Comment by Kip Hansen — 14 July 2023
Many of you probably follow Statistica – I know I get emails almost daily with some visual presentation of some data set from somewhere. Over the last year, I have begun to suspect that some of the illustrations and presentations have political motivations (meaning: seemingly produced for propaganda purposes for some group – or maybe just representing the group bias of the employees, owners, or managers at Statistica). This commentary is not about that issue, however. [If readers have specific examples of that aspect of the “Statistica issue”, I would appreciate a note in comments or an email to my first name at i4.net].
Here I just want to look at what has become a run-away bad habit in the field of science and data. Here’s the illustration whose purpose is, according to Statistica, to “Empower… people with data”:
This illustration comes with a caption by Felix Richter:
“According to United Nations’ latest projections of global population, India surpassed China as the world’s most populous country in April 2023. Having gradually closed the gap to China from more than 200 million people in 2000 to little more than 10 million in 2022, the UN Population Division predicts India’s population to reach 1,429 million in July 2023, surpassing long-time leader China by 3 million people.
In recent years, China’s population growth has slowed down notably due to its one-child policy before reaching an inflection point in 2022, when China’s population declined for the first time since 1961, when three years of famine had decimated the country’s population.
For India, which is currently expected to continue growing until the 2060s, its new position as the world’s most populous country will come with a new set of challenges, both domestically and internationally. These challenges include providing access to healthcare, education, and employment opportunities to an ever-growing number of people, all while finding its role in the global political and economic landscape.
Looking beyond India and China, the UN predicts a continental shift in population growth over the next few decades. With Europe’s population already declining and Asia’s and Latin America’s growth expected to turn negative in the 2050s, Africa is set to be the largest driver of global population growth for decades to come. By 2100, five African nations are expected to join India, China, and the United States among the world’s 10 most populous countries, with Nigeria projected to reach a population of half a billion before 2080. This demographic shift at the global level will require new approaches to managing resources, promoting sustainable development, and addressing issues such as poverty, inequality and access to healthcare and education.”
In my view, there are obvious outright errors in the data presented – if anyone wishes to chase those up, give us the scoop in comments. One quick example – readers are encouraged to ferret out others – is the projection (allegedly by the UN) of China’s population in 2100. The chart shows that “The UN Projects” that China’s population will be reduced to ½ its current level in the next 75 years. Yes, dropping from 1,426 million to 767 million. Even Chairman Mao couldn’t get rid of that many people that fast: “In 1958, he launched the Great Leap Forward that aimed to rapidly transform China’s economy from agrarian to industrial, which led to the deadliest famine in history and the deaths of 15–55 million people between 1958 and 1962.” [ wiki ] How is China going to get rid of over half a billion people in just 75 years?
Nigeria is shown with a projected population in 2100 of over 500 million (half a billion) – a doubling of current population. That would be 1400 persons per square mile – or 541 persons per square kilometer. The current population density in the United States is 94 persons per square mile. I guess it is possible but I believe that national resources would be stretched exceedingly thin at that population level.
Those who wish can dig into the U.N.’s report (here’s the link to the Summary again). Interesting but not my issue today.
My complaint is this:
We do not and cannot have data about the future.
Yes, I know Statistica labels the future data as projections….and blames those projections on the United Nations….but it does not do anything to visually distinguish between the actually counted (calculated, estimated, etc) data – real data from the past and of the present — and the projections from the U.N.
Now, I don’t want to disparage the general public but it is my understanding that when experts speak, particularly using illustrations, images, graphs, that the general public simply accepts these statements (especially pictures – visuals) as true.
And, though I am loathe to bring up the issue once again, there is no uncertainty shown in the “projections” despite that fact that some of the projections (China, for instance) are very alarming.
What is the uncertainty claimed for the 2100 projections by the cited UN source?
“III. Long-range population projections to 2100 — Long-range population projections are highly uncertain, especially for high-fertility countries still in the early stages of the demographic transition.”
In this case, Statistica has failed its customers (and the general public). Instead of empowering the pubic with knowledge, they have misrepresented HIGHLY UNCERTAIN projections about the future as if they had the same veracity, trustworthiness, as historical data.
The original UN report (duplicate link – .pdf) shows how this error can be avoided with illustrations similar to one in the U.N. report here on life expectancy. The data is shown in solid colors and the projections of the future are 1) set off by a vertical dashed line, demarking a new graph area labelled clearly “Projections” and 2) the projections are showed in dashed lines giving a visual effect of uncertainty (less solid).
That’s a lot of words to say a thing that is so simple that we often overlook it:
There is no data about the future.
There is no evidence about the future.
Not yet, at least.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
Please spare me the nonsense that “We know the Sun will rise tomorrow” as an example of having data about the future. (Yes, this has been used by readers here in the past).
And, admittedly, this is somewhat of a nit-pick – but it is an important nit-pick – as the scientific principles of what is data and what is evidence is so often violated.
In the real world, the one in which we all live, there are children wracked with grief because they have been told repeatedly that the world is ending, that they will have no future. They are told that “the scientific data shows this.” A bigger lie could not be told.
A reasonable person can make reasonable decisions about his immediate future – that’s how we manage to live from day to day.
I will decide whether to go sailing this afternoon based on local weather conditions and my favorite weather program’s guess about the still-hours-away future. So far, those guesses encourage me to do so. Have a good day.
Thanks for reading.
PS: The weather prediction for wind on the local water turned out to be wrong – the wind increased to a snotty 15-20 kts, variable and gusty, with a bit of rain mixed in instead of the predicted decrease to a pleasant 8-10 kts.
# # # # #
As far as predictions, Paul Ehrlich had most people dying off fifty years ago.
And his followers still think he’s right about everything
listening to kackles kamalas speech on twitter pop reduction is looked forward to by usgov too
Most people alive today will have died by AD 2100, so the low UN projection for China in 77 years results mainly from assumptions about fertility rather than mortality rates. China currently reproduces at below replacement rate, but the UN’s inherent assumptions do seem extreme. Maybe its statisticians expect nuclear war to lower China’s urban population (now more than half) before young adults can have kids.
Milo ==> One could look into the basis of the projections….there is a full copy of the report somewhere — probably hundreds of pages. But still, disappearing half a billion people is pretty extreme.
Kip,
nobody is “disappearing” anyone. The number refers to people who won’t be born. And if you want to complain about the imprecise use of the word “data” then you should be equally precise about words like “disappearing”.
There is a demographic time bomb about to go off in western Europe and the US our governments have known about for 50 years and done nothing about.
The falling birth rate (now around 1.6 in the UK) meets the boomer generation dying off. Why do we think immigration isn’t being stopped anywhere in the west? It’s our government’s crude response to an issue they have utterly ignored. The immigration problems we are all suffering is a desperate attempt to increase the taxpayer base over the next 50 years or so.
