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caitlin. listen to. follow in a welcome to cross talk on futile as the world reaches still another population benchmark the debate continues as to whether the planet can sustain such levels as well as the future of global consumption is the world overpopulated and if it is what should be done about it. live to. live. to cross-talk population levels i'm joined by babatunde or

c.q. here in berlin he's the executive director of united nations population fund in washington we cross the martyr madison campbell sees a lecture at the school of public health at the university of california berkeley and in gainesville we have matthew conley he's a professor of history at columbia university all right folks this is cross talk that means you can jump in anytime you want i very much encourage it but first moshe where does the world stand right now well it's seven billion people and still counting today's world population is that what it was in one thousand nine hundred fifty seven and seven times what it was only ten centuries ago by mid century a projected growth will put that figure at nine point three billion people concerns are mounting that such sustained expansion for human kind threatens to run dry this planet's already overstretched resources. the business as usual scenario predicts that humanity will be using renewable resources and land at the rate of two planets each year by twenty thirty and just over two point eight planets each year by twenty fifty in addition to medical progress and higher agricultural productivity

fertility is thought to be the main driver of population interesting re enough world white population continues to grow despite the fact that the growth rate itself has been steadily declining the reason for this is the fact that there is still more people living in countries with a higher birth rate these countries are also some of the developing world poorest such as niger some malya afghanistan and congo which means more people born into dire poverty the seven billionth citizen will be born into wardrobe contradictions we have potential for. us to start with social and economic equity as at the crux of the phenomenon because not only does overpopulation work the hardest against the planet's most vulnerable groups but it is the developed countries that are currently enjoying the biggest share of their resources this has led many to argue that altering consumption patterns in tandem

with improving access to family planning are essential elements of the population discourse but then again a really pressing crisis all that's going to be my first question thank you very much for that my first question for matthew is the world facing a population crisis and you know i don't want to betray my age too much here but this is i've been hearing this for forty years so you know i'm going all the way back to like you know they were there was a book in one nine hundred sixty the age sixty nine population bomb you know we've been every decade we've been warned that you know the put their population has been growing too fast for the world's resources but it continues on if i go first to you matthew. well that's right peter you can almost set your clock to it it reminds me a little bit about some of the preachers that we have here in the united states i happen to be in florida and florida is full of preachers who will tell you that the world is coming to an end and you might even believe them except that they were predicting that last year before and ten years ago and twenty years ago they kind

of figures you just heard with the same kinds of figures that people use thirty years ago forty years ago you know according to the club of rome we would have been using five planets now so if you believe those kinds of numbers and sure you should be frightened but if you want to focus on the real problem here you have to get past the numbers when you think about that martha i mean it's a seven billion people is a lot of people on the planet but i'd like to point out it's someone inform me before i did the program that if you took all of those people but i'm shoulder to shoulder you could put them into the city of los angeles so that kind of puts it in a different perspective people take up a lot of space however because they also need food they. are is very very important water is poured you wouldn't be able to live in los angeles in fact if you crowded everybody in there but i think that it's dangerous to say that we should let go of the numbers and look at other things the numbers are extremely important in terms of what the population is going to be like what life is going to be like even thirty years from now ok if i can go to you know our guest in berlin i mean today i

mean it really gets down to maybe not numbers but once you get to use those type of lifestyle that people want to be able to have and if we look at the rich north and the rich west they consume most of the world's resources and we have emerging middle class is all around the the developing world the emerging world and they want to live life for european and american peers isn't that really the issue here is how you distribute resources divided by seven billion nine billion ten billion and so forth. i think he goes beyond i think the real concerns in some developing parts of the world where population is growing faster economists can sustain and i think that you know he is working with those countries another to be able to ensure that we men and young girls to take advantage of new technologies that are available education and ensure that they can

be empowered to be choices in their lives to have children going forward so it is the first about demographic transition in those countries but beyond that i agree with you that the level of course the level of consumption of this probably is also a syllable and we was in korea developing countries to adopt a different concern from some of those we're going to have it ok well initially employees i mean will a lot of people still get rich west agreed to change its consumption matter you want to jump in there go ahead i did it's because i was curious to ask public tender if the un f.d.a. would also help empower those women who'd like to have more children instead of fewer i mean in africa it's more than fifteen percent of women who are or aren't able to have children because a very easily treatable and even preventable diseases reproductive tract infections and so on so what's

a priority. in florida this year and actually and i'll help them to. you know the issue of boat. dock to health is we go beyond to just. we provide services to assure that. the child where she wants to have it and dismiss and so for those who have him how many women is a young population fund helping with infertility how many women are receiving infertility treatments the way they're receiving hundreds of millions of them contraception from the u.n. do you have a figure for that. private number i don't have it to be right in saying it's here only is it your home but to the extent that we treat it sexually transmitted infections we provide expertise to assure that did you not get to that point because most of the already talk about actually do so far from. all right gentlemen

