Giving women equal rights is a critical step in avoiding societal collapse.
The main drivers of societal collapse are overpopulation and overconsumption by the wealthy, researchers from Stanford University have discovered.
The best chance of curbing these trends involves reducing birth rates by giving women full rights, as women with full rights—alongside access to contraception and abortion—have fewer children.
Biologists hope these findings will have an impact on the current debate around gender equality and legalised abortion.
Byron Smith
PhD candidate in Christian Ethics at University of Edinburgh
"The main drivers of societal collapse are overpopulation and overconsumption by the wealthy [...] The best chance of curbing these trends involves reducing birth rates"
How does reducing birth rates curb overconsumption by the wealthy? I don't dispute that both are necessary, but this summary seems to imply that addressing the very important matter of women's access to education, contraception and so on will hit both birds with one stone.
David Arthur
n/a
Perhaps birth rates among the wealthy will also decline if their harems are closed, so that growth in overconsumption by future generations is also curbed?
Carol Daly
Director
the most sensible article but I wait for the powerful elite of men to give up their power, even over the women in their families, soon. Before the world continues to consume more than the Earth can provide.
Tim Benham
Student
The wealthy are few in number and I find it hard to believe that they "over-consume" necessaries to the extent that civilization is imperiled. One person can earn a 100 times the average wage, but it is hard for him to eat 100 times as much food or drink 100 times as much fresh water as the average person.
James Jenkin
EFL Teacher Trainer
I'd also like to question the first assertion - 'overpopulation leads to societal collapse'.
What is societal collapse - do we have examples?
And what catastrophes has 'overpopulation' caused? The world's population has increased sevenfold since Malthus talked about catastrophe - yet all the indicators (life expectancy, health, nutrition) have improved dramatically.
Tim Benham
Student
I don't know of overpopulation causing societal collapse anywhere, except possibly Easter Island. Following the link reveals the source as Paul Ehrlich, who has been predicting the imminent collapse of modern civilization due to overpopulation since 1968. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb#Predictions
Liam J
logged in via email @gmail.com
Wish i could ski those steeply sloping shoulders of yours Tim! The wealthy are not few, we are the wealthy, you and me, we are consuming well above global average and need to cut back. And if you don't get how we consume so much more, start reading up on embodied energy, transformation of food into 'biofuel', energy reqd for internet, etc.
David Arthur
n/a
"What is societal collapse - do we have examples?"
Examples are listed on the Contents page of Jared Diamond's "Collapse - How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive?":
Easter Island (overpopulation-driven collapse)
Pitcairn and Henderson Islands (overpopulation-driven collapse)
Anasazi (changed ecology resulting in overpopulation-driven collapse)
Maya (changed ecology resulting in overpopulation-driven collapse)
Norse Iceland, Shetlands, Faroes (survive)
Norse Greenland (changed ecology resulting in overpopulation-driven collapse)
Rwanda (recovering after overpopulation-driven collapse)
Haiti, West Hispaniola (collapsing) and Dominican Republic, East Hispaniola (surviving)
China, Australia, Montana (doing themselves considerable harm)
Don't take my word - obtain Diamond's book and read the contents page for yourself (of course, having obtained the book, you could read it, maybe even use as the basis for EFL training?).