Whilst I agree that half a billion people is an awful lot in China, their problems are not dissimilar to ours. The one child policy has decimated a generation and they refuse to engage in mass immigration. Japan is going to suffer worse than most I understand.
Your point about error bars is spot on and of big concern. Loony computer projections for future temperature rises never appear with any uncertainty included, and they must be an enormous range. 90%+ of the public have no higher qualifications and haven’t a clue how to read a graph far less question the uncertainty of projections.
The same goes for using temperature anomalies then distorting the XY axis to make them appear scary. In most cases, accurately represented, historic temperatures would appear as an almost regular flat line with the occasional little bump, if that*.
Kip,
The one-child policy imposed by the CCP is possibly the most insane example of a country committing suicide in history. For decades Chinese women have had their baby in their early twenties and then have gotten sterilized.
The population of fertile women is dramatically reduced as a result. A generation of replacing only half the population results in a family tree with four grandparents, two parents, and one child.
Even if the child doesn’t mutilate herself like her mother and grandmother before her, and she has double the number of children that the prior two generations had, the population can only stabilize at a much smaller level.
When the grandparents and parents generation die of old age, they’re approaching a stable population around half the current.
Not only was the fertile population cut in half, but there is also a significant disparity between the sexes, with more girl babies butchered than boys. So even fewer fertile females as a percentage of the population.
Welcome to the Culture of Death. Since they have locked in a demography of majority-elderly, it doesn’t take a soothsayer to predict that most of the elderly will die from an injection when they become useless eaters.
They also want us to believe the slightly warmer, wetter climate will be a disaster. Yes, in their mindset that is consistent. Better conditions for population growth is something they abhor.
Hey! China has a LOT of men. They can have children, so the homosexuals will have to get busy.
Practically everyone currently alive will be gone in 100 years — that’s 8 billion gone in 100 years. It’s what mortality without replacement means.
Kevin and others ==> The UN’s projections depend on the model which depends on the input birthrate which runs them from losing a small percentage of population to losing 1/2 of their population.
China’s one-child policy was the result of accepting the output of population growth models….which were just as valid as today’s population loss models.
The Council of Foreign Relations says “Beijing is steadily moving towards a full-throated embrace of pro-natalist policies to mitigate the challenges of a declining population. ”
China’s past policies created the current situation — 2022 showed a decline over 2021 — but a change in policy — bonuses for children, housing upgrades based on number of children, increased salaries for women with children — could turn the situation around in a matter of years.
Yup the one child policy that China enacted caused a knock-on effect which will keep rolling through the next few generations – China will bounce back eventually but it will take several more generations to regrow their population.
Something like 77% of China’s population is 20 years old or older, it’s a pretty safe bet that few of them will still be around in 77 years. Only about 20% of the population is in the prime baby making age of 20 to 35. Throw in a lack of women thanks to the affect of China’s one child policy that was only recently relaxed, and China is not likely to be able to birth enough baby’s to replace those who die from old age. I don’t know just how accurate the UN projections are, but they seem reasonable to me.
Over the last 30 years or so that I’ve been watching the UN’s population projections, they have a history of over estimating what the population will be in the future.
The median age in China is 38. US is 37; India 27. The CCP’s window for world domination is rapidly closing. Its cohorts of excess unwed males are aging out of military range, although there are 35 to 55 million of them. Estimates vary more than they should.
Even ending the one child policy hasn’t boosted fertility. It’s just too expensive to raise kids. This problem suppresses most of the developed world and many developing countries. The only entire continent with fertility above replacement is Africa. Demographic transition is liable to kick in there as well in this century.
Fifty years on, Ehrlich’s supposed Population Bomb is proving a Population Bust.
10 mill Chinese moved abroad in last 20 years, mostly younger age group. That has a knock-on effect too
Where have you been for the last 50 years?
How many military bases does China have overseas? Fewer than ten.
How many does the US/NATO have? Several hundred.
How many conflicts has the US been involved in since 1991? 251 (Congressional Research Services Report)
How many has China been involved in? A handful.
How many of the 251 conflicts were on the borders of the US? None.
How many on the borders of China? Almost all, if not all of them.
Why would China want to communise it’s biggest customer, the USA?
The west willingly handed over its manufacturing to China, there was no compulsion from the Chinese.
The NGO’s driving a Global government are the UN, IMF, WEF, WHO, World Bank etc. All of them western founded, funded and controlled entities.
My wife is Asian. She is continually hearing that the young people are abstaining from having children because of the costs; in addition to the inability to purchase a home in which to raise them.
As Milo correctly points out 2100 is 77 years from now and just about everyone now alive will be dead by then. A quick and dirty long run population estimate is to take the annual number of births in a country and multiply it by the life expectancy. China is running at about 10 million births per year* and its life expectancy is about 78 years. 78 x 10 million is 780 million.
See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/28/behind-china-collapse-birth-marriage-rates/ “In 2022, China had only about half as many births as just six years earlier (9.6 million vs. 17.9 million).” the article is by Nicholas Eberstadt who is a god of demographics.
Nor is Statistia an outlier in this See “Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100” Vollset et. al. U Washington DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30677-2 which gives estimates between 731 and 699 million.
Lots of people point to the One Child Policy begun in 1980 (4 years post Mao), which has since been rolled back. But even if there had been no such policy, fertility rates in China would have dropped under the 2.1 replacement rate just as they have in every other advanced economy (with one or two exceptions). Other countries in Asia have experienced the same phenomenon. South Korea’s TFR is now under 1. Japan’s population is shrinking.
The one child policy might have accelerated the demographic transition in China, but there is no reason to believe that it wouldn’t have occurred there as it has everywhere else.
China’s 1 Child policy ran from 1979 thru 2015, almost 36 years. Totally devastating on their demographic. They have nowheres near enough young people under 30 yrs old now in the work force to support the over 55 year olds now nearing retirement and those over 60 who have been forced into retirement from the labor force. This would be an even bigger problem if there were actually good jobs in the numbers needed to be had in most Chinese cities. The double whammy is now a completely upside-down demographic (few 20-40 yr olds compared to above 50) and a small under 30 something workforce, but also rapidly declining job opportunities for those even those under 40 as the meager number of jobs are being created as businesses and banks are closing rapidly all over China.
There are quite reasonable estimates now that the real unemployment rate in most major Chinese cities is well above 50%, and the recent 2023 Chinese college graduates, only about 1 in 6 have found jobs in their chosen career. That means the recent college grads in China, over 80% are unemployed except for maybe gig jobs of food delivery and such.
