wealthy british style. markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our feet.

download the official ulti obligation to your body phone the i pod touch from the i q sampson. jollity life on the go. video on demand policies month old cars and all residents feeds now in the palm of your. on the dot com. list. listen to the sink the lead. follow in a welcome to cross talk on capitol hill 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 over populated and if it is what should be done about it. live can live their lives. to cross-talk population levels i'm joined by bob to do or sitting here in berlin he's the executive director of united nations population fund in washington we cross them are their medicine 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 crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want i very much encourage it but first marsha where does the world stand right now at seven billion people and still counting today's world population is that what it was in one nine hundred sixty 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 of humankind 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 worldwide 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 in 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 war go counter contradictions we have potential for. us to starving

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 the 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 just course but then again a really pressing crisis well that's going to be my first question thank you very much for that much 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 going all the way back the way you know they were there was a book in one hundred sixty the eight sixty nine population bomb you know we've been every decade we've been warned that you know that 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 and they were predicting that last year before and ten years ago and twenty years ago they're kind of figures you just heard with the same kinds of figures that people used 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 what do 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 a program that if you took all of those people with them 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. culture is very important water is poured you 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 like even in thirty years ok if i can go to you know our guest in berlin but today i mean it really gets down to maybe not numbers but once you get. a lifestyle that people want to be able to have and if we look at the rich north of the rich west they consume most of the world's resources and we have emerging middle class is all around the in the developing world the emerging world and they want to live like their european and american peers isn't that really the issue here is how you distribute resources divided by the 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 economies can sustain and i think that he is working with those countries in order to be able to sure that we've been 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 that the level of call the level of consumption of this point in time is also a syllable and we was encouraged developing countries to adopt a different cause on from so that we're going to have it ok what is an interesting point i mean it was a lot of people think it's the rich west that needs to change its consumption matter you want to jump in there go ahead i did it's because i was curious to as public and if the u.n. f.p.a.

would also help empower those women who would like to have more children instead of fewer i mean in africa it's more than fifteen percent of women who aren't able to have children because of very easily treatable and even preventable diseases reproductive tract infections and so on so what's a priority if it is in florida this year and actually unveiled help. no the issue about. reproductive health is we go beyond just. we provide services to assure that. the child when she wants to have it and dismiss and so for those who have him how many women is a year and population fund helping with infertility how many women are receiving infertility treatments the way they're receiving hundreds of millions of contraception from the u.n. do you have a figure for that. quite a number i do or how they would be right in saying it's zero is it your home but to

the extent that we settle a transfer that infectious we provide expertise to assure that did you not get to that point because most of the were you talk about actually do so far from to go disease all right gentlemen let's let the woman on the program answer some of this to jump with jump in and well obviously have a difference of opinion here god heart is going towards is looked 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 unmet need for family planning is absolutely huge in africa and in other very poor countries too and. has. fifteen million women worldwide. and they're not getting it and i

think that that should be about the women who are those who know this you know them as well. matthew jumpy. 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 were in the maze in 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 the real too i want to say this if you have children there's a. reason charlene is focused like a laser beam on this one drug over the i'm going to have a child where she wants it. and we. are working with the good all the other just used to assure that another child when she wants to are good and i think that many of these not holding. a martyr jumping ahead 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 report against thirteen billion by ready end of this century that is the high level of the united nations population division in quick could be anywhere between sixteen and six million people at the end of this century twenty one hundred and so you're looking here larry ninety nine years into the future martha. it's high as you can see anyhow he said in the speech or. now you know if i'm going to story and historians can 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 didn't really radical and in many cases wasteful spending on the wrong priorities and that's the point i want to make martha. martha was released but martha replied to them you know let martha replied go ahead but here is extremely important to recognize

what 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 but 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 probably order the most important thing. that you know. yes i think i think it is important to make the point clear that this is also about this is about trying to ensure that everyone child when she wants to have it. she can access

all digital it just shows that she can argue with me without it because i think it is the right plenty of that and we're going to want to talk to. the technology or alter a cell and. would that include all the saudis getting if they choose to have boys instead of girls no no no no i mean really i mean it is how this all the n.r.a. and i do not let you remain here i mention say we're going to go to a short break after lashkar e r continue our discussion on global population stay with r.t. . and you can see. the.

real you the latest in science and technology from around. the huge earth covered.

