why have birth rates declined dramatically and how much does it matter? stephen shaw, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. let s start with a basic fact. the world s population is still rising. at some point later this century, it s going to get to about 9.7 billion. and we can see the immense strain that our planet is already under in terms of resources, in terms of fragile ecosystems. and yet you seem to be saying that we as a species need to focus on having more babies. why? well, just to be clear, the reason the world s population is still growing has got nothing to do with births. births peaked in the planet around ten years ago, at around 143 million. today, that s down to around 135. we re already past peak birth as a planet. so, why is, confusingly, this total population increasing? it s because, thankfully, people are living out their lives. people are not dying the way they would have done before particularly in poorer, less developed parts of the world
but now, data scientists and demographers, like my guest today, stephen shaw, say we re actually facing a disastrous spiral of de population. why have birth rates declined dramatically and how much does it matter? stephen shaw, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. let s start with a basic fact. the world s population is still rising. at some point later this century, it s going to get to about 9.7 billion. and we can see the immense strain that our planet is already under in terms of resources, in terms of fragile ecosystems. and yet you seem to be saying that we as a species need to focus on having more babies. why? well, just to be clear, the reason the world s population is still growing has got nothing to do with births. births peaked in the planet around ten years ago, at around 143 million. today, that s down to around 135. we re already past peak birth as a planet. so, why is, confusingly, this total population increasing? it s because, thankfully, people are
as you heard earlier from speaker pelosi, that the vast majority of this bill will go through. some things may change during the voteorama in the sentence. it means a worker family who lost their job or decreased their wages are going to be able to go back to work because they will have affordable child care or preschool for their three or four-year-olds. there will be the earned income credit tax expansion. this is essential because the workers who lost their jobs will benefit the most. with the child tax credit, he will be able to lift children out of poverty. this is definitely going to be felt in the american family s pockets. they will be able to talk about
universal pre-k. being able to get this deal done and hopefully get this bill signed into law is an important first step. and i would reject any suggestion that this deal is not going to be a historic investment to create jobs, to make our infrastructure more resilient. and, yes, to make important steps toward addressing climate change. but the question here is that and this is where, you know, i think there s that back and forth about him saying, look, i m only going to sign both bills and it seemed like a walk back of that. the thing that everyone s asking, the initial proposal of a single renewable standard. if you tell me we re going to pats bipartisan bill and get a federal renewable portfolio standard, gate, awesome. that s great. but if you tell me we re going to pass a bipartisan bill and there s not the votes for the standard, then passing the bipartisan bill itself is bad because it takes away the possibility of that important
in hrn person meetings with some senators involved in the discussions. the white house continues to insist they see multiple routes to the destination in terms of getting an infrastructure package onto the president s desk and one official said this is the week we need the gps to tell us which route to take and to the discussion leanne raises about the gas tax that was an interesting signal about potentially a road block in this bipartisan road ahead, they felt the need on the white house to put up a very clear signal refineding lawmakers they would not support any deal that leans on a gas tax to pay for it. you see the focus of the white house in public today on that child tax credit, a key part of the american family s plan to extend what we saw already in the american rescue package for an additional five years. you will see the vice president in pittsburgh trying to get those who haven t enrolled in that $300 or $250 a month