Mass country-wide famines are coming this winter to China. We in the West likely will not hear about it as the western media reporters are completely absent there, and the media outlets will only be able to parrot out the farcical, official CCP propaganda reports from Beijing.
That’s like saying that killing my father and my grandmother accelerated the timeline of my inheritance, but it would have happened eventually, so a couple of murders is no big deal. Morally tone deaf Walter.
The one child policy was murderous, like most of communism. But that was not the point. China has reached a fertility rate of 1.2 so has South Korea, Singapore, and Japan. No matter how profoundly immoral ocp was, and it was, it cannot be the causal factor for a phenomenon that happened in neighboring, and culturally connected, countries that did not adopt it.
I detest the CCP and renounce it and all of its works. It is an evil regime tht can be convicted of a rap sheet of crimes as long as your arm. But, it rains on the just and the unjust alike.
I was not engaged in a moral evaluation of the CCP, I was comenting on a point of math and demograhics from the FP above. The 50% decrease in China’s polict is an easy projection. You can do it for yourself.
I apologize for my harsh interpretation of your meaning Walter, and heartily endorse your comments.
Milo: FWIW, I grabbed my cocktail napkin and hit the internet to get a fertility rate for China. The latter is 1.28 which is very low. About the same as Japan. The US is around 1.7. My intention was to convert that to a (negative) growth rate and compute 77 years of compounded (negative) growth which is a computation simple enough that even I can do it with with a fair chance of not bungling the math. But then I realized that the 77 years left in the century is very close to the average lifetime of a woman in China or the US. (Japanese live a bit longer). So if we take 1.28/2.0 (= 0.64) and multiply times the current population (1.42B for China) we’ll get a rough approximation of the population in 2100. The answer = 909M . Not all that far from the UN’s 767M.
I’m sure the UN calculations are far more sophisticated. They probably use better numbers, and allow for factors like immigration/emigration and very likely know what they are doing. At least in this case. their answer looks plausible. But, as Kip points out, it’s really a very rough estimate even if probably better than mine. And the Statistica presentation may well gloss over how rough.
Your simplified math assumes that the current birth rate will continue for the next 77 years.
I would guess that the UN number crunchers are assuming that the birth rate will continue to decline.
“How is China going to get rid of over half a billion people in just 75 years?”
At a guess, wouldn’t that just be down to demographics? The fact that China had the 1 child limit for so long means there simply aren’t going to be enough children born to replace those dying of old age.
“What is the uncertainty claimed for the 2100 projections…”
Here’s the UN’s probabilistic projections for China.
https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/156
Today in Japan, more diapers are sold for adults than children. In China, children don’t generally wear diapers.
You must have very good contacts in Japan and China.. those are very personal statements.
“Today in Japan, more diapers are sold for adults than children.”.
This is true in the White House as well
According to the CIA Factbook, China’s Gross Reproduction Rate is 0.69, with about 500M 50+ (I just eyeballed a chart for that last number, so its *around* there). You’re going to lose most of those from natural causes within the next 30 years, and the low birth rate means they aren’t going to be replaced.
Maybe the U.N.s chart is pessimistic- but they’re still going to have a huge drop.
Or maybe the UN chart is overestimated. After all, one child with two parents and four grandparents and no aunts, uncles, or cousins implies a long-term population 1/7 as large as it is today, not half.
Not to mention that everyone was injected with the spike protein non-vaccine vaccine
Most shots in China were with a traditional, but not very effective vaccine.
https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-sinovac-covid-19-vaccine-what-you-need-to-know
he doesnt want to know about actual facts. The doctors in ICU say they are anti vax until they reach emergency , then plead for it but its too late
Bellman, Scissor, Sewie ==> Bellman’s graph (from the UN) shows the modeled projections range from about 1.1 billion down to 0.55 billion. Highly Uncertain. The Ststistica chart seems to have used the “median”.
Now, do we think that the Chinese government will do nothing when it reaizes that it won’t have enough workers to run its factories?
“Now, do we think that the Chinese government will do nothing when it reaizes that it won’t have enough workers to run its factories?”
I assume the point of the projections is not to guess what countries will do. It’s to see what will happen if not action is taken.
But in the case of China I’m not sure what they could do, assuming they see it as a problem. Immigration is the obvious solution, but given the size of China I’m not sure how realistic that is. Only other options I can think of would be to perfect cloning, or invade and enslave a number of adjacent countries.
“it reaizes that it won’t have enough workers to run its factories”
How many factories will need workers by then?
Bellman ==> That is certainly part of the uncertainty.
Where is there recent evidence of that?
HotScot ==> Tibet?
Tibet was a border dispute. It’s the single event every one rushes to whenever this subject is mentioned.
Since China kicked the pervy Dali Lama out the country things have gotten markedly better in respect of poverty, healthcare and infrastructure.
Border dispute.
So was Germany’s take over of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
As to being better off economically, compare the economic well being of the parts of Mexico now occupied by the US.
Are you seriously going to argue that invasions can be justified, so long as those who survive end up being better off economically?
There have been recent armed conflicts between China and India over land.
1) 1979 China invaded Vietnam and was repulsed – https://www.historynet.com/sino-vietnamese-war-1979/
2) 1962 China India border dispute – https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sino-Indian-War
3) 1969 china USSR border dispute – https://www.hoover.org/research/1969-sino-soviet-border-conflicts-key-turning-point-cold-war
4) China conquers Tibet 1950 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tibet_(1950%E2%80%93present)
5) China Mongolia Border dispute 1946 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baitag_Bogd
evidence.
Forgot
6) China -Bhutan border dispute 2022 – https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2022-10/chinas-high-stakes-incursion-heights-bhutan
There seem to be a lot of border disputes for a “single event”
The problem with ignoring the aggression of other countries because they are only attacking neighboring countries, is that eventually, the only neighboring country left, is you.
Thats easy , stop making very low value items.
I wish I knew.
I worked for a Chinese company once. In one of the first process reviews of a catalyst manufacturing plant that I helped to design, they complained about the automation that I had proposed, load cells, conveyers, level switches, etc. They wanted most of these removed in order to create more jobs. Not out of the ordinary, one of the security guards for the plant site had a Ph.D. in chemistry.
In my experience, Chinese systems have a lot of inefficiencies, and employment distortions. Address these and add more robotics and perhaps they don’t need so many workers on a per capita basis.
I ran into the same thing in Mexico. In the mid-1980’s I was assigned to help with modernizing their telephone operator system. At the time they were still using manual switchboards. One of the first plans I presented showed the increase in productivity and the reduced number of people required. You would have thought I threw a bomb into the room. “We can’t do that!” I should point out that this was basically a government controlled company. When I inquired why not I was told reduced employment was not in the plan because too many people relied on this employment.
