Finite Planet

In his book 'Imagining India', Nandan Nilekani talks about the demographic dividend and how India is riding the crest of a demographic dividend in the south and how it will soon taper and then the next boom will come from the north if we take the effort to invest in education and health care and industry in the north.

I do not question the logic behind the dividend and on what should be done, but there is a larger question, unless there is a demographic dividend, is it not possible to achieve growth? Or rather, the real question should be, is it possible to have such population booms always? We are living in a finite planet with finite resources and so we need to take steps to make sure our population actually regulates itself. I do not want to get into all the social, political and perhaps even religious aspects of it.

There is a much more serious question at hand. A nation cannot always have more young people than old (unless something drastic kills of the older population) since we simply cannot have an ever increasing population. A nation as a whole itself can have two different growth patterns, like India's current situation. But still it will mean that several millions will have 4-2-1 structure, 4 Grandparents, 2 Parents and 1 Child. More dependents mean more strain on healthcare, pensions and working population.

China will soon fall into this trap (if it hasn't already), Japan is already facing issues and if we are to sustain this growth and to make sure we don't grow old before we get rich (i.e, we should not reach a situation where there is a huge population of dependents and were still a poor nation), we need rapid economic growth and this means not just GDP growth, but growth in education, job creation, agriculture, pension funds and welfare schemes. The government also needs to put in policies for this inevitable future even though it may come only 50 years later, but it will happen.

Another aspect that baffles me is the obsession with growth- this much growth and still we see so much poverty. Again, the fact that ours is not an infinite planet seems to have escaped everyone. If it is only normal inflation or things that are actually produced from the earth or food, why is it not affordable and sometimes not even accessible for many of our brethren? Food riots have happened in the recent and will occur again if this trend of global inflation is to continue and this price rise can never be sustained with higher wages simply because ours is not an infinite planet. There is also hoarding of resources by a few which means shortage for millions of others.

We need to consume less and change our obsession with growth and governments should understand that just numbers do not reflect how many people are still remaining poor or illiterate or exploited so that the rich can still have their luxuries. We need to learn to live within the constraints of a finite planet whether it be about consuming less, recycling, green energy, population control- unless the attitude change happens in individuals and individuals demand governments to draft policies keeping these facts in mind, the world will definitely collapse.

http://craziestme.blogspot.com/2007/05/ndividuals-environment-conservation.html