at it again, sending me a link to a population story that I would never have noticed on my own. This one is an opinion piece in the Financial Post written by Lawrence Solomon, who runs a not-for-profit "urban renaissance" organization in Toronto. His article is provocatively titled Population 29 billion: Contrary to popular belief that may be a good thing. 

Since 2000, fertility rates have risen in Canada, Australia, the U.K., France and the Netherlands, while others in the developed world, like Germany and Japan, seem set to join the party. If they do, all bets are off on the UN’s population projections, which assume that women in the developing world will trend to the western world’s baby-making habits, and that women of the developed world have forever lost their penchant for babies.

This upward population trend would be all to the good. There is no credible reason to believe that population growth necessarily slows as societies become affluent, or that slowing population growth helps societies thrive.

As it turns out, he actually provides no reasons why this would be a good thing. And with good reason--there are no good reasons!

Solomon also provides no obvious explanation for why he wrote this piece, but the comments at the end of the article provide quite a bit of amusement on their own....