What do you propose that they will do Kip? Put in place a mandatory 4-child policy with a Mao-Xi Prize for mothers of eight children? How about mandating that all 40-year old sterilized women have at least one child?
Oh I know! They will mandate men transition to women so they can have children. Oh wait, maybe that won’t work.
Rich ==> There are already nations offering incentives to families to have more children.: https://money.com/government-pays-have-a-baby-low-birth-rate/
Yes, I am aware of that, but they aren’t very effective are they?
What’s the average birth rate for “Finland, Estonia, Italy, Japan, and Australia”?
Answering my own question. (2021 data is most recent available).
Births per 1000 population
Country 2011 2021
Finland 11.1 9
Estonia 11.1 10
Italy 9.2 6.8
Japan 8.3 6.6
Australia 13.6 12.1
Source:
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/birth_rate/#:~:text=Birth%20rate%20%2D%20Country%20rankings&text=The%20average%20for%202021%20based,available%20from%201960%20to%202021.
Kip, nice nitpick, I wrestled with this same issue in chapter 1 of ebook Gaia’s Limits. Took almost three years to research and write. Best UN debatable quesstimate is that global population might peak at about 10-10.5 billion in about 2050. That is actually a problem when you factually work thru Earth’s human food carrying capacity.
Human Food carrying capacity is a very complicated, very uncertain question. What about virtual water? What about crop pest evolution? What about yield evolution? At any rate, my non-Ehrlich non-catastrophic conclusion was something only slowly approached but still appreciably less than UN’s then published guesstimate.
If the increased CO2 keeps harvests at about the same levels and we can transport much of the food around the world then we should be able to support 10.5 bn without hardship. If the idiots want to keep turning food into ethanol then we probably won’t be able to grow beyond about 11.5 bn without huge changes to the way we grow food.
You obviously don’t have purple hair.
Nope it’s white now!
Lucky man. I have none left!
Rud ==> With China, the question pivots on politics — what will the government do? Will the government allow its population to shrink to half its current level?
Short of forcibly impregnating women, I don’t see that there is much they can do about it.
They can pick up a quick 23 million by conquering Taiwan.
Taiwan is already part of China. No ned to conquer it.
My understanding is the current government wants independence but the forthcoming elections are expected to favour a government that wants unification with the mainland.
Unless, of course, the US does it’s usual trick of election interference, stimulates violence on the streets, creates havoc, incites a coup and facilitates the installation of a western puppet government.
The same process as in Ukraine in 2014 and numerous other countries around the world.
The left even did the same thing in the 2020 US elections, but somehow, China is the evil empire.
Taiwan hasn’t been part of China since sometime in the 1300’s.
BTW, funny how everytime something happens in the world that you don’t like, it was caused by the US.
Another scary thought from The Conversation.
https://theconversation.com/we-may-one-day-grow-babies-outside-the-womb-but-there-are-many-things-to-consider-first-125709
There’s a lot of arable land that isn’t being used for agriculture. We’re nowhere close to outstripping Earth’s capacity to feed up to 10 billion plus. And food production technology continues to improve, becoming more efficient, and over time that technology trickles into poor countries. The only limits are political ones: lousy government, poverty and poor infrastructure, wars and population displacement. Prosperous, free countries have no trouble at all feeding their people.
stinkerp ==> In fact, much decent arable land is being allowed to return to forest, as it is in New York state.
Please, don’t forget that, at least in the USA, big government pays a lot of farmers ( or corporate farms) to NOT GROW CROPS. So, thaere is quite a number of acres that COULD produce food, but don’t.
“ The only limits are political ones: lousy government” That’s the biggy, right there.
It’s these wretched models again. Put ‘George Box Wikipedia’ in Google to see what ‘competent’ statisticians think of futuristic models.
UANZ ==> Yes, old “All models are wrong, but some are useful” George. Not sure that highly uncertain, far future projections are useful — or not.
The meaning of the word ‘data’ has become ambiguous since the development of computer science.
Before computers ‘data’ would have simply referred to facts ‘things that are known or proved to be true’ (Oxford).
Now ‘data’ can also refer to ‘quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer’ (Oxford).
That ambiguity is another unfortunate result of the digital age exploited to cause confusion, I don’t know how it can be countered.
Chris ==> Yes, it is terribly important to know what “information” (by whatever name) is being fed into a computer program (which is a model, always). The same is true if information is fed into your living mind and you use that information (data) to make decisions or plan for the future.
Bad information, information that is not factual, information that is not fact but opinion, biased information, etc.
Anytime you accept as fact something that is not TRUE, you end up stupider.
Fox Mulder:
Deep Throat said “Trust No One”
My contribution –
especially someone whose income is dependent on you believing what they’re telling you.
Good post Kip,
The science has been deliberately embedded in the lexicon to replace what was once knowledge, reasoning and debate. Akin to The Word of a creed or organized belief, schoolchildren learn the science but not science. They do not learn history; they learn a take on history. Whatever spews into their face from their devices, complete with ads and other fakery, is their reality. I have often sat in a bus in Canberra, looking over the shoulder of some people seated in front. Many spend the whole journey thumbing through an imaginary world driven by ‘influencers’, messages and wishlists.
The UN and much of what passes for ‘information providers’ is no different. Even what they say is data, probably has been estimated, modeled, smoothed, cut-and-diced and homogenized with the end in mind. The end being the message, the impression, often the big-lie. Having undertaken a number of communication and messaging workshops, it was always impressed upon participants that the end is the starting point of any organized communication.
The true message or outcome may also lie somewhere down the track. Lay the foundations, build the bed, lay the rails then start the train. Having some knowledge of this process is pretty useful in dissecting where pictures like this might lead.
Leaving aside animals and fish, human-kind depends dominantly (i.e., at the ship-load level) on just four sources of carbohydrate/starch and protein – grains (C3 wheat and rice, and C4 teff); legumes of various kinds (peas, beans), tubers (potatoes, taro, beets turnips etc.), all C3, and seeds (of which there are numerous, canola and other brassicas for example). OK, there is also corn, sorghum and so on, but many are mostly grown as animal foodstuffs.
Now just as a brain-dump exercise, take out one of those either singularly or as a group. Say the lab at Wuhan ‘escaped’ a new enhanced-function virus that attacked the C3 photosynthetic pathway, or it wiped out turnips, or C4 crops such as corn and sorghum. What would happen to all their fancy ‘projections’.
Is climate really the issue, or just the train leaving the station?
All the best,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
Bill ==> You do good work at BOM Watch. Thank you.
recycled ammunition
a few more lab releases
Andy ==> That would work.
Meh. It’s just another model, and all models say what they are told to say.