can. welcome back to crossfire computer lavelle to remind you we're talking about the world's population. ok matthew before we ended a for part of the program the c. word came up to worship 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

as 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 they cause 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 depleting fisheries and so on but if you want to see where the problems are it's not from looking at 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 i made out the country of garbage turned its origin that is a country where many women don't trust or like i do not desire to tell you it's because i think the other thing that i think. you should talk about experience is that you know about walked on the ground for forty years as a doctor and i can tell you that the lowest quintile the most societies in the developing world have children that they cannot look after it is not just about feeding it is a housing is what is it's about is somebody that believes it to look after these

children and also women. and chelsea king lou when i ask you how many people he says to this i think it was in your footsteps this is too big to exist which you don't want to be if you ask them rather less than they have ok martin let me just say let me go to morris is harsh but i think is this is this a political crisis not a population crisis i mean maybe dr hamilton some of you just said. say because there there is a dearth of food in the world that there is starvation there's a there are people living in massive poverty but there's 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 there's a huge unmet 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 ten day is absolutely right that there are very large numbers of women who have children who have babies or pregnancies that they do not want we know this because of the huge number of unsafe apportions for example in many countries where women just are desperate not to have another child we should not have who are sure there is no need for coercion at all and there should be no incentives by the way incentives are not necessary what's really important is letting women have the means any information they need to be able to manage whether and when to have a child and you think about that really so you agree with that i believe that that is what we should that is the rights that we should we should call huge of course they're sure though for target yes of course there is a new world but you know who does exist both in the region on the park or interest

says. access to space you know could see exist never work but where you know you take a particular national state look at it the last quinto of of all of those deeds actually do have access to these things are. not too hard list they do have and we should make it possible for them but. let me ask you for handling and equally matthew i would absolutely agree with martha 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 planning community has always focused on those women they say don't want 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 and 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 been 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 u.n. finally going to speak out and say listen i want to know by the force and. yes the thirty years to work on this given wrong information we have been there in the in the in the states in which we have worked we have been able to work with this to authorities to liberalize what is up with that and we continue to work with the government of china we all paused the world thirty years brought so when you put it . in

a filing it and the words are see. the truth of the matter is that we. believe that you know equality as largest now we should not leave it alone we should conclude the advocates for the rights based approach to say you'd rather be advice. you would rather help china's population control program which you say is having the effect of liberalizing the population control program and you like to do it all the year what are you going to be there for another thirty years this is the easy job and here i was you got a celebrity to join the president or it is going to jump in and right now going. through. name the word poverty hazard here is your idea it's very very important that you wait 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 their health systems cannot catch up with the fact that there are many more children born here than here before in the high fertility countries is exceedingly important to make sure that women do not have payments that they do not want to have so that they can give the advantages to their own children they otherwise cannot do i think this is if we have there's a problem that we have to show that when it conflicts that have taken women so because of those seriously. move to make choices for their lives they have come out not only out of poverty but also go through demographic transition the more prosperous i mean it is about and i think that this is what we continue to talk to

the rights was so brutally as sure that women have access to information a christian choice ok matthew you want to jump in there because what i think what if example you carry 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 that populations goes it is the demographic transition because what number do we get out with where we are sustainable for the world's resources. well it's a very good question and in fact 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 or some of said that the earth can't support more than two billion or perhaps it's four 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 then 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 depleting the world's fisheries and burning up 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 by such a solution to the world poverty is to get poor people to stop having so many children is worse than a distraction it is worse than a distraction. so i think mudslide of what i do know is it is it is it is not one of the other it is it is both and to the extent that every person in the world she will have a life of dignity and should be able to have quality to their lives that is what

we're talking about so we're ask was on sean should be we should look out and shoot a shore that we do not consume. the planet's resources we should also help the poor women who have absolutely no access to educational or to have to move to the choices so they can have quality into their lives that different you know when i want to go to matthew day we're almost out of time kinda feel it seems to me it seems to me at the at the end of this program it's the problem of the west too willing to consume less well as the rest of the world consume or is there any political will for the expression of 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 and 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 and that's for how long we're going to lose sight of

what really matters here the real crisis we're facing which is said yes we are overconsuming resources we 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 thanks your viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time remember profitable. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for langley is that you understand it and then you blimp

something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. of. a very warm welcome to you this is your news today protesters on the wall street seem to be at. least in chance a good chance to choose things to get with the status of the huge experiment you just sitting on with the weakest you programs in this rap music we would expect those good movies literally trying to make sense of political economy and it's all changed things as financial temples the research clambering to maintain our confidence in markets and taking on wants to be seen trade imbalances recession

look to be the nations close to collapsing a subprime loan foreclosed homes. to fail simple a bad thing can feel a little like think is the u.s. crash and imminent smash the ceiling it seems to me is like putting it in a closet in athens three feet from me and just programs increase the total economy . eleven year at. the end.