According to the United Nations Populations Fund, as of this Monday, there are 7 Billion people on this little earth. If you have been watching any new channel you will have seen the many stories revolving around this. Some of the ones that caught my attention are:
Are there really 7 billion of us?
To name a few.
So, how many people can the earth sustain? A quick search gave me results from 1 million to 15 billion so basically we don’t know but it doesn’t seem like we’re headed in the right direction.
The solution? God knows. Limit the population by limiting how many children someone can have? Would that be everywhere in the world? I mean one of the least populated countries in the world is New Zealand. So should they have the same restrictions as China? The most populated country in the world?
Maybe it should be up to the leaders of these countries to decide what’s best for each country? Then we have to go into dictating to people how many children they can have… that’s a tricky one. They do it in China although I am not sure to what extent and if the ‘1 child per family’ is a suggestion or is mandatory.
The funny thing is that the more modern countries who would be more environmentally responsible tend to have a much lower birthrate than 3rd world countries that are less capable of dealing with big populations. This is probably down to beliefs and cultures. It’s also probably because modern medical facilities and services were not available as far back as they were for 1st world countries so there was a higher rate of infant mortality.
In Saudi birth control is very common. You don’t even need a prescription for one and, as far as I have seen and experienced, has never really been an issue with our religious scholars. Having said that there are still some young men, in their 20’s, who have 1 or 2 wives and at least 6 children and no idea how they are going to raise them all.
Granted this isn’t the norm but we are not a culture that links having children to financial hardship. You have children, regardless of the fact that you might not have enough money to be able to give them a proper childhood. “Allah Yifrijha” meaning God will give us a way.
A lot of the young mothers I know have between 2 and 4 children and are making a conscious decision not to have any more. To someone from the states or the UK it probably seems like a lot to have 4 children by the age of 32 which is how old I will be by the time I have my little bambino.
My mother had 4 as well by my age and 6 by the age of 36. The average size of children women of my mother’s generation had were 6. One of my aunts had 10 children, her youngest was born a few months before her eldest grandchild. It is getting lower but not by a huge amount. And I am only counting the people I know.
More working mothers are deciding to have fewer children either because of financial restrictions or because they simply see two children as the perfect number. They can give them more attention and time than 3 or 4 or more. We have decided we want 4 because it’s a nice full house without it being too overwhelming. Also, i can’t imagine having a baby in diapers when I am 37 or 38 years old.
How do your cultures and families view birth control? What is the average size of family where you live? how many children would you want to have?
yamaamaa.com 
Many studies show that the higher a woman’s education is, the lower amount of children she is more likely to have. Those children will have more resources allocated to them in terms of money, education, time and support. I think in saudi Arabia as women gain access to higher education and work and can have a purposeful life outside of Motherhood they will opt to have less.. I mean come on we have only 2 hands! :)
I think reducing the population can only be a good thing. As it is we are running out of fresh water for everyone and currently our population only exists because of the green revolution which converted oil to fertilizers and insecticides thereby greatly increasing yields per farmer. If we lost that… we would not be able to feed ourselves as we are now.
And the growth has only continued to take more land away from wild animals and wild places… we are seeing a mass extinction event unlike anything we have observed for eons… all due to humanities’ overwhelming influence on ecosystems. diverting lakes, rivers, decimating forests… and this is coming back to haunt us as biodiversity begins to break down. Almost all of the fishing industries have collapsed around the US, we cannot eat meat unless we have factory farms where animals are treated horrifically… very simply if we truly look into these issues now we see that this poor planet is quite ill with the number we have now. Everything is on the verge of going, elephants only exist in human made reserves… there are very few wild places left. Humans have managed everything.. so whats the worst case scenario?
we run out of oil. once that happens (and it will) we will no longer be able to feed ourselves like we do now… and not just about cars, no more plastics, no more IVs for the hospitals, no more tires for cars even if they are solar, climate change will dramatically effect our ability to grow food, our clothes, our make up our medicines it will impact everything. . It already is. My husband works as an environmental scientist and he knows many famous scientists who forcast based on all the models… even the best case scenario is pretty bad. We are in a crisis now that is so terrifying in its scope we cannot even face it. Like the rich people of the Titanic we cannot hear what is happening below, we are too busy enjoying the party yet we will drown.
I know I sound like such a doom and gloom person… but the data is there. It is loud and very strong in the message. we are headed for some bad days ahead…. nature has a way of balancing itself out… and for her, that means less humans so either we do it the easy way and self limit. OR we do it the hard way: mass starvation, lowered life expectancy, so much suffering… but the earth will correct… the sad thing is that we will take much of the biodiversity down with us. It is a sad, sad legacy. it breaks my heart to consider, honestly.
So with all above my husband and I have decided to have no children. An American child uses up around 40 times the resources of a Haitian child. While the developed nations do have less children, those children are very very much more resource intensive.
God asked us to be guardians of this planet and care for the animals. In my opinion, we have failed Him utterly and we will be called every one of us, about how we ruined His wonderful creation.
Thank you, you’ve scared the living daylights out of me. Even more so since all you have said is true. It does make me worry about my children’s future but the world has gone through a lot and come out the other side. With casualties, yes, but I can’t make the decision not to bring another life into this world because I don’t know what’s going to happen. If you think about it there was never a time on earth where a good life was a sure thing for anyone.
We all have to take responsibility and I agree we ALL have to self regulate or we will be doomed.
Never thought about how much an average child in the west consumes in comparison with children of third world countries. A happy medium (renewable reusable medium) would be a great goal to head for.
I missed your comments Jenna! welcome back.
MY GOD!
this is one of the most valuable comments ive read in any blog!
do u have a blog Jenna?
Not as far as I know but all Jenna’s comments have been amazing on this blog. She really should have one!
LOL thanks for the advice! :) I think I am too soft hearted to deal with trolls, mean comments or mean people :) thats why I dont have one!
Nice to be back… I have been so busy (got my masters degree then got married!) so life is finally returning to normal.
Mama.. you are right… it is so scary.. and the we are all so busy avoiding being scared we are not seeing the issue seriously enough… its like this, a person is getting very ill, he does not go to the Doctor because he is scared he might have cancer so he waits and waits until it is too late to help him. But another guy who is also scares goes in for tests and faces thr truth… the truth really hurts but now that he is facing it he can work to resolve the problems and perhaps get healthier… I think our planet of people are are like the first guy! thats why we need to wake up now so we can fix it before its too late!
Mabrouk Aldomain :)
“There are many among the global elite that are not afraid to openly talk about a goal of reducing the population of the world to 500 million” ….. thus you have more wars, more diseases, more ….
Read the full article … http://tiny.cc/auuq2
Allah ibarik feek :)
that is an interesting article. I am sorry to say I agree with a lot of the ideas the writer disagrees with. We are using and abusing the world and it would be a better place with less people. Now do I think we should let out a virus to kill 90% of the population? of course not. Do I believe in forced abortions? No. Do I believe in having laws against how many children over populated countries should have? Maybe, I am not totally against that. Maybe enforcing penalties on people who have more than a set amount of children in over populated countries. No if you have enough money for it you do it, if not you don’t and all win because if you do have that extra child or two and don’t have the money to raise them what kind of a life would you be giving them? I believe in educating people about how we are effecting the world. In making green living mandatory and illegalizing products and lifestyles that have a negative impact on the environment. I think we can find a balance between having our modern day luxuries and not killing the earth.
I don’t know nearly enough about this to make a totally informed decision but these are my thoughts so far…