If that were true, then models would have no value except for propaganda. While they are sometimes used for that, that isn’t always the case. When done properly, computer models can provide insight on how a complex, dynamic system works. Sometimes, one gets a surprise with numerous feedback loops because it seems that the human mind works best with linear systems and can’t subjectively take into account highly non-linear systems with multiple variables. The problem with models is the lack of integrity of many of those building and using them. All models should be thoroughly vetted and changed if they don’t survive the validation process. Those used in climatology are ‘love children’ and the authors don’t have the intellectual honesty to renounce them if they are wrong, particularly if they come up with the answers they had hoped to see.
It is my understanding that for hind-cast climate modeling, a number of “tweak-point” cells are embedded in the programs that allow the modelers to keep adjusting the values of these “tweak-point” cells until end results are produced that best approximate the actual real-world observed measurement records.
The influences of clouds and aerosols come to mind.
So to my mind, this is fudging of results at the most coarse level, and fundamentally useless as information.
I think that having to adjust the historical parameters, or make adjustments to ‘tune’ climate models destroys any claim about the models being ‘physics-based.’ The models may include, or even have a majority of the calculations based on physics formulas. However, if physics isn’t the exclusive method for building and running the models, I would maintain it is like saying E = mC^2 +U, where U is a subjective factor. Using that subjective parameter allows one to make a model that can do almost anything. However, that doesn’t guarantee future projections are reliable. It is not unlike fitting a polynomial regression to a time-series. One can state unequivocally what the precision of the fit is for the start and end points of the fit. However, there is no guarantee that the extrapolation is even close to being correct beyond the end point.
I acknowledged in my comment that I didn’t think that climate models were built properly and certainly not vetted correctly. My quarrel was with the claim that “all” models were useless.
Another problem with hindcasting is the lack of solid date regarding historical inputs.
It is known that aerosols in the atmosphere can impact temperature.
So the models have inputs for how much aerosols were released and from where.
The problem is that for most of the hind cast periods, our knowledge of historical aerosol releases are minimal at best.
As a result the modelers put in the best guess, then tweak the amounts until the models show what the modelers were looking for.
Sounds exactly like our voting machines.
“The whole energy transition if you step back and think about it is an enormous challenge.
“In Australia, we will be rebuilding the grid and the power supply multiple times.
“This is like an industrial revolution 2.0 in many respects in terms of the scale and the speed we need to do this.
“The good news is the technology is there.”
See we can manage anything to save all those projected people-
Australia’s energy transition is sparking a search for the new ‘glue’ to hold the system together (msn.com)
If you don’t have an estimate, no problem. Look at Brazil, simply disappearing.
It didn’t disappear, it just dropped out of the top 10.
Mark ==> Yes, Brazil drops out of the top ten — which means it had to lose population to fall below 2100’s #10 Egypt.
“…, there is no uncertainty shown in the “projections” despite that fact that some of the projections (China, for instance) are very alarming.”
Nor are there explicit assumptions presented for the projections. The equivalent of a programming logic statement, “If…then…else.”
Clyde ==> Well, “If…then…else” is how one builds a model….
I think Clyde is agreeing with you here Kip. He is agreeing with your statement of no uncertainty shown in the projection, plus adding on the fact that the assumptions are not listed as well. All models should include some assumptions and they should be explicitly stated.These estimates are probably (only my guess) assuming the fertitlity rates remain constant and lifespan stays the same or slightly increases.
The graphic says quite clearly that it is an “estimate/projection” of the population. Where exactly does it say that it is “data”? You seem to be creating an issue that doesn’t exist. Furthermore I would say that most people are aware of the difference between the past and the future and know that “data” about the future means something different than “data” about the past.
Yep, just another pseudo-model… Just like in “climate science”
Climate science has definitely created many issues that DO NOT EXIST. !
Glad you realise that.
Izaak ==> You would think so, wouldn’t you? But even university educated journalists and their readers don’t seem to be able to make that distinction.
Words mean things — and using them in a way that changes or alters the generally understood and commonly used meaning is the chief tool of propagandists and politicians.
Thee is no data about the future — their are only projections, predictions, opinions, etc etc. Which is, of course, my point.
Statistica could have used an appropriate visual device to make clear, on its graphic, which was data and which part is “projection”. The original UN document did.
“Statistica could have used an appropriate visual device to make clear, on its graphic, which was data and which part is “projection”. The original UN document did.Statistica could have used an appropriate visual device to make clear, on its graphic, which was data and which part is “projection”. The original UN document did.”
Agree completely. It should have also listed what assumptions they made in making the projection.
How is China going to get rid of over half a billion people in just 75 years?
Easy. Old people are going to die and the birth rate isn’t high enough to replace them. About 10 million people die each year in China. That’s 750 million deaths over 75 years. Meanwhile, children will be born, but not enough to replace the 750 million or more who will die, so the projection is an overall decline in population of about 660 million by 2100. Sounds accurate to me.
This comment demonstrates a lack of understanding of demographics. The fertility rate in China has stabilised around 1.7. This is well below the required replacement rate. And the current level is not the direct result of the one child policy. Educated women are less inclined to breed.
China’s life expectancy has been the major driver of population growth over the past few decades. It is now higher than USA and is approaching the best that health care currently offers.
The attached shows how China’s demographic is forecast to change by 2050 based on the fertility rate increasing to replacement level within the next 10 years to level out at 30M females under 5 (currently around 38M under 5) by 2030. If it levels out at 30M females and 30M males in each 5 year bracket by 2100 then the resulting population is around 900M. If the fertility rate remains stubbornly low then it gets closer to 700M
China ended its one child policy in 2016 because it could see the approaching demographic cliff. The authorities are now encouraging women to have three children.
There is risk of China growing old before becoming rich but NetZero policy in the developed world will correct that as it embeds infinite demand for Chinese manufacturing and Africa provides a rich source of young workers for Chinese owned facilities in Africa.
Demographics are their own predictor barring catastrophes because young people grow old and old people die. The population is a sausage machine with babies going in one end and old people coming out the other end.
If the life expectancy is 80 then a stable population will have about 20% of the population under 15 to allow for losses through the sausage machine.
Most developed countries are well under this number. For example Japan:
https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/population-ages-0-14-percent-of-total-wb-data.html
Now down to 11.6%.
China’s child population is collapsing:
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/population-ages-0-14-percent-of-total-wb-data.html
Dropping from 18.4% to 17.2% in the last four years.
India’s children are declining as a proportion of the population:
https://tradingeconomics.com/india/population-ages-0-14-percent-of-total-wb-data.html
But at 24.5% and life expectancy of 70 years, it is just above replacement rate.
