The peoples of almost all countries of the European continent and the Far East are clearly aging, which makes them shrink and gradually disappear.
In his report, published in the American magazine "The American Conservative", author Patrick Buchanan said that if Western elites are asked to define the biggest crisis facing humanity, most of their responses will focus on the climate change crisis.
She became a Swedish activist of the year for Time magazine, while hurricanes devastated the cities of New Jersey and Puerto Rico. Floods caused great damage to the Midwest and Bangladesh. Drought engulfed South Africa and fires in Australia and the Amazon.
Despite highlighting the threats of climate change, for many countries in the so-called first world, the picture appears different, and there are more pressing concerns, perhaps the most important of which is the decline in the population. If birth rates do not rise, many Western peoples will face near-direct extinction by the end of this century.
Scary numbers
In the context, it is noteworthy that the number of births in Japan reached in 2019 an unprecedented level since 1874, when it reached 900 thousand. In contrast, the number of deaths reached 1.4 million. A further loss of Japan's population is expected this year. Since 2007, the population of this country has shrunk when the number of deaths exceeded the birth rate for the first time by 18,000.
With 28% of its population over the age of 65 and the number of births declining every year, Japan continues to move towards an aging society.
According to the New York Times, American villages are disappearing all over Japan, because young people choose not to have children or move to urban areas. The government estimates that the population is likely to shrink by about 16 million people, or nearly 13%, over the next quarter of a century.
Existence crisis
Author Patrick Buchanan noted that the number of births is shrinking in South Korea, and its population is expected to start declining this year. On the other hand, this crisis has reached a very advanced level in the countries of Eastern Europe. At the end of the Cold War, the population of Bulgaria reached nine million, and by 2017 it decreased to 7.1 million, with expectations indicating that the number will reach 5.4 million in 2050, meaning that the country will witness a loss of 40%, due to increased mortality and immigration since Bulgaria's exit from the Soviet Union.
By 2050, Ukraine and Poland are expected to lose an additional six million people. Hungary will lose 1.5 million people from the total population. Moreover, Lithuania and Latvia have experienced massive population losses since the end of the Cold War. Consequently, the two countries rank first among European countries whose population is rapidly declining.
The writer emphasized that the United Nations demographers expect a decrease in Russia's population from 145 million to 121 million by 2050. This decline exceeds the rate of losses suffered by Russia during the reign of Lenin and Stalin during World War II. It is worth noting that the Far East is home to about six million Russians who inhabit these vast areas rich in natural resources such as wood, oil and gas.
During an investment conference in Vladivostok, President Vladimir Putin said, "The population continues to decline almost everywhere in the Far East. Although the rate of internal influx to that region is increasing, it does not cover the number of people leaving."
On the other hand, the tribes of Europe, and the peoples of almost every country in the old continent, are clearly aging. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Blinkovic stated that the population crisis in Europe is "existential".
Voluntary extinction
In contrast to numbers that sound the alarm bell for Western societies threatened with diminishing, Western activists are looking in the opposite direction, such as the author, "Night Knight," who believes that the best solution for the planet is "the gradual and voluntary disposal of human existence."
Knight justifies his strange idea that human beings and human civilization caused the extinction of hundreds of thousands of vital species and organisms, and in return their disappearance would restore ecosystems and stop fighting over resources, according to his article in the British Guardian newspaper.
Knight began his journey to advocate for what he calls "voluntary human extinction" from an early age and was influenced by author Paul Ehrlich's book "The Population Bomb," which in turn sees that "overpopulation would lead to food shortages and starvation."
Although the idea is strange, Knight says he talks to many activists who share his beliefs from all over the world, from India to Mexico. On the other hand, many believe that decreasing numbers of Western and other societies in the Far East may represent the biggest problem for the developed world.