Population
The following are useful resources: youtube videos, powerpoints and articles. I may have already showed some of them in class.
Open this document to find various links (youtube)
For URLs to help with population pyramids and material for assignment, use this
For other links, especially useful for group assignment, this document
Powerpoints:
Demographic Transition or Fertility Transition
Population research/presentation assignment: Here it is
Guide to good Powerpoints
dos and don’ts for a good powerpoint presentation (Killing students with powerpoint)
And here’s an article about Bad ppt presentations at scence conferences: http://www.desmogblog.com/want-improve-science-communication-start-bad-powerpoint-habits
Test review: Format and material to review
Canada and World Issues 
September 26, 2010 at 2:48 am |
Hey guys, I’ve been reading alot of these articles about controlling our world’s population and I know it has to be done, but there would be alot of new problems we would have to face. For example, if a certain country does not want to take part in these actions, it could cause dispute between nations and wars could breakout.
Another problem I was thinking of had to do with illegally born kids. For example, If a family in China had 2 kids, they would be punished by their government but for poorer nations or countries with less will power, these sort of laws would not be enforced.
I know these laws are the last resort for some countries but for nations like Canada, there is no need for these ideas. We have no reason to cut back population because of our sustainable supply of resources, so why should take part in the conversation of controlling our world’s population?
September 27, 2010 at 1:39 am |
Interesting point. As you say, it’s difficult to enforce, certainly on an international level. If they can’t enforce targets on reducing CO2 emissions, how could they do it for population
September 27, 2010 at 5:44 pm |
I saw this thing on the news yesterday that this law professor in China recently got fired because he refused to pay the fine the government demanded for having a second child.
And it went on to talking about how the rich will “pay” for more kids, and the poor just can’t afford to pay for a second child. So this whole population control thing is turning into a economic gap issue.
September 27, 2010 at 5:47 pm |
I was just wondering…
If we really needed to control population, letting a war break out could help solve that problem. Alan mentioned earlier that a country refusing to take part in population control could cause disputes or wars between other nations. If a war did start between multiple nations population would still go down.
Whether they agree or disagree, the end result is still population control. I remember reading articles about how WWI, WWII, the spanish flu, black death, etc…they all contributed to population control, if nothing else.
October 15, 2010 at 3:32 am |
That is a good point but now days, we have weapons of mass destruction, and I`m not looking forward to seeing what happens if a certain country uses one.
November 9, 2010 at 2:04 am |
That is certainly a way of population control, but I am sure there are much better and more efficient ways without killing mass amounts of innocent people trying to serve their country. A basic knowledge of contreceptions in places such as the poorer parts of India can easily help reduce the amount of children per family.
September 28, 2010 at 1:23 am |
@Aaron: isn’t that basically part of the Malthusian theory where he supposed “negative checks” like war, famine or disease would eventually develop to counteract population growth? Anyway, I still think there must be some moral problem in starting a war for the express purpose of killing people off…
September 28, 2010 at 4:25 pm |
There is a moral problem but it has no place in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. If the main point was to lower the population the ‘negative checks’ are the best. You don’t need to start a war or spread disease for the sole purpose of killing people but when it happens, people die (and therefore you have population control).
I guess that kind of stuff works better when there are no rights, freedom, or democracy.
September 28, 2010 at 4:25 pm |
Edit: There shouldn’t be a comma before “or democracy”
September 29, 2010 at 5:47 am |
Um, well, though I do agree that Malthus has a point to certain extent (I mean, wars and other disasters don’t help populations grow), but letting a war break out solely because the population has to be controlled seems ridiculous to me.
It’s almost like letting a deadly flu virus spread all over the world (without vaccine, of course) because that would kill enough people to reduce the population.
All in all… seeing wars as a population control method is very… disturbing. I mean, if the people who are dying because of wars are those who we wish were dead anyway for the sanity of everyone else on the planet, that wouldn’t matter as much. But oftentimes, people who suffer the most because of wars are civilians – innocent ones who really don’t want to die.
I swear, Malthus probably was a bitter defeatist who just couldn’t accept any less violent approach to population control. … Just saying.
September 29, 2010 at 2:49 pm |
I wonder if his theory would still be true in today’s world. With the technology and globalization that we have now, isn’t it true that we won’t let war break out so easily? Also disease that can actually take out a whole swath of the population will be less likely because of advances in medicine and health care. Maybe our world isn’t developing those negative checks as Malthus predicted anymore because of how we’ve advanced, and the onus is on us to take responsibility and figure out realistic ways to control the population.
September 30, 2010 at 11:03 pm |
Hey guys, so i found this good website for anyone else who is doing Algeria. it relates to women who are taking birth control.
i found out that birth control started in 1980, which was a while ago.
its interesting how soon they found birth control for women in algeria. Algeria is known now only to have 1.76 kids per women, which is really low for Algeria.
September 30, 2010 at 11:11 pm |
I also wanted to add to what Justina said about how now a days people are making more realistic choices on how to control population.
war is not a way to control population, thats forsure.