The proportion of children in Nigeria is also falling fast:
https://tradingeconomics.com/nigeria/population-ages-0-14-percent-of-total-wb-data.html
Now down to 43% but well above the replacement value of 28% for a life expectancy of 56 years.
The proportion of children in Bangladesh has been declining for a long time:
https://tradingeconomics.com/bangladesh/population-ages-0-14-percent-of-total-wb-data.html
But at 26% it is still above the replacement rate of 21% required for a life expectancy of 74 years.
Rick ==> Your model (the standard used in the world of demographic projection) works as long as the future stays the same as the past — meaning that birth rates do not change much.
But, birth rates do change, as you illustrate. If they can drop, they can increase.
What societies do will be determined by their members — the people in them. There is not a knob that something/someone turns that adjusts the birth rate.
We are speaking of the future, so it is. as always, a case of “we will see”.
Mr. Hansen,
You are correct that the birth rates, or TFR, can change. Historically there are few, if any instances, where they increase dramatically.
The increases in population for the last 150 years are driven predominantly by people living longer and decreases in childhood mortality which change the average lifespan significantly. This link to statistica (completing the circle to your original story)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-all-time-child-mortality-rate/
Shows the decrease in the US over the last ~225 years. If 40% of the kids never see age 5 and therefore never reproduce themselves, even 3 children/female TFR will not replace the original 2 parents. (3 x 0.6 = 1.8 in the next generation). By 1930, this goes down to 10% and this changes the equation to population growth.
Some 1st world countries have tried to increase the birthrate, Japan has been offering I think ~$5000 for a child beyond the first, but it has not moved up.The decreasing TFR has been a more recent phenomena for a number of factors, and they can change going forward. But as people get wealthier, more access to birth control, more women in the workplace etc…there are no examples in my (post 1960) lifetime of an increasing TFR.
No – This is where you lack an understanding of demographics. The future is baked in for the next 80 years or so by the current number of female children barring genocide. For African nations, the foreseeable future is under 80 years but is trending upward.
If there are 10M female infants entering the population sausage machine this year then there will be 10M of those dropping out over the next 80 years. On average, 10M will make it to about 80 years; some less, some more. On average, each of those females will need to produce 2.1 children to sustain the 10M female infants entering each year. Productive window tends to be in the age range 20 to 40 but that is narrowing toward the top end and a contributor to declining fertility.
Some of us will.
This is from a different source (TradeFinanceGlobal.com) but updates the China numbers to 2020 and includes India’s as well. This shows why India is expected/projected to surpass China and widen the population gap in the future.
Barring a change in basic biology, the only humans that can bear children are females in the 15-45 age category. Actual females, not those identifying as one. Looking at the posted chart, in the next 15 years, china loses the females in the 30-34, 35-39 and 40-44 bracket and replaces them with the smaller groups now in the 0-4, 5-9 and 10-14 range. India’s 0-14 female group is bigger than the current 30-44 group.
Most demographic projections are based on number of females of reproductive age (15-45), their Total Fertility Rate (TFR) i.e. number of children they bear in their lifetimes, and the average life expectancy. This does not include any black swan events like people living to 200, women in their 70s being able to bear children, a war/plague/famine that wipes out a significant number of the population etc… going forward. Time, unfortunately, does most of the actual killing here, not the CCP.
I hope the chart is readable. My apologies if it is not
Rico Suave ==> All good data — but the real world operates on real people and real people do what they do. Third World countries, particularly, have very high birthrates, which are expected only to increase.
Of course, it is not enough for a nation to implement a new policy, the people themselves have to change their behavior as a society.
Mr. Hansen,
You are correct, but the third world birth rates are trending down as well, although still higher than “developed” countries. This simply shows that even though India and China have essentially equivalent populations at the present time, India has far more females in the 15-45 category, and this will only increase in the future. The 0-14 Years Old (YO) are all real, no models or projections, and, not including immigration or emigration, give an upper bound on the population of the 15-45 YO female 15 years from now.
While projecting current trends into the future is always riddled with assumptions, demographics is actually a fairly simple equation:
Births (15-45 YO Females * TFR) – Deaths for a given generation.
Yes, this is all based on assumptions of what real people will do, and I have learned never to make any long lasting assumptions about that. But it is a fairly straightforward equation with a limited number of variables (even if there is a lot that feeds into those variables). At the core it’s not a complex system, like trying to accurately model the climate in 75 years…that would be pure hubris.
The birth rates in the third world are higher than in the west, however those rates are dropping fast and have been for decades.
I don’t know anyone who is predicting that birth rates in the third world will increase.
Once the MSM convinced the people that modeling was superior to historical and contemporary meteorological data they won the opinions. With the ‘facts’ dwindling every year that will be harder and harder to gain traction. How much longer do we have to wait?
A bit long but a story tip
Is it an issue that the US is sinking from rank-3 to rank-6 by 2100? Does it mean the US will be less influential, that will have more ‘enemies’ to contend with; or just what? The graph is also blind to the huge numbers of Chinese who don’t live in China, but still regard China as their reference. China’s penetration and influence across Australia’s education, university and services sectors including communications, surveillance, energy and construction is an on-going source of anxiety for instance.
Although seemingly an aside, several weeks ago the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) released the draft Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 (the Bill) for public comment. (https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/have-your-say/new-acma-powers-combat-misinformation-and-disinformation).
Background documents relating to the Bill were contracted-out to the News and Media Research Centre (N&MRC) at the University of Canberra (UC), and the consultancy We Are Social.
According to its website, N&MRC teaches prospective journalists how “to communicate the stories of people” and how “to shape the way we communicate”. We Are Social gloatingly self-badge as “a global socially-led creative agency with unrivalled social media expertise”. All good, except that they are a Chinese outfit owned by the BlueFocus Communication Group, who say on their website that their “strategic thinking is based not only on audience and category, but cultural conversation”. They are probably good at focus groups and fact-bending.
So, a bunch of storytellers and data shapers at the University of Canberra, and a Chinese outfit that specialises in cultural conversations are advising the Australian government on Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation, which if passed will have global implications. Despite the First Amendment to US Constitution, the custodian of truth will be ACMA and they will be empowered to turn-the-screws and gradually squash freedom of speech, including political speech deemed by them as capable of causing harm. So, hold that for a moment.
To the Figure: Does Statistica really Empower… people with data? Or does it empower the data-people at Statistica to tell stories and shape impressions using data? Having flicked through their website I suggest the latter.
They (the UN) say “For India, which is currently expected to continue growing until the 2060s, its new position as the world’s most populous country will come with a new set of challenges, both domestically and internationally …. blah, blah”
Then: “This demographic shift at the global level will require new approaches to managing resources, promoting sustainable development, and addressing issues such as poverty, inequality and access to healthcare and education.” Just who will do that?
