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

<p><span class="s1">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.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">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.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">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.”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">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.</span></p> <p class="p1"><strong><br /> MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:</strong></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s2"><em>China’s Population Can Still Prosper</em> - by Catherine Bowen and Vegard Skirbekk<br /> <a href= "https://www.wired.com/story/china-fertility-population-decline-demography-economics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span class= "s3">https://www.wired.com/story/china-fertility-population-decline-demography-economics/</span></a></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1"><em>Mainstream Media Blindness to China’s Depopulation Dividend</em> -