77 Fact-Checking News of China’s “Demographic Crisis”

GrowthBusters

The news that China’s massive population dropped by nearly a million people last year was almost universally reported as a “crisis.” In this episode we unpack the news coverage and take journalists to task for completely overlooking the fact that, in an overpopulated world, population contraction should be greeted with a collective sigh of relief.

The population news was accompanied by an announcement that China’s economy grew by only three percent, less than half the previous year’s 8.1 percent. This, too, was reported as bad news for China. Of course, obsession with GDP growth is what’s driving China’s recently-found determination to convince its citizens to start birthing more laborers. And globally the GDP growth fetish is killing the planet.

Dave explains how China’s efforts to keep its population growing are an effort to perpetuate a Ponzi scheme, and this is not the behavior of a good global citizen. “We need to make one-child families the norm, for the next hundred years, if we want those children to have any shot at a decent life.”

We give special attention to the reporting of Steve Inskeep on NPR’s Morning Edition, as well as Geoff Bennett of PBS NewsHour. These journalists should have a much more comprehensive understanding of limits to growth and the unsustainability of perpetual economic and population growth.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

China’s Population Can Still Prosper - by Catherine Bowen and Vegard Skirbekk https://www.wired.com/story/china-fertility-population-decline-demography-economics/

Mainstream Media Blindness to China’s Depopulation Dividend - by Jon Austen, in our Ending Overshoot publication on Medium https://medium.com/ending-overshoot/mainstream-media-blindness-to-chinas-depopulation-dividend-419e708e460

Now Here’s What We Call an Eco-Superhero - Episode 76 of the GrowthBusters podcast https://www.growthbusters.org/eco-superhero/

Join the GrowthBusters online community https://growthbusters.groups.io/

GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth – free on YouTube https://youtu.be/_w0LiBsVFBo

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The GrowthBusters theme song was written and produced by Jake Fader and sung by Carlos Jones. https://www.fadermusicandsound.com/ https://carlosjones.com/

On the GrowthBusters podcast, we come to terms with the limits to growth, explore the joy of sustainable living, and provide a recovery program from our society’s growth addiction (economic/consumption and population). This podcast is part of the GrowthBusters project to raise awareness of overshoot and end our culture’s obsession with, and pursuit of, growth.

Dave Gardner directed the documentary GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth, which Stanford Biologist Paul Ehrlich declared “could be the most important film ever made.” Co-host, and self-described "energy nerd," Stephanie Gardner has degrees in Environmental Studies and Environmental Law & Policy.

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