Re: [OT] Bureau of Relocation

G'day Nyrath,

 >	Using space colonies to relieve overpopulation
 >	is pretty fruitless as well, as compaired to something
 >	like enforcing birth control.
 >
 >	Every *day*, the world's population grows by several
 >	million people.

Actually of all the reasons to push for the stars I think overpopulation

will be the least of our worries. The human population modellers are 
beginning to see a much rosier picture of future Earth than they did
even 2 
or 3 years back. While we must become more resource efficient to stave
off 
depletion and what not within the next century or so, population wise we

may well be paying people to have babies by the end of next century. 
Basically there's three growth scenarios:
1) We keep growing at the rate we did in the 80s and go shooting off for

50billion people (that in itself sounds less than rosy and would
probably 
foreshadow massive famines, war etc etc like the doomsayers would claim
as 
we fell back to carrying capacity)
2) The current trends of birth levels continue and we end up at about 11

billion by the end of next century, something we could probably manage
so 
long as we become more efficient and use some alternate power sources
etc
3) The current birth trends in the first world spread to the third world
as 
it becomes more technologically integrated and the average population
ages 
and dies off quite dramatically (AIDs kicks the heck out of a fair bit
of 
Africa) then the total pollution nose dives by the end of next century
and 
we're looking at maybe 3 billion or less (and our populations start to
be a 
bit tottery based on economic problems of losing labour base, markets
etc).

At present (2) is the odds on bet, though most scifi needs (1) if its
going 
to use overpopulation as an excuse to colonise. In case you're
interested 
any of the population modelling I've done for the GZGverse has been
based 
on an extrapolation of trends that lie between those used in 1 and 2, so
it 
allows for the spread of technology and thus lower overall death rates,
but 
there is less of a concomitant decline in birth rates because the third 
world doesn't catch up with the west so fast (via social issues brought 
about via different cultures, the spectre of epidemics such as AIDs) and

because the colony worlds themselves will be encouraging population
growth 
(both in situ as they need more population) and back home (as they 
represent a larger resource base and potential prosperity).

Cheers

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART
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email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au