Demographic Winter

Here in Spangle we are seeing the first hints of spring. I have pussy willow trees in my backyard and just this last week saw the first hints of fluffy buds. Several cut stems are now blooming in my living room where I can really enjoy their beauty. We have had two days this week of such pleasant, sunny weather that I have been able to take Grant outside without having to bundle us up first.
It is always wonderful to see the signs of the changing seasons, and when winter's grip loosens and spring begins to spread its new life and growth all over the world, new joy fills my heart.

Yet, in countries all over the world, a different kind of winter is just settling in. In some countries, like ours, it has not yet arrived, but is coming as surely as the spring is coming to the northern hemisphere. Chances are you haven't heard of it, or even suspected its existence. It is a demographic winter, and all our lives will be different because of it.

I won't go into too much detail here because I don't want to steal the thunder of the people who spent so much time and money on the documentary, but I want to get you curious so you will start thinking and choose to go to YouTube and see for yourself.

Here's a little information to get you started: 
Concisely, demography is the study of population growth and decline. Demographers look at long term trends and run all their little statistical algorithms and plot what our population will look like in the future. An important demographical concept is replacement fertility rate, the rate at which we must reproduce ourselves in order to maintain our current population. For every two people, 2.1 more people must be born in order to keep the population stable. The 0.1 is to take into account the possibility that a person will die before reproducing himself.
Nearly all Western countries currently have sub-replacement fertility. You might think this is a good thing. After all, isn't the world over-populated? I used to think so, too. This first clip is a very succinct and somewhat humorous introduction to the overpopulation myth. Next is the trailer to the documentary that helps to explain it all. Think it over!





Watch the whole documentary here.