Synthesis (I am no conspiracist but ….)
Draconian legislation before the Australian Parliament will profoundly restrict freedom of speech across most online media platforms accessible within Australia. This may impact on WUWT. However, the laws will not restrict the ability of governments to conduct misinformation and disinformation campaigns against citizens, the climate scare being an obvious one. Previously in Paris, nations signed-away their sovereign rights somehow ridiculously in a bid to control the climate. Consequently seriously disturbed kiddies go berserk by tossing stuff on works of art and gluing themselves to roads. Some have been elected to parliament to represent the Greens. Meanwhile, over at Davos, the World Economic Forum marches in lockstep with Paris, the IPCC and the UN. WEF has also embedded many of their followers as ‘leaders’: Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, Scott Morrison and other elites in Australia, Justin Trudeau in Canada, Christine Lagarde Etc.
Elsewhere, Tucker Carson got the boot from Fox and Trump’s in trouble again. With La Niña waning they are colouring the northern hemisphere a murky red. Firefighters are being sent from OZ to Canada to help put the fires out. The west is still aiding and abetting war in the Ukraine (where they grow wheat for much of the Middle East). They found cocaine at the White House … but nobody’s nose knows. Under the guise of The Voice, a mystical racial/identity battle with communist overtones is ramping-up in Australia. What else can possibly go wrong. Oh … wait, despite the warming having stopped it by 2000, it is still snowing over Kosciusko like its winter. People are lining up at Perisher and Thredbo hoping for a run. Meanwhile Florence the Snowy 2.0 borer is still bogged deep under the mountains. According to the Bureau of Meteorology it did or didn’t rain, we are in for a record this or that. Electricity prices have just increased 25%, there are not enough baristas, and commonwealth public servants can work from home 100% of the time if they want!
Something is ramping-up again. The key-words are global, new approaches, managing, sustainable development, poverty, inequality and access (read justice). The missing phrase is ‘using other people’s money’ of which there seems an endless supply.
There has been no change in the climate, no warming trends in 300 or-so, long and medium-term temperature datasets from across Australia (some of which have been reported-on at http://www.bomwatch.com.au) and sea surface temperature along the Great Barrier Reef is the same as it was 150-years ago (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/08/26/great-barrier-reef-sea-surface-temperature-no-change-in-150-years/). Nevertheless, the whole world has just experienced the hottest day, week, weekend, Monday, month, and everything, evah! Stuck in his groove McKibben still wants action (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/12/bill-mckibben-is-it-hot-enough-yet-for-politicians-to-take-real-action/)! There must be another COP around the corner!
Now they own the universities and the activists, crushing freedom of speech and freedom to speak is next on the elitists’ list. (I wonder if the ACMA can muck with the US elections?)
All the best,
Dr. Bill Johnston
I can’t give the specific example anymore, but I recall that Statista provided misleading information about Covid-19 that was achieved by truncation of data.
This is a standard way of lying by means of partial truth.
China’s population TODAY is probably just under 1 Billion. Yes. Under 1 Billion people.
Lots of independent lines of evidence strongly suggest China’s real population is around 995 Million +/- 7 million people now in 2023.
Beijing’s CCP has been provided fraudulent numbers for over 25 years on their population from the provincial capitals. The rigidly enforced one-child policy devastated the Demographic balance and has now hollowed out China demographics for the under 30 year old cohorts. There has never been in the history of human civilizations such a huge demographic imbalance as what now exists in China, exclusively due to the 1-Child Policy from 1979 to 2015. And adding insult to that injury, the male-female ratio in the under 30 cohorts is around 1.1 to 1.0, meaning there are 10’s of millions of Chinese men in their 20’s who have NO hope of finding a Chinese woman to marry and raise a family, so this demographic collapse will be self-reinforcing on China. This has devastating consequences for Chinese domestic consumption over the next 30 years.
Combined with the 2021-2022 COVID shutdown-lockdown shocks to the economy and now the energy and food supply disruptions from the Ukraine, it means this all coming to head now in a real collapse. An epic collapse is now on-going with skyrocketing unemployment shaking the countries urban cities.
Making the matters even far worse was the 1 July 2023 imposition of a new Chinese Espinoage Laws that criminalizes foreigners (read businessmen and women) trying to collect data on Chinese business and economic activity. This has accelerated the already fleeing Western capital and investments in China. Foxconn, employing over 100,000 in Shenzen alone, began pulling out all its Apple product production line equipment right after the Chinese New Year. Shenzen is now a ghost town, wioth all the supporting businesses shuttered, Shanghai port is now going days without a single container ship leaving, down over 90% from 2019. Everyone who can is getting out, and even leaving sunk cost capital behind to save themselves from Chinese CCP authoritarian crackdowns and arrests of foreigners.
There were huge incentives for the provinces to continually over-report their school-age child numbers each year to Beijing in order to secure additional National-level education funding. Beijing really has no idea how many people there are now in China, but it is certainly not anywhere close to 1.3 Billion people.
China is in full scale demographic and economic collapse RIGHT NOW. As we speak and breathe China is collapsing economically. It’s real estate problems means banks are frozen up with bad loans, which meamns they cannot make whole their depositers. Which means all those unfinished apartments that were sold are simply empty concrete shells that can never be sold much less be valued at anything close to what the mrtgage is. The buyers are walking away now by the millions. The banks are zombies. No money. Bad loans far exceeding the deposits that funded them. Chinese real estate has been for 23 years a huge pyramid scheme, it is now collapsing as the music has stopped and everyone in China is naked as the tide goes out.
This is the China, we are assured by western governments, with ambitions to colonise and communise the whole world.
As Col. Douglas MacGregor (Retired) describes it, Xi wakes up every morning wondering how he can feed 1.3 (0.995) billion people. (paraphrasing)
It appears to me Biden wakes up every morning wondering how he can kill 1.3 billion people.
Xi does NOT wake up every morning wondering how to feed a billion of his people. Xi wakes up every morning wondering how he and the CCP are going to hold on to power in the coming social unrest as half a billion of his people starve.
That’s what I said……
My problem with most of these projections is that the uncertainty, even if included, is seldom shown as increasing as you progress into the future.
Uncertainty compounds with each time increment because it carries forward and is added to the error in the following increment.
I can envision government policies that would encourage multiple children for each women. Or, encourage immigration. Who knows? That is uncertainty.
“My problem with most of these projections is that the uncertainty, even if included, is seldom shown as increasing as you progress into the future.”
Every one of the UN projections show uncertainty increasing as you progress into the future.
Bellman ==> Not sure they show increasing uncertainty — they do show an ever-widening range in the projections.
Which is not the same.
They show an ever-widening range in projections, but not increasing uncertainty?