let's let the woman on the program answer some of these tumors in general with a jump in and well obviously have a difference of opinion here got him are you going to look after i think i think that looking at infertility is missing the point completely there are more women in africa who want to use contraception but can't get it then there are then there are women who are using contraception and the need for family planning is absolutely huge in africa and other very poor countries too in. order to have this rule two hundred fifty million women worldwide did fabulous money and then all gets in it and i think that that's to give the women who are doing. matthew jumping. i'd like to know you know if you're keeping count of the women who'd like to have children and can't because in fact that's the specter of the future i mean you're counting seven billion people and it just so happens to fall

on how we mean what an amazing coincidence i mean i think you want us all to believe that this is some kind of horror story but for some women for many families in real trouble as they see our children this is a. focus like a laser beam on this one drug over a child where she wants it. and we. are working with the good all the other just used to ensure that another child when she wants to are good and i think many of these not hold me. in my third jump and call head matthew you are missing the point here the point here is population on a very huge scale and we are headed toward great trouble if this if the world goes up to sixteen billion people and stead of six billion people really against certain billion by ready end of this century that is the high level of the united nations population division anywhere between sixteen and sixty million people at the end of

this century twenty one hundred and so you're looking at the nine years into the future martha. anyhow yours and the future. now you know if i'm going to story and historians can't even agree on what happened ninety years ago but you have crystal clarity about the world in twenty one hundred these kinds of warnings and so he is really radical in many cases wasteful spending on the wrong priorities and that's a point i want to make. none of our thank you very much at least but my reply i could not know that martha replied go ahead oh yes it's only important to recognize where we're headed for here when i was poor and we had we were taking fish out of the ocean it is taken out eight times that amount. that we have eight times the amount that we had then what's happening to the fisheries what's happening to the forests for it's happening to agriculture where people have enough

to eat it is very very difficult even if we reach nine point three billion people by twenty fifty that is a serious problem because it means we're headed toward the medium to higher levels of numbers of people on the planet later i think we're heading for a catastrophe in fact if we do not slow population growth that is the most important thing. to consider. yes i think i think it is important to me the point clear that this is also about this is about trying to ensure that everyone can have a child when she wants to have it. she can access all digital images that shows that she can have the way she wants to have it without it because i think it is the right let's go with that and we're going to go to culture.

the technology to sell and. would that include all the saudis getting if they choose to have boys instead of girls no no still no reason on unity how did this all end all right now not only did i just say we're going to go to a short break photographed us short break we'll continue our discussion on global population stayed with r.t. . played taken to. observe nature and just cover its buzy. legs. communicate with the want to.

test yourself and become free to. see what nature can give you. the. look will. bring you the latest in science and technology from around the world. we've got the future of coverage. plus. let's. just say.

it's. ok. welcome back to cross talk i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're talking about the world's population. ok. ok matthew before we end of day for part of the program to see you word came up coersion and now and this is i want to talk about is that we look at population

decline in the rich countries of the of the of the north and of the west because you can certainly have countries in europe that are dealing with that issue and then we have some countries in the world that have their growth is much faster than they can sustain what role do governments play in this what role does the united nations play in this because you know what kind of incentives do you give people to have more children and what kind of incentives you give people not to have children because different countries have different experiences and different expectations i'd like to point out as well and that goes back to the other c word in this program and that's consumption. that's right peter and if i leave you with one idea it's the fact that we don't have a population crisis we have a consumption crisis there are real challenges from over using resources for a depleting fisheries and so on but if you want to see where the problems are it's not from looking whether there are millions of people starving the fact is there are but it's not because there's too much or too little food in the world quite the opposite you know this more than four pounds of food per person on this planet and

when people go hungry it has nothing to do with population it has everything to do with power and inequality and unfortunately for too many years for decades international non-governmental organizations ally themselves with wealthy countries that hold poor people in poor countries that if they were poor if their people were starving it's because they kept having children they had too many babies and that's the legacy we're still living with that's the reason why in so many countries including nigeria in my country and other turned as origin that is a country where many women don't trust or like i do not desire you because i think though that i think that i think that you should you should talk about experiences that you know about what's on the ground for forty years as a doctor and i can tell you that the lowest quintile in most societies in the developing world have children that they cannot look after it is not just about feeding it is a housing is about what is or it's about is about the billeted to look after these

children and also a. great and chelsea king lou when i when i ask you how many highly says to this i think it was in your footsteps this is too big to exist which are the ones and if you ask them the rather less than they have ok mind that money is the number is hard but i think is this is this a political crisis not a population crisis i mean maybe dropped on the sofa like matthew just had. i say because there there isn't a dearth of food in the world but there is starvation there's a there are people living in massive car pretty good there is look the world the planet is very rich i mean what math is getting at is it's a political problem because of inequality now because we have too many people. i think it is a very much a crisis about population itself but he is right that is that consumption is very important we consume much too much so there's

a huge need for family planning but unfortunately there is no unmet need for wanting to consume less it's version much harder to deal with but we must do that. there are probably ten day is absolutely right that there are very large numbers of women who have children who have babies at pregnancies that they do not want we know this because of the huge number of unsafe abortions for example in many countries where women just are desperate not to have another child we should not have coercion there is no need for a chorus of it all and there should be no incentives by the way incentives are not necessary what's really important is letting women have the means and the information they need to be able to manage whether or when to have a child but you think about absolutely so you agree with that believe that that is what we should that is the rights that we should we should do to push through this sure though for type yes of course there either which is in the world but you know

