this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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It's not unsustainable, it's below the replacement rate. Even if it were slightly above, China has proven to be more than capable of increasing everyone's quality of life while managing a rising population.
That's about 0.5% growth of the national population, or 5 births per thousand people. Less than a third of the global average of 18 births per thousand. Put into that perspective, it's really quite small.
Replacement rate for people or resources? Because people are extracting resources at way higher rates than they’re being replaced.
Replacement rate for people.
Unsustainable resource extraction rates is another problem that nations like China are working hard to mitigate. In general, unsustainable consumption is a problem inherent to capitalism and the ways it distributes resources and rewards waste.
It must also be said that Malthusianism was never meant to be an accurate theory of the relationship between population and resource use, and has never made an accurate prediction of reality.