Bellman ==> Not arguing — just stating that when models produce a fan-shaped array of projections, it may just be evidence that input parameters are adjustable/adjusted repeatedly, non-linearity in the system under investigation, the model is being used to test differing scenarios which results in the fan-shape, etc.
Certainly, WE are left uncertain…but each run of the model has its own real uncertainty…which may be as wide as the over all fan-shape. Look at any one of the gray model run results….what is its uncertainty?
Your explanation is right on!
The range of projections shows what happens with a different set of unique assumptions for each projection. It assumes each projection is 100% accurate for the time period.
Uncertainty is what occurs within each projection as time is increased. It is usually tested by doing a sensitivity analysis on different components.
You still haven’t learned what uncertainty is.
How predictable. The goalposts move.
You said the uncertainty in the projections didn’t increase with time, which demonstrated the models must be wrong. Then as soon as it’s shown that the models do show increasing uncertainty, the argument changes to it being the wrong sort of uncertainty.
“The range of projections shows what happens with a different set of unique assumptions for each projection. It assumes each projection is 100% accurate for the time period.”
I don’t think that’s what these models are doing. It seems to me from the description, these are about random fluctuations during the run. Only the upper and lower limits are based on a deterministic change, i.e. increasing or decreasing the birth rate by 0.5 children per family.
“Uncertainty is what occurs within each projection as time is increased”
You seem to be very certain that this isn’t done, so presumably you’ve examined the model.
But as far as I can see these are projections based on probabilistic birth and death rates. Trying to factor in all possiblities is not the point. It’s not trying to predict what will actually happen over the next 75 years, it’s saying if things continue as might be expected, this is the realistic range of possibilities.
“these are about random fluctuations during the run”
To clarify that a bit, each run chooses a number of random trajectories for thing like birth rate from a distribution, and then during the run has random fluctuations along the run.
Look closely at the graph containing the projections. I have attached it.
Do you honestly see any “random fluctuations” in the projected values?
If they are there, these old eyes can’t see them!
That’s not a graph of population, but of life expectancy, and I don’t know where it’s from. It only appears to be showing average values for different regions. And it’s far to small for my old eyes to make out much detail.
Here’s the graph for life expectancy for China, showing different model runs, the ones used for the probabilistic population models. I see a lot of random fluctuations in the gray lines – that is the individual runs.
It is very disappointing that somebody who writes on a science blog (Kip Hansen) can be so utterly clueless about demographics that he thinks China needs to “disappear” 700 million people in order to reach that low UN projection. If you can’t understand what TFR is, if you can’t understand the difference between birthrates and deathrates, then you have no business doing any kind of quantitative analysis whatsoever. Maybe get Willis to explain it to you.
Intelligent Dasein ==> I generally don’t respond to personal attacks, and althought I’m feeling a bit grumpy today, I’m going to stick to that policy.
The attack was unwarranted and I can see why you are grumpy. Your original points about the future predictions not being distinguished from known data and the lack of uncertainty are spot on. The sole disagreement, which I have been a part of, is the complexity of the system.
Peace.
Rico ==> Yes, the very idea of population dynamics is complicated, complex, and perhaps chaotic.
Total Fertility Rate is a measured effect and cannot be claimed or used as a cause.
I am not claiming it is a cause. I am not claiming the projections are data either. Your original article is correct, they were treated as data when they should have been differentiated as projections. TFR is measured , but it can be used to propagate forward when assumptions are listed.
Your statement that kicked this particular thread of the discussion off was “How is China going to get rid of over half a billion people in just 75 years?”. The attempted rebuttals are summarized simply as, China doesn’t need to. Time will eliminate everyone alive today. The population in the future will be the replacements produced by those alive today.
Interesting piece, Kip. The first thing that jumped out at me was DRC, Nigeria, Pakistan, etc and their projected populations and the thought of “what supports that population?”
People do not just increase in number exponentially except in rare circumstances of a current population so far below carrying capacity that no consideration of such is needed. The carrying capacity is not a fixed number, it changes with technology and climate, but there is a social component too. At some point it becomes not culturally/socially acceptable to have 13 children. But there is a carrying capacity that changes the exponential growth into something more like a logistic curve.
Do not apologize for bringing up this issue, Kip, because it is of overwhelming importance and there seems to be no way to get it into the heads of the general public except by endless repetition.
Unless a real or complex number is a constant value of some type (say 2 or pi), that number has likely been derived from calculations or measurements and has three important components — an estimated best value, an associated uncertainty, and units of measure. The meaning a person attaches to this number is very murky and perhaps meaningless unless one knows all three components.
Kevin ==> Bellman dug out the actual UN projection, with the usual “fan shape” widening projection into the future. This is probably not real uncertainty — but just the usual variable model parameters problem. They input “what if TFR is 1.9?” and then “what if we use 1.8?” etc. They are simply modeling future possibilities.
Hard to state why that isn’t uncertainty — but it isn’t. Briggs wrote a very fine and very long book on the topic.
That is not the real uncertainty — that is just adjusting input parameters and seeing what happens. That kind of modeling doesn’t produce any kind of actionable information. Informative, but not actionable — unless one has the ability to change the parameters in he real world.
China did change the birthrate through its draconian one-child policy. It can change it again in the other direction — while it can’t actually force women to have children, in a tightly controlled society, it can make it in women’s best interest to have more children.
I’m old enough to be a boomer. I don’t know what people think that is, but it was a period of high birth rate. It can happen again. We can not, or at least I can not, forsee the future.
I suspect millennials, gen X, & gen Z will realize that birth rates must increase drastically if they expect future generations to support them in old age. The government borrowing money just isn’t sustainable, to use a buzzword.
Do I know what might change social convention? Again I can not forsee the future. However, I can envision any number of policies that could do so, some may be good, some bad, but things can change. Here is one, substantial lifetime payments per child. When and where I grew up, it was not unusual to have 3 or 4 children. It can happen again.
The one-child policy gave China a severe shortage of women of child-bearing age. That limits their birthrate. The next generation will be 50% female again, but it’s going to be small because of the shortage of child-bearing women. This constriction in the pipeline will begin to ease in a couple more decades, but until then, the only way the Chinese government could increase the birthrate much would be to import at least a hundred million young women.
China does not have the wealth to go shopping for brides around the world. Are they going to try to conquer their neighbors and steal their women? And could they accept so many foreign women and half-foreign children into their society?
From the UN projections I can conclude that by 2100
check out Deagles charts for pop futures
theyre almost ALL rather large drops
at first I chuckled, but after aus had 18k over avg deaths recorded so far for the year they may well be correct as to the large drop for us
course its a total mystery why? theres so many unexplained deaths but its not the vaccines ok..they assure us of that (uh huh)