produce exists both in the return of. excess to food access to space the you know could see exist everywhere but when you when you take your particular national state or you look at it the last point of of of those periods i actually do have access to these things. you want to hold lists they do have and we should make it possible for them. to be able to do so. if you for adelaide and in equally matthew i would absolutely agree with morris are about to turn to when they say that every woman should be able to have the children that she wants but what i would add is simply that if the family finally community has always focused on those women this don't they are the children they have. i would like to have fewer children than they have but i'd like to know is when they're going to wake up and realize that there are hundreds of millions of women who are having difficulty having children it would like to have some help and in fact the biggest

countries in the world china and india especially are countries where yes there are still incentives so-called and not only that but there are disincentives there are severe penalties in china and for forty years here the u.n. population are thirty years out of the u.n. population fund has spent in china so i'd like to know over all these years you know this whole time the population fund has been claiming that they're ending the one child policy why is it after thirty years thirty years of u.n. support why is it we start a one child policy in china when you see un finally going to speak out and say there's a lot of artists who are supposedly. had yes they give thirty years to work on this is the wrong information we have been there in the in the in the states in which you have worked we have been able to work with this did authorities to liberalize what is up with that and we continue to work with the government of china we all posed the world thirty years brought something new for it i've heard our addictions

i want. to get it and then i see. through sort of others that we. believe that you know a country has lived just now we should not leave it alone which is going to drive the kids for their rights based approach to so you'd rather be advice. you would rather help china's population control program which you say is having the effect of liberalizing our population control program and you like to do a lot of that here is what are you going to be there for another thirty years this is the easy job and here i was you know somebody said eleanor it is going to jump and right now going. good. the new word poverty hazard here is your idea it's very very important matthew great please you know what we really haven't looked at poverty at all where i we cannot find any

country that has gotten out of poverty while maintaining a high average family size except for a few oil rich states this is very important what really means is that people cannot get out of poverty they cannot be educated they cannot but health systems cannot catch up with the fact that there are many more children born here than here before in the high fertility countries it's exceedingly important to make sure that women do not have pain since they do not want to have so that they can give the advantages to their own children but they otherwise cannot. i think i will visit if it was a problem that we have evidence to show that when it conflicts that have taken women said because of the seriously. move to make choices for their lives there have come out not only out of poverty but also girls from the demographic transition. become more prosperous i mean if it is above and i think that this is

what we continue to talk to the rights to it as sure that we have access to information a position choice ok matthew you want to jump in there because what do you think well of example you're hearing is about is that if we do all the right things with family planning then what kind of population will the planet finally settle on is there is the populations go through these three demographic transition because at what number do we get out with where we are sustainable for the world's resources. well it's a very good question and facts economists not just economists many others have been debating this for centuries there's been a discussion and debate over centuries about how many people the earth can support and over the centuries there are some of said that the earth can't support more than two billion or perhaps it's for maybe six or maybe eight and the fact is it's not just about the number of people on this planet it's what kind of people we will be yeah you know if we're going to continue wasting our resources if americans for

instance are going to continue throwing out more chicken that is eaten in the entire indian subcontinent there no that can't go on but that's why i would say that the real issue here is not the numbers of people on this planet especially not the numbers of poor people on this planet because they're not the ones the countries that still have relatively high fertility are not the countries where people are over consuming and cleaning the world's fisheries and burning up all our fossil fuels and creating greenhouse gases the real problem here is consumption there is a consumption crisis it is not a population crisis and to say that the solution to the world's problems much less a solution to the world poverty is to get poor people to stop having so many children is worse than a distraction is worse than a distraction it will lead to i think most light of what i think it is it is it is not one of the other it is it is both and to the extent that. person in the world sure how delightful dignity and should be able to have quality to their lives

that is what we're talking about so we're ask. should be we should look at. a shore that we do not consume. those resources we should also help the poor women who have absolutely no access to education or to have to be in tune with the choices sort of how quality into their lives that would be for when i want to go to matthew day and we're almost out of time magazine or seems to me it seems to me that the i feel it is program it's the problem of the west too willing to consume less well i was to rest of the world consume or is there any political will for that expression in these hard times. i think that's what we all have to focus on and that's what i'm trying to say as long as we're looking at brown and black people and saying there are too many of them and that's the problem of the planet that's the specter of the future and that this hallway and every halloween we have to be frightened of a world of billions of people then that's for how long we're going to lose sight of

what really matters in the real crisis we're facing which is that yes we are overconsuming resources that are depleting the world's fisheries the planet is getting warmer but it has nothing to do with whether a poor family is going to have three or four children instead of two it has everything to do with what rich people are doing in the richest countries in the world well fascinating is question thank you very much many thanks my guest today in berlin washington and in gainesville and thanks for viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time remember prosecutors. on . a very warm welcome to you this is your news today protesters on the holes since they

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