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Last Thursday, I was humming along confident in my world view that the declining birthrates among industrialized nations is at least one positive trend towards environmental sustainability when, suddenly, the New York Times published an article plainly intent on disabusing me of such a naive notion. The headline quickly set the tone: “Empty Maternity Wards Imperil a Dwindling Germany.”
Viewed through the lens of hospitals scrambling for maternity business, the story charts the declining birthrate in Germany and the “problems” this demographic shift presents. The second sentence gives you the gist:
“Empty baby beds are lined up against a wall like rental cars in an airport parking lot.”
In short, the German infrastructure is predicated on constant population growth with no other viable solutions to care for its elderly, according to the reporting of the New York Times.
Then, the article truly shows its hand:
“Mr. Schirrmacher and other commentators conjure up a sort of reverse Malthusian nightmare: Germany as a land of predominantly geriatric towns and cities set in a deserted, creeping countryside.”
Really? Evidently, one author’s “creeping countryside” is another’s “nature on the mend.” Addressing overpopulation on a global scale strikes me as one industrialized, trickle down mandate that has the potential to bode well for all species involved.
Humans, no matter how much the thought might make us bristle, remain part of nature. The declining birthrates seen not just in Germany but throughout the developed world represent an organically arising corrective to a system in stress.
In evolutionary terms, it marks an adaptive response to an unsustainable variety of consumption. That this demographic transformation contains at least an element of volitional choice (as well as sacrifice) is a stirring example of conscious evolution.
The Germans quoted in the the Times, however, not only failed to herald the environmentally aware choices of their national community, they burned the brand of guilt across the conscientious:
“ ‘They want their houses, they want their cars, they want their peace,’ she said, apologizing to her German roommate...“ ‘It is partly selfishness,’ Mr. Schönhoff agreed. ’They want a Mercedes, and it costs so much that they can't afford a child.’ ”
This accusation on page four while, three pages later, this appears.
Indisputably, Germany and all the many countries facing a future of aging populations with shrinking pools of younger workers have two monumental problems: national identity and maintaining economic responsibility for social systems. However, the need to reduce our collective ecological footprint, may begin altering - by necessity - long-accepted national structures.
With the population of the world at large continuing to grow and the upheavals headed our way courtesy of overpopulation’s global warming (to say nothing of the end of oil), these declining birthrates in certain enclaves of excessive consumption represent a budding solution to what ails us rather than the fearful cause of angst propagated by the New York Times.
Generating political imagination to redefine what it is to be “German,” “Italian,” “Spanish,” etc. while further opening borders to younger immigrants is one method by which world population can come into greater balance. Additional and more comprehensive solutions to what lies ahead can be found in the Earth Policy Institute’s book, Plan B and, interactively, at Conservation Economy.
In sum, make love not war and practice birth control.
Posted by mark at November 22, 2004 04:43 AM