Medicine to the limits can control population, but i still believe that medicine cant 100% cure someone.
so justina is definitely right about how now a days we have more realistic ways of controling the population.
October 1, 2010 at 2:27 am |
I feel that while war conducted deliberately with the intent being population control isn’t the right way (morally and logistically), wars as a “natural” check on the population does make some sense. In reference, to Mr.Heffernan’s watering hole quote, as there are less resources the more intense competition (war) is for them. Of course, these wars wouldn’t be deliberately done for the sake of population control.
October 2, 2010 at 7:17 pm |
One interesting thing is that Malthus spoke of those “negative checks” as though they would simply bloom on their own out of nowhere, as though the world will take a look as itself and think “I’m overpopulated” and bring into being famines and wars to counteract it. We speak of population control like it is just a decision we have to make, a process we have to undergo, and we decide the fate of the world. Doesn’t that make you question how much control humans have over the world as a whole? Where do diseases like AIDS or avian flu come from? Nobody sat at a desk one day and decided, “Oh, let’s make this spread around and see if it affects the population.” Is there some kind of fate that we are doomed to no matter how we try to right the wrongs of humanity and bring every aspect of natural life into control?
October 3, 2010 at 3:34 am |
Brandon sent me this video link. it’s good – lasts about 8 mins. It covers population, poverty and the economics of food – a sort of World Issues primer. Can someone show Brandon how to post stuff on here directly? Let’s cut out the middle man.
http://www.vimeo.com/hd#8812686
October 3, 2010 at 9:16 pm |
Here;s a good site for population terms and analysis:
http://www.design4effect.com/soc11/pop.htm
October 3, 2010 at 10:04 pm |
Usually the most effective methods are the most disturbing ones.
Regardless, Justina mentioned how we’ve advanced, which may help to combat these, ‘negative checks.’ In that case, we’re going to have to find a different solution to population control, one that’s usually much more costly, inefficient, slow, and ensures all of mans’ rights are guaranteed.
Besides that, we would never know if there was a man sitting behind a desk, committing atrocities in the shadows…I’m not the type to believe things like that, but aren’t they just like conspiracy theories? And we all know there are many people who believe in conspiracy theories, even if they are absurd.
October 4, 2010 at 10:54 pm |
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/newsfeatures/article/870280–canada-s-typical-family-shows-married-couples-with-kids-in-the-minority-report
Hey guys. I read this and thought it relates to what we’re learning in class. Its about couples not being able to have kids, due to their busy lives and expensive living costs in Canada.
Check it out 🙂
October 5, 2010 at 1:31 am |
@Justina: Where diseases come from is one thing, and how wars are started is another. The modern wars of our era (Iraq, Afghanistan and the whole lot) have mostly been a result of a search for a very precious natural resource: oil. They weren’t exactly concocted by some nutcase shut up on his own in his dimly lit study, but they were manufactured. The link between the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq is flimsy at best, non-existent at worst. Basically what I’m saying is conflict flares not because of a desire to lower the human population (which is nevertheless decimated by such wars) but rather by a desire to gain something- be it oil, land or otherwise. As for diseases, it seems that the more advanced our civilization becomes, the more diseases it has to deal with. The more vaccines doctors come up with, the more diseases appear. It’s not so much a conscious human reaction to overpopulation as it is a natural course of events.
October 5, 2010 at 10:12 pm |
Mr Heffernan, DaYoung and I were looking through our stuff for tomorrow and I think you might have collected our sheet on the acronyms. Would we still have to know it in detail for the test?
October 5, 2010 at 10:46 pm |
@ Deena
Thorough explanation of the war stuff there (;
I just wanted to add to the disease stuff.
It’s really funny/sad that if we get rid of one disease (e.g. black plague), some other disease appears (e.g. AIDS). It’s probably because viruses change with our immune system. I mean, unfortunately, viruses have to keep evolving so that they can survive as well – which is why there’s still no cure for AIDS: the virus changes too quickly for vaccines to affect it.
And yeah, agreed that it’s a natural course of events. The saying “sh*t happens” didn’t come from nowhere, you know 😛
October 6, 2010 at 1:13 pm |
In response to what Aaron said, about starting a war to control the population. That is a stupid idea, because that could lead to more than just fighting, and killing. Also, allowing people to fight each other is not a good thing, would you like to be conscripted to go and fight in some random war that came about just to control population. Some ways to control the population effectivly would be to be a cap on the amount of children families can have. Or other effective means rather than making people go and kill each other.
October 6, 2010 at 1:24 pm |
I agree with Stefan’s comment. Aaron I understand that you’re brainstorming and that you were just thinking of a solution, but war is definetly not a good solution. Nobody likes wars, also in a war you you need to use even more resources to support the armies. That defeats the whole purpose of decreasing the population because the reason we need to decrease the population is because we are running out of resources. A solution would be something similar to China’s one-child policy, I know it would start more issues but sooner or later we need to act instead of just thinking of solutions. The one-child policy is something that is already in affect and realistically will help to decrease China’s massive population.
November 9, 2010 at 2:50 am |
I understand where you’re coming from Aaron but it’s kinda scary. 😛 Maybe more subtle ideas would be more effective and may be easier to adapt and accept.
October 6, 2010 at 10:14 pm |
Speaking of the one-child policy, did anybody else read that “happy two child” article and think it was really interesting? I really think that population policies depend on the government’s ability to see the needs of their people. It’s definitely cool to see that when all is said and done, freedom makes everything run more smoothly. People might have just rebelled against the one-child policy because they felt restricted, because when they were given a choice many still chose to have just one. Granted, the one-child policy did have a great effect in slowing down the population growth a bit, but maybe it’s time to grow from that experience and be open to different policies?
October 7, 2010 at 3:52 am |
Hi all,
I found this interesting video about “WHY I AM A WEEKDAY VEGETARIAN”
It reminds me of what we have been talking about in the class – being a vegetarian will have better impact on global warming. The lady came to speak yesterday talked about the same issue as well.
This video is worth to wathc. It much better than the presentation yesterday. It really short as well.
October 8, 2010 at 12:44 am |
Cool video, Definitely talked more about the impact on global warming.
so much better than the presentation we had.
October 8, 2010 at 1:07 am |
First of all, Stefan, you may want edit your point slightly. Secondly, I didn’t say you should start a war for the sole purpose of killing. I just said if one happened you’d get the same end result of population control.
To quote:
“If we really needed to control population, letting a war break out could help solve that problem.”
You don’t need to be doing anything to be doing enough. Along with that, it’s not your choice whether you are conscripted or not. The fact is, nothing is “what you would like.” You can like something, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be getting what you want.
October 17, 2010 at 5:51 pm |
Hey everyone
http://www.globalissues.org/
This site covers various global issues that exist in this world and I was able to get topic ideas from the list of issues they provided.
Click on the issues button on the bar and you can see all the issues in alphabetical order and if you click on a topic, there are articles relating to that problem.
I think this site will be a useful tool for this particular course. Thanks to Maythe for telling me about it!
November 9, 2010 at 2:48 am |
Thanks for this post. It covers virtually everything involved with world issues. Biodiversity, causes of poverty, consumption and consumerism, corporations, economic trade, and environmental issues. Those are the ones I went over. I like how thorough all the facts are. Alex I think you should check it out, the question you asked me about consumption is covered and goes in to alot of detail!
October 18, 2010 at 11:12 pm |
@Aaron: I think the point Stefan was trying to make is that warfare for the point of population control is pointless. And he was just adding to what Sean said about war itself being costly and useless. I agree with both of them.
In any case, population control is a problem the whole world is going to have to deal with. Like Sean and Stefan said, putting a cap on the amount of children per couple would be an effective way of stopping the exponential growth we are currently experiencing. However, this should only be used as a temporary remedy. As we have seen from all the videos and articles, the only way to really curb population growth on the long run is to educate women. Leaving something as important as the world’s population to chance, to random epidemics or endless wars seems like a pretty dangerous idea.
November 9, 2010 at 2:40 am |
I agree with you Deena. I believe that knowledge and education is the basic gap that exists between the rich and the poor, the LDC and DC. If the poor were able to receive adequate information about the types of contraceptives etc that are available it could already greatly influence population. In return people are growing in knowledge and also working for a better future in mind.
November 9, 2010 at 2:16 am |
I honestly believe in other populous places such as India, seeing such positive results of the One Child Policy, implemented by China, could really has beneficiary results. The Indian population would also benefit, because a lot of women living in poverty are having children because of their lack of knowledge about contraception. I believe implementing this policy in India would benefit poorer families, because they would suffer less trying to feed a large family. They would not be well of, but better off having to feed only one child if they are living in poverty.
November 9, 2010 at 2:32 am |
Here’s a video regarding China’s One child Policy
The High Cost of China’s One-Child Policy is described and a quote by Mao Zedong, “Population growth is a means of killing off the chinese people without shedding blood.” This is a powerful and intense statement and sheds light on how this situation is crutial to control.
November 9, 2010 at 3:40 am |
Just for the sake of background info, Mao also started a cultural revolution that killed millions of Chinese people and persecuted millions of others. Yes, there are both benefits and drawbacks to the one-child policy, but I personally have trouble coming to terms with the fact that he should be quoted for talking about killing off his own people.
November 10, 2010 at 2:51 am |
I think that we should be dealing with other issues in the world such as the environment and that the population is a major issue. However if we dont deal with the environment the population will suffer.
January 21, 2011 at 8:49 pm |
Are these ppts/videos going to be featured in the Population section of the exam?
February 21, 2012 at 1:30 am |
The more often an area’s population doubles the lower the GNP becomes for the most part according to the two different maps. Population growth doesn’t do anyone good it seems.